The 5000-year-old Herbivorous Dragon

Chapter 52 - Definition of a fan

“… My fan? No no, that cannot be. I’m an Evil Dragon, aren’t I? A scary dragon right? There’s completely no reason for me to be liked by humans.”

“That isn’t true Evil Dragon Lord. I have revered Lord back when I was a human offered as a sacrifice.”

“Stop narrating your case as a general trend.”

With a bitter smile Haizen linked his hands on the table.

“Well, it certainly can be considered rare.”

“Don’t laugh it off like that. Like, is her upbringing going okay? Doesn’t she have some awfully disturbing ideas? For instance, whenever you take your eyes off her she goes for the kill with her dagger…”

“No, no way, there’s nothing of the sorts. She’s not that much of a hoodlum.”

I wordlessly turned to Rēko. She tilted her head, looking as though she had a question mark floating above her head. Haizen calmly stood up and looked out the window as if engrossed in his thoughts.

“I will tell you the truth―― now it’s only an embarrassing story showing how I didn’t know my place, but long time ago I did dream about gaining all the fame by defeating the Evil Dragon Rēvendia.”

“Hoh?”

The one who got up by knocking the chair over was Rēko. Sure enough, she held a dagger in her hand.

“Please settle down. I was only carried away by my youthful ardour. Besides, just by thinking of challenging him I was repeatedly beaten up by those adventurers, yelling『You want to bring ruin to mankind?! 』The me at that time couldn’t comprehend at all why, even though I was trying to defeat a wicked Evil Dragon, I was obstructed by humans who should be supporting me.”

“That’s obvious. The Evil Dragon Lord might be overflowing with benevolence, but if you guys were to offend him and invite his wrath he’d have destroyed humanity even before the Demon King.”

“That’s right. It might be a crude metaphor, but it’s like deliberately waking up a fierce sleeping beast. If one were to carelessly make a move and stir up a hornet’s nest bringing about the awakening of a second Demon King, it’d be just too terrible to look at. The people surrounding me explained it many times.”

“Evil Dragon Lord a second Demon King? Do not be mistaken, the current Demon King is the recycled second one.”

“Say, was that fixation on order really necessary right now?”

Haizen closed his eyes, bathing in the sunlight flowing through the window. Somehow I felt he was captivated in his reminiscence.

“―― Still, the me at that time didn’t give up. I decided to try and crack the established common sense between the adventurers who were telling me to not touch Evil Dragon Rēvendia. After all he was an existence called an Evil Dragon. He surely has to cause humans harm somewhere. Thinking so, I started perusing every piece of literature in relation to Sir Evil Dragon I could find.”

“There’s literature on me?”

“A multitude of it Sir. However, there are very few with high credibility. In my younger days I turned to every material, studying and verifying it at length, but only a few passages in a documented biography of a hero were trustworthy.”

“What was the content like?”

“How he was defeated after challenging you and narrowly escaped with his life. According to the contents it was a fairly fierce battle, so Sir Evil Dragon should also remember that hero? If you’d like I can bring that book here――”

“Ah, no need. Sorry but that document is most likely a forgery.”

If there really was a high-credibility document on me, its contents should be “Huge herbivore with a long lifespan, very weak.” It absolutely wouldn’t be a record of a fierce battle. Rēko emulated me and also nodded her head, saying,

“That’s right, it’s a forgery. There’s no way Evil Dragon Lord would engage in a fierce battle with a mere human. He’d obviously be defeated instantly.”

“Who’d have thought you could end up with the same conclusion after doing a circle from an entirely different direction.”

“… Is that so? That depiction of a fierce battle making one breathless in suspense was only a fabrication…”

“Yep. Also, if you could please burn that book.”

I saw a chance and smoothly requested from Haizen, whose spirit waned. I wanted to avoid it going around and ending up in someone else’s hands.

“So you’re saying your daughter ended up as the Evil Dragon Lord’s fan due to a forged book…? What a mindless sheep.”

“No, that’s not why at all. There’s still a continuation to the story from my youth. Ultimately, I reached a conclusion that the current Sir Evil Dragon actually doesn’t cause harm to humanity. On the contrary, I even inferred that Sir worked as deterrence in one area, protecting a human settlement from demons.”

“Huh? Me, as a deterrent? In what area?”

“Most likely it’s the vicinity of the village Raiotto lives in. It seemed there were few demons in comparison to the surroundings. However, as a result people took that for granted and became complacent,” Rēko whispered at me.

Wasn’t that just simply a coincidence? Like, for example that area’s demons had trouble multiplying because of topography or environment?

“Once I arrived at that conclusion my opinion of Sir Evil Dragon has changed. No matter the past, now Sir’s existence brought about peace to humans. In which case, there’s no need for hostility. After which I spent my days like this, preserving my skills once acquired in order to defeat you and using my trained body for the people’s sake. However…”

After letting out a sigh, Haizen continued,

“I told this story to my daughter when she was still very young, but she interpreted it with a tad different nuance, running around and screaming『Woow, he can protect the vicinity just by sleeping, awesome!』To my daughter who despises hardship, it seems like rather than Sir Evil Dragon that fought a fierce battle, the current Sir who protects his surroundings just by living peacefully turned out to be much more attractive.”

Rēko nodded with a hand on her chin.

“I see. So she can be classified into the latter stage type of Evil Dragon Lord’s fan.”

“Latter stage type, what’s with that classification?”

“I categorized fan classes according to the ones who were under the most influence considering the Evil Dragon Lord’s activity epoch. The earlier record was just a fabrication, but in the middle stage type there are many “sheep class” fans, who are drawn to fierce battle depictions like that. Moreover, given that middle stage types tend to call their generation as the golden age type, they’re despised by other generations. Deplorable. The Evil Dragon Lord’s entire life is the golden age. The true fan is the one influenced by all quaint periods―― Of course I am a kin, so my status has already transcended from a fan.”

“You’re saying it smoothly as facts, but do such people really exist? Did you really come in contact with people like that?”

“I’m sure they do. I’ve faith.”

“That’s exactly what you call a fabrication.”

Since she had no evil intentions it was all the more awful. I dropped my shoulders, but I felt a bit relieved. If it’s a girl with that sort of indolent disposition, unlike Rēko she shouldn’t crazily come and involve herself with me.

That was when Haizen turned to us and lowered his head.

“I have a terribly shameless request, but could you please briefly warn my daughter? Please teach her that the reason why Sir Evil Dragon can now overwhelm his surroundings by simply sleeping is because formerly Sir has put diligent effort in.”

“Eeeh, there’s no way I can say something so arrogant. After all my whole life I’ve done basically nothing but eating and sleeping.”

I felt like I’d pay if I said something like that to others.

“That’s right, by birth Evil Dragon Lord is the absolute strongest. Something like effort is irrelevant. From the beginning your human scale is wrong. ”

“Is that so… Right! Could I trouble Lady Dragon Kin? Even though you became Sir Evil Dragon’s kin, there’s no way you suddenly gained powerful strength. If you’d teach her that there are no easy ways in life, that child’s character might get a little better.”

Without a shred of hesitation, Rēko immediately gave a reply.

“Okay, it’ll compensate our living costs. Without sparing anything, I shall teach her the effort I’ve gone through as the Evil Dragon Lord’s kin.”

I felt completely zero persuasive power behind her words.

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