“Welcome back, mother.”
When I arrived at the mansion where I was staying, I was greeted by the daughter of the demon tribe who called me mother.
She was sitting at the bottom of the grand staircase in front of the large entrance, looking at me with sleepy eyes.
“What is it? You’re still up? Staying up late is bad for your skin, you know.”
“I’ve decided that I’m going to stay up until mother comes home. That’s what I’ve decided.”
Oh, I see.
She’s still so obsessed with the weirdest things.
It’s a puddle of dirty magic that occurred in various parts of the world during the world clash.
If it is unlucky enough to overlap with the city center, it will become a ‘corrupted city’.
This girl is a child I found there.
She was standing next to the corpse of her parents who had died of magic poisoning, staring at me blankly without crying. It seemed interesting, so I brought her along.
Creatures contaminated by dirty magic can no longer live in normal places.
This is because you will not be able to breathe where there is no magic, and even if there is magic, your body will reject it if it is not clean.
Only constant immersion in high concentrations of magic will bring the contaminated person peace, and eventually everything from their internal organs to muscles will stop functioning, and they will die in an instant.
I gave her my ‘mud’ to drink, so she’ll probably live longer than a normal person.
She can now contaminate her body with normal magic power and circulate it efficiently.
I’ve been taking care of her, and before I knew it, she started calling me ‘mother’ and became very fond of me.
It’s okay, though, because it’s convenient. At any rate, she obeys my commands very well.
I can do things with her that I can’t do with my body, which has so many restrictions.
She is literally the arms and legs of my body, which is a snake.
There are very few beings that are so convenient for me.
“You went to Dailan, right? Was there anything interesting?”
“Yes, I did. I met some old faces.”
“Wow, it’s unusual for mother to make a face like that. Was it a friend?”
She ruffled her gray hair and sighed sleepily.
“No, my brother.”
“Mother, you have a brother? Uncle?”
She tilted her head, touching the two horns on the back of her head that were unique to the goat tribe.
“Ah, I had a brother. Now called Alba Germain, a heartless bastard who chose the woman he loved over his own sister.”
It was tens of thousands or hundreds of millions of years ago, but even thinking back on it now makes me angry.
If only it hadn’t been for that dragon.
If only that guy hadn’t existed.
“What’s that? Did he betray you?”
Betrayed, yes.
I was betrayed by my own, the only person I thought I could trust in this world.
It was frustrating to say something like that, so I ignored it and moved deeper into the mansion.
“… Hey, hey. That brother, should I kill him?”
“Don’t. You’re no match for him. After all, he’s my family. You can’t fight him with simple strength alone.”
“But you see, I’m strong, aren’t I? I’ve killed all the people in this mansion.”
You really are a foolish girl.
I taught her how to use her power, and she immediately got carried away.
She took in my ‘mud’. You should be able to do at least that.
But compared to us, such power is meaningless.
Ancient magic that corrupts the mind instead of the body might be able to resist a little, but I didn’t teach this girl that.
“You killed them and took this place without asking me, didn’t you? Well, that’s fine. I was just looking for a base on the Sphere Continent.”
“Isn’t that right? Don’t you think mother should praise me more?”
“Don’t get carried away. Now, give me a report during my absence.”
I was poking fun at the despair and anxiety that had originally taken root in her psyche, and it grew into a ridiculous personality disorder.
I thought about depriving her of her ego like the rest of them, but it was hard to get rid of this one because it was so interesting.
“I gave those idiots the weapons from the Sphere Continent route and the medicine mother mentioned.”
“Hm, that’s pretty sudden, isn’t it?”
It’s been two years since we made contact with the other side.
They were happy to explain the philosophy and purpose of the organization, which I didn’t really understand, so I gave them a little help as a test, but they hadn’t taken any action until now.
I don’t know why they suddenly decided to move again.
“If they wanted that medicine, are they planning to go on a rampage in the near future?”
“I’ve given them all the explanations mother told me, so I guess so.”
The drug, a byproduct of my research for the last few thousand years, is a failed product with an extremely short shelf life after it is refined.
It’s costly, it always kills the user, and most importantly, it’s not even a tenth as effective as it’s supposed to be.
Two weeks in a sealed container.
If it comes into contact with the air, it will turn to gas in two minutes, so there is no use for it, and I was wondering if I should dispose of it.
But now that I’ve made it, I was looking for some disposable lab animals that I could use for data, and those idiots jumped at the chance.
They’re really stupid.
They knew that if they used it, they would surely die, but they still wanted it.
Do they really hate the demon race and magic that much?
There are more than a few people who do not like the existence of magic, which has suddenly become a part of their lives due to the collision of worlds.
This is because there are many fields that have rejected the science and technology that mankind has built up and made it a thing of the past.
They believe that they are the pinnacle of primates and that they should always have the upper hand in a chaotic world.
It makes me laugh.
I am the apex.
No matter how smart the humans are, no matter how strong the beastmen are, no matter how skilled the demons are in magic.
The only one who can transcend all life and reign on the throne is this Clay End.
Now I’m stuck in this miserable state, but in time I will regain that form.
That’s when all the stupid creatures will bow down to me.
In accordance with my wishes, they will give me everything they have.
I’m looking forward to it.
Ah, that’s right. I forgot.
“Oh, by the way, I came up with a name.”
“A name? Mother’s?”
I was climbing the stairs, wriggling my snake body, when my daughter lifted me from behind.
“Yeah, Clay. I’ve decided to call myself Clay End.”
“What do you mean? You’ve been stubbornly refusing to make a name for yourself.”
She clutched me to her chest and climbed the stairs with a firm step.
A name.
Names are inconvenient things.
Not only does it identify me, but it also establishes me as an individual in a magical sense.
The only reason I was able to survive all this time without Alba noticing me was because I didn’t have a name and was posing as a lone snake.
I blend in with the herd, lurking in the shadows, eliminating everything that identifies me, obscuring whether or not I even exist.
By doing so, I could easily create a different ‘me’.
There are far more disadvantages to having a name than there are advantages to having one.
Once the appearance, the name, and the existence are established, then the possibility of arriving at the existence that is me is greatly increased.
But tonight, things have changed.
The kid.
That kid.
Even I couldn’t make it to the sanctuary.
I’ve been itching for forty years to find a way to cross into subspace, but I’ve finally found a clue.
Interesting.
Really interesting. Alba Germain.
The existence you’ve been stubbornly trying to hide. The four dragon princesses who live hidden somewhere in this world, and the three powerful dragon kings.
Of the seven, only the Wind Dragon Princess was able to be seen.
The first three thousand years when I was most weakened and asleep.
In that short period of time, the number of dragon species had exploded to an unnatural degree.
From that point on, this world has already begun to distort.
The dragon was supposed to be a single entity, the absolute only entity.
The abominable primordial dragon does not have the ability to give birth to children.
Because that woman is not a creature, but a concept.
A concept created by the will of this planet, a system-like concept that exists only to maintain the cycle of life and the equilibrium of the planet.
That’s the original dragon.
And yet, today, there are probably thousands of dragons, from the weakest to the strongest.
Why?
How are they multiplying?
They have not benefited from the ‘mud’.
They have not acquired a way of being as life.
They must have been nothing more than puppets that appeared to be alive.
Ah, I see.
I’m sure that Alba had something to do with it.
His original power was to nurture.
I’ve been thinking and experimenting a lot, and I’ve gotten the general idea of the process, but I still need one more step.
The corpse of Seraphy, the founder dragon, is supposed to be lying in the sanctuary.
I believe that if I can examine it, I will be able to find the answer soon.
And therein lies the way to regain my true body.
My power and body that was eaten by the First Dragon must still be somewhere in the sanctuary.
That’s why I have to go to the sanctuary.
By any means necessary.
“Hey, Mother. Please tell me. Why did you suddenly create a name for yourself?”
Eventually, I climbed the stairs and my daughter set me down in front of the room at the far end of the second floor.
Just as she opened the door, I twisted my body inside and climbed up to the bed inside the room.
“You’re such an annoying child. It doesn’t matter, does it?”
I wrapped myself around the pillow to get comfortable and my daughter sat on the edge of the bed.
“It’s not good. If mother is going to be named Clay End, that means I can take End as my name too, right?”
What a boring thing to say.
“You can call yourself whatever you want. Mother is also something that you started calling me as you pleased.”
“You don’t mind? Yes!”
This girl is so particular about things that really don’t matter.
Sometimes I find her annoying.
But that’s okay.
You can waste your remaining life for me as much as you want.
I’ll let you die happy, immersed in sweet dreams until your last breath.
How kind of me. I am.
“I see. End, huh?”
My daughter jumped out of bed and landed lightly, looking back at me with a carefree smile.
Her face, which hadn’t changed since I picked her up in that dirty town, was still young, but unlike that time, she was smiling expressively.
“Then I’m Eiren Has End from today!”
Eilen started to spin around, I don’t know what she found so amusing.
“I’m your daughter! I am Eilen Has End!”
“All right, all right. I’m tired today. Let me sleep.”
You’re so annoying.
“Yes, good night, mother.”
Grinning, Eilen left the room.
Before closing the door, she looked into the room and smiled again.
“Good night, Mother. You can tell me anything, right? I’ll do anything for you, mother.”
With that, Eilen closed the door.
“Hmm.”
What the hell is that girl talking about?
That’s a given, isn’t it?
I picked her up.
You are my property, down to the last drop of blood that flows from your body.
If I tell you to die, you’re supposed to die laughing.
Now, I have more work to do.
Tomorrow, I’ll have to start working again to determine the coordinates of the subspace where the sanctuary is located.
The key is that boy.
If I can trace back from the starting point of the transference magic circle, I can probably find the residue from when he crossed the subspace barrier.
Fufu, this is getting fun.
That’s right.
You have to enjoy everything.
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