Yes, as frightening as it was, he was sincere. That was what made Stagnate an extremely dangerous god. Most likely, those ultimately taken in by his charms would voluntarily become undead, voluntarily rally under his flag, and voluntarily remain loyal to him. Gracefeel, who was the god I worshipped, had been ringing alarm bells inside my mind since the beginning of this conversation, desperately urging me not to get comfortable around him.
“Your glib talk won’t work on me. What do you want?”
“Ah, yes.”
The raven batted his wings once as if to fix his appearance and faced me formally.
“Champion who defeated me, paladin of the flame—”
His oracular voice and gestures were fitting for one who proclaimed himself a god.
“Accept my revelation.”
At the moment he said it, a powerful image was thrust into my mind.
The next thing I knew, I was in the dark in the bowels of the earth. The horribly thick darkness corrupted even my sense of distance. There was only one thing I could see in its depths: a single golden eye. A long, thin pupil stretched vertically down the eye as if it had been slightly torn apart. The enormous body stirred, and the sound of its scales grated harshly on my ears. I was looking up at it. I couldn’t move. I knew I had to fight, but my body wouldn’t move. Why?
Why?
I thought about it and realized. It was no wonder I couldn’t move. How could I move when my arms and legs had all been torn off?
The faces of Mary, Blood, and Gus floated across my mind. I thought an apology to them. They had raised me for nothing.
That’s when it snapped its fangs at me. It snapped them over and over, as if ridiculing its foolhardy, idiotic challenger. And then there was light. The toxic, burning breath stored inside its belly, a mass of incandescent heat, traveled from its belly up its throat and then, at the instant it lit up the dreadful face of the one-eyed dragon, my consciousness ended.
I started. My mind returned to reality from the imagery that had been etched into it.
My breathing was ragged. I had only lost consciousness for an instant, but the experience had been powerful. What I had seen, I was certain, was my own death, as a possible future.
“William, thou shalt challenge the dragon and die defeated, thy purpose not fulfilled.”
His prophetic words had a ring of truth to them. Stagnate ruled over immortality, and it was probably possible for him to read that future as well.
“If you would like to spare yourself a meaningless death, do not fight the Gods’ Sickle, the foul dragon Valacirca.”
His red pupils pinned me to the spot.
“If you cannot trust me, I suggest you ask Gracefeel’s opinion. Ask whether with your power and her protection you can win against the dragon as you are now. You will get the same answer.”
The sight of a jet-black raven speaking a human tongue was uncanny and only made his words all the more powerful.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you demonstrated that you have what it takes to be a hero.”
The raven’s reply was unhesitant.
“I adore humans. Heroes in particular, as your teachers were. A hero overcoming the impossible and ending injustice with the radiance of their soul is a sight I find beautiful from the bottom of my heart. I even believe them to be the physical embodiment of the possibilities of human beings, no, all beings.”
I let him continue.
“That is why I want to preserve that sight in an eternal form. It is unbearable to watch souls like that being dragged down from their potential by common fools and reduced to nothing, their shine dulled by suffering and regret. It is the same to imagine you killed by a worldly fool like Valacirca. The thought makes me sick.”
Worldly?
“Hm. So your research hasn’t turned that up yet. Yes, worldly. Valacirca is a foul, materialistic dragon.”
Stagnate spat out those words, and then began to talk more eloquently about him.
“Valacirca’s name as the ‘Gods’ Sickle’ originates from the time of the great wars between the good and evil gods. At the time, I was on what you might call the side of good. And Valacirca was there, too — a dragon with an overwhelmingly massive body, dark-red scales, and fiery, noxious breath.
He was one of the strongest and most ferocious dragons serving the Big Six.”
He told me that Valacirca was a powerful and cruel dragon who declared openly that the only reasons he served the forces of good were that the dragons and giants who would oppose him were powerful and he would receive a good reward.
“I’m surprised the good gods felt like employing him.”
“If they had done otherwise, he would have become their enemy instead.
Even that good-natured bunch are capable of calculating what’s in their own interest.”
He did have a point. It was wartime. They wouldn’t refuse help from hired fighters because of a little bit of bad manners.
“He was fixated on three things: battle, victory, and treasure. He would win, steal, and be very pleased with himself. A straightforward, beastlike nature, don’t you agree? And because of that, the Big Six were that much more cautious about how they handled him.”
He was dropped in at the most critical points and won. The dragon without a name began to be called Valacirca, the Gods’ Sickle.
“At a certain point during those wars, I turned my back on the forces of good. I will avoid going into the details of what occurred after that, but ultimately a final battle took place in which the sides of good and evil were evenly matched and almost destroyed each other. The gods and the dragons were all heavily wounded, and many departed to a distant world. From that point on, the gods were limited in their ability to directly interfere with the world.”
That was a piece of mythology that was passed down in this world. Because the gods interfered with the world in practical ways, unless some god deliberately spread a false story, the general outline would get passed down precisely.
“Valacirca successfully and intelligently survived this last all-out war and went to sleep.”
To prepare for the next war and plunder.
“The dragon always slept a long time. Every time he awakened, he took part in a war. If there was no war, he fanned the flames himself. He did not take sides but lent his strength to all involved. And every time he did, the gods’ plans were disrupted. As far as I know, the last war he participated in was the pandemonium started by those demons from Hell.”
That was the Great Collapse and the end of the Union Age.
“He met the High King and lent him his power. His usual cunning and materialism, I’m sure. Swords aside, the High King wasn’t one with a great attachment to treasure, you see. And Valacirca laid waste to the Iron Country, suffered a serious battle wound, and took to sleep to allow it to heal. Removed from the tide of battle, once again he cleverly excused himself…”
“W-Wait!” Al, who had been stiff with fear up until now, suddenly raised a startled voice.
“Battle wound? Did you say he suffered a serious battle wound? Did my ancestors—”
“Hmm, what’s this? Are you a descendant of the mountain dwarves?”
“Y-Yes!”
After hearing that answer, the raven laughed. It was a joyful laugh.
“My oh my, the hand of Fate in action! Very well, then. Dwarf connected to the Iron Mountains! I, Stagnate, god of undeath, shall reveal to you the truth: the Lord of the Iron Mountains, Aurvangr, was a true hero!”