Dragonslayer’s Class Regression 243

Chapter 243

Zeke was startled by Yelin’s words.

“Are you saying there’s a living dragon that remains?”

Officially, after the Liberation War, all dragons had vanished from the Central Continent.

There were rumors that some dragons still existed far across the sea in the Eastern Empire, but no one knew if they truly existed.

So it was hard to believe that there was still a living dragon in the underground labyrinth of House Ishtar.

Zeke collected himself and asked Yelin.

“Are you saying the covenant made by our ancestors wasn’t about protecting the Black River tribe’s territory, but rather related to the dragon in the labyrinth?”

“To be precise, the original covenant was made between the Black River tribe and the dragon of the labyrinth. Our ancestors temporarily took over that responsibility, but when the tribe never returned, we became bound by the covenant’s chains until now.”

If these words hadn’t come from Yelin, the young head of House Ishtar, Zeke wouldn’t have believed them.

He picked up Anexi’s dagger and asked Yelin.

“Does this mean that with this dagger, the seal of the Black River, we can break the covenant with the dragon?”

After hesitating briefly at Zeke’s question, Yelin spoke.

“Actually… there was a prophecy passed down in our family.”

“A prophecy?”

Zeke touched the Chronos watch in his pocket, his mother’s keepsake.

‘Surely it couldn’t have been prophesied by mother too.’

“The prophet who was invited to the Ishtar main house 150 years ago, before your time, Sir Zeke, was that very prophet.”

Looking at the timeline, it wasn’t a prophecy made by Laura Agamemnon.

Yelin continued.

“The prophet said that when the lost seal of the Black River appears, the chains of the covenant binding House Ishtar would disappear.”

“You waited just based on the prophet’s words for the seal of the Black River to appear?”

“We’ve waited over two thousand years, so what’s a little more waiting?”

Thinking about it, she had a point.

Moreover, being a way to break the covenant with the dragon, they weren’t in a position to be picky.

House Ishtar must have called the prophet in desperation, clutching at straws.

Zeke asked Yelin again.

“Is that the end of the prophecy?”

She shook her head.

“Actually, this part doesn’t concern House Ishtar, but… the prophet also said,

‘When the Seal of the Black River appears along with a new immortal power, the time of destruction will come, and the king in yellow clothes will be resurrected.'”

Hearing Yelin’s words, Zeke swallowed hard.

‘Immortal power, destruction, king in yellow clothes… it seems like all these prophecies are pointing to similar things.’

Ever since learning that Jiemens Apollion, who had sealed the Divine Dragon, was an immortal and had summoned the Demon King, Zeke had been wrapped in strange emotions.

‘Surely the king in yellow clothes who leads to destruction couldn’t have anything to do with me?’

Though he thought it wouldn’t, he couldn’t shake off the unsettling feeling.

Then Yelin spoke.

“I have a request for you, Sir Zeke. I would like you to come with us to the main house with that seal.”

Zeke pondered, then casually took out his compass as if checking something else.

The compass needle was still pointing at Yelin.

‘Does this mean I need to follow Yellin’s lead to reach the Fairy Lake?’

Though he didn’t know what connection there might be between the Fairy Lake and the dragon in the labyrinth, he didn’t have any other options either.

‘I could go to the Ishtar main house and use this as leverage to cancel the marriage. Breaking a covenant that has bound the family for two thousand years, I could put House Ishtar in my debt.’

Abel had become a Black Knight and received the position of Guardian Knight.

Though they were an external force, if Zeke could bring House Ishtar, one of the transcendent houses, to his side, he could somewhat balance the gradually tilting situation.

Zeke nodded at Yelin.

“Very well. Let’s go to the Ishtar main house together.”

At Zeke’s words, Yelin smiled brightly. When she smiled, the whole conference room seemed to light up.

Zeke was dazed for a moment before quickly coming to his senses, and arranged with Yelin to go to Mycenae tomorrow and use the portal to reach the Ishtar main house.

“The terminal in Mycenae is my property, so once we coordinate the coordinates with the Ishtar side, opening a portal should be possible.”

“Understood. Then I’ll contact the main house in advance.”

Zeke agreed to leave for Mycenae with Yelin tomorrow and first sent them to their hotel.

Only then could Zeke finally go up to the laboratory where Feinan was.

When Zeke entered the laboratory, Feinan and Gelion approached him with pale faces.

“S-Sir, are you alright?”

“Master! The Ishtar ritual masters! What on earth happened?”

Zeke calmed down the panic-stricken Feinan and Gelion and told them that everything had been resolved well.

Given how closed-off House Ishtar was and the many rumors surrounding them, Feinan and Gelion’s reaction wasn’t unreasonable.

‘They probably wouldn’t believe me if I said House Ishtar inherited elven bloodlines.’

Zeke wrapped up the related story with vague explanations, then took out all the artifacts brought from the Inverted Tower.

Various artifacts poured out, starting from winter gear made from vampire rabbit fur.

Feinan and Gelion’s jaws dropped when they saw the pile of precious ancient items.

“M-Master. Where on earth did you get all of these?”

“I was lucky enough to excavate an ancient ruin.”

At those words, Gelion swallowed.

“They say finding even one small ancient ruin uses up a lifetime’s worth of luck, but you seemto be blessed with extraordinary fortune.”

Zeke grinned at Gelion, then placed the primitive Hersion worn by the goblin warrior and the Imperial Hersion taken from the Baptists on the research table.

“Could you take a look at these?”

When Zeke activated the primitive Hersion, Feinan showed an interested expression.

“How fascinating. The activation form is similar to regular Hersion, but it has a much simpler structure.”

Gelion also nodded and said.

“That’s right. It seems to only have the function of expanding from its breastplate form to increase the protection area, literally?”

Gelion and Feinan examined various parts of the armor together, alternating between expressions of amazement, nodding, and frowning.

Zeke asked the two who were contemplating while looking at the elven Hersion.

“If this was the primitive form of Hersion, would it be possible to make armor of this level with current technology?”

At those words, Feinan pondered before slowly speaking.

“Master, to answer your question first, it is ‘possible’.”

He continued simultaneously.

“However… to be honest, I’d like to say it would be extremely inefficient.”

“Inefficient? Why is that?”

Feinan had Gelion remove the back plate portion of the Hersion.

This revealed the finely engraved magic drive plate behind it.

The reason Hersion could transform from breastplate form to other armor forms was thanks to the magical drive formula engraved on this drive plate.

Feinan pointed to the drive plate and said.

“I only recently learned this through information from the Syndicate. The drive plate is ultimately the core of Hersion. The reason Imperial Hersion is expensive is partly due to the precious materials used, but mainly because these drive plates are limited in number.”

“What do you mean by limited?”

“Most of the drive plates used in Hersion are repaired drive plates excavated from ancient ruins and fitted into newly made armor.”

“Is that really true? Even for the Holy Kingdom’s and Empire’s Hersion?”

“Yes. However, the Empire is far ahead in the technology of utilizing the drive plates, which is why there’s a difference compared to the Holy Kingdom’s Hersion.”

Zeke nodded before asking with an expression of incomprehension.

“If the drive plates from excavated ancient Hersion were the secret to Hersion production, why didn’t other countries know about it? Surely the Empire and Holy Kingdom weren’t the only ones excavating Hersion?”

“Since they’re already incredible artifacts on their own, people generally don’t think to dismantle them. You need to have the resources of the Empire or Holy Kingdom to risk taking them apart.”

Zeke nodded as if finally understanding.

“Then are you saying these drive plates can’t be made at all?”

“We can make drive plates with current technology, but doing so is far less efficient. It’s extremely difficult to achieve the same integration density as ancient technology.”

“How much less efficient is it?”

“After learning about the existence of drive plates, I researched it… A 7th circle magician would need to work for three years to produce just one drive plate that would still be inferior to this.”

Zeke understood what Feinan was saying.

“That’s… really inefficient.”

“Yes. So with drive plates of this integration density, rather than using them as a basis to make something else, it’s much more profitable to use these drive plates to make new armor and modify them into better performing Hersion.”

After hearing Feinan’s words, Zeke tilted his head.

“But why did they make such simple armor with these drive plates in ancient times?”

This time Gelion answered.

“Sir, metal working technology is more advanced now than in ancient times, so modern armor itself performs better. However, as Sir Feinan mentioned, the magic contained within is superior in ancient items. That’s why modern regular weapons are more expensive, but ancient artifacts fetch higher prices.”

Zeke nodded at Gelion’s words.

“An era with inferior metalworking but superior magic.”

“There are several theories about the reason… but the most likely one is that many of the magical tools from that time were made by dragons.”

“Made by dragons?”

Feinan nodded.

“Yes. Dragons are beings who taught magic to humans and can be considered the originators of magic. Making these drive plates would have been a very easy task for dragons.”

“Are you saying dragons actually sat down and engraved mana circuits into these drive plates?”

“It would be difficult to achieve this level of integration otherwise.”

Zeke let out a hollow laugh at those words.

The image of a dragon sitting at a desk engraving drive formulas into drive plates seemed really unfitting.

‘Well, there were many contract dragons back then, so they might have done it for their contractors.’

Zeke remembered what Kaisir had said.

After the Kingdom of Chronos was established, dragons seeking out contractors became like a trend, and it was said that each family had at least one guardian dragon at that time.

‘There were so many contractors popping up everywhere that they eventually limited it to one dragon per family.’

For guardian dragons, using this much power for their contractor’s family wouldn’t have been too difficult even in their polymorphed state.

Feinan showed disappointment while looking at the early Hersion drive plates.

“If we only had the annotations for the drive formulas engraved on these plates, it wouldn’t be difficult to produce such drive plates even with current technology.”

“What are annotations?”

Feinan explained while holding a magnifying glass to the drive plate.

“If you look at this part, various magic circuits are intricately intertwined – they’ve achieved high integration by compressing advanced magic circles. If we had annotations explaining each of these circuits and what magic circles they represent, we could use that to make drive plates.”

Hearing Feinan’s words, Zeke thought of something.

“If a dragon were to look at these drive plates, could they create these annotations?”

At those words, Feinan pondered before nodding.

“It should be possible. After all, dragons are the creators of magic.”

Zeke nodded at Feinan’s words and picked up the drive plate that was attached to the armor.

“I’ll keep this drive plate for now.”

After securing the drive plate, Zeke spoke to Feinan and Gelion.

“I’ll mention this again at the upcoming regular meeting, but we’re planning to establish a new base on an island in the South Sea.”

Surprised by those words, Feinan asked:

“But wouldn’t the Death Waters make it difficult to travel to and from an island in the South Sea?”

Zeke shook his head.

“The South Sea has recently stabilized due to certain events. So it should be fine now.”

He turned to Gelion and said:

“Gelion, I’d like to recruit dwarf workers needed for developing the island. Would that be possible?”

Gelion nodded.

“Actually, we have plenty of workers in construction. What scale are you thinking of,Sir?”

After some thought, Zeke spoke.

“Think of it as building an entire city.”

At his words, Gelion’s jaw dropped.

“Ah, I understand. I’ll contact the North and gather as many workers as possible.”

Zeke thought it was about time to call in Kei and the Syndicate members who were lying low in the Cusco Kingdom to the island in the South Sea.

Once the island’s development was complete, it would surely develop into a trade hub connecting the Central and Southern continents.

After leaving detailed instructions with the two, Zeke left the laboratory.

And a welcome face was waiting for Zeke at the mansion.

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