Chapter 108
Dragonheart!
“Why does it actually exist?”
“Because a Dragonheart is a dragon’s heart.”
Literally, a real dragon’s heart.
Dragons are peculiar in that mana gathers in their hearts and flows through the blood vessels throughout their bodies like blood.
Unlike other beings with mana circuits, their very existence is optimized for mana, so they have been extraordinary since birth.
“Then is everything inside this made of mana?”
“Indeed.”
That is why the heart is where all of a dragon’s mana gathers.
With such huge amounts of highly concentrated mana pouring into it... it becomes a kind of special substance, transforming into something like a jewel.
“Flare, your heart will change this way too.”
“I-Isn’t it bad for my body?”
“Do not worry. Unlike what you experienced, it will only benefit you.”
So, wondering how there could be several hearts like this in the Imperial Palace’s storage,
“They donated them before they died.”
“Something this precious?!”
Before they died, they wrote in their wills, “Give my heart to the Empire.”
“Akion, our dragons are more deeply connected to the Empire than you think.”
“Little Executor. There are five Dragonhearts alone in the imperial storage. You don’t think we would have handed them over willingly, do you?”
“I understand, but what’s with calling me ‘Executor,’ Elder...?”
A race born to rule and reign from the moment of its birth.
Since their purpose was peace, they had withdrawn behind the scenes,
and they were very satisfied with the Empire’s conduct over the years.
“In less than two hundred years, countless kingdoms have risen and fallen. Yet the Empire has stood firm and recently celebrated its thousandth birthday, has it not?”
“That means the imperial family and its institutions have done their jobs well. We who watched them also decided that the Kalid Empire was trustworthy... so our departed elders willingly gave up their hearts.”
Thus, there were five Dragonhearts in total.
“And one of them is the large heart gem in your hands.”
“Hyeeeek.”
And perhaps the only Dragonheart released into the mortal world was the enormous heart gem in Akion’s hands.
“What am I supposed to do with something like this...!”
Akion felt his breath catch.
The information probably hadn’t leaked, but this was the legacy of dragons called great, secretly kept by the imperial family.
Could he really take this,
and could he use it carelessly?
“Young Master. This is something we have already settled with the ancestral elders.”
But the imperial family had to give Akion appropriate compensation,
and with pressure from three dragons, including the Tower Master, they had reached an agreement.
“Do not feel burdened, young Executor. It is the smallest of the Dragonhearts the imperial family possessed.”
“Even so....”
“I told you not to worry. That heart belonged to someone I know well. That fellow would not take offense either.”
“Asterion speaks the truth. Executor, use it as you see fit. This uncle guarantees it.”
As if to reassure Akion, Asterion and Xeros stepped forward and encouraged him.
But Akion couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling... so he asked, just in case.
“If it is not too rude, may I ask who the owner of this heart was?”
“It was my youngest son’s. Sirius. He was a foolish fellow.”
“He was my friend too! The fellow met a glorious and magnificent end in the final battle. Heh heh!”
“Gurrrk.”
And his guess was right.
Of all things, it had to be a Dragonheart with such deep circumstances attached!!
“E-Executor! Why have you suddenly fainted!?”
“It happens all the time. Akion? Breathe first─.”
“Goldie will fetch a pillow~”
Akion fainted under the overwhelming burden.
*
Akion awoke the next day.
- Tap tap tap.
With the Dragonheart before his eyes, he fell into deep thought over what he should do with it.
As he had heard yesterday, a Dragonheart was a tank containing an enormous amount of ultra-high-density mana.
Its mana output and storage capacity were overwhelmingly greater than any mana stone.
It could even recharge!!
“A-Akion. It’s truly my one wish in life, so could I touch it just once?”
“M-Me too, me too, just oncee....”
Since it was every mage’s dream... every mage in the laboratory was drooling profusely.
His sisters were no different,
“I feel like my brain is being fried just by looking at it...!”
“Isn’t that a bad thing?”
“Brother. Of course I mean it in a good way. Heh heh...!”
Juan, who had wandered in without a thought and then seen the Dragonheart, was no different.
All three of Akion’s siblings were staring at it from across the desk with shining eyes.
Put another way, seeing these three, who had grown up wanting for nothing, act this way drove home just how precious the object was.
“I heard that even grinding it into powder and drinking it raises your rank....”
“Would Akion give us some...?”
“W-Well, maybe. We’ve all worked hard, after aaaall....”
“No. Go work, all three of you.”
Naturally, all three were driven out to work at Akion’s dismissal.
“When are you going to finish the full-body drying booths the furry... I mean, beastfolk ordered? Finish them quickly and bring them over!”
“This ungrateful little brother...!”
“I-I sacrificed so much for you!”
“B-But we’ve all done a lot of wrong to Akion in the past to be complaining like this...?”
It was impossible to feel pity for the three departing with drooping shoulders... the value of this Dragonheart was simply too immense.
“There’s no point in building a power plant anyway....”
Build a power plant using this Dragonheart as its source of power?
Just as humanity always does, he wondered if he should use it to turn a turbine,
but in this world, mana was already taking the place of electricity.
And if he used it for that, Asterion and Xeros might come shedding tears of blood to chop him into pieces.
“It’s awkward to use it as an ESS, too.”
Even using it purely as a mana tank to draw and store energy felt like too much of a waste.
And how would that be any different from building a power plant?
While he was agonizing over it for quite some time....
- Click.
“Young Executor. What are you pondering so deeply?”
“Ah, Elder.”
Asterion entered the laboratory with a golem attendant.
“I was pondering how I should use your son’s heart.”
“Ho ho, I told you to use it as you saw fit.”
“Even so, shouldn’t I use it for something meaningful?”
“What are you two talking about?”
And Xeros entered behind him.
While Akion wondered where Carena was among the trio who always traveled together,
“Lady Carena went to the capital’s magic tower on business. She said she wanted to show them the buggy you made!”
“Ah.”
Akion was dumbfounded that she had gone to show off the buggy he had made.
It wasn’t so much that he thought, ‘Is it really that great?’—
Akion had already resigned himself that morning upon seeing the Tower Master’s buggy parked outside his window as soon as he woke up.
He decided to accept the common knowledge that ‘dragons = lovers of anything with wheels.’
“So, what was our Executor pondering so deeply about, after sending away the Saintess and that young lady from the ducal house?”
“This young Executor here. I wondered what was troubling him, only to find he was worrying about putting my son’s heart to meaningful use! Bwahahaha!”
In any case, now that the parties involved were here, Akion decided to ask what he had been even more curious about.
“If it is not too rude, may I ask what kind of person Sir Sirius was?”
“Ho ho? You mean the story of his life?”
“Sirius’s story, huh....”
He wanted to know the owner of this heart before using it, at least.
Both dragons could guess why Akion had asked.
Having both lived for a considerable length of time, they knew well how obsessed humans were with Dragonhearts.
How many had handled Dragonhearts out of greed rivaling that of dragons... only to die right there at their hands?
“Ho ho ho... What a kind-hearted child.”
“No wonder he’s an Executor, Elder.”
“What are you two talking about?”
After seeing only those sorts of people, Akion looked like an absolute saint by comparison!
Both of them had been secretly worried, but Akion’s one question put their minds at ease.
“No. Well, as for Sirius’s story....”
“It’s nothing I can’t tell you. To sum up Sirius’s life... for better or worse, he was someone who wanted to become a hero.”
“A hero?”
They spoke with an inner sense of relief, certain that Akion would put Sirius’s heart to meaningful use.
*
Hero complex.
A psychological state in which a person, starved for recognition from others, displays ostentatious behavior.
In the life he lived before reincarnating, several forms of media dealing with this had even become popular.
- Tap tap.
Asterion’s youngest son and Xeros’s friend,
Sirius was a dragon who was far too kind, burning himself up in that hero complex.
He never knew when to step in or back off, and committed foolish acts like charging in recklessly.
And in the end....
“He said... he would take responsibility himself....”
“That foolish idiot!!”
When countless lives were warped by the hero complex he had been consumed by, he was overwhelmed by guilt,
and, in order to at least take responsibility, the dragon mutually perished with one of the entities known as Clifford’s Trees.
After hearing about Sirius, Akion thought of two things: the good-person syndrome and a hero complex.
- Tap tap tap.
“Was there a past in which he wasn’t recognized?”
Before awakening memories of his past life, Akion too had been parched for recognition.
Of course, with not a speck of magical talent, he had not even a speck of opportunity to be recognized.
In the end, he became a shut-in who never left his room.
- Tap, tap!
Akion felt a strange sense of kinship.
He stared intently at the Dragonheart.
Had Sirius taking responsibility at the end been a good thing...?
Or had it been an act that drove a nail into Asterion’s heart, despite how much he had loved him?
Of course, Akion wasn’t one of the people involved, so he couldn’t know.
Rather, because his thoughts had fallen even deeper into a maze... Akion scratched his head vigorously, frustrated.
They said eating this would completely change one’s constitution... would Akion’s magical talent return then?
“I don’t think it would mean anything even if I ate it.”
Akion was certain the answer to this question was ‘No.’
Because he remembered what Cheonju had called ‘equivalent exchange.’
Hadn’t he traded away his magical talent to obtain Cheonju’s knowledge and intellect?
If so, he instinctively understood that eating a Dragonheart would not cause any major change.
- Click, clack.
“Ah.”
As if to ease Akion’s troubled thoughts, a teacup had been placed there.
It was tea brewed by the golem attendant Asterion had left behind.
- Whirr.
The artificial-intelligence golem attendant had an appearance almost identical to a human, while its insides were made of materials such as metal.
They said these operated with a specially processed mana stone, engraved with the structure of brain neurons, as its core.
“....”
If—just hypothetically....
What would happen if Sirius’s Dragonheart were processed like this and made into a golem?
Considering the absurd synergistic process Cheonju had devised, it might not be such a bad idea.
- Tap tap tap.
But this could become an insult to Sirius,
and might incur the wrath of his father, Asterion.
Besides, there was no telling in what direction the artificial intelligence of a golem made that way would learn.
- Up!
This wasn’t something he should deliberate over alone.
At the very least, he needed to discuss something like this with those involved before deciding—or giving up.
Above all, rather than thinking it through by himself,
he might come up with a sounder use if he added other people’s advice to the mix.
Akion rose from his seat in the laboratory.
*
“That would be fine. No, if possible, I would like you to give it the role of protecting something.”
“Huh? Why?”
And permission was granted more easily than he had expected.