T/N: Let’s all prepare for some “truth”. You’ve been warned!

* * *

Cadel studied the man in front of him, his fiery red hair hanging down to his waist, his body tall and well-muscled, and his eyes a mysterious shade of green that Cadel couldn’t quite put his finger on.

He looked exactly like the man Cadel had seen in his dream. As he had vaguely suspected since the Scarlet Dragon’s appearance, the man before him was the Scarlet Dragon’s humanoid form.

“What a hassle I’ve gone through.”

In human form, the Scarlet Dragon’s voice was real, not a hallucinatory echo. It was an indistinct, high-pitched voice with a faint sense of boredom and annoyance, as in the dream.

Cadel said to the Scarlet Dragon, who ran an irritated hand through his long hair as he waited by the lake, the same place Cadel had seen in his dream.

“What have you done to my comrades?”

“Are you worried?”

“Of course. Did you really harm them? You told me you wouldn’t hurt them if I came.”

The Scarlet Dragon rolled his eyes, intrigued by Cadel’s aggressive demeanor.

“Worried, huh……. That’s funny.”

Cadel felt strongly offended by the dark mockery on the man’s face. He wanted to ask what was so funny, but the safety of his subordinates was more important.

The Scarlet Dragon shrugged lightly as Cadel pressed for an answer.

“I didn’t kill them.”

They were spared. It was a relief, if not a complete relief. Cadel let out the breath he’d been holding and lowered his head. His heart was pounding from all the tension.

The Scarlet Dragon stretched out his long legs and came in front of Cadel. Cadel raised his head at the rapidly narrowing distance and stepped back with a wary look on his face. It was because he remembered the terrible headache he had in his dream. In response, the Scarlet Dragon stopped short, keeping a respectful distance.

“……Why did you call me?”

“Why do you think that is?”

“How did you come into my dream?”

“Shouldn’t the first question be, how did I make you dream?”

How did I make you dream?

Cadel’s mouth dropped open at the Scarlet Dragon’s comment as if he knew Cadel was in a body that couldn’t dream.

‘Is he even aware of the existence of the system? Is he saying that the interference itself was intentional? How on earth……?’

The Scarlet Dragon calmly accepted Cadel’s suspicious gaze and answered the question Cadel couldn’t bring himself to ask.

“You have powers that are not of this world.”

“…….”

“Though it’s more of a curse than a power.”

The Scarlet Dragon knew about the system.

As soon as Cadel realized it, his breath caught in his throat. He didn’t know whether it was anticipation or fear, but his mind was filled with so many things that his vision became blurry.

“How do you know…….”

“At first, I just went there because I was bothered by the power that was in another world. But I found something quite interesting there. It was something I hadn’t seen in thousands of years, and it had been a long time since I had seen it in this body.”

Did the Scarlet Dragon in the game say something like this? He had never read the Scarlet Dragon’s story separately, but there was a high probability that it wasn’t. At least the Scarlet Dragon, who guided players through events, was always fond of Cadel Lytos, calling him a ‘blessed child of God’. To the Scarlet Dragon, Cadel Lytos was simply an exceptional human hero who could protect world peace.

Cadel took the conversation in stride, trying to calm his chaotic mind.

“What do you mean by a curse?”

“That power is a curse that binds fate.”

A curse that binds fate. As Cadel mulled over his ambiguous words with a stony face, the Scarlet Dragon took a step closer and looked down at Cadel, his eyes glinting with intense interest and a hint of disgust.

Cadel didn’t realize it until his long hair cast a shadow in front of him. He froze and started to back away, but the Scarlet Dragon beat him to it, grabbing his arm. He bent down as if to devour Cadel, who was much smaller than him.

“It is also a curse that kills the soul.”

“What do you mea…….”

Cadel tried to pull away from the Scarlet Dragon’s face, but the more he tried, the stronger the tug on his arm became.

The Scarlet Dragon gazed into Cadel’s perplexed gray eyes and heartlessly whispered a cruel secret.

“Are you feeling it? The existence of the soul you swallowed. It’s stuck here, squirming, unable to die.”

Cadel couldn’t understand the Scarlet Dragon’s words. More troubling, however, was the sudden appearance of the system window that had taken over his vision.

[Warning! Abnormal entities threaten the system. We recommend that you do not approach.]

[No data exists for this character. Start analyzing.]

[Time remaining to complete analysis: 02 hours, 59 minutes, 59 seconds]

The word ‘Warning’ flashed loudly like a warning light. With Cadel’s vision suddenly turning red, the Scarlet Dragon was still babbling something incoherently.

“Is it a fair price under the contract? Or unilateral looting? How is it that you, from another world, can feast on the soul here? I don’t sense that level of power in you.”

The Scarlet Dragon asked many questions, but there was not a single point that Cadel could fully accept. Still, he felt strangely uncomfortable.

Beyond the system’s warning message, the Scarlet Dragon’s eyes flashed insidiously. Just looking at him made Cadel’s head spin, gave him goosebumps for no reason, and made his vision blur and sharpen repeatedly.

“Answer me. What is your purpose here?”

“Let me go……!”

The pain was suffocating, and Cadel finally gave in and fired a fireball into the Scarlet Dragon’s chest. At the same time, a searing heat radiated from the ground, despite the protective barrier he had created.

Cadel wrenched himself out of the Scarlet Dragon’s slackening grip due to the attack and clutched at his throbbing arm. His head dropped, and his eyes glazed over.

‘F*ck, what the hell? What on earth?’

Apparently, the Scarlet Dragon of this world was a far cry from the Scarlet Dragon of the game. He sensed the power of the system and was intrigued. But it didn’t stop there, he also revealed something Cadel didn’t know.

Cadel knew he had to listen to the Scarlet Dragon closely, but he hadn’t felt well since the system appeared. Every muscle in his body felt like it had been beaten.

Cadel instinctively hugged his abdomen and lifted his eyes, and the first thing he saw was the Scarlet Dragon’s expressionless face. He stood where Cadel had thrown the fireball. There was no sign of pain or panic from the attack. It was Cadel who panicked.

‘Scales……?’

Over the Scarlet Dragon’s chest, where the fireball would have struck, a veil of translucent red scales covered it. The Scarlet Dragon stared at Cadel impassively, as if nothing had happened, and spoke in an equally impassive voice.

“It seems your power is rejecting me. There are a lot of stories I want to hear from you……. So let me help you.”