Past Arc ③

Gyuriedistodiez was still young for a dragon. For that reason, his indignation during the current incident was strong. Both against the humans who had committed the outrage of abducting an infant dragon, and against the upper echelon dragons who were seemingly acting timid against the humans by showing mercy.

These damn humans who would commit such atrocities – wouldn’t it be better to simply destroy them along with the country?

Those were Gyuriedistodiez’s unfiltered genuine thoughts. To dragons, life forms other than themselves were all nothing more than inferior beings. Since dragons were guaranteed to rise to the realm of the gods from the moment they were born, Gyuriedistodiez didn’t care to call those frail creatures that would almost all die before becoming gods anything other than “inferior”. The supreme race that controlled the world were dragons alone. It would be fine if they obediently served dragons, but it was appropriate to destroy a race that would commit deeds that effectively spat on dragons. In his own judgement, only going as far as destroying the country and not the entire race was considered merciful. That’s what Gyuriedistodiez thought, but the order handed down by the upper echelon dragons was much more merciful, so much so that it could be considered lenient.

「Damn!」

In agitation he clicked his tongue. Gyuriedistodiez was currently transformed into a human. Despite being young, to Gyuriedistodiez who had already reached the realm of the gods, changing his shape was something trivial. Compared to his original form his human form was much smaller, making it easy to transform into. Having taken on human form, Gyuriedistodiez was currently walking through a district that humans had built. His objective was the search of the abducted infant. Take on human form, and take action while being careful not to cause trouble to the humans. Destructive actions were out of the question. Those were the orders handed down from the upper echelons.

Lenient. A far too lenient response. With the power at Gyuriedistodiez’s disposal, even crushing a country was easy. He considered that it would likely be better to destroy a country as a warning, so that the humans would never consider taking unusual actions again.

Gyuriedistodiez had already located the whereabouts of the abducted infant. Gyuriedistodiez was a dragon whose greatest forte was in manipulating space itself, and using that power to determine the location of someone of his own race was simple. However, he was still unable to take action. That was because the intention of the upper echelon dragons, was that the humans must resolve this by themselves as much as possible. Rescuing the abducted infant would be simple enough. However, since it was the humans who had abducted the infant, it was better to make the humans take responsibility for that. Therefore, he had to let the humans rescue the abducted infant. That was the conclusion from the upper echelon dragons. In the unlikely case that the infant faced danger Gyuriedistodiez was there for insurance, and so long as the infant wasn’t in danger then he couldn’t take action. Gyuriedistodiez was disgruntled about that.

On top of that, the bad air in the human district was making Gyuriedistodiez’s mood worse. The vehicles called cars emitted exhaust fumes, the large buildings confined the space, and the streets were packed with humans striding around as if they owned the place. That was all part of it, but the most aggravating aspect was that this place was claimed as a human district. It was becoming hard for him to suppress the desire to impulsively blow away everything. He couldn’t understand why the upper echelons would leave such creatures to their own devices.

What Gyuriedistodiez felt, was nothing unusual for dragons. As a whole, dragons consider themselves to be supreme beings, and seriously believe that they should be in control of the world. Thus, for inferior creatures such as humans to not be under the dominion of dragons, and even maintaining self-reliance and self-governance, is not something considered to be interesting by many dragons deep inside. However, if there’s one difference between Gyuriedistodiez and the upper echelons, it’s whether or not they were aware of the fact. The fact that there is an existence that even dragons cannot simply meddle with.

A young man bumps into Gyuriedistodiez’s shoulder. A young man together with a young woman. The young man didn’t even notice that he had bumped into Gyuriedistodiez, and continued to walk along with his lover while laughing.

Gyuriedistodiez’s fury boiled over in an instant. An inferior creature had bumped into him and then disregarded him. There was no reason for him to forgive such humiliation. All the irritation that had piled up within Gyuriedistodiez, would be channeled into the deserved killing of the young man who had committed the disgrace. Just by striking his fist into the forehead, that frail human would be killed. An instant later would be the spectacle of the young man being entirely smashed to pieces. Or should have been.

「Warning. Physical interference towards primitive creatures cannot be permitted.」

Gyuriedistodiez’s hand was gently held by another hand. That hand that only seemed to be lightly placed, had completely stopped Gyuriedistodiez’s action. Even when he tried to pull it back, he couldn’t move his body.

「What the!?」

Given his trembling voice, even he himself did not understand the reason.

「Hostile action towards primitive creatures observed. Allowing such actions violate the aforementioned mission. Will proceed to elimination.」

In response to Gyuriedistodiez’s meaningless question, the person who had caught his hand dispassionately informed him so, as if explaining some facts. Spoken with a gaze so lacking in emotion, that it was like an artificial eye. With a gaze as indifferent as if looking at garbage.

Gyuriedistodiez hadn’t been aware. That in this world, there was an entity that was on more than equal terms with dragons. Gyuriedistodiez met that entity on this day. A member of the anti-god battle angel race, belonging to the seraph class of higher order angels, stray angel Sariel. The mass god-killing machine, referred to as the goddess.