Ch.223223. Zoo

# Dawn Empire’s Capital, Dawn City

On the well-paved brick streets, various beautiful flowers bloom from the planted trees, creating a picturesque scene that perfectly captures the essence of a spring day.

As it happens, an Orc Druid visiting on business from the allied Soviet Holy Republic was so impressed by this sight that he made the weather in this area sunny for several days.

As a result, Dawn City is currently enveloped in an environment where flower petals dance in the air and warm sunlight gently embraces everything—truly, there couldn’t be a more perfect setting for a picnic.

“……”

Scratch, scratch, scratch. Scratch… thud.

Despite the wonderful weather unfolding outside the building, Lisa Raeldotir, the Acting Emperor of the Empire, was approving documents with lifeless eyes.

The place where she was mindlessly performing her duties was none other than the Imperial Palace of the Dawn Empire.

Originally a majestic fortress where the Emperor personally conducted business and resided, it became Lisa Raeldotir’s residence after the disappearance of Emperor Bjorn Wolfson.

When first built, it could hardly be considered extravagant… But citizens who were dissatisfied with its appearance donated funds and launched a renovation campaign.

Trapped in this splendid palace reminiscent of a classic beautiful medieval castle, Lisa was functioning like a machine with dead eyes, mechanically processing paperwork.

In truth, even though Lisa had recently become a Rank 1, being an undead meant her body had an infinite stamina buff as a passive ability, so her physical form never tired.

That is to say, her ‘body’ never tired.

Though Lisa possessed mental fortitude strong enough to remain calm even when facing gods, spending days upon days focusing on piles of documents exhausted her mind and spirit.

If there was anything fortunate about the situation, it was that she was finally nearing the end of the paperwork that had accumulated.

With faint motivation based on her anticipation for the evening’s doll gladiator competition—the Solo Battle Championship finals—Lisa was flipping through papers when…

Knock, knock, knock.

At that moment, someone knocked on the door of Lisa’s office.

‘…The Chief Secretary?’

“You may enter.”

Having identified the knocker as the Chief Secretary by scent, Lisa, while inwardly questioning, instructed the Chief Secretary to come in.

“Excuse me, Regent Your Excellency.”

As the woman dressed in the female official uniform of the Imperial civil service entered the office and opened the door, she bowed respectfully, and Lisa addressed her with familiarity.

“Chief Secretary, what is it?”

“…An incident has occurred.”

At these words, carefully chosen by the hesitant Chief Secretary to avoid disturbing her mood, Lisa let out a genuinely exasperated sigh and asked with practiced familiarity:

“I see. Where is it this time? The botanical garden? The zoo? Are the undead on strike at the undead exhibition? Have hooligans started a riot? Or perhaps there’s an uprising in the gulag?”

Though her response seemed quite hysterical and irritable, the Chief Secretary, who assisted Lisa daily and understood her heavy workload, could empathize with her.

“…At the Imperial Zoo, a newly acquired magical beast escaped and went on a rampage.”

“Is that all?”

“No. During its rampage, it released other magical beasts as well… Fortunately, the security forces on standby successfully responded, so there were no casualties, but the situation is complicated in many ways according to the report.”

As the Chief Secretary briefly summarized the incident, Lisa, who would naturally have more paperwork to deal with, inwardly screamed.

Why, why did these things only happen to her?

Because of this, she might miss the doll gladiator competition if she wasn’t careful.

As a huge fan of one of the competitors, Lisa thought for a moment and then—

“Chief Secretary, hold out your hand.”

“Pardon…?”

While the Chief Secretary followed the puzzling order with confusion, Lisa placed the Acting Emperor’s seal in her delicate outstretched hand and said:

“I’ll go resolve this incident and then head home, so please handle the rest of the work for me!”

It was an outrageous demand.

To dump additional work on the Chief Secretary, who already handled nearly as much as Lisa herself, and then run away without a care.

“…What? W-wait a moment! Regent, Your Excellency?!”

As the Chief Secretary, shocked by this devilish act of cruelty, tried to stop her, Lisa had already put on her outdoor clothes and placed her foot on the windowsill.

“I’ll give you a three-day paid vacation if you do this! See ya!!”

With those final words, Lisa jumped out the window.

In other words, she had dumped her work on the Chief Secretary and fled.

“……”

This was only possible because the Chief Secretary had quite a close relationship with Lisa in private settings, but even with substantial compensation… wait. Three days?

‘…That might be worth it.’

For someone who was already suffering from an excessive workload, even among the notoriously busy secretaries of the Regent, a three-day paid vacation was as good as gold.

It was a reward substantial enough to justify tolerating such an outrageous act.

Soon, the smiling Chief Secretary—who once worked as a maid known as the White Guard—sat down in Lisa’s chair and picked up a fountain pen.

※ ※ ※

The Empire, with its centuries of illustrious history, has a correspondingly flourishing culture.

Doll gladiatorial combat, which has evolved alongside the Dawn Empire’s history, is now the most popular sport, and various other sports, including ball games, have also been professionalized.

For instance, there’s the jousting imported from the Frankish Kingdom in the west, and soccer, which features regular matches with High Elves from the Isle of Albion.

But beyond these sports, the Dawn Empire has other popular cultural attractions—namely, places that exhibit exotic creatures, like botanical gardens and zoos.

With countless people living their entire lives without ever leaving the Dawn Empire, such exotic sights provide tremendous stimulation.

Especially since the creatures inhabiting this fantasy world are genuinely fascinating to observe, these places have naturally become essential destinations for tourists visiting the capital, but…

The problem is that these exhibition creatures can be extremely dangerous.

More than half of the plants in the botanical garden are carnivorous or aggressive life forms that devour other plants.

Plants are relatively manageable as long as they’re properly fed, but the real issue lies with the Dawn Empire’s national zoo.

From ordinary beasts and safe magical creatures to intermediate life forms that could kill hundreds if released…

Some rare intelligent creatures even work here, and certain human species are tempted with enormous sums to be “exhibited”—

a job popular among rare races due to high pay and excellent working conditions.

These madmen even exhibit the Regent’s pet vampiric dragon, summon and display extraplanar races like demons and angels, and in one corner of the exhibition hall, they’ve put on display a high-ranking demon captured during an invasion of the Empire.

In this insane zoo where the Dawn Empire’s madness is fully displayed, a recent exhibition of proto-dragons—frankly speaking, dinosaurs—from the New Continent opened.

Whether they’re truly ancient dinosaurs that evolved into magical beasts, or certain reptilian magical creatures that evolved into such forms is unknown…

Regardless, these dinosaurs, with their magnificent appearances and added features like breathing fire or poison, were immensely popular, but…

Due to this popularity, the enormous number of tourists visiting daily eventually caused one of the dinosaurs to succumb to stress and escape, thus beginning our story.

KROAAARARARARA!!!

This intermediate proto-dragon, with an appearance similar to a large theropod like a Tyrannosaurus, melted its enclosure by breathing extreme heat and escaped through the gap.

“Subdue it! Subdue it!”

Naturally, dozens of security forces on standby inside responded the moment the proto-dragon escaped, but

the problem was that before they could act, the proto-dragon had already caused a massive incident.

Rampaging while spewing the fiery breath stored in its flame sac, the proto-dragon was subdued within minutes, but its rampage had released several other animals from their restraints—

‘…What a mess.’

Though she had fled to escape her work, Lisa Raeldotir, the Imperial Regent, ultimately had to intervene personally.