Cowardly Dragon

The night of the revolution ended like that.

The next morning, the central square of Hybrid City was so orderly that it was hard to believe the uproar of the previous day.

As if nothing had happened, the city’s system ran with new gears meshing together.

Of course, it was entirely my job to oil those gears and kick any that were spinning idly.

“Now, now! We will begin the official launching ceremony of the All Beast-kin Equality Union!”

Darkness shouted in a trembling voice from the makeshift platform set up on the fountain.

She was clutching the speech I had written for her all night like a bundle of parchment. At this rate, the parchment will get soaked with sweat and tear.

“T-today, we are, uh… standing at a great, historical, turning, point!”

The way she chewed and spat out each word was almost desperate.

The beast-kin filling the square were looking at her with a mixture of anxiety and anticipation.

I hid in the shadows behind the platform and whispered softly.

“Be more confident. Put some power in your belly. You’re not just the Demon King anymore, you’re Comrade Chairwoman.”

“Hoo-eh… but… all those eyes are looking at me… I’m scared…”

“You have to be scared. This is all part of your growth as the Demon King.”

Elise, who was standing like a shadow next to me, sighed softly.

“Hero-nim, rather than leaving her like that, I’d rather go out there and…”

“No, it’s okay. She needs to adapt soon. She can’t just keep crying forever.”

I gave Darkness instructions again.

“Now, repeat after me. ‘Our enemy is not each other!'”

“O-our enemy… is n-not each other…?”

“No, put some authority into it.”

“It is not…! ‘It is the old customs and corrupt powers that oppressed us!'”

As Darkness repeated my words like a parrot, the murmuring in the square gradually grew louder.

Grayfang, representing the carnivorous beast-kin, and the elderly Rabbit Elder, leading the herbivorous beast-kin, nodded.

“Yeah. That’s right. The ones we should be fighting weren’t each other.”

“I still get pissed when I think about what those rhino bastards did to us…”

At that moment, a heavy voice echoed from the direction of the fortress wall.

“Shut up! Leave the security to us Oni! There’s no discrimination! Anyone who doesn’t listen will be made equal by this Akaoni’s iron club!”

Akaoni led the Oni on patrol. Some of the reptile beast-kin, who looked dissatisfied, quietly shut their mouths at the sight of his red skin and ferocious horns.

“Hehehe. Information is my specialty, Haru-nim.”

Bloodmere, who had appeared behind me before I knew it, whispered.

“I can smell the sweet blood of hidden rats all over the city. I’ll take care of all the remnants by tonight.”

“Please do. Clean up the mess.”

“Of course. Without a trace, I’ll drink them ‘clean’.”

She smiled seductively and disappeared back into the darkness.

“Comrade Chairwoman! Reporting in!”

The Skeleton Union representative ran to the platform and saluted so hard his bones rattled.

“City infrastructure restoration work can begin immediately! Our skeleton comrades are available 24 hours a day! No wages! No rest! We will prove the sanctity of labor with our 3-No policy!”

…I think I need to stop those guys.

The launching ceremony ended so clumsily and noisily.

***

Several weeks passed.

Hybrid City was changing literally day by day.

Thanks to the skeletons’ 24-hour forced labor, no, voluntary labor, the collapsed buildings were rebuilt more strongly, and the roads were paved wide. Iron carts made by the Oni blacksmiths went back and forth on them without a break.

“Look! Our rabbits’ carrots and the skeleton uncles’ labor have combined to make the carrots this big!”

A rabbit beast-kin child ran around showing off a carrot as big as himself. The wolf beast-kin returned from more efficient hunts with steel claws forged by the Oni. The fusion of the beast-kin’s traditional skills and the Demon race’s advanced technology brought about an explosive increase in productivity.

The rumors spread like wildfire.

Carnivorous beast-kin from other regions who had been discriminated against flocked to the city in search of hope, and I was busy providing them with housing and jobs.

“Haru-gong! How about signing an exclusive trade agreement with our fox merchant guild? You know we have the best information network on the continent.”

“Good. But your information network must be provided to us ‘exclusively’. Give and take. You know?”

The Bear tribe in the east was impressed by Akaoni’s power and came to pledge their allegiance, and the Deer tribe in the west was moved by the skeletons’ agricultural support and joined the union.

Darkness still fumbled every time she visited each village, but her clumsy sincerity moved the hearts of the beast-kin.

“Hic… E-everyone… let’s all… get along… Don’t fight…”

When she said that with tears in her eyes, the large bear beast-kin cried along and nodded.

“Hoo-eong! I’m moved by Comrade Chairwoman’s words! We are now one family!”

…I don’t know what the principle is, but the result was good anyway.

The city became much bigger and richer than before.

Above all, the beast-kin no longer growled at each other.

Now, Oni, skeletons, and even vampires were roaming around the city.

Living with beings so different from themselves made minor differences like each other’s fur color or claw shape insignificant.

“When I think about it, I don’t know how stupid we were. There’s even a skeleton uncle over there, and we were fighting over fur color.”

It was perfect internal integration.

Of course, minor problems still occurred.

“Aaaaaaah! Let go! Let go! This is my arm! It’s not a toy!”

A skeleton was screaming and running across the square.

Wang wang!

Several canine beast-kin children were barking and chasing after him excitedly. The children must see the skeleton’s arm as a delicious bone.

I chuckled at the comedic scene. Peaceful.

“Hoo-eo-eo-eo-eong! Haru-ssiiiiiiii!”

That peace didn’t last long.

The door to my office, which had been renovated from the old mayor’s office, burst open, and Darkness ran in crying with a pile of documents in her arms.

“Tax calculation is too difficult! The numbers are attacking me! Why do the numbers keep decreasing when I add them?!”

I pressed my throbbing temples and took the parchment she handed me. It was a mess. Addition and subtraction symbols were jumbled together, and the numbers were crawling like earthworms.

“Give it here.”

I sighed and picked up a pen.

“Now, look. Income is here, expenses are here. If you subtract expenses from income, you get the remaining money. It’s simple arithmetic. How can you be the Demon King and not even do addition and subtraction?”

Darkness replied with tears in her eyes.

“I thought the Demon King… didn’t have to do this kind of stuff! I thought all I had to do was shout ‘Pay your taxes!’ and it would all be done?!”

“That’s what third-rate villains do.”

I said, sorting through the documents.

“You need to control the numbers and know the flow of money to move the world. It’s like a carrot and a stick. A carrot for the villages that pay their taxes well, and a stick for those who try to embezzle. Got it?”

“Carrot… stick…”

Darkness pondered for a moment, then her eyes sparkled.

“I understand! So, I’ll take a real whip to the village chief of the beast-kin village who didn’t pay their taxes…”

“No, that’s not what I meant.”

The road to teaching this one is still long and arduous.

While I was coaxing and cajoling Darkness and teaching her the work, Elise quietly came in and reported.

“Hero-nim, the surrounding forces have been almost completely cleared up. You need to decide on the next target.”

I sent Darkness back and looked at the huge map of the continent hanging on the wall of the office.

Our sphere of influence was marked in blue, centered on Hybrid City.

I was satisfied with the area painted in blue. An achievement made in just a few weeks.

An expansion worthy of the name Demon King’s Army. But that map was also evidence of anxiety.

Our territory was now bordering the strongmen of the continent, such as the Order or the Empire.

I reached out and pressed one corner of the map. A place where rugged mountain ranges rose like blades.

“The next target is here.”

The eyes of the executives gathered in the strategy conference room focused on the tip of my finger. It was above the words ‘Dragon’s Gorge’ written in red ink.

“Dragon’s Gorge?”

Grayfang asked in a cautious voice. His eyes, filled with the wisdom of a wolf, examined me.

“I know that’s the territory of the dragons. Isn’t that too strong an opponent for our Demon King’s Army to touch?”

“We’re not going to fight.”

I replied.

“We don’t need to control them. No, we can’t. But at least we need to get a promise that they won’t interfere while we’re turning the continent upside down.

“We’re going to negotiate. Dragons are a completely neutral force, neither human nor Demon race. At the very least, we need to get a promise that they won’t interfere while we’re conquering the world. It’s a kind of non-aggression pact.”

Everyone was accepting my proposal in their own way.

“Hoo-eh-ek!”

A scream tore through the air of the conference room.

The owner of the scream was, of course, Darkness. Her face turned pale as she jumped up from her chair.

The colorful fur and feather decorations that the beast-kin had given her as a sign of gratitude fluttered ridiculously.

“D-d-dragons! You’re telling me we’re going to meet those terrifying monsters?! No way! I’m never going! I don’t want to be eaten!”

Darkness shouted that and ran towards the conference room door with all her might.

I reached out and grabbed the end of her cloak.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Let me go! I don’t want to be the Demon King anymore! I want to be a librarian again! Book dust is better than dragon breath!”

I dragged the struggling girl back to her seat, clinging to her cloak.

“Calm down. I told you we’re not going to fight.”

“But I’m still scared! I read in a book that dragons can burn down an entire city if they get angry!”

Darkness ended up sitting on the floor and crying. There was not a trace of the Demon King’s dignity to be found.

That night.

I met Darkness separately in her room. Bloodmere was with us too.

“Report.”

At my words, Bloodmere appeared from the darkness.

“Golden Dragon Aris. Because that crazy dragon hunts down her own kind, Dragon’s Gorge is currently completely isolated from the outside world. A powerful barrier covers the entire gorge, making it impossible for anyone who is not a dragon to even approach it.”

Aris. Her name made my head throb.

“What if we break the barrier and go in?”

“An all-out war will begin immediately. We will turn all the dragons in the gorge into enemies.”

“Great! Then we can’t go in! That’s good! Let’s just give up!”

Darkness shouted from under the covers on the bed.

I ignored her and fell into thought. We needed a peaceful way to make contact.

If we force the door open, the conversation itself won’t work. We need to get them to open it from the inside…

Is there a good way?