Chapter Forty-Seven The Vast and the Tiny

Ruger decided to rest in this space for the first time and try to relax with a good sleep. It had just occurred to him—this place was clearly called the Abyss Bedroom, yet he had never actually slept or rested inside it. Wouldn't that be too strange? He had to make up for that, to fill in this record.

Curiously, he approached the spatial wall and took out his short spear, lightly touching it. The wall, which shifted chaotically between black, gray, and white, rippled with dazzling, multicolored waves at his touch.

As for attacking the spatial wall with spells, he did want to try it, and he knew he would not break it, but in the end, he still refrained.

He meditated peacefully to rest, sleeping until he had no idea whether the sky had even grown light.

His first trial sleep in the space ended perfectly.

When he opened the spatial door, the other side was still the large bedroom with light streaming through from three directions. The place where one entered through the door and the place where one emerged never changed, as though a temporary anchoring point had been cast down before the door opened. This was both good and bad. For instance, if he wanted to use it to evade an enemy, he could only wait for them to leave on their own, while he himself could not see what was happening outside.

Ruger made a simple round of preparations. Without notifying Aisijin, he slowly left the settlement alone.

Traveling at speed all the way, he arrived at that valley once more.

This time, he did not need to dig away a vast amount of earth. After locating the right spot, he stood above it, simply shielding his head and face with both hands as he rapidly stored away the soil and rocks beneath his feet, plunging straight downward at tremendous speed. He calculated that once he neared the underground cave entrance, he would dig forward. Whether the passage behind him collapsed and became blocked no longer mattered.

Seeing that colossal beast again was still shocking.

Ruger stood motionless where he was, waiting until the next startling sound of breathing came before he calmly began moving through the cave.

On his way here, he had replenished his supply of meat grubs. Together with what had remained in the Abyss Bedroom, even if that monstrous dragon beast awoke and trapped him within the Abyss Bedroom, he had enough to endure for quite some days—perhaps even until the thing fell asleep again or left. He was not especially worried about that, because once something this large woke up, it would most likely go out hunting, and it would be a major hunt lasting quite some time.

While traveling, he had tested pairing the Light Body Spell with Strength of the Savage Bull. It was quite an excellent combination, though somewhat difficult to control at first. Once he adapted, however, it opened up an entirely different world.

Now, he cast those two spells on himself again, then added Mental Boil for good measure. He began walking around the cave's outer perimeter as though strolling through his own little garden.

A thought stirred in his mind. He took out his robes and put them on neatly, settling the hood securely over his head as well.

After making one circuit, he did not rush into action. Even a mosquito had to learn to wait for the right moment; at the very least, it had to know where it could pierce.

He came to the creature's tail, opened a spatial door first, then gathered his courage and reached out to touch the tip of its tail. Calling it a tail tip was one thing, but the tip alone was larger than he, a small kobold.

The instant his palm touched it, his heart gave an uncontrollable jolt. The few hairs newly grown on his back all stood on end. Yet he quickly focused, carefully feeling the texture beneath his hand. What worried him most was that the mosquito's mouthparts might not be able to pierce in at all. All things were hard at the beginning, and having it end the moment it began was indeed the usual state of things.

He slowly withdrew his hand and decided to give up on this spot.

He had learned the Light Body Spell for this very moment. Taking a deep breath to bolster his courage, he leapt forward and landed on the middle section of the monstrous dragon's tail.

Since he could not break through its old hide by ordinary means, he would try looking for old wounds on its body.

Since it had no wings, he would take a look at its back.

When Ruger had thought of mosquitoes before, it had only been self-mockery. But now, as he moved across the monstrous dragon's back, he truly felt like a little insect. Still, as time passed and the huge creature showed no signs of waking, he stopped being as tense as he had been at the start.

His feet stepped over layer upon layer of overlapping scales. It felt as though he were treading across a massive landscaped structure built by human hands.

As he drew closer to the dragon beast's back, the dark scales grew larger and larger. The small kobold had no choice but to store away those ill-fitting boots, lest he slip while walking. He had no desire to become the first kobold to fall down on a dragon's back because he wore shoes.

Nothing!

There really was nothing?

Whenever he passed a place with a somewhat steep slope, he crawled across it on all fours. After crawling farther ahead, he swayed as he stood up, yet still did not see what he had hoped for. Gathering his courage, he lightly jumped, but even then he could not take in the full view. Fortunately, he saw a wider area.

The bad news was that this huge creature truly had no dragon wings, and it appeared never to have possessed that pair of great wings from birth.

The good news was that there truly was a wound on its back—a wound large enough for Ruger to lie inside and roll around in. The position was not ideal, but it could be overcome.

Ruger steadied himself and began approaching that wound. This seemed to confirm that this monstrous dragon was not a true dragon.

After enduring countless hardships and inching closer to the wound, whose angle was too steep to stand on, he gazed into it with anticipation.

Within that wound, where flesh and blood curled outward, lay another wondrous sight.

Ruger blinked, then struggled his way closer.

Embedded in the monstrous dragon's broad wound was a huge metal construct. Upon it were written the words Aberrant Dragon Management Association, followed by a long string of serial numbers.

Below that was a notice stating that if this dragon was found in the wild, it should be reported to the Aberrant Dragon Management Association.

Stroking his chin, he steadied his footing and carefully studied the explanation written on it.

Aberrant dragons, like all the countless anomalies in the world, proved from another angle just how vast the world was. There would always be some abnormal things born into existence. As for aberrant dragons, most could not be considered powerful; due to their own strange transformations, they often found it difficult to continue producing offspring. Yet some aberrant dragons were unusually stronger than even pure-blooded dragonkind, and some even developed absurd abilities. That was why the Aberrant Dragon Management Association had come into being.

This monstrous dragon, bearing a long string of serial numbers, was one of those aberrant dragons whose strength did not fall below that of pure-blooded dragonkind. It was also one with a particularly stubborn temperament. It had no wings and was not acknowledged by dragonkind, yet it had still inherited a dragon's pride.

The usual supervision process for aberrant dragons generally fell into two categories. Those of weaker strength received the lowest level of supervision, while those rated higher in strength and in the special nature of their aberrations received progressively stricter oversight. Yet this was all still the first category: limited supervision. Various marks would be left upon the dragon's body, but its life would not be restrained.

The judgment was not based entirely on strength and potential danger.

Rather, it depended on whether the aberrant dragon had committed an offense.

Any aberrant dragon that violated the regulations, regardless of its strength, would be assigned to the second category of supervision. From then on, it would lose its freedom. In serious cases, it would become a resource of the association, experimental material for wizards. This was also one of the major sources of funding that kept the Aberrant Dragon Management Association running. Ratings of an aberrant dragon's strength and danger merely determined the intensity of the measures used during supervision.

This proud fellow before Ruger

was merely a target under the second-lowest level of supervision—one that had committed an offense. It was restricted to operating within a certain region, and measures had been implanted within its body to force it into sleep. The trigger condition was leaving the territory designated by the Aberrant Dragon Management Association. It knew it would fall asleep, even starve to death alive in its slumber. It knew it could never escape, yet it still refused to remain trapped there.