Looks Like No One Has Any Objections

"...What a pain." Crouched on a boulder, Zheng Yichen used its resemblance to the surrounding black rocks to achieve "perfect" camouflage. To get the shape of his snout just right, he had even hollowed out several rocks of the same color and fitted them over his head.

His disguise was flawless!

Thanks to that impeccable camouflage, Zheng Yichen clearly saw several more suspicious people prowling around his lair. He had an uneasy feeling that if they found it, he might run into trouble he couldn't explain.

Looks like I really do need to move.

These new prowlers weren't dressed alike like the previous group, who had clearly belonged together. Their clothes varied, but they had one thing in common: they were designed for stealth. There was also a faint, hidden fluctuation about them, weaker than the "magic equipment" he had stolen and much harder to detect.

But perhaps crossing into this world—or having a dragon's body—had given him an extra edge. Hard to detect didn't mean he couldn't notice it. These people were leagues ahead of the previous men in black!

Damn it, what are these people after? Are they trying to start something?

Zheng Yichen watched glumly as they crept closer to his lair and wondered whether he should charge out and scare them off. He had concealed the place as best he could, but against professionals, his camouflage wasn't quite enough.

Even his decoys had only slowed their search. They hadn't fooled anyone.

"That dragon's been gone a long time. Pull back!"

Huh? Did they spot me? Just as the group was about to reach his lair, they suddenly withdrew. Zheng Yichen lightly tapped the rock covering his head, puzzled. He couldn't understand what they had said, but he needed to move right away.

"We found absolutely no trace of a second dragon. There's a good chance no mother dragon is guarding that hatchling!" A group of people sat around a meeting room in the Mercenary Guild branch. Anyone familiar with the town would have recognized them...

Both the Branch President and the vice president were here!

"If there were a mother dragon, she would certainly have discovered our people. But the investigation went smoothly," the vice president said. He left the rest unspoken: if there really were a mother dragon, their people wouldn't merely have been discovered. They would have been killed!

Mother dragons were fiercely protective of their young. Anyone caught harboring designs on a hatchling would face a brutal attack. Yet none of that had happened. Every sign pointed to a hatchling that had been abandoned.

Such cases were extremely rare, but they did happen. Abandoned hatchlings usually had some incurable defect from birth that left the mother no choice but to give up on them. Abandonment was the better outcome. More often, the mother killed her young outright to keep them from falling into someone else's hands.

It sounded cruel, but in those desperate circumstances, it was another form of "protection."

After all, a defect serious enough to make a mother dragon abandon her young had to be severe. If it were only a minor flaw, the Dragon Race had the resources to deal with it without abandoning or killing the hatchling.

The vice president's words stirred everyone in the room. Even with a serious defect, a young dragon was an incredibly valuable source of rare materials. They could live in luxury for the rest of their lives just by keeping it alive and drawing its blood!

That beat scraping by in a remote town like this!

"One more thing. That hatchling... no, judging by its size now, it's already an adolescent dragon," the vice president said, his expression odd.

"Could it be a subdragon?" someone asked.

"It has none of a subdragon's traits. It's a purebred dragon," the vice president said with certainty. Once he suspected there truly was no mother dragon guarding it, he had even risked observing the creature up close while it was out hunting. Every detail matched the descriptions in the books. It was a true dragon, not a subdragon.

"I don't know why, but it's growing fast. If we'd found it a year or two later, it might already have reached young adulthood." The vice president's words silenced everyone in the meeting room for a moment.

A hatchling could fight well enough, but it was still a child. Once dragons reached adolescence, their strength took a great leap. Most notably, they could spit... use Dragon Breath, an ability unique to the Dragon Race. Particularly gifted adolescent dragons could even use magic, including spell-like abilities that required no incantation.

That was a talent humans could only envy.

As for Dragon Language Magic, that generally appeared only after a dragon reached full adulthood. Before then, dragons were already immensely strong and highly resistant to magic. Their bodies alone could crush most enemies. Magic? That was just support...

"Even now, an adolescent dragon won't be easy for us to take down."

The town was poorly situated, after all, and had precious few top-tier fighters. Besides, with a dragon at stake, they had no desire to share the profits with too many outsiders. Everyone here was glad it had appeared somewhere so remote.

Otherwise, a lone young dragon with no mother to protect it would never have fallen into their hands. A powerful, well-connected family would have claimed the whole prize long ago.

"I can supply some heavy crossbows," the Branch President said after a while. Everyone but the vice president jolted at his words.

Heavy crossbows were contraband the empire strictly forbade from circulation. Without the proper authorization, anyone caught possessing them faced severe punishment that could even implicate their entire family. Could the vice president of a Mercenary Guild branch in a remote town possibly have such authorization?

Obviously not!

Everyone present held power and influence in the town, and none of them was a fool. The Branch President had said it in front of them for one simple reason: he was forcing them to choose!

Agree, and they would become accomplices. If word got out, none of them would escape the consequences. Refuse, and they could forget about leaving this room today. Then again, once they had come here, perhaps the choice had never been theirs.

"Looks like no one has any objections." The Branch President smiled faintly at their silence. "Everyone, if we want to rise higher, now is not the time to hold anything back. This operation cannot fail!"