[INDEF. HIATUS] Regrets and Wishes: One More Chance

Chapter 4.5 - Chaos and Confusion

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第4.5章　混沌と錯乱

(3rd Person's Perspective)

Storm Dragon Veldora had disappeared—the one sealed for three hundred years, the living catastrophe. The news of his disappearance had been spreading throughout the world like a raging tempest. All were but shocked and confused.

Three hundred years of penance had done nothing to affect the dragon's rank as a Catastrophe-level threat. Even if he had disappeared, it didn't mean he couldn't be reborn anywhere and anytime, posing a new menace before long. He was a True Dragon, after all.

But after twenty days since the initial report of his disappearance came out, the Western Holy Church issued a worldwide announcement, that as far as the investigations could tell, Storm Dragon Veldora showed no sign of existing anytime soon. The words spread first in the area surrounding the Great Forest of Jura.

Once Veldora's fate had been broadly reported, each and every one of them sprang to their feet. Every king and every minister of every nation started holding day-to-day emergency meetings, gathering information and debating what to do next.

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Count Nidol Migam is furious.

"That's bullshit!" he curses while recalling what the finance minister just told him.

Simply remembering it makes his blood boil: "The threat known as the Storm Dragon Veldora has vanished. Therefore, the special monetary support from the central government shall be halted, as of today." And that was it. No back talk allowed. After being summoned to the capital. After being forced to wait for three hours.

Falmuth is, indeed, a rich kingdom. But so much power is tipped towards its central government that practically none of those riches reaches the nobility tasked with running its more remote regions. Redistribution of wealth is a foreign concept around here, and the countship of Migam never seems to see any relief from the taxes they're expected to collect from their citizens.

Like the other nations, they're taxed based on their agricultural harvests; and yet, they're also charged with defending their borders against the threats posed by the forest. That's the current source of the Count of Migam's fury.

That stipend has been a huge aid to them, certainly. The count's lands go right up to the Forest of Jura, making it the primary defence line of the entire Kingdom of Falmuth. But that isn't just Nidol's problem. It is a problem that haunts the entire country.

"And yet...of all the patronizing things they could have done...!" Nidol is so angry; he can't help but verbalize his thoughts. There's too much to consider. He has to think about how he will keep the countship going.

Sealed or not, Storm Dragon Veldora is, nonetheless, a potent threat. He is a special S-ranked monster and thus ignored at one's peril. With the disappearance now a public knowledge, it was perhaps understandable that such "special"—i.e., provisional—monetary support no longer made sense.

But the timing couldn't have been worse.

The monsters are also a threat posed by the forest. But the Storm Dragon is just as much a threat to those monsters. The fact that the dragon has disappeared can only be attributed to monsters' movement. No more dragon meant no more overlord to keep all of them in check.

They needed to strengthen their border forces, if anything, for all the new monster activity; and then they lost their budget for it. That, in brief, is what angers Nidol at the moment. The government might have a point. But to the Count of Migam, that doesn't matter.