Grand Foreigner (Chapters 1- 200)

Chapter 16

Dragons are bad news.

In different universes, games and books, multiple interpretations of different types of dragons existed - evil, kind, reasonable, bestial, living and extinct - but in all interpretations dragons always have outstanding power, beyond the lower races. Of course, various single exceptions, like "lower dragons" and "dragonian familiars," existed, but as a general axiom, dragons always remained a peculiar mark of the strength and power of heroes and monsters.

In Yggdrasil, it was the same - if not even more true. Although the game had hundreds of different races that had their own positive and negative sides, they were in an elegant and perverse balance between themselves - but only one race had positive sides that outweighed all the negative ones. Dragons

Nine of the strongest NPCs in the game, World Enemies, were dragons, nine more were dragon-like and almost all of the remaining ones had a certain number of dragon motifs in their abilities or designs, not to mention just strong NPCs and bosses, many of whom were dragons. In other words - the creators of Yggdrasil were very open in their preferences of dragons as the most powerful of the game's creatures - which taught players like Ainz one simple immutable truth.

Dragons are bad news.

If the dungeon's boss turns out to be a dragon, then one could expect a protracted battle with a powerful opponent with a dozen powerful special abilities. If the quest required a powerful artifact - it was probably guarded by a dragon. If the craft of a new recipe required rare materials - at least half of them will be referred to as "dragon steel" or "dragon diamond".

In other words - if a player of Yggdrasil heard about a dragon - he began to prepare for the worst.

Therefore, the first thought Ainz had, when he heard from Archer about the approach of a certain dragon, was the idea of throwing off his disguise, calling upon all his Servants and beginning a slow retreat, leaving the fortress to be torn apart by the enemy from where it would begin.

'Besides, a certain Servant in the donjon...' - Ainz frowned at this. Did the Master plan to catch Ainz in a pincer attack between the approaching dragon and the Servant - after which he destroy him? If he planned to do this, it meant that the unknown Master had the ability to control dragons — a particularly dangerous and powerful ability that less than a few hundred people in Yggdrasil had — "Is it worth it in this case to destroy the Servant and escape? Or will it be easier in this case to destroy all the people in the fortress, hoping that Master of the Servant will be among them?"

The thought about this flashed through Ainz's head - however, it was instantly crushed by cold logic.

'If the information that I destroyed the fortress spreads, then the likelihood of peacefully getting information will catastrophically fall...' - Ainz bit his lip. His suppression of emotions could destroy all the pros and cons of mood, panic or fear, but restless analysis of options that came from inside Ainz was not an emotion in the true sense of the word - because of that, it left Ainz building new theories over and over again, rejecting the old ones as they would finally take shape in his head.

Is it possible that the approaching dragon was created by the Dragon Witch? Very likely - however, this did not exclude the possibility that the Servant planned to attack Ainz at the moment when he was distracted by the battle with the dragon. Could the Servant himself be the Dragon Witch?

'My husband...' - the voice of Serenity in Ainz's head made him strain, expecting a new surprise, 'I found the Servant, however... I believe that you should look at her.'

At this Ainz frowned again. If Serenity found the Servant and wanted to show it to Ainz, did that mean that she considered the Servant incapable of harming Ainz? And what did he need to do now, when a dragon was approaching the fortress?