Dragons existed in this world. They were largely split into two camps: dragons and the ouroboros. Split further, there were four categories, including the previous ones: wyverns, dragons, dinosaurs, and the ouroboros.
In order of strength, the weakest would be wyverns. In strict terms, they weren't actually even dragons. They were simply lizards and snakes that'd mutated to be more dragon-like. It was a really misleading name.
Earth also had dragon-like lizards, like the komodo dragon and armored lizard. Basically, anything that had been mutated by mana to look like a dragon, such as those lizards, was deemed a wyvern. The wyverns that Vernal had kept with her also fell into this category, of course. (By the way, before they mutated, they had been draco lizards).
Also, snakes that had mutated the same way were called Wyrms. It's truly confusing.
As for why something like that existed, the story started with the original console RPG, where a weak, dragon-like monster would appear. After that, whenever dragons appeared in the story, the players would go, "Didn't dragons show up in the first game, too?"
This caused the admin side to panic. They'd totally forgotten that a weakling dragon appeared in the first work. At the end of all that worrying, one of the producers made an excuse that it wasn't a dragon but a fake dragon that'd mutated from a snake.
And thus the confusing dragon lineage was born. That was how all this came to be.
Of course, wyverns and wyrms were just reptiles that had been mutated when they turned into monsters. They were in no way dragons. So they weren't very strong. They just looked that way. Well, even if they were fake, they still looked cool, so they were pretty popular with Tamers.
Next would be dinosaurs. Dinosaurs had been around on Midgar since the beginning and, for some reason, had yet to die out. They were literally dinosaurs. That also meant they were animals and not monsters. But they were still very strong, able to easily predate on the weaker monsters, grimmfolk, and adventurers. At the very least, they were far and away scarier and stronger than wyverns and wyrms.
Recent studies on Earth revealed that dinosaurs used to be feathered, so these were probably quite a ways removed from Earth's dinosaurs. I mean, these dinosaurs are totally what you'd see in a dinosaur encyclopedia from the 20th century.
The next strongest were dragons. Whenever someone in this world referenced dragons, this was usually what they meant. Of course, these were also monsters that had been mutated with mana, but they were on a whole other level of dangerousness. It might surprise you, but dragons were dinosaurs that had been mutated and turned into monsters by mana.
Dragons were dinosaurs, which were already strong, made stronger by mana. So of course they were just ridiculously strong at that point. There was a movie about a dinosaur being exposed to radiation and mutating. This was basically that movie in real life. Dragons were huge, tough, and breathed fire, so mid-level players needed to team up to even barely manage to beat one. The ones that mutated from large carnivore-type dinosaurs were especially bad. Even the Seven Grimms of Destruction wouldn't stand a chance. Ten Vernals might lose against one of them.
But there existed a type of monster that made those dragons look like small-fry in comparison. And one of those was right in front of me—an ouroboros.
[ Ouroboros of Heaven - Quetzalcoatl ]
[Level]: 1000
[Race]: Ouroboros
[Attribute]: Sun
[HP]: 100000000
[SP]: ∞
[STR (Strength)]: ?
[DEX (Dexterity)]: ?
[VIT (Vitality)]: ?
[INT (Intelligence)]: ?
[AGI (Agility)]: ?
[MND (Mind)]: ?
[LUK (Luck)]: ?
Using the skill Observing Eye, I tried to check its stats, but honestly, I wished I hadn't.
Its HP was higher than anything I'd ever seen before, and its SP was literally infinite. In other words, this was one of those tropes that happened in games where only the enemy got to infinitely use skills. This was probably because they were the guardians of this world. Like, the reason was that they could use as much of the world's power as they wanted or something.
"The Five Dragons… So they actually exist."
I knew of them. They only existed in lore, and I had read about them. But actually seeing one in front of me… This is really bad. This was a monster that must never be allowed to awaken. It was on a whole other level.
I'll say this clearly. Even if its stats are similar to Naru's, I don't think I can win.
I might be able to put up a good fight, but I'd lose just because of the stark difference in HP. Even supposing every hit I dealt caused the maximum amount of damage allowed by the system, I'd still have to land 1000 hits. Maybe it'd work if I teamed up with all the Seven Maidens of Midgar in their prime…?
Even though it was only sleeping, I could feel just how bad fighting it would be. I felt tingling and goosebumps on my skin just from watching it sleep.
"Normally, they'd sleep like this forever. But they will awaken if they sense that the world is truly threatened and carry out their duty as guardians."
"So the reason We sealed this place off was to seal this one?"
"In actuality, my barrier doesn't have the power to contain it. However, by maintaining the surroundings as they are, I can prevent it from sensing anything that goes on outside and make it believe that everything is still peaceful, thus preventing it from awakening.
The reason why I drove out the members of Vanaheim was to prevent them from getting mixed up on the off chance it does awaken."
"…Fiona and the others did quite a number on the town earlier…"
"I panicked when that happened. It's all right, since this one didn't wake up, but if it had, then my one thousand years of effort would have gone up in smoke."
"S-sorry." I wiped off some cold sweat with the back of my hand and thanked my lucky stars.
I never expected there to be a monster like this here. If that earlier commotion had woken it up, it would have been game over for all of us. No, wait. Maybe we could have managed to escape?
"Do Hinata and the others know of this thing?"
"Only a rare few among the flugels should know about this, and Hinata should be one of them. They called this one their holy guardian deity and worshiped it."
"Guardian deity…? Right, so Levia in Svel is an imitation of this?"
"Yes. Juvia used the ouroboros as a model and made an imitation god. That's Levia in a nutshell."
A guardian deity… I see.
It was true that Levia had an appearance fitting of being called a guardian deity. But if you took that form too far, then it'd become a god of destruction that broke things just by moving. At the very least, I wouldn't be able to bring myself to worship these ouroboroses as guardian deities after hearing that there were four more of these around somewhere. I mean, wouldn't anyone feel the same?
If the Goddess ever woke all five of them up on a whim and had them take a walk, the world would be destroyed. These ouroboroses could kill people and destroy the surroundings just by moving. This thing was way too huge to be calling itself something like that. There was no way something like this could be called a guardian deity. They were gods of destruction.
"Once upon a time, you plotted to dismantle the Goddess's Script. But no matter how strong you were, you had no chance of victory if you had to face the Goddess and all five of her ouroboroses at once. So you took the initiative and sealed all five of the ouroboroses across the world. Once you'd taken care of the Grimm King, you planned on gathering all the fighting power in Midgar and waging a war of independence against the Goddess."
"…You said that these things will awaken if they sense that the world is in danger, yes? What would be the standard for judging that? Why doesn't this current state of affairs, where the grimmfolk endanger the continued survival of humanity, count?"
"I don't know the answer to that. But the Goddess is probably the one who set the standard. If they haven't woken up because of the grimmfolk, then that would be because the Goddess doesn't think of them as a threat…"
"Or she actually approves of them and their actions?"
"Exactly."
Approval, huh? Well, that would still be on the better side of things.
The worst case would be that she commanded them herself. If the Goddess herself had command over the grimmfolk, that would be awful. And everything that I knew right now pointed that out as a very real possibility.
Still though, I don't know if I should call past Naru reckless or what… She was reaching way too far. And in the end, she was done in by the Seven Maidens of Midgar. She didn't even make it to the Goddess, her ouroboroses, or even the Grimm King.
Like, what the hell?
"So the others are sealed, too?"
"Indeed. Under your orders, the Ouroboros of Earth is being taken care of by Gyuki of Taurus Constellation, The Ouroboros of Fire is being sealed by Ul of the Aquarius constellation. I took on the Ouroboros of Heaven. And the Ouroboros of Wood is being sealed by one of the Gemini's twins. She's chased off—or rather, evacuated—the locals."
"What about the Ouroboros of the Moon?"
"We still don't know where that one is. It should be somewhere within this world, though."
The Ouroboros of the Moon, huh?
It couldn't actually be on the moon, like its name suggests, could it? I considered it for a moment before dismissing the idea. There was no way.
If the Sun element ouroboros was actually on Midgar instead of on the sun, then the Moon element ouroboros should have been here somewhere, too. So that meant it was in a position to move at any time the Goddess wanted it to.
No, wait. Maybe it's already moving, but no one's noticed?
"Thank you for telling us. Let's return, Kushina."
"As you wish!"
Seriously though, just what was past Naru thinking, picking a fight with the Goddess? I keep learning new stuff one thing after the other. It's getting hard to make sense of anything.
But there is one thing I know.
There's "the Goddess's Script," "my rebellion," and "a trick played by the Goddess." I might be stupid, but even I can figure this out. And by 'this' I mean the question of why I'm here.
Lunaru Fenris was probably a big thorn in the Goddess's side. In fact, she might have been a straight-up pain in the ass. And of course she was. Someone who was rebelling against you in a world you created would be nothing less.
So the Goddess did something when Naru revived and sealed her memories. And that something was me.
Goddammit… Agghh, fuck. This is seriously messed up.
I'm seriously just an extra burden here. I'm just a lid to suppress the real Naru and stop her from completing her objective. That was the 'new role' the Goddess was talking about! She used an outsider like me to cover and seal away the real Naru, causing her to forget what she'd been after in the first place.
But I don't get it… Why me? If Naru really did need to be dealt with like this, then there should have been someone better, someone who'd much more willingly follow the Goddess.
Anyway, I now had more things to do on this journey. I needed to figure out a way to see the Goddess and ask why she'd involved me.
…No, that's wrong. The things I had to do didn't increase. I'd just found one.
Up until now, I'd just been going along with the flow of things. I didn't really have an actual goal. I didn't really feel grounded in this world. That was probably the doing of the Goddess as well. She was the one who'd picked an irresponsible person that just went with the flow. Someone who was optimistic and didn't think too deeply and allowed themselves to be swept along without a worry… There was no doubt she'd chosen someone like that on purpose.
In other words, someone like me.
I wanted to go on a journey because I was so excited that I'd been summoned to another world. I wanted to gather the Twelve Zodiac's Guardians because they were doing stupid things. And since I couldn't find the motivation to act without some sort of goal, I just found whatever seemed appropriate and went with that.
But this time it's different.
I want to know. I want to know why the Goddess put me here. And why was it me?
There was no way I could ignore this burning question. More than anything, it made me sick to think that I was being used, made to dance to someone else's tune. The reason the Goddess put me in Naru was because Naru was a thorn in her side. So she used me to hide her real personality away.
Then… Right. If that's something the Goddess doesn't want, then let's do that. I'll find out what Naru's original goal was, and do everything she wanted to do.
There was no way the Goddess could just stay silent if I did that. She'd definitely try to pull something down the line, and I'd be able to come in contact with her.
So from now on, I'll seriously try and become Naru. I'll retrace her steps and chase her goals.
This isn't out of some sense of justice, bravery, or concern over this world's future.
This is personal.
I'll be making a counterattack against the Goddess that got me involved.