Trash of the Count’s Family - Chapter 122

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 27. I’ll Do It!

Yet unlike Kale’s tense mind, Raon remained composed.

“I’m a Dragon, that’s right!”

At Raon’s response, the golden-haired Elf’s expression grew even more peculiar. Despite clearly denying the Dragon’s identity and essentially suggesting they fight among dragons, the answer came with such cheerful innocence.

“…Yes, you are a Dragon.”

A weary reply escaped the golden-haired Elf’s lips. Raon nodded in agreement.

“Exactly. And you’re a Dragon too. So let’s be friendly! Don’t you know how to greet?”
“…I know how to greet, yes?”

Among Dragons, exchanging sharp jabs while facing each other was one thing, but a greeting? The golden-haired Elf felt slightly drained—experiencing something unprecedented even after becoming an Ancient Dragon.
The beautiful golden-haired Elf, the androgynous-featured Elf, watched as Raon extended a foreleg. The Elf opened their mouth upon seeing it.

“Are you asking for a handshake right now?”
“Yes!”
“Hah, good grief. In nearly a thousand years of living, this is my first time seeing something like this.”

Good grief. Goodness. Sigh.
The Gold Dragon exhaled continuously in exasperation, staring at Raon’s extended foreleg with an uncomfortable expression. After observing it for several seconds, the Gold Dragon did not grasp the foreleg and instead asked seriously.

“Are you… intellectually challenged?”

Raon’s fluttering wings faltered momentarily.
Poke. Poke! Kale jabbed Choi Han’s back forcefully. There was no telling when they might break into combat.

Sling.
With a faint sound, Choi Han’s sword slightly emerged from its scabbard.

In that instant, the golden-haired Elf’s gaze turned toward Choi Han.
I thought as much.

But it wasn’t.

‘Why is it looking at me?’

The Dragon’s gaze passed over Choi Han’s shoulder, landing on Kale, who had poked his head out just slightly.
Their eyes met. The golden-haired Elf’s lips curved into a smile. The Dragon felt an aura it hadn’t sensed in ages—one from a profession that no longer existed.

The sole rival of the great Dragons.
An aura that only emanated from the heir of the sole family that carried on that profession.

‘Now, there should be no one who knows this aura, this power.’

A long nostalgia swept across the Dragon’s face, and soon after, a strange light danced in the golden-haired Elf’s eyes.

‘Hmm!’

As the reptilian pupils took on a golden hue, Kale felt as though a massive tidal wave was crashing down upon him.

‘Is this Dragon Fear?’

Dragon Fear—that aura said to instill terror in all living creatures. The word surfaced in his mind. Yet this felt different. No fear washed over him.

But the moment that word crossed his thoughts, his body responded.

Thump.
Kale felt his heart pound fiercely.
A dominating aura.
The power he had discovered atop the skeletal Dragon in the Black Swamp stirred with his heart’s vigor, and momentum erupted from Kale’s body.

“Huh?”

And Kale was bewildered. Though a massive wave seemed about to crash down, warm air enveloped his body instead.
His trembling frame, shaking from the bitter cold, and his sniffling nose both ceased at once.

‘…So it wasn’t Dragon Fear, but a warming spell?’

What was that power from before?
The Dragon had done something kind.
Kale remained vigilant despite the bewildering situation, and his aura only grew stronger.

“Ah!”

Choi Han withdrew his hand from the sword hilt with an exclamation of admiration, turning to observe Kale standing upright as he met the Dragon’s gaze.
Like someone standing peacefully upon an open plain, untouched by fear, Kale faced the Dragon with remarkable composure.

‘Indeed. This is the Kale I know.’

He feigned timidity daily, yet always confronted any challenge with unwavering confidence.
Choi Han marveled once more at Kale’s presence. True strength of spirit, he realized, did not spring from martial prowess alone.

Then a black, rounded form obscured Kale’s vision. It was Raon.

“You golden dragon!”

Kale wondered for a moment if he had misheard. What dragon? A golden one?

“We fragile humans cannot be glared at so intensely! Do you know how small our courage is?”

Raon’s words resonated through Kale’s mind.

-Human, though you appear as strong as my front paws at this moment, do not be startled that I protect you. There is no need to be tense.

And then he continued.

-That golden dragon was glaring at you so fiercely just now that I considered fighting him, but since he cast that warmth spell, it seems he has some manners after all.

The Gold Dragon, unaware of this exchange, stared at Raon with an expression of utter exasperation.

“That one is weak, true. But more troubling—did you just say ‘we’ to refer to the human? Are you truly that dim?”

Kale watched as Raon stopped fluttering momentarily and fixed his gaze upon the Gold Dragon. Raon had now been called dim twice.
A fight seemed imminent. Despite the warmth spell, an icy chill ran through him.

In that instant, Raon spoke with a derisive chuckle.

“My intelligence quotient is not low—my social aptitude is simply high. Unlike you, this golden dragon who cannot even manage a proper handshake.”

A golden dragon, indeed. Yes, he was certainly golden in color.
As expected. Raon was not one to lose a battle of words.

Kale felt an inexplicable warmth bloom within him. It was gratifying to see how well Raon had grown.

Amidst the chaos, Fendrick’s voice reached Kale’s ears.

“Good heavens, the Dragons are conversing peacefully without fighting! This must be recorded with image magic. To think that I, a cursed Elf unable to perceive spirits, would be granted such fortune. The gracious sight of two Dragons, the stars of the natural world….”

Fendrick, an Elf and healer, remained on his knees with both hands clasped together. As Kale listened to the Elf’s murmuring against the white snow, his pale but elegant face confirming his suspicions, he became certain.

This one isn’t normal either.

When I look around carefully, every living creature in my vicinity has something peculiar about them. Kale thought to himself that being a normal, peace-loving person made his environment truly difficult to endure.

Kale quietly took a step back from Fendrick.
Thanks to that, the Gold Dragon that Raon had been blocking came into view—a blonde Elf with an expression of utter disbelief. Raon spoke to that expression with supreme confidence.

“Were you amazed by my greatness! Golden Dragon!”

A deflating laugh escaped the blonde Elf’s lips. The Dragon nodded with a composed expression.

“Yes, you certainly amazed me greatly, *cough*!”

…What?
Kale was bewildered.
The blonde Elf suddenly covered their mouth and began coughing violently. Liquid trickled down between the hand covering their mouth.
Raon’s alarmed voice rang out.

“What, what is it! Why are you like this! Golden Dragon, blood! Don’t cough up blood!”

The Dragon was coughing up blood.
Drip. Drop. Droplets of blood trickling down the blonde Elf’s hand stained the white snow crimson.
Kale was alarmed at the sight of that red blood.

That’s not just a matter of depleted strength—this is serious, isn’t it?

“*Cough*, *hack*, *cough*!”

The blonde Elf bent forward at the waist. Coughing so violently that they simultaneously spat blood, while Raon flew over to support the Elf’s body.

“Ha, haha.”
“Golden Dragon, don’t laugh!”

The blonde Elf looked at Raon with a deflated smile. The Gold Dragon continued speaking even as he coughed.

“A dragon worrying about another dragon. Cough.”
“Don’t say it! You golden brat!”

The blonde Elf’s eyes—golden irises suddenly gleamed with light. Even from a distance, that golden radiance instantly captured Kale’s gaze. At that moment, Fendrick rushed toward the Gold Dragon.

“Erhafen!”

Simultaneously, the Gold Dragon, Erhafen, formally introduced himself.

“Brat, my name isn’t golden dragon. It’s Erhafen.”
“Is that so? Pleased to meet you. And I’m not a brat.”

Raon, insisting in a sullen voice that he wasn’t a brat, continued supporting Erhafen’s body. Erhafen regarded the sight with an enigmatic gaze.
Kale observed the two dragons and sensed they wouldn’t come to blows. So he patted Choi Han’s back.

“Let’s go.”

Of course, Kale naturally took the lead with Choi Han.
Kale arrived before the cave rising at the summit of Yelia Mountain. The cave entrance was impressively tall, and at its far end, he could see stairs descending downward.

“Erhafen, are you alright?”

Fendrick supported the Gold Dragon Erhafen with hands infused with healing power. Erhafen nodded and wiped the blood from his lips with a handkerchief he’d retrieved from his subspace.

“Yes, the coughing has stopped. Fendrick, it’s been so long since I saw you as a child.”
“Yes. It’s an honor to see you again.”

Kale sensed that Erhafen’s demeanor toward the Elf Fendrick was remarkably affectionate. Curious about this tenderness, he quietly observed the Gold Dragon and the Elf.
Then Erhafen’s gaze turned toward Kale’s group.

Rak, Rosalind, Ron, Vicross, On, Hong, and Choi Han. His indifferent eyes swept across them all, then finally fixed upon Kale once more.
And didn’t move.

‘Why is he doing that?’

Kale was bewildered, unable to fathom why the dragon was staring. He truly hadn’t done anything this time.
Then it happened.

“Stop looking!”

The Black Dragon swooped down and positioned himself in front of me, blocking my view.

“Didn’t you say our weak humans have faint hearts and can’t handle such an intense gaze? Don’t stare so fiercely!”

…It’s true my heart is faint, but not so faint that I’d lose consciousness just from looking. Still, I wanted to object to Raon’s words, but I had no desire to face Erhafen directly, so I remained silent.
Because of this, I couldn’t see Erhafen’s face—only hear the words he spoke.
So he could only hear what Erhafen said without being able to see his face.

“…A faint heart, you say?”

His voice carried a peculiar note of amusement.

“How amusing.”

Unease began to creep up the back of my neck. What was so amusing? Would he not tell me?
The sound of steel—Choi Han drew his sword slightly. I could see Rosalind beside me, her hands already loosened and ready to cast magic at any moment.

A strange tension hung in the air.
But that tension soon dissipated.

The golden-haired Elf, Erhafen, straightened his posture and spoke to our group.

“Follow me.”

Erhafen stepped into the Rare first and added a remark.

“It seems this too is fate.”

I had been invited into Erhafen’s Rare—the Gold Dragon’s lair. I let Raon, who was eager to enter, and Choi Han, whose expression had grown serious, go ahead before stepping inside myself.

* * *

“They’re targeting the World Tree.”
“Yes. From what I heard from Kale, they operate as a single organization, and I suspect they wouldn’t move without backing from another kingdom or an organization of comparable scale.”

In a reception room within the Gold Dragon Erhafen’s lair, Fendrick and Erhafen exchanged words with grave expressions.
But I couldn’t hear their conversation at all.

Currently, everyone in the party was seated around a long oval table. Of course, the Gold Dragon sat in a chair elevated a full tier above the rest.
Yet this arrangement hardly concerned Kale. His attention had been drawn elsewhere entirely.

‘A Gold Dragon, they said.’

Kale’s gaze swept across the chair beneath him and the table before him. The chair was solid gold save for its cushion, while the table gleamed with gold and was adorned with brilliant gems.
The reception hall’s ceiling was decorated with an ornate chandelier. I had assumed Rare was merely a cave and would have a simple stone ceiling.

‘This dragon is quite wealthy.’

My expression grew peculiar. Just then, Erhafen’s voice reached my ears.

“You don’t know who the real head of that Secret Organization is?”

Head—what a word choice. The dragon’s vocabulary was extraordinary. Truly, it was very dragon-like.
I could see Fendrick nodding seriously.

“Yes. I still do not know.”

Tap. Tap. Erhafen drummed his fingers against the table.

“…That’s strange.”

At the puzzled tone, my gaze shifted toward Erhafen without my realizing it. The Gold Dragon voiced his doubts plainly.

“An organization of that caliber couldn’t have emerged in such a short time. If they’ve dominated the Eastern Continent’s underworld, they must have spent at least several decades preparing. It doesn’t sit right with me.”
“Might I ask what your thoughts are on this matter, Erhafen?”

At Fendrick’s request for counsel, Erhafen crossed his arms and spoke.

“I haven’t moved from Rare in nearly a century, so I’m not intimately familiar with continental affairs. But for an organization to cause incidents across both the Eastern and Western Continents, it’s impossible for them to rely solely on human strength.”
“Then surely you don’t mean… something other than humans?”

Fendrick spoke cautiously, but Erhafen didn’t answer, instead stroking his chin as if lost in thought.
Fendrick recalled the events that had unfolded thus far. They were all terribly cruel and had thrown the world into chaos.
Chaos in the world. A certain race came to mind unbidden.

“Erhafen, surely… you don’t mean demons?”

Demons?
The expressions of Choi Han, Rosalind, and the others darkened in an instant, overwhelmed by the weight of that single word. They stared at Kale with bewildered faces, grappling with this new hypothesis.

Then they relaxed.
Kale was looking at Fendrick with an expression that screamed “what kind of nonsense is this?” Reassured by that look, Choi Han soon realized that Erhafen wore a similar expression as he gazed at Fendrick.

“…Fendrick, your imagination has always been quite remarkable, hasn’t it?”
“Then it’s not true?”
“Of course not. If demons were to move, the divine realm would send us a revelation.”
“Then?”

Erhafen answered matter-of-factly.

“Either a single nation actively supported that organization for decades, or unknown powerful beings from the natural world sponsored them. Or perhaps both.”

Hmm. Erhafen let out the words with a face full of curiosity.

“I’m curious.”

At that very moment, my gaze and Erhafen’s collided.

‘Why is he looking at me and saying he’s curious?’

I suppressed the ominous feeling and quickly moved my hand. Raon’s voice reached me.

“Good, human!”

I diligently stroked Raon’s round head as he lay sprawled across the plush sofa beside me. Raon, On, and Hong were lounging on an exceptionally luxurious and soft sofa.

‘If I do this, he won’t ask me to do anything, right?’

I continued stroking with the most natural motion I could muster, desperately trying to convey to Erhafen that I had Raon by my side.
There was no other choice.

Usually, in novels, didn’t dragons in situations like this avoid moving themselves and instead command the humans who discovered Rare to act?
They would say things like “go find out their identity.”

I stroked Raon as earnestly as possible to avoid that fate. Then Raon’s voice echoed in my mind.

-Human, will my villa be like that later too?

Oh no. A different problem had emerged.
The young dragon had actually seen Rare. I glanced at Raon, and whatever he saw in my eyes made him exhale a long sigh before flapping his wings.

-It’s fine, human. Don’t worry about money. I’ll earn it and build one for you. Just wait.

I looked at Raon with pitiful eyes.
This creature who received a mere ten silver as pocket money was talking about earning money. I let his words go in one ear and out the other.
And that wasn’t the issue right now. I glanced at Erhafen and felt slightly flustered.
Erhafen was still staring directly at me.

Was he really going to ask me to do it?

I watched apprehensively as Erhafen’s mouth began to open.
Finally, he spoke.

“Well, it’s not my concern anyway.”

Hm?

“I’m old and my strength is waning, so I can’t be bothered to get involved. Whether you all fight or make peace is none of my business.”

Oh.
I liked this dragon.
For the first time, Erhafen seemed somewhat decent to me. Perhaps because he was an ancient dragon, his personality was quite reasonable.
Erhafen continued, looking toward Fendrick.

“However, I should reinforce the World Tree’s defensive magic circle a bit more.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll also create a defensive magic device for your Elf Village to install, so take it with you.”
“Thank you so much, Erhafen.”

Fendrick offered his gratitude with a deeply moved expression, and Erhafen accepted it as if it were only natural before turning his gaze elsewhere.

Yes, back to me.

‘Why does he keep staring at me?’

Now even Kale, let alone Raon, harbored doubts.

“Erhafen, I told you our fragile human companion is weak too!”
“Kid, you should call me Erhafen. I’ve lived hundreds of times longer than you.”

Raon’s brow furrowed at the word “kid.” Kale grew increasingly uneasy watching Raon’s gaze fix on Erhafen—it looked dangerously close to the moment before he’d cause trouble.
But the Gold Dragon’s next words made such anxiety irrelevant.

“Quite the peculiar one. Or perhaps remarkable?”

Peculiar? Remarkable?
Kale regarded Erhafen with confusion. The Gold Dragon continued matter-of-factly.

“You’ve harbored ancient power like that—how are you still alive and not dead?”

…What?

“Normally you’d burst and perish.”

…What?
A bombshell statement that obliterated any lingering unease struck Kale like a thunderbolt. Raon’s urgent voice rang out.

“What did you say! Gold Dragon, what did you just say!”

Raon was shocked.
Kale was shocked.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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