I was in Seclusion for so long that everyone forgot about me [Arc 1] Chapter 31 – A Dragon’s Greed [R-18]

╭══◞ An endless ti ago ◟══╮

The first night in this world was cold. Not the kind of cold that brushed skin, but one that sat heavy in the air and soaked into the earth. The sky above was wide and unmoving, painted in dull, lifeless greys. There was no wind. No stars. No sound. Nothing alive stirred here.

Wherever it wandered, life withered. Grass shriveled underfoot. Roots curled in on themselves. Even the smallest bugs collapsed without a noise. It didn’t matter where it walked—this world refused to welco it. Or perhaps, it simply couldn’t.

Ti passed, but the world remained unchanged. Seasons didn’t shift. Nothing blood. The creature, the exiled, moved endlessly through empty valleys, cracked plains, and forgotten ruins with no na. A hollow began to take shape inside it—not just hunger, but sothing deeper. A gnawing question without an answer. Was this what the others wanted? To cast it away into a place already lost, far from the war, far from the ones who would succeed where it had failed?

Maybe they would win. Maybe humanity would fall even without it. That would have been fine. Let them claim their victory. Let them take the glory. Let them forget what it once was.

It wandered on with thirst clawing at its throat and hunger curling in its gut. Not hunger for food, but for aning—for sothing to hold, to possess, to call its own. Hours turned to days. Days to years. Years stretched into long, cold centuries. Still, nothing changed. Nothing it touched could survive, and yet the world around it slowly did what it could not—it adapted. It evolved.

One day, it saw sothing new. A small animal, not unlike a tiger cub, cautiously padding through brittle underbrush. The mont its eyes t the creature’s, it froze. Then it turned to run but only made it a few steps before its body collapsed, lifeless. When the figure stepped closer, the animal’s body crumbled to ash. Even from a distance, even without aning to, it killed. It wasn’t allowed to see the living up close.

But sothing was left behind.

A faint shimr in the air where the creature had died. Sothing invisible, but present. It stopped and focused. Waited. And slowly, it began to see them—white threadlike strands drifting through the air, like motes of dust suspended in still water, forming a ghostly yarn.

It reached out and touched it.

Instantly, heat tore through its body. Not from outside, but from deep within—inside its very core. It didn’t burn. It awakened. The sensation was so vivid, so overwhelming, it didn’t know what to do with it. But it knew one thing imdiately.

It wanted more.

This wasn’t hunger. This was need sharpened into desire. This was greed.

Only much later would it co to understand what exactly had happened that day—and what it had truly touched.

╭══◞ Now; MC POV ◟══╮

Honestly, there were only a handful of things in this world that could really infuriate . One of them was to falsely claim sothing that was already and will forever be mine. So when I saw that the fingers of that disgusting pig were reaching for her, the words left my lips before I could even think about them.

How presumptuous of those humans to think they were allowed to even look at what was mine—let alone touch it with their bloated, greasy hands.

‘And when they do?’ asked Phim, calm and sad.

They die, of course.

‘Didn’t that pig just try to touch what’s yours?’ Ava purred.

It did.

‘KiLl HiM,’ Ner snapped, voice dripping disdain.

‘dEsTrOy,’ Sekka snarled.

I should…

‘ReLeAsE tHe SeAl,’ Luca commanded, clipped and righteous.

‘rElEaSe?’ Caedia yawned.

‘Releeease,’ they chanted together, overlapping in my skull like cracked bells. The sound resonated deep within my soul, too many voices tearing through the cracks of my control.

Quiet.

This damned chorus of voices—always trying to incite . The remnants of my once-pristine Dyad, now a simple dissonant two-layered choir that scratched against my mind like broken glass. I would not loosen any of those seals more than they’d already begun to slip under that shitty System.

But they were right about the pig.

How he stood there, ogling my Ev—Teade as if she was his. How I despised humans for what they were, trying to take her away from once ag—

No. Stop it. She wasn’t her. No matter how much I would wish for it, she was gone, forever weightless debris of the moon. The day it broke, I broke. She had been part of that shattering, lost in the silence between stars. But this wouldn’t change the fact that this girl right here was MINE.

And this thing, this accumulation of wasted air, still tried to get closer to her. In my presence?

Thoughtless, I emitted a certain amount of my aura into the room. Everybody that was present so shortly after the auction froze in an instant. Sophia looked mildly irritated that the thick black fog-like substance didn't affect her. The gifted bracelet shielded her—didn't want my Divieria being in the sa embarrassing state as the enemies, after all.

Surprisingly, my new little fox knight eluded every effect.

"Huh, that's new," I whispered thoughtfully.

Her fluffy ears twitched as if she understood what I said, but that was impossible. My eyes wandered from her ears down to her slender neck, almost entirely covered with shoulder-length fiery red hair that occasionally bore black strands.

‘All yours,’ breathed Ava, like honey in my soul, lulling into a trance as I kept ogling my Teade with frankly unholy intensity.

I snapped out of it just before I started drooling, feeling a long-lost heat rising up in again as Mahl cackled at my demise—getting horny in a very, very weird situation. I cursed under my breath. Damnit, I had to focus! I still had so pork on my shopping list~.

As I stepped closer, the pig’s knights looked at with fury in their eyes. But those poor fools couldn’t move at all. I just smirked back at them. Maybe I should let them loose, just to see what would happen, just to see their miserable attempt and crush their souls.

I shook my head. Not like this. Not this easily.

"Sophia," I called her over to . "Could you do the pleasure of removing this... thing?" I pointed at the archduke.

She nodded, strode past , and slamd her talons into his gut with a single kick. He flew back into a row of his knights, gushes tearing through the layers of his fat belly. Also, strike. Well—spare. I’ll allow it.

Blood ran from the pig’s mouth, but he made no sound. I sighed. That was the only drawback of my aura—you couldn’t hear them squeak-peep-ek.

“Mistress, this is honestly kinda boring,” Sophia whined.

"Yeah. Should I dispel my aura? Do you think you could win against them?"

She froze for a second. "Oh, umm... don't think so. They look rather high-leveled, with good gear," she answered sincerely.

"Then don't be so cocky," I fake-smiled at her whilst admonishing.

"Y-yes," she replied, looking down at the floor in sha.

‘Unworthy,’ hissed Ner.

I groaned and did my best to ignore the Choir’s grating comntary. Instead, I turned back to Sophia with a gentler tone. “Oh, co on. Don’t be downhearted. Arrogance is the first step to your own demise. You’re still young. You’ll learn.”

It wasn’t wrong, what I told her. Through all my long life, I’d watched fools co at , believing they had a chance. Every one of them ended the sa. A grin crept onto my face as the choir continued their off-key hymn in my mind, each warped note reinforcing the simple truth that no one would ever have a chance against . It wasn’t arrogance if it was the truth. And I reveled in it, like I always should have but never did, and I—

I cursed. Those seals. I had to take ti as soon as possible to fix them.

Luckily, Sophia was seemingly happy with my praise and moved over to the cute Teade, leaning down to examine the collar around her neck.

"Mistress, this slave collar is really weird. It emits so strange soul magic I’ve never seen or read before. But from what I can see… I think it tries to manipulate her mind and make her docile, like a soulless puppet. It reminds of my first attempt to create husks," explained the Vetala.

I turned and glared at the pig, still sprawled on the floor like discarded at. Rage simred inside . How fucking dare he. Doing this—to what is mine?

"Speak, hog!" I commanded with as much spite as I could muster, my aura retracting slightly around him.

He coughed blood. "You bitch! Do you even know who I am?!"

I laughed at his feeble attempt to play on his importance. "I do, but you're still unimportant. So be quiet, you useless piece of shit, and tell what's up with this slave collar," I responded with a blank expression.

"Hahaha, you'll never be able to remove it ,” he spat, grinning through broken teeth. “It’s custom-made. Blessed by the tropolitan. Holy magic. Soul-bound to . Soon she’ll be a devout little follower.”

"Holy magic, you say?" I stepped closer to my new servant and inspected the collar.

I instantly recognized the sa threads I’d seen on the paladins inside the ziggurat. Yes, they were still connected to the System, and even the holy signature reeked of the sa origin. That blasted human goddess again—absolutely disgusting.

Interestingly, I wasn’t sure if I could cut them off like before... not without damaging the seals that were already acting up badly. I sighed internally. That left no choice but to go with the way of the good old torture. I really didn’t like the idea of getting my hands dirty with that swine’s blood.

Well. Whatever.

"Release," I said out loud. I didn’t need to, but so people believed spells had to be spoken aloud to work. Even if that wasn’t true for most—or even the majority. But also—theatrics.

The knights and the archduke stood up sluggishly.

"Oh yeah, Sophia, I forgot to tell you that I drained them a bit. You probably can handle them now. So co on, chop-chop, get so free souls."

The Divieria took her mask off—we’d both put them on again after leaving the loge—and stored it in her ring. Her eyes glead golden-white. In the blink of an eye, she vanished and reappeared in front of a knight, one of the gifted daggers in her hand.

With swift movents, she stabbed it into the eye slit of his helt, the only unprotected part of the heavy armor. The man scread, and blood flowed out through the slits, splashing across the marble floor. Ordinary folks wouldn’t notice it, but a nearly see-through white fla ignited on her free hand. The Soul’s Fla—proof of Vetala nobility.

It absorbed the essence of the slain and converted it into pure energy. Sophia could feast on it to increase her overall power, store it for later, or use it imdiately to enhance spells or physical attacks. A convenient little thing, that fla.

She killed another two of the swine’s n with the sa technique and rushed toward a fourth, but unfortunately, he had recovered just enough to block the strike with his armored forearm. A loud clang echoed. Sophia backflipped, claws flashing as she tried to unbalance him or pierce a weak point. She gained so distance with a smooth, if irritated, leap.

The Divieria huffed. She clearly wasn’t used to fighting opponents stronger than herself. Her stamina still left sothing to be desired. But that was nothing that couldn’t be fixed. She moved back into a fighting stance—determined, graceful.

Before she could act again, the auction hall doors burst open. Curious guests poured out, drawn by the noise. At the sa ti, guards pushed through the crowd, weapons at the ready.

Only now did I notice the butler. He stood just a few feet from my Teade, staring in horror at the unfolding massacre. He gaped at the scene before him, horrified that more people had already died by our hands tonight.

Sophia did well. More and more blood seeped from the corpses, painting the floor in beautiful red pools that shimred under the brilliance of the crystals. In their reflection, the world turned crimson. The iron scent was thick, delicious. It made hungry.

"Halt! Cease your aggression! Under the law of the auction house, you are under arrest for breaking the rules!" shouted a random guard.

"Are we now?" I asked with a grin.

Their response was to draw weapons. How typical.

I shook my head, disappointed. Why did everyone I t act so rudely toward ? Le—

"Stop! Sheathe your swords!" the butler screeched, panicked, cutting into my thoughts.

The guards hesitated, confused, but obeyed. The archduke’s knights, however, drew theirs without hesitation.

"This is high treason! You all will be executed for your—"

"Oh, shut up, you human pig that even an orc would find repulsive," I snapped. “Wait—no, that’s speciesist, I think. A lot of them actually look amazing. You, on the other hand...”

At that very true remark, the pig's face turned an ugly shade of red. Sweat poured down his greasy forehead. I thought I saw steam curling from his ears. Was he cooking himself? The air slled sowhat like stead ham.

"KILL HER!" he scread.

"That's so incredibly boring." I turned to my apprentice. "Sophia, get behind ."

She didn’t even hesitate. "Last chance. Tell how to remove the collar or live with the consequences."

The bastard grinned, still believing he had the upper hand. I saw the butler’s pleading stare from the corner of my eye and ignored it. My patience had expired.

The knights charged, stepping through the blood puddle without a second thought. Their heavy boots squished wetly against the slick floor. Ripples spread across the surface like a warning.

‘They’ll die,’ sang Sekka.

‘Fools,’ lanted Phim.

‘Idiots,’ murmured Magkiel.

And Azakiel laughed, ‘Stupid hairless apes.’

The Dyad spoke in their usual dissonance. I could only agree. What else had I expected? Humans—so loud, so small. Their potential matched only by their stupidity.

‘Now.’

‘NOw.’

‘nOw.’

...

...

With a nonchalant sigh, I waved my hand.

A low hum echoed. The blood began to stir.

A heartbeat later, red spikes tore out of the floor.

They erupted upwards with a sound like tearing at—barbed, spiraling, hungry. The knights were impaled instantly. Guts, armor, tal, blood—all shredded in an explosion of at and steel. What remained on the blood stakes barely resembled human corpses. So were cleaved in half. So lanced rectum to mouth. Others were pulverized outright.

A single eyeball popped free, landing at my feet with its optic nerve trailing like a worm. A chunk of brain still wearing a fragnt of helt slid down one of the stakes. Their heavy armor had offered no protection at all against my hemomancy, it was no better than parchnt.

It happened so fast that no one had ti to scream.

Then a lady noticed cerebral fluid on her cheek, and the crowd erupted.

So guests shrieked. Others tried to run. A few adventurers reached for weapons.

"Silence," I ordered.

This ti I let my aura fill the room completely. Bodies froze. Eyes widened. Mouths hung open, locked mid-scream. Their fear—crystallized—was balm to my soul.

But it wasn’t enough.

The price they’d paid so far didn’t match their offense. A human thought he could claim sothing of mine. That kind of arrogance... No, I wanted more. I needed more. Blood. Screams. The look in their eyes when they realized the divine had long since stopped listening.

I waved my hand again. The blood spikes withdrew, liquefying mid-air. Flesh and armor fragnts dropped with wet splashes. A haze of blood mist clung to the room, perfuming the air with its sweet, intoxicating rot.

I glanced at Sophia.

She smiled. Her pupils were dilated, wild. Drunk on scent and slaughter. Just like . The taste of violence clung to her like perfu. Yes, this was the warmonger race I rembered her kind to be.

I had spared the archduke from the full effect of my aura. I wanted him awake. I wanted to see him squirm. To feel the pressure as I peeled the truth out of him—how to break the collar on my Teade.

But when I looked into the pig’s eyes, there wasn’t a hint of the terror I’d hoped for. Only scorn. The quiet, festering belief that he still held the upper hand.

And sothing in recoiled.

That kind of pride—disgusting. A human shouldn’t even dare to show it in front of .

I walked up to him.

He spat blood and laughed. “You monster. You really think I’d help you take that collar off? Fuck no. That bitch is going to suffer. That collar’ll make sure she only loves , even after I’m dead. She’ll crave my dick, beg for it. She’ll dream of inside her every night. She’ll never belong to a lowborn thing like you. Never!”

I snapped.

In the space between two breaths, I stood before him.

How dare this ape—this bloated pig of a man—dare to speak of her like that. DARE to lay claim to what was MINE. What absurdity!

SHE WAS MINE. SOLELY MINE. SHOULD SHE NOT BELONG TO , THE WORLD MAY BURN. LET IT BURN, LET IT BLEED, AS SHE HAD BLED FOR THEM, FOR PEACE—AND THEY STILL MADE HER SUFFER.

NO. NOT AGAIN. THIS TI, SHE WAS MINE. MINE ALONE.

A crack ran through my soul.

‘It’s crumbling,’ whispered Phim.

‘CrUmBlInG,’ Sekka hissed.

‘The seal...’

‘The SEAL?’

‘Wrath?’

‘Wrath!’

‘No—no, not Wrath.’

‘...’

‘GrEEd?’ Ava gasped.

‘Greed.’

‘GrEeeeeEd!’ Caedia sang.

‘Yes... yes... yessss,’ they all hissed, overlapping in ecstatic reverence.

The choir scread inside my head, their voices lting, folding, splitting. Too many. Too loud. Behind my eyes, the world blurred. My tongue tasted of light and honey. I felt the weight shift inside . A seal gone. Restraints undone.

Yet I had asked for more.

And Greed was listening.

╭══◞ Asche POV ◟══╮

The voices that sifted through the closed link screeched words in the most horrible tones I’d ever heard. Each syllable twisted, broken, too many mouths speaking from nowhere. I could feel it—the change. The horror that was about to be unleashed.

Just what the fuck was happening?!

Fucking answer , you damned System. Is this your doing? What did you do? This wasn’t what we agreed on.

I…