Chương 32: Reborn as the Dragon: — Chapter 32 - Adding Some Extra Flavor

Haruta Motono had fully stepped into character. No matter how real the environment felt around him, in his eyes this was a game. And games were meant to be played. A player's mindset was the only one worth having. He scanned his surroundings and spotted large quantities of lumber and stone piled across the grassland, prepared well in advance.

"So these are the materials for building the Starter Village?" He walked over to the nearest pile and reached out, pressing his palm against a stack of lumber. The texture was slightly rough. Familiar, in the way that only certain late-night viewing sessions made it familiar. [Construction Lumber] [Quest Triggered: Build a House. Construct your dwelling based on your imagination by consuming wood and stone materials. Currently available: Wood, 100 units. Stone, 100 units.] [Complete the structure to meet requirements and receive 500 Invasion Points.] The moment the system prompt chimed, the lumber in his vision split into neat planks and the stone broke apart into blocks of varying sizes. Haruta Motono frowned. He could move the blocks with his gaze alone, but only the wood and stone. Other players were completely unaffected.

"Control through thought?"

"I wonder when I'll actually have full command of something this absurd." A quiet flicker of anticipation stirred in his chest. He carefully floated one stone block to the ground, then set a second one on top. The two pieces fused automatically, sealing together as if they'd always been one. He pushed. It didn't budge.

"That's genuinely impressive..." He stood there marveling, then got to work, stacking and placing like a grown man who'd never quite stopped enjoying building blocks. The other Sakura Island players weren't far behind. One by one they discovered the same secrets, and soon the grassland was alive with construction, each player raising their own corner of a new in-game home.... Meanwhile, deep within Silvermoon Forest. Su Nian had already cracked open the golden treasure chest. Technically he wasn't supposed to.

As the monster assigned to guard it, he had no permissions for that. But nothing in the rules said he couldn't turn his claws into lockpicks. The chest swung open. It was empty. He stared at the hollow interior and pieced it together, the chest was just a delivery mechanism. Rewards only materialized when a player did the opening.

"Unbelievable. Crossing into another world and not even getting to be human, that's already insulting enough. Now they've got me guarding treasure chests??"

"Guard this." Su Nian's dragon face darkened. His claws clenched with a dry crack. Then something sparked behind his eyes, a thought. His pupils shifted with a slow, cunning gleam. A grin split across his muzzle, sharp and ugly. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

"Grey Wolf. Pipi Snake. And the rest of you." He pointed at the cluster of monster leaders gathered below the cliff face.

"Your territories have treasure chests too, don't they? Bronze ones, black iron ones. Bring them all here."

"And Bolikri — bring whatever bombs and poison mist traps your kobolds have been cooking up. I have a use for them." He flexed his claws again, the grin stretching wider.

"So they want me to guard treasure chests... hehehe..." Half a stick of incense later, over a dozen chests of every size were stacked before him. A bit of testing confirmed it: time inside the chests was effectively frozen. Living creatures could be stored inside without any problem whatsoever. The collection was a proper assortment, from the lowest wooden chests all the way up to silver ones, with everything in between.

Most of the wooden chests had come from Bugs Bunny, who stood to one side looking faintly embarrassed.

"Don't feel bad about it." Su Nian glanced at the rabbit's status. Strength up by two points. The faintest suggestion of bicep definition beginning to show. He nodded approvingly.

"Keep training with Grey Wolf. Stay consistent. You'll keep getting stronger." Encouragement was essential. A good boss never let his subordinates feel small. With Bugs Bunny suitably motivated, and watching him with damp, grateful eyes, Su Nian got to work. He opened every chest one by one and started loading them.

"Wooden chest is too small... put a few hornets in. That'll do."

"Black iron — venomous snakes. One snake isn't enough, make it two... Pipi Snake, what are you gawking at? Go catch me a few dozen more, the most venomous ones you can find, move it."

"Bronze, perfect size for a triggered poison mist trap... let's add something extra. A splash of my acidic molten flame ought to round it out nicely."

"Silver ones get bombs. All bombs. Pack them full. Bolikri — dig out whatever your kobolds dropped this morning and stuff it in there too. Hurry up." As for the golden chest... Su Nian turned it over in his mind, then set it aside. There was only one, and he wasn't wasting it yet. He'd hold it for later, a proper lure for when the moment called for it.

When everything was done, he gathered his underlings, distributed the chests among them, settled Anna on his back, and led the group through the grassland toward Sakura No. 1 Novice Village. The world's semi-digitization had given him a world map. Most of it was still dark, swathed in shifting black fog, only the territories he'd claimed or explored showed clearly. But the players' Starter Villages were different. Every single one blazed on the map as a bright red dot. He zoomed out and took it all in.

Across the entire southern continent: thousands of red dots, dense as scattered sparks. He couldn't begin to count how many players had descended. But one thing he knew with absolute certainty, every one of those dots represented a catastrophe in progress. For every living thing in this world, the players were a disaster that had already arrived. There was nothing he could do about most of it. He could reach the nearby villages, maybe apply some pressure, shape a few outcomes.

The rest was too far, too many, and the clock never stopped. He'd deal with each step as it came. Sakura No. 1 Novice Village sat on the grassland just beyond Silvermoon Forest. The village's main body was still a considerable distance off, but its designated safe zone had already pushed outward, bleeding toward the forest's edge. He knew this because a massive dome of green light was hanging right there in his field of vision. He'd already run a test, sent one kobold waddling into the barrier to see what happened.

The instant it crossed the green boundary, some invisible force grabbed it and spat it back out. The kobold rejoined the group with a blank, glazed expression. Completely forgotten what had happened. Couldn't even recall walking forward.

"Tch." Su Nian turned the situation over in his mind, irritation sharpening into something colder.

"One-sided doesn't even cover it. Players start weak, sure, but there are thousands of them, and now they get seven full days of untouchable development time." Still. He wasn't without options. He knew players. Players couldn't sit still. They never confined themselves to a single patch of land, running the same loop until they got bored. Exploring, pushing boundaries, chasing whatever was interesting, that was the instinct. That was what they did.

And out here on the open grassland, with nothing but grass stretching in every direction, the most interesting thing on the map was obvious. Silvermoon Forest. The Silvermoon Mountains.

"All of you," he said.

"Take these chests and hide them in the bushes nearby. Do it properly, I don't want it to look staged. Leave one or two sitting out in the open where someone might stumble across them." The monsters didn't fully understand what the black dragon had in mind. But the chests were just sitting there doing nothing anyway, so they got to work.

"Done. Back to training. No slacking." His gifts were ready. Wrapped up with all the warmth and care he could muster, just waiting for curious hands to pull the ribbon. Su Nian cracked his claws, knuckle by knuckle. On his dark, jagged dragon face, a slow and vicious smile crept into place. ➤ Next: Stepping Out of the Comfort Zone