Noella was curious over what method the primordial demigod dragon before her would use to make her submit? Might it be a treaty of alliance or a contract where she was slightly disadvantaged?
As a dragon who had ravaged the continent a thousand years ago, she was different from other stupid dragons. She was smart enough to understand the situation clearly. Her living self was more valuable than her dead self. As long as she did not behave in a way that would force his hand, the demigod dragon in front of her would definitely not kill her.
Just as Noella expected, Louie didn’t want to let a legendary dragon that once ravaged the continent die. Her power, knowledge, and secrets, as well as her treasures, were all valuable to him.
Moreover, if this dragon was able to take back her body in the future, she would at least be able to become a demigod. Having a demigod obey his orders was a very alluring temptation. Although taking her body back might not be a simple thing, Louie felt that this was an interesting challenge.
“Snap–”
A snapping sound echoed in the quiet mountain belly, drawing Noella’s, Sisna’s, and Lysfer’s attention.
It was a scroll made from the skin of a devil from Hell, ‘the pact devil’. This kind of devil had the characteristic of ‘binding contracts’ when it was alive. Its outermost skin was imprinted with the terms of numerous pacts.
The devils would deceive mortals to sign contracts with them. After the death of their victims, their souls would be taken to Hell to suffer eternal pain.
After seeing this scroll, Noella’s heart was aghast. Compared to those crazy demons, devils were more dangerous, cunning, and evil. Their presence was enough to make people feel unease and fear.
The Queen of Calamity carefully opened the scroll as it was small compared to her size. She read the contents and was stunned, ‘Contract of God’s Favored’.
This was the first time she had seen such a contract.
Noella had heard about God’s Favored before. The heads of the Theocracy were all favored by the Gods they believed in. These favored ones were bestowed with a portion of God’s power. Even if they did not have any high-ranking profession, they would obtain a portion of the characteristics of that God. Although the favored ones might be mortals, they were equivalent to spokespersons of the Gods.
And there was no such contract between the Gods and their favored ones. Gods could just directly bestow their powers. For the Gods, it would be too low of them to require contracts with their favored ones.
But Noella was actually able to see a scroll with a ‘Contract of God’s Favored’. The primordial dragon in front of her was actually able to pull out something this fancy.
“Respected dragon, if I may say the truth, you are not a God. Even as a demigod, you cannot develop your own favored one, even if… you have that strange contract.”
Noella instinctively felt something was wrong.
It wasn’t because there were problems with the scroll, but the contract simply did not have any binding power. Moreover, Louie was the master while she was the slave. This contract was equivalent to Louie bestowing her with power. As the defeated, she should be a captive, but no matter how she looked at it, the contract was more disadvantageous to Louie.
The contract did not have any binding power. She still possessed freedom and there were no clauses that restricted her from attacking Louie. On the contrary, it required Louie to give her power. How could Noella simply believe that there was such a good thing in the world? She wasn’t a baby dragon that had just been born.
If there was an abnormality, there would definitely be a demon. Noella didn’t know this phrase but understood its logic. The contract made her think about devils from the Nine Hells of Baator. They would use alluring words to make mortals sign their contracts. Every mortal would feel that the contract was beneficial to them, but once the results came out, most of the time they were on the side of the fool.
Naturally, there were also devils that had been fooled by mortals. It’s just that those people were rare.
‘Could this bastard be a devil wearing the skin of a dragon?!’
Noella was thinking if there were any dragons in Hell, but there shouldn’t be any according to her memory.
Perhaps there might be one before the Era of Disaster, but those dragons should have gone extinct by now.
“This is only an experiment in my path to becoming the Dragon God…”
Louie knew that relying on flowery words alone to fool a dragon was difficult, so he didn’t think of making his words too beautiful. He was just relying on his advantageous position to threaten her with words and power.
“Sign this contract and become my favored one. You won’t have any losses while I can obtain some feedback and advance a step towards becoming a God… Naturally, you can also choose to decline. It would be very regrettable, but I would have to eradicate you or have you sign a contract that’s even worse for you.”
Saying so, Louie threw another scroll of Noella. When she opened it, she felt that this scroll was a lot more normal. There were countless conditions such as restricting her freedom, limiting her ability to harm the other party, as well as forcing her to serve Louie for a few years.
There were even parts that were quite excessive, especially the part where the Queen of Calamity needed to give birth to the demigod dragon Louie Galakrond’s child.
Louie believed that this female dragon that loathed male dragons would definitely reject this condition.
‘Ha, you want to use this contract to force me to sign that ‘Contract of God’s Favored? You look down on me too much.’
Noella was able to instantly see through Louie’s plans while maintaining a neutral expression
‘But these conditions are indeed excessive.’
Noella’s gaze moved back and forth between the two contracts.
‘A demigod would definitely not sign such a contract with me. He is also unable to put me in a master-slave contract. This is a rule of this world. Even the Gods cannot break this rule… I also can’t see what’s wrong with this contract. This is just a normal ‘Contract of God’s Favored’. What is this dragon actually thinking? Could it be that this is just as he said? That it’s just an experiment on his path to becoming a God?’
Noella became more irritated at the fact that she could not see past this dragon. He was completely different from those stupid dragons. His behavior was similar to hers – eccentric!
The Queen of Calamity raised her head and let out a firm roar in an exploratory manner, “You want to use this kind of condition to limit a mighty dragon like me! Put away your laughable plans! Seeing that we are of the same race, don’t try to insult me with this kind of thing. Even if I die, I will never agree to it!”
She wanted to see what choice this demigod dragon would make.
Hearing the Queen of Calamity’s proud voice, Sisna and Lysfer were stunned and once again made preparations to battle, afraid that this dragon would become violent.
On the other hand, Louie’s expression did not change, and felt regret.
‘Have I failed? It seems that fooling a two-thousand-year-old dragon is quite difficult. But I’m a bit reluctant to kill her. If it really won’t work, then I’ll have to think of a way to lower the standard of the contract.
Just when Louie made a decision and was about to open his mouth, Noella’s eyes that were looking at his head grew colder and colder. This was because he had been too quiet and there were no traces of panic in his expression.
‘What if I guessed wrong and he didn’t care about my usefulness? Is he preparing to kill me?’
Seeing Louie open his mouth, Noella thought that he was going to spray dragon breath at her again. She quickly lowered her head and hesitated for a bit before signing on the ‘Contract of God’s Favored’ with her true name.
“Okay, I’ve finished signing it! Mighty demigod dragon, Lord Louie Galakrond…”
Noella quickly sensed her body after signing the contract. She noticed that nothing happened after signing the contract and felt relieved.
Just when she opened her mouth and was about to say something, she felt a bit dumbfounded at what she’s feeling.
But a loud roar of happiness echoed inside the mountain, “Hahahahahaha! Very good! You did very well, Queen of Calamity, Noella Nys Gein!”
The Queen of Calamity was dumbfounded. She did not know why Louie was so happy, but she quickly felt something wrong and shouted with terror, “…No! What did you do to my body!! No, not like this. Get out. Get out of my body!!!”