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"You perverted old man! Can't you honor mother's passing for once?!" She cried angrily. "Actively flirting with an outside like that… J-Just what is wrong with you, idiot?!"

"M-My daughter, I can explain! I was merely being friendly!" The Dwarf King cried. "Please don't say such things, I still love your mother! But… you know, it has been over twenty years since-"

"Shut up!" The Princess cried. "Ugh…! Ah! I-I'm sorry about this… My father is often flirty with beautiful women, especially outsiders."

The princess of the Kingdom stepped in, she was much taller than her own father, almost the same size as my daughter, in fact. Her fiery red hair, sharp blue eyes, and regal appearance made her resemble a half-dwarf.

"I'm sorry if I caused… Any sort of embarrassment." Sighed the Dwarf King. "This is my daughter, the princess of this Kingdom and also the future queen, Brisingra."

"It is an honor to meet the World Tree herself, Lady Planta." Said Brisingra, bowing her head.

"O-Oh, alright… Ahem… Anyways, we need to talk a lot about what we spoke before, right Richard?" I asked Richard.

"Eh? Ah, yes!" Richard nodded. "It would be nice if we could gather together to speak more privately."

"Very well, the dinner is already being made." The King said with a gentle smile. "For now, how about I take you into a trip around my great castle, Lady Planta?" He gallantly offered me his big hand.

"Eh? Well…"

"Father!" Brisingra quickly reprimanded her father again. "Stop it."

"I'm just being nice!" He sighed.

Despite how serious things got, at the end, these two seemed rather funny together. The tense atmosphere slowly calmed down and it became much easier to breathe around here. Knowing the quirky side of people helped us get along with them better, sometimes.

"I can't believe he would flirt with you like that…" Mark sighed.

"A-Ahahaha, well, it couldn't be helped." I shrugged. "Heheh, are you jealous or something?"

"J-Jealous? Me? O-Of course not…" Mark looked away, scratching his big, wooden head.

Like that, we were already sitting around a big, regal table, as servants were constantly serving an enormous buffet, mostly composed of meat, potatoes, and pies of all sorts of types. Dwarven diet was much different than the fairies, that mostly ate fruits and vegetables.

"And so, after much research, I've reached to a strange yet fascinating conclusion." Richard said. "I believe… that the black scaled dragon could possibly be related to the ancient myth of one of the Dwarven kings, Fafnir."

"F-Fafnir?" Asked the King. "You mean my old ancestor, the King of Greed that, after being cursed, became a Dragon?!"

"Indeed." Nodded Richard. "In the myths and stories I've researched, it was implied that, in ancient history, Fafnir, the King of Greed, had taken a contract with Thanatos, the King of the Sorrow Kingdom, one of the few Human Kingdoms of those times… And Thanatos, later one. Based on this, he had acquired tremendous power to obtain any riches, yet he was cursed, the greedier he became, the more he would become a beast. Until Fafnir was forever trapped in the body of a black scaled dragon."

"Wait a second, you said Thanatos the King of the Sorrow Kingdom?" I asked. "That's… The name is the same as the Demon King of Death. So he's not just a monster that showed up in ancient history?"

"Indeed, further research hasn't shown me anything more than that, but it is implied that these two Thanatos might be one and the same. And seeing how Nether, the element the King of Sorrow also used for his Necromancy and Dark Magic is the same the still sealed Demon King of Death uses and is exuding into our world… Then everything slowly connects together." Richard explained.

"Hmmm…" The King groaned, closing his eyes as if he was deep in thought. "I don't know if I should tell outsiders about this information… What the royal family know…"

"Father." His daughter said. "They need to know the full context about the story of King Fafnir… If this is all true then, it makes much more sense."

"…Right." The King sighed. "And well, if Lady Planta is here, I shouldn't had even doubted either." He smiled lightly at me. "There's a part that hasn't been revealed to the rest of the public about this ancient tale of King Fafnir."

"Oh?" Richard felt curious, and so did we all.

"The Tale also told the story of Fafnir's son, Sigurd." The Dwarf King explained. "Once he saw his father corrupted, turning into a dragon, and terrorizing the entire Kingdom, he and his allies were chased away from the territory. Since then, Sigurd embarked into an epic journey across the entire world, gathering allies and growing stronger to defeat his own evil father."

"Eventually, at the end of his journey, the Hero Sigurd meet the God of Light, who gifted to him the Radiant Sword, Gram, capable of slaying all evil." Said the princess. "Armed with this weapon, Sigurd walked back to his Kingdom with his many new allies, and with their help. They slain the dragons conquering the Kingdom."

"Sigurd then meet his father, Fafnir, in a battle to the death. Wielding the powers of both darkness and death, Fafnir was extremely powerful, and almost killed Sigurd, even with the Radiant Sword, Gram." Sighed the King. "However, in Sigurd's last moments, Fafnir revealed to him that he was actually his adopted son, and that his real father, the Ancient Hero Sigmund, was defeated by the King of Sorrow, Thanatos and him."

"Filled with rage for revenge over his real father, Sigurd unleashed the true powers of Gram, which had been originally shattered into two parts on Sigmund's last fight against Fafnir, when Sigurd was merely a baby." The princess said. "With the awakened power of Gram, Sigurd pierced the heart of Fafnir, and killed him."

"It is then said that Sigurd avenged his father, while at the same time freeing the Dwarf Kingdom from his adopted father-turned dragon Fafnir's greed and tyranny." The Dwarf King sighed. "Lastly, it was said that Sigurd buried Fafnir and the corpses of a thousand dragons beneath the mountains. Where they would rest for eternity below their feet."

"Woah… This game has some crazy world building…" Jenny said.

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