Chapter 346: The Darkness of the World

Gold dragons are a kind of dragon that enjoys playing games in the human world. They often disguise themselves as powerless minstrels, weak wandering magicians, or even beautiful women. In essence, gold dragons like to assume forms that can tempt humans into committing crimes. They attract those who are inclined to commit such acts, then reveal their true forms and 'educate' the criminals—whether through physical or psychological means depends on the situation.

Overall, gold dragons greatly enjoy "fishing for justice"—they relish displaying their true selves in front of many intelligent beings, especially when meting out punishment and enforcing justice.

Muria, being a half-dragon non-human entity, also enjoys engaging in these typical activities of the gold dragons.

On his lengthy journey to the Vemiel Elven Forest, Muria liked to disguise himself in various human identities, wandering into human cities. Sometimes he would pose as a wealthy merchant's runaway son, or as a curious noble youth escaping from home.

Most often, Muria assumed the identity of a human with weak abilities but possessing a great deal of money—akin to a child holding gold in a crowded market, wildly tempting humans to commit crimes.

Each time, Muria would "catch a big batch of fish." He categorized these criminals into two groups.

The first group consisted of those who only thought about stealing wealth. Muria would punish and educate them, then let them go.

The second group, however, harbored intentions of both robbery and murder. These felons Muria could not easily forgive. But he did not kill them, as he is a kind-hearted gold dragon and could not bring himself to commit murder.

Instead, Muria threw such individuals into a demi-plane to clear and develop the land, which was as wild as a primeval forest and full of idle wastelands needing redevelopment.

By making use of these criminals, Muria put them to work until their end, sparing their lives but not allowing their misdeeds to go unpunished. After all, killing them would be too harsh, and labor is a resource that should not be wasted.

Muria, who mostly assumed the identity of someone weak, sometimes disguised himself as a "strong" adventurer wandering into human taverns. Occasionally, when bored, he would take on tasks.

During his passage through the central part of the Osniro subcontinent, in the most powerful human kingdom of Aminis, Muria accomplished a legendary feat.

At that time, disguised as a Silver-tier wandering mage, he entered a small city in the Kingdom of Aminis. Not in a hurry to find dragons, he planned to take on several quests from the local adventurers' guild, such as investigating cults of demon worshippers, to pass the time.

However, Muria ended up accepting just one quest—an ignored low-tier task.

The task was to find a missing child, and the reward was only three gold, eight silver, and thirty-five copper pieces—the entire savings of a human couple who had lost their child and were in despair.

Upon entering the guild, Muria encountered the weeping couple, who were kneeling and pleading with every adventurer entering and exiting to find their child.

No one paid them any heed, or rather, no one dared to take on the task. While the reward was not insignificant for a low-tier adventurer, those who knew the inside story were afraid to accept it.

Seeing this, Muria naturally took on the low-tier task. Afterward, under the hopeful gaze of the distressed couple, he took a drop of their blood and used a bloodline tracking spell to locate the lord's castle that ruled over the small city.

Without any surprises, Muria led the couple into the castle and found their abducted child in the dark, filthy dungeons of the castle.

In those dungeons, there were not only that child but also over sixty other children of around seven or eight years old. They had been deceived, drugged, and forcibly taken there, treated as merchandise and "packaged."

The mastermind behind the child trafficking was the city's highest ruler, a lord with a baron's title.

He treated his lands as a ranch and his people as livestock, selecting young children with good looks and abilities through illegal means to be captured, trained in unspeakable ways, and then sold.

Rage filled Muria's chest at that moment, but it did not cloud his judgment.

First, Muria took all the lord's accomplices who had participated in the evil deeds into the demi-plane, forcing these villains to devote their lives to developing his half-plane.

Then, he took the baron himself into the demi-plane and summoned his high-ranking demonic servant, the deep infernal demon Myles, to interrogate him.

Muria was determined to eradicate this vile chain that had spilled the blood and tears of countless human families, regardless of the consequences or costs.

Whether motivated by the memories of his past human life or by the innate sense of justice from his gold dragon

 lineage, Muria made this choice.

Finally, under the intense interrogation by the deep infernal demon Myles, the sin-filled Baron of the Aminis Kingdom confessed everything he knew, including a crime he committed at the age of twelve when he assaulted his father's personal maid.

Myles, nearly a legend himself, conscientiously organized the information Muria wanted and presented it to him.

As expected by the ambitious deep infernal demon, Muria, upon reviewing the information extracted through interrogation, was instantly filled with rage, a visible aura of murderous intent enveloping the entire demi-plane.

This caused the many beasts and the laboring criminals within the demi-plane to prostrate themselves on the ground, trembling in fear.

The reason for Muria's fury was simple: according to the information, the noble involved in the trafficking was not the only one; several other nobles from surrounding territories had participated in this inhumane trade.

Crucially, according to the baron's estimates, he and the surrounding nobles were merely an insignificant part of this trade chain—they were just the lowest-level suppliers.

These children, after being conditioned, were to be used for various purposes based on their performances and talents. They were trained to be assassins, playthings, or even used as experimental subjects and sacrificial offerings for mages, among other roles.

The information indicated that the trade chain involved powers too numerous to imagine, particularly within the Kingdom of Aminis, and it was unclear just how many nobles were involved.

Once again, Muria was confronted with the dark side of the world, a situation far more complex than he had anticipated and even beyond his capacity to address alone.

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