Chapter 207: Become a Food Fighter for the World (2) Charlotte gestured for the kings who had stood up to sit back down.
They were all people who stood tall as the leaders of their nations, but before a dragon they were nothing more than insignificant creatures, so they usually trembled at a single word from her.
But what they had just shown was completely different.
When faced with the fear of no longer being able to eat Lee Jinseo's bunsik, fear of a dragon meant nothing.
"I've said it until you're sick of it, but I'll say it again. Our goal is to properly seal my damned niece, Evelyn. Right?"
Because Charlotte didn't want the chaos from hundreds of years ago to repeat, she tried to persuade her niece with words.
But Dark Dragon Evelyn didn't listen to a word from her aunt. Instead, she breathed at the food truck carrying Lee Jinseo and Fedora.
When the food truck vanished without a trace, fury surged up Charlotte's spine. After luring Dark Dragon Evelyn over the mountain range and fighting a fierce battle, she succeeded in sealing her again.
However, unlike before, because she had to seal her in a hurry, the seal would last at most three months.
Compared to the hundreds of years she had suppressed her with the same method, the difference was far too great.
"If I handle my niece myself, of course my mana is consumed, and the power of the sealing magic drops by that much. So if we want to seal her properly, like in the old days, you insignificant creatures need to step up and drain my niece's strength in my place. You've heard this until you're sick of it too, right?"
The kings truly did feel sick of hearing it, but they didn't show it at all and only nodded stiffly.
"But the troops you brought..."
"W-were they too few?"
"We selected strictly by ability as you said, Charlotte-nim, but did we cut them down too much?"
At her words, the kings who had led elite troops turned pale.
"No. You need to cut them down more. There are too many."
"What? Even combined, it's only about fifty thousand troops, and you're saying reduce it further?"
"No, but to face Dark Dragon Evelyn, shouldn't we have several times the number we have gathered now?"
When the kings voiced concern at her claim that even fifty thousand was too many, Charlotte snorted softly and propped her chin with her left hand.
"You've never fought a dragon before, have you? That's why you don't know. Do you think a numbers game works against a dragon? No matter how many ants you have, a human can press a finger down and kill them without even a squeak. It's the same thing."
"If there were tens of thousands of ants, they could at least—"
"It's an analogy, an analogy! Anyway, charging in with a massive pile of soldiers means nothing. Even if you threw in a million, it'd be the same."
After finishing, Charlotte raised her right hand and held up her index finger.
"Pick only the strongest and make it ten thousand… no, that's still too many. Fine. From the troops you brought, select about one thousand."
"What?"
Behind Charlotte, Lee Jinseo looked at her with a dumbfounded face.
Even to someone like him who didn't know war well, it sounded far too small.
"I have my reasons. Honestly, from your insignificant-creature perspective, the easiest solution would be for me to just kill that damned niece myself, right?"
Charlotte gave a bitter smile, having seen straight through what everyone there secretly thought.
But there wasn't a single person in the room who had the courage to say "yes" out loud.
"I can suppress her in battle, but killing her is truly difficult. I'm a dragon, but my niece is also a dragon. And killing your own kind is… yeah."
Charlotte lifted the cola can in her left hand and took a sip.
Cola that was usually sweet tasted only bitter after she mentioned the death of her own kin.
"From your perspective, you'd feel relieved if my niece disappeared from this world entirely, but no matter how much trouble she causes, she's still my niece. Even when there were 'many' dragons, it was all five of us, including me. So no matter how much I hate her, I can't kill her with my own hands. Please understand that."
"F-five dragons..."
Just Dark Dragon Evelyn's appearance had shaken the entire continent, enough that Charlotte—another dragon—had to step in.
And now she said that in the past, five dragons had existed at the same time. The kings were stricken with fear.
"And if I fight hard enough to kill her, that alone will turn the entire continent into scorched earth. You don't want an ending like that, right?"
Facing Charlotte, who spoke of the worst outcome with a calm face, the kings nodded reflexively.
"That's why I locked her up with sealing magic until she comes to her senses… but even that can't last beyond a few hundred years at most. Since we're sealing her anyway, this time we need to lock her up much longer so she'll finally come to her senses. For that, I have to pour most of my mana into the seal, which means you have to be the ones to beat her up and drain her strength first."
"We… must fight a dragon?"
"Your ancestors, far back in the past, managed it. Why do you insignificant creatures start whining about weakness first these days? Where did the bloodline of heroes who dreamed of becoming dragon slayers go?"
Charlotte recalled the countless insignificant creatures who had boldly challenged her, a dragon.
But she couldn't see even a shred of that spirit in the kings before her, so she lamented quietly.
"Anyway, since things are like this, I'm going to try using a new kind of magic for you weak insignificant creatures. I didn't make it for this purpose, but after thinking it over, I realized recently that it can be used this way too."
At the phrase "new magic," the mages, including Painfolt, perked up their ears.
"Now you're finally interested in what I'm saying. Good. Listen carefully. I told you before that I once researched a magic to extend the lifespan of insignificant creatures, right?"
"Yes, you did."
The deans of mage towers across the continent who attended with Painfolt focused on her words with interested eyes.
"But when I finished it, I got a strange result. It ended up being implemented by forcibly extending lifespan. In other words, while the magic remains in effect, you gain a body that absolutely cannot die. Enough to survive even a dragon's attack."
As she spoke, Charlotte held up her index and middle fingers.
"For twenty years."
A human life, no matter how long, is only about a hundred years.
At Charlotte's statement that you could extend life by a full one-fifth of that hundred years, everyone fell silent, and stillness settled over the room.
"But to cast this magic, you need such an enormous amount of mana that someone who isn't a dragon couldn't even attempt it. And you can't cast it repeatedly on the same person, and after casting it once, you can't use it again for a while. About two hundred to three hundred years?"
Realizing that in practical terms only a single person could benefit, the kings began watching the expressions of those seated near them, gauging the room.
But since sealing Dark Dragon Evelyn was the urgent priority, they pushed aside the brief dream of extended life and focused on Charlotte again.
"Even with such restrictions, it is truly an astonishing magic..."
Painfolt, who had pursued only the path of magic his entire life, stared at Charlotte in amazement as she created a great magic as if it were nothing.
"To me, it's a magic with no real meaning. What does it matter if I live twenty years more without dying?"
For a dragon, whose concept of age was utterly different from humans, 'twenty short years' of immortality didn't feel significant.
"But gaining an 'absolutely undying body' for twenty years… twenty years! You have created a truly great magic!"
Unable to contain himself, Painfolt shouted in an agitated voice, but Charlotte still only looked indifferent.
"I think I've lived around four thousand years? I'll probably live at least twice that, but even if we say that's my maximum lifespan, twenty years is only one two-hundredth of the time I've lived. You humans cap your lifespan at around a hundred years, right? If you adjust my lifespan to a human scale, how many years would 'twenty years' of immortality be?"
"If we treat it as a hundred years, it would be about half a year."
"Right. Not even a full year. For some insignificant creatures, even that extra half-year could mean a lot, but it doesn't change that compared to the effort and time I put in, the outcome is pathetic."
Right, like in a game, just because the character you control uses an invincibility skill for three seconds doesn't mean you automatically win. You can avoid a brief crisis, but what comes after matters.
Recalling the 5v5 AOS game he used to play, Lee Jinseo immediately understood why Charlotte's reaction was so lukewarm.
"But it's still too early to be disappointed. I improved it one more time so I can use it on multiple people simultaneously rather than just one. However, in that case, the invincibility period gets divided and applied. If one person gets twenty years, then if I divide it among a thousand troops, about how long do you think they would become immortal?"
"Roughly one week, the entire force could face Dark Dragon Evelyn while invincible."
Thanks to the multiplication table he learned as a child, Lee Jinseo finished the calculation first, and Charlotte snapped her fingers.
"Exactly!"
"There's also a method of putting in more troops and trying to decide it in a shorter time, but since none of them have experience fighting a dragon, they'll need time for trial and error. If the battle drags on too long, their tension could break, so one week might be appropriate."
"You just said everything I was going to say. Alright—everyone heard Lee Jinseo, right? I think you all understand now why I said about a thousand is the right number to deal with my niece."
Only then could the kings smile after hearing Lee Jinseo's explanation.
Because hope began to appear in a battle against Dark Dragon Evelyn that had seemed impossible.
"To think such a method existed. It is astonishing enough that you created magic to extend life, but to go further and think to use it like this… that is truly incredible."
"You think I lived thousands of years for nothing?"
As the mages in the room, including Painfolt, couldn't hide their admiration, Charlotte smiled and shrugged her shoulders.
"But I worry that using that magic might affect the sealing magic."
"Good point. But you don't need to worry. It consumes a huge amount of mana, but that's by your insignificant-creature standards. By my standards, it's just 'I used a bit of strength.' The real issue is whether the insignificant creatures who receive the magic can endure that week."
"Is there a side effect?"
"There is, but it's not the important part. The problem is… while the magic is maintained, it consumes several times more stamina than usual. Which means you have to eat that much more. If you don't, the magic ends early."
"Can't they just keep eating?"
"It's not as easy as it sounds. No matter how delicious something is, if you keep eating nonstop in a short period, you get sick of it. I tried it a few times in the past, and they all gave up early because of the eating part. They said it was too hard to maintain a life where you eat at least thirty servings every day for twenty years."
"Ah… that's..."
Painfolt looked awkward as he imagined a daily life of stuffing himself like a pig.
"But there's a human right here who makes food you don't get sick of easily, isn't there?"
Charlotte pointed with her right hand at Lee Jinseo standing behind her.
"And strangely enough, under certain conditions, the food this guy makes makes the people who eat it stronger."
"Yes, that's right."
On the day he returned from Korea, when Lee Jinseo confessed the truth he had been hiding through long-distance communication magic, he also told Charlotte about the Preferred Food system.
"So the core of this operation is Lee Jinseo. Next, we select one thousand skilled people who can eat as much of what he makes as possible! As fast as possible!"
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