The Dragon Lord's Aide Wants to Quit [BL]

Chapter 414: The Viability Test

Good news: Prince Rowan’s intel had been spot on.After repeated verification and careful observation, it genuinely appeared that the increasingly frantic Wyverns had somehow managed to fuck something up.

And the harder they tried to hide their supposedly discreet sense of urgency, the more convinced Riley became that whatever they had managed to screw up was probably very good news for the rest of the continent.

However—

Bad news: That son of a gun’s intel was so spot on that, sure enough, the very same goons were out there looking to fuck him up because of it.

Ugh.

To be fair, they weren’t specifically searching for Riley.

Not exactly. Or at least not just yet.

Instead, the wyverns seemed to be looking for traces of dragon crypts.

...Just so happens that at the very top of their list would be traces of the black dragon clan.

His clan.

Unfortunately, what could possibly be a larger trace of a supposedly extinct clan than its only living descendant?

Really.

Unless he wanted to count Thyrran, the already dispersed servant clans, and the archive guardians, there was probably no larger target wandering around than himself.

And that was one moral dilemma he didn’t want to go through.

Thankfully, the idea of involving those groups any further simply didn’t sit right with him.

Riley had already hidden behind enough people throughout this entire ordeal just to make it this far. So the mere thought of buying himself additional time by placing others in even greater danger was enough to make his stomach twist.

His extremely golden mate most definitely did not like the sound of that...

And perhaps having a conscience wasn’t particularly useful during a war.

Actually, it was probably downright inconvenient.

But what was he supposed to do when he somehow still possessed a functioning sense of morality when it came to things like this?

Which was likely the reason why, instead of remaining behind to train, fortify defenses, or even start gathering forces under the banner of the MBE, they had ultimately chosen a far less sensible option.

Namely, asking Lord Karion to handle those matters while they embarked on the insane quest of discovering exactly what the Wyverns had been up to.

But see, when Riley said they had "embarked" on an investigation, he meant it quite literally.

Because at that very moment, he and his extremely indulgent husband were positioned atop a neighboring mountain range, quietly observing a disturbingly large concentration of scuttling figures that seemed hell-bent on digging through the mountains claimed by the Dark Elves.

Yep. Just a mountain away from the site that Prince Rowan had since confirmed.

Now, one may be wondering what exactly they were doing in Silvara when they had already confirmed this much at the very least, but that was because Riley had somehow looked at the situation and decided that what they really needed to do next was track the wyverns back to their actual base.

Not merely Wyrmfall itself, because that much was practically a given already.

No, he wanted to know exactly where they were hiding within those desolate lands. More specifically, he wanted to find the regions that had become nearly impenetrable ever since that pillar of light had erupted into the sky.

Now it wasn’t as if some sort of barrier had appeared to keep people out.

No.

As ridiculous as it sounded, the place had simply become so profoundly unsettling that almost no one wanted to remain there for long.

The vibes were just that bad.

The entire region had become such a mess that even the usual criminals from other races had started avoiding it.

Like rats abandoning a sinking ship, many of them suddenly found themselves unwilling to return no matter how lucrative the opportunities might have been. They would much rather undergo forced reformation or even pay for their crimes.

If that wasn’t enough to illustrate just how bad things had gotten, then Riley honestly didn’t know what would.

He couldn’t really blame them, though. Joining forces with questionable people and committing crimes was one thing. But when the price of admission involved being personally experimented on, apparently even some criminals had standards they refused to compromise on.

Unfortunately, that also made intelligence gathering significantly more difficult for the MBE. Blending in wasn’t exactly an option when there was practically no one left to blend in with. And they definitely had no intention of mutilating their own agents just to sneak them into an enemy camp.

As a result, many of their usual methods had become frustratingly ineffective, forcing them to rely on increasingly limited scraps of information instead.

Yet despite all of that, Riley still had the audacity to suggest tracking them all the way back.

Naturally, Prince Rowan had looked at him as though he had finally gone insane.

Because really, had it been that easy, then wouldn’t they have done it already?!

Of course, the Prince never actually voiced those thoughts aloud. But apparently his expression had been more than enough because Riley immediately sighed and said, "I know. I sound completely ridiculous right now, but that’s mostly because I’m hoping to use modern human technology rather than magical apparatus or anything mana-related."

"What?"

Rowan distinctly remembered blinking at him back then.

However, what eventually earned the proposal actual consideration was what Riley did next.

"Here."

The black dragon handed over a stack of documents thick enough to make the Prince frown immediately.

Inside were records.

He stared at them momentarily, only to finally realize that they were movement records.

His damned records.

Locations, timestamps, routes. It definitely looked like a detailed travel log when stacked like this.

The information started from the MBE and continued all the way to the royal palace.

"?!"

Ah, but it wasn’t only Rowan’s movements either, but those of his entourage as well.

The Prince gawked at the documents for several seconds before finally looking back up.

"This..." he said slowly. "What—no, why exactly am I looking at this?"

"A test," Riley answered. "A test to see whether the method would actually work."

That explanation somehow only made Rowan more suspicious.

"From the day you arrived to request an alliance, every single one of you had been carrying one of these by the time you left."

Riley then raised a hand and revealed what appeared to be a tiny button.

Or at least something that vaguely resembled one.

"And considering none of you noticed until you changed clothes, I figured the wyverns probably wouldn’t catch on immediately either."

The rather dumbfounded Elven Prince simply stared at him, much to the mounting ire of one very golden ornament who had already rolled his eyes at least five times within the past hour.

Riley, meanwhile, had the audacity to shrug.

They wouldn’t really mind a harmless payback, no?

"Sorry. The viability test would’ve been pointless if you knew about it beforehand."

He then pointed at the tiny object in his hand.

"But as you can see, it seems like devices completely devoid of materials that can conduct mana, or that have been processed with mana, simply feel like your average dust. From what the others said, this thing doesn’t even feel like your average pebble, for even that has mana."

The already increasingly disgruntled Prince Rowan could only continue blinking.

Because somehow an entire delegation of elves had unknowingly been carrying tracking devices around while none of them noticed.

Now, perhaps he would’ve understood had this happened while he was still sealed.

But he wasn’t.

His restrictions had already been lifted by then.

And yet he still failed to notice anything.

Eventually, the prince could only let out a defeated laugh.

Unfortunately, that seemed to irritate a certain golden dragon.

Kael immediately looked like he wanted to snarl at something, though whether that something was the technology or Riley himself remained unclear.

Choosing self-preservation, Rowan wisely moved on.

"Then your intention is to use these ’bugs’ on the wyverns?"

"Yeah."

The answer came without hesitation.

"But since we don’t know how they’ll react, it’s probably best if I test it on them personally first."

The room immediately erupted.

"?!"

"Are you serious?!"

"Positive."

Riley sounded so absurdly confident that it was honestly difficult to tell whether he was being brave or simply reckless.

"Because what would be the point of this entire plan if we can’t actually bug them properly?"

"The moment someone discovers this, we likely won’t be able to do it again, so we can’t afford to make a mistake the first time around."

Clearly, he had a valid point because the initial protests were momentarily silenced.

Then somehow, after enough discussion, enough arguments, and several collective headaches, everyone eventually reached an agreement.

At the time, Riley had felt rather clever.

Actually, he had felt extremely clever.

Unfortunately, reality had since caught up.

Because now that they were actually here, and yes, for dragons like them, being separated by only a mountain range absolutely counted as being close, he was beginning to question why he had volunteered in the first place.

Not because he regretted the plan itself.

But because he was finally getting a good look at what they were dealing with.

And honestly?

These guys under natural lighting...

What part of them could even still be identified as wyverns?