Several days later, deep in the mountain forests, a shabby stronghold of stone, wooden planks, and thatch sat tucked away in the valley.
Children in rough, simple clothes ran barefoot and laughing through the lanes, or splashed and wrestled in the shallow stream. Warriors stood watch atop crude towers with weapons in hand, or went out to hunt. Women used old-fashioned pounding methods to hull grain, gathered berries and herbs, and preserved food by drying and smoking meat…
A settlement of several thousand people filled the valley with the thick, familiar warmth of daily life, the kind of bustle that made it feel genuinely alive.
On a bright green patch of grass warmed by the sun, Samael lay comfortably in the shade, lazily soaking in the light. It was such rare peace and quiet that he almost felt like he could forget where he was.
"Divine Messenger! There you are! I've finally found you!"
But the moment that red-haired princess spotted him and came calling from afar, eyes shining, the Ancient Serpent could only sit up with a sigh and a renewed headache.
The eldest daughter of the Boudica family was stubborn in the simplest way. She'd decided he was the Divine Messenger destined to save Britannia, and she followed him around from morning to night without letup.
The problem was, if you people truly worship that red dragon Fafnir… I already ate it. I even digested it clean. By rights we should be mortal enemies.
Tsk. Loki, that bastard. Always doing rotten things like it's a hobby. And every time I'm the one stuck cleaning up after him, I end up the one who gets unlucky.
Samael couldn't stop himself from cursing the trickster god in his head.
The whole mess started in the Nine Worlds. The dwarf craftsman Hreidmar demanded an enormous compensation after Loki killed his son Otr. To pay it, Loki forcibly seized the treasure of another dwarf, Andvari.
Andvari, in turn, laid a curse: whoever possessed the ring [Andvaranaut] among that treasure would invite endless calamity.
Fafnir was another of Hreidmar's sons. Tempted by that vast fortune, he not only murdered his father after the compensation was paid, he transformed into a great dragon to guard the hoard, and drove his brother Regin out of their home.
Regin had no choice but to go to the human world. Later, he goaded the hero Sigurd into slaying Fafnir, and even helped him reforge the broken fragments of the tree-sword Gram into a complete blade. Sigurd then used Gram to kill the dragon, bathing in its blood and gaining an invulnerable body.
As Fafnir lay dying, he warned Sigurd that the hoard was cursed. Sigurd ignored him and took the treasure anyway, and the curse followed him, setting his life on the path to tragedy.
To clean up Loki's mess, Samael guided Sigurd to hunt the dragon earlier than he should have. He himself arrived ahead of time, helped in secret, and finished off Fafnir after the curse had thoroughly eaten into it.
Sigurd got the dragon blood.
The dragon's corpse became Samael's dinner.
As for the treasure, Samael didn't want the curse to bring misfortune to the warrior king and get him killed before his time. So, with great reluctance, he confiscated those cursed items. As compensation, he left behind some of his own private wealth and ensured that poor, unlucky Sigurd could live safely all the way to the present.
All things considered, the warrior king didn't really lose out. He gave up some treasure, gained real benefits, and even ended up with a happy marriage.
Samael himself never took any of it too seriously. To him, it was just an outing that happened to include dragon barbecue.
Besides, it wasn't as if this was the only dragon-like creature he'd ever killed. Blue Dragon Bašmu, wyverns, three-horned lion-dragons… there were more than he could count.
And turning from serpent into dragon to travel quickly wasn't new either.
He'd done the same thing in Mesopotamia, and in Greece as well.
But thinking back on it now, every time he took dragon form, nothing good ever followed.
Those times in Mesopotamia, he was either being chased down by hordes of Magical Beasts or nearly split in half by Apsu.
Greece was even worse. Atalanta mistook him for a Magical Beast kidnapping girls and nearly flayed him alive.
And now Britannia. Not only had he run into a human vessel tied to the Alien Vanguard, he'd also ended up with a whole mess clinging to him afterward.
Honestly, this "dragon" trait was like a firefly in the dead of night: a glaring debuff that dragged trouble to him wherever he went.
Samael rolled his eyes as he complained to himself.
And yet, his dragon nature wasn't something he'd stolen or borrowed. It was innate, and its purity was frighteningly high.
Because the Mother Goddess Tiamat who had granted him new life was also known as the "Mother of Evil Dragons."
Maybe that was why his own existence was tangled up with evil dragons in ways that ran deeper than he liked.
In the Book of Revelation, in chapter 12, verses 3 and 9, there were records like this.
"Another sign appeared in heaven: a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and on its heads were seven crowns."
"That great dragon was the ancient serpent, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world. He was cast down to the earth, and his angels were cast down with him."
The so-called ancient serpent was, of course, the one in Eden who tempted Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, planting in humanity the original sin of defying God.
In the evolution of myth, the serpent is the origin of the dragon. Many dragon legends and images must be understood in light of the serpent's role in local traditions.
So after his destruction and rebirth, when the Magical Beast Spirit Origin records were refreshed and filled in anew, he found the form of a dragon came to him naturally.
As for that ridiculous fairy tale about a "red dragon descending to save this land, protect Britannia, and lead the Celts to prosperity," only that one-track-minded Great Princess, obsessed with the rise of the Celts, would believe it wholeheartedly.
Dragons, after all, are creatures almost always tied to evil. Their arrival rarely signals anything good, especially the dragonkind of the Norse Age of Gods. Each and every one of them is trouble.
Besides, he could barely handle his own problems. Why would he waste time meddling in the ancient Celts' affairs, playing house at being god and believer?
By comparison, Queen Boudica and her other daughter were far more rational. From recent interactions and subtle probing, it was clear they treated him with courtesy and respect, but not fanaticism. It felt more like sincere goodwill.
But where there is giving, there is always a request behind it.
Having crossed wits with enough old schemers, Samael saw that plainly.
Britannia had yet to be unified. Boudica's tribe was only one of the larger factions. With the Roman Empire expanding aggressively and Hunnic cavalry raiding and squeezing them from the other side, the Celts were like rats trapped at both ends. Their days were only getting harder.
After yet another crushing defeat, Boudica had no real cards left to play. She could barely keep the subordinate tribes in check. At this point, all she could do was hope for outside support.
In the end, what she needed was prestige. That was why she maintained an ambiguous stance toward Samael's identity as a "Divine Messenger."
His arrival had, in effect, acted like a shot of adrenaline for the Celts.
For a queen struggling to survive between two crushing forces, whether this descending dragon had once been a Celtic guardian deity didn't matter. What mattered was that it could become one in the future.
Just as Samael's thoughts wandered, the red-haired Great Princess hurrying over was abruptly stopped by a haughty, flat-chested little girl blocking her path.
One tall, one small. They pressed their foreheads together, arguing heatedly over someone's "ownership."
Restore Celtic glory versus You're Rome too?
Heh. This was getting interesting.
With nothing better to do, Samael leaned lazily against a tree trunk and watched the two girls argue until their faces flushed red.
You're Rome too? Wait…
Wasn't the future tyrant Nero, infamous for persecuting Christians, labeled the "Beast 666" and the "Antichrist"?
And according to the cryptic imagery in Revelation, that seven-headed, ten-horned great red dragon symbolizing original sin really did end up entangled with Rome, joining forces with the "Great Whore of Babylon," the biblical stand-in for ancient Rome, to usher in the apocalypse.
Damn it. Can't I catch a break for once? Why does every mess somehow end up on my head wherever I go?