In truth, when Irene first arrived in this “strange otherworld,” her fear far outweighed her curiosity.
Back then, although she had reluctantly accepted the absurd reality of giving up her humanity to become an evil chromatic dragon hunted by everyone, deep down, she still thought like a human.
After all, who could live in human society for over twenty years with a fully formed personality, only to be reincarnated into another world, told they were no longer human, and calmly accept their new identity with a complete shift in mindset?
While people with such extraordinary adaptability did exist, they were ultimately a minority—destined transmigrators who might one day be summoned by an otherworld to embark on an adventurous journey.
But clearly, Irene was not one of them.
She was just an ordinary corporate drone. Aside from being somewhat unsociable due to growing up in an orphanage, she was completely ordinary.
For a mortal like her, suddenly “transmigrating” one day brought far more panic and dread than anything else.
Even after receiving her Draconic Inheritance, when she broke free from her moral shackles to survive and strove to play the part of a true “evil dragon,”
how could her deeply ingrained humanity be erased so easily?
What even Daviel did not know was that in the dead of night, when no one was watching, his supposedly brutal older sister would secretly miss her hometown.
Then, upon waking up, she would wipe away the tears from the corners of her eyes and continue playing the role of an evil dragon.
Under these circumstances, Irene, at her core, still felt an inexplicable barrier between herself and this so-called “otherworld.”
Her feelings toward her so-called vassals were less like viewing them as subordinates and more like treating them as NPCs or wild mobs in a game.
To Irene, they mostly served as mere tools to help her achieve her goals.
Everything she did was solely to survive, to live better, and to struggle to stay alive as an evil dragon in this cruel otherworld.
Perhaps only after thousands of years, when her humanity was completely eroded by time, would she truly integrate into this world and become a pure evil dragon.
At least, that was what Irene thought.
But plans could never keep up with changes.
Now that the power of faith had awakened her past memories, revealing that this world was still her original world and that she had never transmigrated at all,
Irene suddenly felt an inexplicable sense of familiarity and warmth toward everything around her.
The barrier naturally vanished.
If Irene had previously viewed these vassals as tools or props to achieve her goals, she now truly saw them as trustworthy subordinates, friends, and even... juniors.
After all, in terms of generation, Irene felt she should be something like the great-great-great-great-great-great-great... great-grandfather generation to these vassals.
Thus, in Irene's eyes, Arthas's words about yearning for his mother's recognition were, in a sense, simply a junior seeking the acknowledgment and encouragement of an elder.
Well... though the generations were a bit scrambled, giving her the illusion of a twenty-first-century modern human taking a Dryopithecus as an adoptive father, as an elder facing a descendant's request—and in light of his immense contributions—Irene went with the flow and expressed an ancestor's encouragement and recognition to a junior.
It could be considered a formal acknowledgment of her cheap son, Arthas.
After all, on some level, Irene was already in her sixties, and it felt a bit odd to have no children.
Although dragons had extremely long lifespans, Irene felt she would probably never have a partner in this life. Nowadays, whether she looked for a male dragon or a female dragon, it felt bizarre, so she naturally wouldn't have any biological children.
It was better to accept this cheap son who had delivered himself to her doorstep. At least she would have an undead to “care for her in her old age and bury her when she passed.”
But just as Irene's mind was wandering so wildly that her thoughts were about to break through the world barrier and drift into the endless Astral Realm, an abrupt call suddenly snapped her back to reality.
“Big sister?”
The call was very childish, yet Irene felt an inexplicable sense of familiarity.
Following the direction of the voice, she saw a girl sitting all alone on the bottom step of the church entrance.
The girl had likely been drawn by the sound of the church doors opening. She was currently tilting her head, looking toward the entrance, a look of surprise on her rosy, cold-pinched face.
It was none other than Kailolo, the newspaper girl she had met once before.
Perhaps due to the massive temperature difference between day and night in the God-Forsaken Land, Kailolo was currently hugging something in her arms, her legs pulled in tight, curled almost into a ball. Even the little red hat on her head was pulled down, covering her eyebrows.
Her two barely visible, watery eyes stared curiously at Irene. The warm breath escaping from her slightly open mouth quickly froze in the freezing night temperature of the God-Forsaken Land, forming puffs of white steam.
“You've come to worship the Goddess of Redemption, Your Grace, too!” By the moonlight, once Kailolo made sure she hadn't mistaken her, she hurriedly stood up from the steps, her small face instantly lighting up with excitement.
It seemed that to her, having one more person believe in the Goddess of Redemption was something incredibly worthy of celebration.
“Yes~” Irene, reacting quickly, nodded slightly with a friendly smile, praising herself with a straight face. “To believe in such a great, kind, and righteous deity is truly my honor.”
Her gaze then lingered on the pink box with a blue bow that Kailolo was holding in her arms, and she asked, “But what about you? Why aren't you home at this late hour, and what are you doing here?”
Hearing this, Kailolo's face instantly flushed slightly. She self-consciously squeezed the gift box in her arms and stammered, “I... I... I came to...”
Just then, Arthas emerged from the dark interior of the church behind Irene, taking heavy steps.
The moment he stepped out of the doors, Kailolo raised her eyes. Seeing it was Arthas, her small eyes instantly sparkled. She quickly ran up the steps, and under Irene's watchful gaze, she blocked Arthas's path. With a blushing face, she held the gift box high, offering it to a completely bewildered Arthas.
“Lord Arthas, this—this is the gift I prepared for you!” The girl's somewhat slurred words poured out of her mouth as rapidly as water from a high-pressure hose, so fast that Irene almost couldn't catch what she was saying.
Rate on N.U.
