Cthulhu Gonfalon

The three dragons’ actual appearance was of two beautiful women and one handsome young man, apart from the guy without a face.

Boss Snow looked about twenty five or twenty six years old. She was very tall and slim and had long, exotic silver hair and a pair of long legs. According to the theory of aesthetics, she had a nine-headed body (which meant that her body was as tall as nine heads piled together) which was really rare among women and was the perfect body for a model. She also had a tiny waist, big breasts and wide hips. When sitting down, she was already very attractive, and if she was walking around Dragon-roar Town like this, all the playboys would bump into walls, for they were too busy watching her to watch where they were going. Countless men’s ears would be pinched by their wives and become red and swollen.

Shuang, who was responsible for hosting the guests, was Snow’s brother. He was a young man of seventeen to eighteen years old. He had golden short hair that was as bright as the shining sun, and when he smiled, even the sun would dim. He was indeed the perfect role model as a good friend of women and an enemy of men. But under this handsome appearance, there was a cold and ruthless heart. He was proof that judging someone by their appearance was a big mistake.

Xian, who had activated the magic array, was the youngest among the three. She looked about twelve or thirteen years old, which was the same age as Palin. She had soft and curly golden hair, and looked as beautiful as a doll. Anyone could feel her purity and curiosity whenever he saw her face. For people without poor morals or abnormal interests, she might even be more attractive than her sister.

As for Phil, a retainer and helper of the grocery store, since there was no body inside the armor, he didn’t need to take it off.

These four were the bosses as well as the employees of the Good Eyesight grocery store in Dragon-roar Town. They were also the Arctic Tyrant that was famous in the four towns in the northwest—yes, the so-called Arctic Tyrant did not refer to one dragon, but a group of four that consisted of three dragons and a strange man in armor.

Among the four, Snow was an ice dragon who had just become an adult. As part of a rare and advanced race of huge dragons, she was much more powerful than her peers, and she could still make a difference even in a prosperous and bustling place. If it were not for looking after her siblings, she would have already gone to a bigger world far away with a brighter future.

Shuang and Xian were rock dragons, a more common race of huge dragons. They’d had a tough early life since they had been abandoned by their irresponsible parents, who completely disappeared after leaving two eggs in a grotto on a precipice. It was Snow who happened to pass by and found the two eggs. She brought them home, hatched them, and brought them up.

For a dragon, it made sense to have a much closer relationship with the dragon who raised it than the one who birthed it. So, for Shuang and Xian, Snow was their mother. But Snow was still not an adult yet, so she became their sister.

At first, the three lived in a barren mountain far from the human world. Then one day Snow stumbled upon the remains of an ancient temple, so she transformed it into a safe dragon nest for them to live in.

Ice dragons were not good at fighting, but they were natural masters of cold spells, while rock dragons were the opposite. Their natural disposition for spells was average, but they were strong warriors. The three dragons together had different but complementary skills. They also had the dragon nest at the temple, which was surrounded by a strong protection array. When they met Phil, a powerful adventurer, a perfect group was formed.

For the past fifty years, they’d called themselves the Arctic Tyrant. They made their living by charging the people a protection fee, seeing as they thought they owned the mountain and had protected the people. In their spare time, they lived in disguise as humans and opened a grocery store inside their domain.

The grocery store wasn’t built to collect information, but rather out of pure interest. Snow enjoyed finding something valuable from a pile of garbage and wanted others to follow her. As for Shuang and Xian, their sister was always right, and Phil never made any complaints.

Snow was sharing her story in a rather special way. She concentrated her magic energy onto a floating plate, then used the silver frost to draw on the plate like using chalk on a blackboard, all the while telling her tale at the same time.

This method of telling one’s life experience was indeed very vivid, expressive and persuasive, and Sui Xiong nodded his head while watching. But when he saw the picture in which three dragons and a man made of armor became four people who handle their business, he couldn’t help protesting.

“You said you do your business sincerely?” he interrupted Snow. “Is there any businessman who would sneak attack his own customer?”

“A God and his follower paid a visit to three young dragons. Could it be possible that they came with good intentions?” claimed Snow, who used the plate to draw a huge, ruthless jellyfish holding knives and an insidious wizard attacking a few weak dragons. “I think all you want is to collect some ‘material’…and if the owner of the material is dead or alive, what do you care?”

“If your brother hadn’t decided to attack my follower, I wouldn’t have appeared or tried to fight with you!” Sui Xiong was furious. “I’m not crazy! I may not get hurt if I fight three huge dragons and armor monster (who I still have no idea how on earth exists), but my follower may be injured! I don’t have many followers. I would be mad to risk Palin’s life for some measly materials!”

Hearing this, Palin’s eyes were watering, and the group of four stared at each other and nodded.

“…Well, it seems like this was just a mistake,” Phil said in a low, muffled voice.

“Mistake? Of course it was a mistake,” Sui Xiong smiled and looked at Shuang. The origin of this mistake was the overreaction of Shuang.

“You mean it is us who provoked you?” Shuang couldn’t help but say upon realizing he had become the culprit. “Would it not be normal for a dragon to be on guard when facing a dragon-killing magic spell?”

“We all know that the dragon-killing magic spell would not pose a serious threat to a huge dragon,” Sui Xiong sneered. “I think that you believed your pride as an advanced creature had been insulted, so you wanted to get the magic book back.”

“You mean I shouldn’t respond as I did?”

Sui Xiong humphed, “A dragon is an advanced creature; what about a God then? If the dignity of a dragon can be provoked, how about the dignity of a God? I hate to be garrulous, but if you aren’t convinced, then let’s have another fight!”

Sui Xiong pointed at the group of four one by one with his tentacles and said, “This time, let’s have a good fight at a place outside where no one is around. I will teach you a lesson, since you have such an exaggerated opinion of your abilities and no idea of the immensity of heaven and earth. I am going to tell you that a young man should not behave like a hoodlum, and not every dragon can be as qualified as Dragon Proud Sky!”

Seeing that both sides were getting quite intense and preparing for another fight, and feeling cold air gradually permeate throughout the store as tensions escalated, Palin became so terrified that he broke out in a cold sweat. So he hurriedly said, “It’s just a magic book with half of the page gone. Is there any need to fight over that? Actually I’m not even that interested in the dragon-killing magic spell…”

“This has nothing to do with you!” Shuang waved his hand and interrupted him. “It was a mistake to put the magic book in the box, and this mistake needs to be corrected!”

“Teaching an ignorant youth who considers himself at the top of the totem pole is my vocation,” Sui Xiong sneered. “As your predecessor, I think it’s perfectly fine to teach a youth some lessons, even if my methods aren’t so mild.”

“How could you possibly consider yourself, a jellyfish, my predecessor? Do you think yourself a frog?”

The atmosphere was getting intense again, so Xian, who had been silent the whole time, said, “Brother, if I am not mistaken, it was you who put the stuff in that box, right?”

Shuang was in a daze, and then nodded, “Yes, I have been responsible for the box in recent years.”

“Then…brother, can I ask you, as a member of the dragon race who considers himself extremely brilliant and capable, to tell me, your ignorant and young sister, why on earth you are trying to sell the dragon-killing spell?” Xian said in a rather gentle and low voice. Hearing this, Shuang was extremely embarrassed and looked around without knowing what to say.

Shuang was trying to change from this topic of conversation, but it had been brought up again by his sister, and now he was speechless.

“Yes! Shuang, you should have destroyed it. Why on earth were you trying to sell it?” Snow turned to Shuang and smiled at him, and on the “blackboard” beside her, there was a small dragon working absentmindedly and carelessly tossing everything about. Seeing this, Shuang became more embarrassed, and his smiling face froze.

“I’ve seen him sorting out the stuff in the box. He basically just takes a pile of objects that haven’t been checked or sorted and throws them into the box, and that is it,” Phil said. “If we examine the box more closely, ,maybe we’ll find a treasured sword meant to harm a dragon or something…”

“Quite right. After all, most of the stuff in the box belongs to ‘dragon-killers’ who were too confident.” Snow was smiling more gently, while Shuang’s forehead was full of cold sweat.

“I…I’ll go and check the stuff in the box right away!” he said hurriedly.

“The box, and the basement,” Xian said. “There’s a pile of objects down there that are covered in dust in a disorderly pile. It’s caused great damage to your sister’s physical and mental development; as a responsible elder brother, don’t you think you should clean it up and create a clean living environment for your sister?”

“You should move out of the basement, then…”

Snow waved her hand, and a ray of cold light hit his forehead in the shape of a piece of chalk. “Don’t talk back! Go clean it up!”

Shuang sighed, dragged the big box behind him, and walked into the inner room. This careless young dragon would have to spend quite some time with a pile of garbage that he really hated.

After this overly proud young man had been asked to clean the garbage, communication among the group went more smoothly. In fact, none of them was too proud to approach the other, and now that the misunderstanding had been solved, they were communicating freely.

Soon, their topic turned to how to cooperate and reach a win-win solution.