Dragon Genesis: I Can Create Dragons

Capítulo 493: Do such people… truly deserve to live?

“You’re a god, are you not? Or something close to it at the very least.

You could have gone anywhere, you could have helped anyone, you could have shown your miracles elsewhere but…

You came here, to this cursed place, to these cursed people…

Why?

Why would a god choose to stand beside the ones who ruined so many lives?”

Ravon asked directly, his head remained tilted slightly, the faint light catching the side of his bruised face as Kael stared at him.

For a moment, there was silence.

No one spoke. Ravon waited for Kael to answer his question, and Kael… he just stared at the ‘traitor’ with a solemn look on his face.

According to Imperia, just this reaction alone had more words than the man spoke the entire time her ants had been following him.

The silence stretched further as Imperia kept feeding more information regarding the man into Kael’s head. The sound of dripping water echoed in the chamber.

And finally—

“You hate them,”

Kael spoke in a calm but heavy tone.

“Even though you’re one of them.”

Ravon just smiled at those words.

“Can you blame me?”

He asked sarcastically.

“After everything the Velmourns have done? After all the people our ancestors have killed, after all the tortures, wars, massacres they initiated and ended with streams of blood.

How co—”

“Spare me the history.”

Before Ravon could speak any further, Kael interrupted. The Hero then looked into his eyes with an emotionless look on his face and—

“If you’re going to talk, talk to me honestly. Not with old excuses.”

His gaze hardened.

“Whatever the ancestors did happened twelve hundred years ago. More than twelve generations have passed since them. Not one of them alive today was there to swing the sword or take the blow.

No sane being would hold onto that—not the descendants of the victims—”

Kael then looked into Ravon’s eyes,

“—and especially not the descendants of the perpetrators.

So if you’re still holding on to that, then you’re just using the past to justify your hatred.

And that hatred—

I do not accept it.”

The Hero spoke in a cold, detached tone.

For a moment, Ravon stopped. He did not expect such an intense reaction from Kael, but when he thought about how the being he was talking to was something akin to a god, he realized his mistake.

He slowly lowered his head and gave a short, hollow laugh.

“Honest, huh?”

He muttered.

“Fine.”

He looked up again, and there was something new in his eyes—something that flickered like the dying light of a candle.

“You’re right, Lord Kael. I don’t hate them because of the past.

The past has nothing to do with me; the past did not harm the people I cherish.

I do not just hate the Velmourn ancestors, I hate all the Velmourns.

Because the current Velmourns—they are no different than their ancestors.”

Kael frowned at those words. Ravon, however, did not stop; instead, his voice only grew stronger, trembling with emotion—something that, in days of trailing and following him, Imperia’s ants had never seen.

“They were monsters then… and they’re monsters now.

The only difference is that now, they’re too weak to hurt others—so they hurt their own instead.”

Kael’s brow furrowed deeper, but he didn’t interrupt him.

The man who had been tortured for hours and still didn’t say a thing was finally talking—he did not wish to say anything that might break the flow.

Seeing him frown, Ravon laughed again, but Kael could sense the bitterness in that laugh. The ‘traitor’ then looked into Kael’s eyes and—

“You want the real reason, don’t you? Then listen.”

He took a shaky breath, his chains clinking softly.

“I was an orphan.”

He began in a soft voice, like a whisper. If it weren’t for the deathly silent room, a normal person might not have even managed to hear it.

“I don’t even know who my real parents were. I grew up in the southern quarters, fighting rats for scraps until… she found me.

An old woman.

She was kind, gentle, always smiling even when she had nothing.”

His voice wavered slightly, the memory burning brighter in his mind.

“She took me in. Fed me. Raised me like I was her own.

I had no name, no future—but she gave me both.”

Ravon smiled faintly.

“She named me Ravon.”

Again, Kael didn’t say anything. He just listened, letting the once seemingly emotionless man pour out all his emotions.

“I worked hard for her,”

Ravon continued.

“I trained every day. I wanted to become someone she could rely on… someone she could be proud of. So I joined the Wall as a child. I trained harder than anyone, I pushed my body to the limits just so I could protect our people, our home and… protect her.”

He swallowed hard, his jaw tightening.

“But then one day… I heard the news.

She had passed away.”

His voice cracked on the last word.

“I—who had been living abundantly, spending days and nights at the Wall, performing my duties at day and training at night, eating to my fullest to ‘grow stronger’—was told that the person I was doing it for died of starvation.”

He laughed again—but this time, his laugh was… empty. Kael saw him clench his chained fists tightly, his hollow, dead eyes now reflecting intense anger as he relived that dreaded day in his mind again.

“At first, I thought it was a mistake,”

He spoke.

“I thought someone had mixed something up but… when I buried her weak body with my own hands…

I realized it.

My mother was truly dead.

Starvation.

She died of starvation.

In a place where the Iron Council itself distributed rations every single month, my old mother died of starvation.”

Kael’s expression changed at those words as he began to realize what was happening. Still, he stayed silent, letting Ravon continue.

“I saw it with my own eyes—her cold body that barely had any mass left, her weak, wrinkled muscles. In her last few days, she probably didn’t even have enough strength to move, but I didn’t notice anything because I…

I was too busy training for the good of all!”

He spoke, his anger now directed at himself.

But then, his anger turned into determination—a strong, terrifying determination—

“I couldn’t let it go.”

He spoke.

“How did she die when the rations were distributed?

Why was she the only one who died?

What happened?

These questions gnawed at me, kept me awake at night, and I began investigating.”

Kael could now predict the direction the story was going, but he still allowed him to continue.

He felt… bad for him but…

More than that…

He wanted… more information.

A change even Kael himself didn’t seem to notice.

“At first, I suspected it was the act of a thief—someone stole my mother’s ration when I wasn’t home—but soon, I realized that wasn’t the case.

It wasn’t just my mother who died of starvation; a few other elders were the same. They were either about to starve to death or had already died.

And then—

I noticed something.

All these elders who were in this condition—they had one thing in common.

They had no one taking care of them.

They were alone. My mother was no different; she had already lost her husband and son. I wasn’t counted in her real family because I was adopted.

And when I noticed this pattern, I figured it out.

The Provisioners… the ones distributing the food, purposefully targeted the old and lonely, taking their share.”

Kael’s eyes flickered at those words.

Just as he expected.

When Ravon saw the change in his eyes, he nodded knowingly.

“Yes, you weren’t the first to capture the Provisioners and reveal their corruption. I did it a while ago.

I reported their crimes to the Council and they were punished according to the Council Laws.

I thought I had finally set things right, just like you probably do now.”

Ravon spoke, staring at Kael.

“But…”

Then he looked down and—

“But later… it all started happening again.

The new Provisioners were no different than the old ones, and when I investigated the matter—

I found out the truth.

It wasn’t them.

It wasn’t the Provisioners who were corrupt.”

Ravon paused for a moment, his eyes turning red as he recalled everything.

“It was the Iron Council itself.”

Kael didn’t move.

“They were saving food,”

Ravon spat.

“Saving it for the ‘future.’ For ’emergencies.’

While people like my mother—people who gave everything they had to this cursed place—starved to death, these people were saving food for the ‘future’.

People like my mother were abandoned by them because they were ‘no longer useful.’”

Ravon then stared at Kael, his eyes reflecting intense emotions.

“They use people, Lord Kael.

They use them till they’re empty, till there’s nothing left to take.

And when there’s no more to take—”

He gritted his teeth.

“—they throw them away. Like broken artifacts. Like scraps.”

The silence that followed was suffocating.

Even the air felt heavier, as if the walls themselves were listening.

Finally, Ravon looked straight into Kael’s eyes.

“Tell me, Lord Kael,”

he said quietly.

“Do such people… truly deserve to live?”

Kael didn’t answer.

He just stood there—motionless, calm, his blue eyes watching Ravon.

Ravon frowned, his breath slowing down. He studied Kael’s calm face even after his revelation and…

He realized it.

“You… already knew.”

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