An elf gritted his teeth as he kneeled on his elbows and knees, his forehead touching the ground. “Why are you doing this!?” he asked, his body shaking as he fought to lift his head. He mustered up all the mana in his body and groaned as he strained his neck, raising his torso but only enough to see a wicked claw and part of an ocean-blue scale. “Dragons never fight for residences!”

“You’ll start a war between towers!” another kneeling elf shouted. “The dragons of our tower won’t sit back when they learn about what you’ve done!”

“Quiet! All of you, be quiet!” a gray-haired elf said. She was kneeling as well. In fact, around the dragon that had dug into the most important region of the residence, there wasn’t a single elf capable of standing. The elderly elf crawled forward and knocked her forehead against the ground in the direction of the ocean-blue dragon. “Please, tell us your demands, O mighty dragon. We willingly surrender this land to you. We’ll listen to whatever you say, do whatever you want us to. All I ask is you spare our lives.”

“This is the dimensional monument?” Vur asked. He pointed at a gnarled tablet hovering in the air within a green sphere of mana and ignored the elves’ questions.

“Yes,” the gray-haired elf said despite not seeing where Vur was pointing. “May I ask why you are doing this? Did the tower send you a special mission with rewards you were interested in? We might not have much, but perhaps there’s something we can give you that’ll interest you instead.”

“This is ridiculous!” an elf shouted. “What are all of you doing!? This is our home! Our residence! We’ve lived here for thousands of years! How are we being defeated by a single dragon right now? Did all of you skip breakfast today? Is that why you’re so weak!?”

“Your scolding would have a bigger impact if you weren’t also kneeling with us, prince,” another elf said from not too far away. “But to answer your question, well, you know how much money it costs to maintain the defensive formation? It should actually cost a lot more, but we’ve, uh, cut costs to line a few pockets, and now the formation’s not quite as good as it should be.”

“Who in the world thought that was a great idea!?”

“Well, your father was one of the main proponents,” the elf said, mumbling his words.

If the elf prince’s ears weren’t sharp enough, he might’ve misunderstood his elder’s words. “My father would never!” the prince shouted, broadcasting his voice to make sure no one missed his words. “How dare you suggest my father, the man who dedicates his very soul and being into performing his duties as a righteous monarch, would do such corrupt, traitorous deeds in exchange for some pocket change!? You’re the minister in charge of finance; I think you’re the one who’s been diverting funds meant for defending our home into your own pocket!”

“Prince! You can’t throw around accusations like that without thinking!” the elder said, his neck twisting as he turned his head to the side to look at the prince. “The weight of your words is very heavy. My old, ailing heart can’t handle the burden of such a rumor.”

Vur snorted. “So noisy.”

“I’ll do it,” Diamant said from the brown runes on Vur’s front leg. Damp earthen hands rose out of the ground and grasped the elves’ mouths, still leaving room for the elves to breathe through their noses—albeit the air they inhaled was a bit … wet. However, they couldn’t voice their protests, so they must not have minded.

Vur nodded. “Better.” He sat down on his rump, and the flames around him dispersed. His shimmering body, an effect due to the flames, solidified, and he turned his head to the side. Up the trail Vur had created by digging and tossing aside anything in his way, there was a group of people following after a red, head-sized rock. Vur raised a paw. “Tafel, hi.”

“Hey, Vur,” Tafel said and skipped over to her husband, not minding the elves kneeling on the ground. “What’d you need from Gaegukja Yeol?”

“I wanted to show her something,” he said and leaned to the side. He waved his paw at Gaegukja Yeol. “Come here.”

Gaegukja Yeol furrowed her brow and floated forward. “Yes? Did you need me to explain anything for you?” Other than an explanation for an item Vur had found or communicating with the elves inside the residence, Gaegukja Yeol didn’t think she had any other way to contribute.

“Look,” Vur said and grabbed the gnarled tablet hovering within the green sphere of mana. When Vur’s claws touched the green mana, the whole sphere evaporated at once, turning into a green mist that surged into Vur’s leg, passing straight through his scales. He frowned as he grabbed the gnarled tablet and waved his leg about as if he were shaking off droplets of water.

A certain fairy queen shouted, “Hey! What the heck!? Who let these broccoli stalks into my castle!?”

“That’s a dimensional monument,” Gaegukja Yeol said.

Vur nodded.

“And the mana sphere protecting it is a harmful soul poison.”

“Is it?” Vur shrugged before smashing the tablet onto the ground directly in front of Gaegukja Yeol, causing the flaming woman to yelp and jump backwards as the smashing sound reverberated through the area. The gnarled tablet cracked into pieces, and Vur swiped the pieces apart with his paw. When he did so, the whole world shook, and cracks appeared in the sky as the tips of roots and branches appeared from beyond the clouds.

“You just destroyed the dimensional monument,” Gaegukja Yeol said, staring at the pieces of the gnarled tablet on the ground. She raised her head and blinked at Vur. “Is that what you wanted to show me?”

Vur nodded. “Yes. You wanted me to demonstrate.”

Gaegukja Yeol looked down at the broken monument again. When Vur concocted his plan, she did ask him to demonstrate how he was going to destroy the monument, but for him to actually do it…. How long had it been since someone had gone out of their way to do something for her?

“So, uh, what’s happening here?” Tafel asked, poking her head beside Gaegukja Yeol’s. “What’s with the branches and roots?”

Gaegukja Yeol raised her head. “Since we destroyed the dimensional monument, this residence is no longer anchored in space. The tower is fighting to incorporate it right now. How much of the residence you obtain depends on the towers’ negotiation with one another.”