Last Egg: Reincarnated as a Dragon in a Game

391  The Rotten Apples, part 2/2

POV Vesuvius:

The dragon hovered high above the city, its streets empty and submerged in shadows.

‘Not everyone betrayed me but they are a lot of bad apples hiding within my populace, corrupting and spoiling it.’ His mind filled with determination as he felt all the heartbeats within all the houses and buildings throughout the city.

The fear was palpable in them.

‘The bad apples need to be found and filtered out from the productive and loyal population to prevent their bad influence from spreading.’

Until now, he let the humans live by themself, but he now saw it wouldn’t work, and his citizens needed more of his guidance, ‘The children must be educated in loyalty to me and to the kingdom!’

He saw with his own eyes how zealous and fanatical humans could be when being part of a religious or political movement. He even saw historic examples on earth of how to achieve it: ‘I need to instill unity and create symbolism. I need to also fabricate a common enemy to unite my people in hatred against it.’

Someone might call his thoughts and plans evil or even a dictatorship, but he saw only hope, the hope to fix all problems.

‘Even with all these, there will always be some troublemakers or criminals wanting to betray me or leach on my kingdom and its citizens. Yes, the kingdom shall be split into multiple districts, and the population will be slowly filtered and reeducated. This way no workforce will be wasted, yet at the same time there will be no cross-contamination.’

The lightning bolts kept striking in the clouds as the storm raged above the empty streets as if nature was enraged together with him.

‘These that prove to be loyal citizens will be moved to a better district and live better lives. Simultaneously these lowlifes, too greedy and uncooperative humans will be slowly filtered out to worse districts and their children will be taken from them to be educated and given a chance to rise.’

He already saw the image of his new state! The government-owned and mandatory schools were built to uplift the citizens in every town and city. Better standards of living for better citizens would motivate humans. Finally, the constant surveillance of citizens in standard districts would bring fear and control while marking those loyal and those disloyal.

‘Yes, I can even cross out control for the lowest districts. These thrown there would already be lost cases only good for cheap labor or as cannon fodder in wars.’

It was how to root out all the corruption brought by the generations without guidance, ‘Any lesser solution will be ineffective or only temporary. After a few generations, I could even remove or lessen this regime when the culture will be fixed and loyalty engrained deep into every citizen.’

There was also one last option, ‘My blood, when diluted enough, there is a chance it will lose its eternal youth effects while at least preserving the loyalty-inducing effect.

Just thinking about it, the dragon’s blood boiled with disgust and unwillingness, ‘To waste my precious blood on fixing those that were unworthy in the first place would be against the spirit of meritocracy my society shall be built on.’

He finally made up his mind and decided that he was going to establish a new order. The order would reward good behavior and loyalty while heavily punishing those who would oppose him or were rotten.

His words, filled with power, thundered in tandem with the chorus of thunder, “My minions, go, from now on, this city is back under our control! The new law will be created!” At once, his armies spilled through the gates and over the walls like a flood of metal and scales.

The air became heavier and the clouds even thicker and darker as the dragon turned his attention to the main perpetrator, the eagle-winged player floating high above the city. 𝗈𝑽xt.𝗇t

The player’s hand closed into a fist, and the sound of shattering glass echoed. The light swallowed him as he vanished into nothingness.

‘Coward!’ He wanted to shout at the cowardliness of his enemy, ‘Teleportation crystal… if I knew I would have used space seal. Why can’t be my enemies more honorable?’

It wasn’t a big problem for him as his eyes menacingly glinted, ‘You can run away, but I will remember you and eventually, I will get you.’

“Spread my orders. Close all the borders and create checkpoints on all the major roads. No, one is allowed to travel except for merchants and other parts of the logistic chain.”

Implementing his new order would take a while and create a lot of chaos in its initial phase. Still, he already made up his mind.

Only a single matter remained to be solved.

“You have changed a lot, my minion” Changes weren’t unusual for dragon kind, yet they were almost unheard of being so prompt and extensive. Vesuvius couldn’t push back suppress his curiosity any longer, ‘Maybe there is a way for me too.’

“Your Majesty…” his minions landed and bowed his horned head while his clawed legs dug into the ground.

After a brief silence, the knight raised his head and looked straight in the dragon’s direction, “I was blessed and I have encountered their divinity, the dragon god. I already had potential due to your gracious gifts, and they helped me to awaken it.”

‘Is he lying to me?’ it felt off and weird to the dragon. It wasn’t an entire lie, yet at least something of it was. It was alarming, ‘Can my minions betray me? No, I can still feel the connection and there is no sign of malice and or betrayal. It is just fear… and shame? Dragon god, is it their work? Why would they even contact and uplift my minion?’

The dragon’s alertness quickly grew, and paranoia awakened within him as if he felt the golden eyes of the dragon god stare at him, ‘Dragon god… what if they will want to get rid of me?’