Chapter 1108: Why Does It Have to Be an Egg?

Heddy thought back carefully. In all the years since she’d come to know her ancestor, this was the first time she’d ever seen such a stunned, almost dazzling expression on his usually stern and composed face. Watching the ever-serious ancestor get so thoroughly rattled was oddly entertaining. But Heddy wasn’t Rebecca, who liked to stir up trouble every few days, so she quickly suppressed the mischievous urge bubbling inside her. Clearing her throat, she tried to steer the mood back on track. “Sir…”

“Wait, let me… sort this out first,” High Lord Gawain waved his hand instinctively, then pressed his palm to his throbbing forehead. “Betty’s been watering that egg these past couple of days… That girl sometimes does things others don’t understand, but she shouldn’t have gone this far… Never mind. Go fetch Betty. I want to ask her what’s going on. By the way, has the egg changed at all?”

“No changes,” Heddy replied after a moment’s thought, suddenly feeling a bit guilty. During the ancestor’s absence, she’d poured almost all her energy into the affairs of state, neglecting the “household matters” right under her nose. This kind of subconscious oversight might not seem like a big deal to the ancestor, but on reflection, it was a fault. “The incubation chamber has strict patrols. Someone checks on the dragon egg three times a day. Betty’s odd behavior hasn’t caused any problems…”

Heddy hesitated, but in the end didn’t say the part about the egg “being a little pickled lately.”

Gawain’s mouth twitched. “…Let’s just call Betty over first. Then I’ll go see the incubation chamber myself.”

Moments later, Betty, busy on the second floor, was summoned by the call bell and appeared before Gawain. The maid looked cheerful—after all, today was the day Gawain finally came home—but also a little confused. She couldn’t understand why she’d been called so suddenly. According to the carefully memorized protocol, she had already led the attendants and servants in the welcoming ceremony at the door, and the next summons was supposed to be at least an hour away.

Seeing Betty’s bewildered face, Gawain felt a mix of amusement and disbelief. He had watched this girl grow up—watched her read newspapers, learn spelling and arithmetic, and transform from a clueless kitchen maid into the royal head maid. This skinny, slow-witted country girl, once malnourished, had indeed matured. Yet compared to those theoretically on the same level, she was still unremarkable, even clumsy, prone to occasional mental blanks and unexpected actions. Still, everyone here liked her very much.

She was a simple, straightforward child. When she did things, she probably never thought far ahead. She just tried hard to do well. Though she’d messed up sometimes, she had steadily improved over the years.

“Betty,” Gawain’s expression softened, a faint smile playing on his lips. “I heard something… You’ve been visiting that dragon egg in the incubation chamber a lot lately?”

Betty nodded enthusiastically, admitting it without hesitation.

“And you’ve been watering it?” Gawain kept smiling, but his expression twitched oddly at this. “I even heard someone saw you talking to the egg?”

Betty’s face finally changed. She didn’t respond immediately but looked hesitant and troubled, which surprised both Gawain and Heddy. Before Gawain could ask why, the maid seemed to make up her mind. She nodded firmly and said, “I’m pouring tea for Lady Enya—and she wants me to keep her company.”

As she spoke, the young maid thought hard: Lady Enya had told her not to tell anyone about this, but the agreement seemed to say it was okay once the master returned. Now that the master was back… maybe it was fine to say it? Or maybe she was just remembering wrong. But there was no way around it—he had asked.

This pure-hearted girl didn’t want to lie to Gawain.

Gawain was momentarily stunned again. After piecing together the clues in Betty’s words, he immediately realized this was not what he had imagined. How did Betty know the name Enya? She was talking to Enya?!

He sprang up from the sofa. “Let’s go to the incubation chamber. Now!”

…

The sound of hurried footsteps echoed down the corridor, accompanied by several distinct presences. The quiet, peaceful atmosphere of the incubation chamber was shattered. From the center of the room, the pale golden giant egg emitted a faint sigh, followed by a softly amused murmur: “Back already… I thought I might get a few more quiet days.”

The door to the incubation chamber was pushed open from outside, and Gawain, Heddy, and Betty stepped inside. They stared wide-eyed at the softly glowing runes floating around the room, and at the enormous dragon egg standing in the center. The egg’s surface shimmered with an ethereal halo, ancient and mysterious runes flickering in and out of sight. Everything looked perfectly normal—except for a newspaper floating right in front of the egg, turning its pages in full view of everyone.

Heddy’s eyes widened. Gawain’s expression stiffened. Betty happily stepped forward and greeted, “Lady Enya! You’re reading the paper again?”

The incubation chamber door closed behind them. Gawain approached the golden egg with an unprecedentedly strange expression. From inside, a familiar gentle female voice spoke: “Long time no see, my friend.”

“So, after our last conversation, we’re friends now?” Gawain said instinctively.

As he spoke, he couldn’t help but glance up and down at the “dragon egg.” It looked almost unchanged since the last time he saw it. But maybe it was just his imagination—he always caught a faint scent wafting from the lower half of the shell. It was fragrant, but not supernatural. More like the tea he was used to drinking.

“A sincere conversation is enough to build a friendship. And in my long memory, our talk was the most sincere one I’ve had,” the voice inside the golden egg said. “What, don’t want to be friends with me?”

“Well… no,” Gawain shook his head awkwardly, unsure if he should smile. Countless guesses churned in his mind, forming vague answers. At the same time, he tried to regain control of the conversation. “I just didn’t expect to meet you again under these circumstances… So, you really are Enya? Enya, the goddess of the dragons?”

“The dragon gods are dead, gone with their madness, buried beyond the outer borders. Here remains only Enya—the human side of Enya,” the golden egg’s voice said softly. “I didn’t expect to meet you again like this either. In fact… I never thought this bold plan would actually work.”

Divinity… humanity… a bold plan…

Suddenly, Gawain’s eyes brightened with understanding. His gaze was deep, like staring into a bottomless pool as he looked at the golden egg. “So, the godslaying war in Tal’Rond was part of your plan? You used this method to kill the nearly uncontrollable divinity and let your human side survive in this form…”

“I took the biggest risk I’ve ever consciously taken, but it wasn’t my original plan. In the original plan, I didn’t intend to survive,” Enya said calmly. “I’ve known the children’s thoughts for a very long time… Though they suppress their thoughts and words, those ideas ripple deep in their minds, like the light in their eyes when they’re restless. How could an experienced mother not notice? I knew this day would come… In fact, I’ve been looking forward to it.

“But I can’t break my own rules, can’t loosen the chains myself. So the only thing I could do was leave a narrow gap for them, or turn a blind eye to certain things. So if this is a ‘plan,’ it’s mainly the dragons’ plan. What I did most was… mostly nothing.”

Gawain frowned slightly, thinking as he listened. He couldn’t help but say, “But you still haven’t said how you survived… You just said you didn’t intend to survive in the original plan.”

“You should thank me,” Enya chuckled lightly, her tone sincere. “The things you told me gave me great inspiration.”

“The things I told you?” Gawain was momentarily stunned, then realized. “You mean the Overlords… and the nature gods?”

“Many civilizations have risen and fallen in this world, countless mortal kingdoms, countless mortal heroes. Some are rebellious, some have ideas that even gods admire, some possess talents and courage beyond theory. Their reactions to gods vary—some revere, some disdain, some hate… But none are like you,” Enya said slowly, drifting off-topic but provoking deep thought. “Yes, you’re different. When you face gods, you neither fear nor retreat, nor do you feel love or hate—you simply don’t treat gods as gods. Your perspective is higher than that.

“You see gods as mere ‘phenomena’ or even ‘objects.’ You calmly seek the logic behind the phenomenon, as if trying to solve a formula with a definite answer.

“From this perspective, you introduced a variable never before seen in mortal thought. This variable guides mortals to objectively view divinity and humanity, to quantify and analyze them.

“In our last conversation, I… borrowed this variable, your perspective and its effects, to gain the ability to precisely separate my divinity and humanity.

“I’m sorry I didn’t ask your permission beforehand, nor explain it afterward. I feared it might cause unpredictable changes. I hope you don’t think I deceived or offended you.”

After hearing Enya’s confession, Gawain felt a deeper understanding of the gods’ “transcendence of the mundane.” These beings, born of imagination and beyond it, could do such things—gain new “ways of thinking” through conversation, and turn those perspectives into controllable powers… Is this the ultimate power of imagination?

His thoughts churned, but his face remained calm. He smiled casually and said, “No need to apologize. It seems to have had a good outcome, so I don’t mind. But I’m curious—this ability to ‘separate’ divinity and humanity… how does it actually work?”

The golden egg fell silent. After a few seconds, it broke the quiet with a tone of helplessness: “Such insatiable curiosity… only you would ask that. But unfortunately, I can’t explain it to you. Even if I could, this ability wouldn’t be useful to anyone else. After all, not all gods live for over a million years, nor do all gods undergo such a great fusion.”

“My sense of ‘separation’ stems from my unique condition. After all, the concept of ‘gods’ is itself a kind of ‘stitching’—a patchwork. For those deities who haven’t been through that stitching process… except for cases like the High Narrator, who experienced a kind of ‘death’ and whose divinity and humanity have already split, it’s best not to rush into ‘cutting’ oneself apart. It’s wiser to choose a more gradual, safer approach.”

“What happens if you rush the separation?” Gawain asked instinctively.

“…You end up cutting yourself to death.”

Gawain opened his mouth, feeling a bit awkward. “Well, that sounds pretty serious.”

After a moment’s thought, he couldn’t help but ask again, “So now that you’ve returned to this world in a ‘human’ form… what about Talrond? Should we talk to them? Since you’re purely human now, in theory, you shouldn’t have any negative influence on them anymore.”

The golden orb fell silent, longer than any silence before. Finally, she spoke: “The dragon’s age of myth has ended. There’s no need to let a ghost from the past haunt those dragons who have finally won their freedom. And considering the complexity of mortal hearts, even if I return to Talrond in a ‘human’ form, there’s no guarantee it won’t stir unexpected ideological shifts among them… For now, at least until the dragons have fully shaken off their past shadows and are ready for a new era, it’s better not to let them know about this.”

“Of course, you can share the news with a select few dragons responsible for managing Talrond’s affairs. Once they know the truth, they’ll be better equipped to plan society’s development and avoid potential dangers—and their sense of responsibility will keep the secret safe. When it comes to discretion, dragons have always been trustworthy.”

“I understand. I’ll find a chance to inform Talrond’s leadership about your situation,” Gawain nodded. Then, unable to resist his curiosity, he glanced again at Enya’s current round, egg-like form. “But I still have to ask… why an egg, of all things?”

“…Yeah, why an egg? Honestly, I haven’t figured that out either…”

(End of chapter)