NOVEL NEXT Ch. 29
Chapter 29: Dragon King? A New Spicy Material!
Silence.
A suffocating silence that lasted for ten whole seconds.
In the 【Underwear Research Division】 workshop, it felt as if the air itself had been sucked away by that roar from an ancient dragon. Every member stood frozen stiff, heads raised, staring blankly at the apocalyptic vision forcibly projected across the sky.
Burning wings, molten scales, and those golden eyes brimming with greed and tyranny.
And then, that system announcement, tolling like a death knell.
【Dragon King Ignis has marked this location as its first ‘meal’!】
【Estimated Arrival Time: 24 hours.】
“M-meal… meal?” A player who had been polishing an Emotion Gem stammered. The gem slipped from his trembling hand, hitting the ground with a “crack” and shattering into fragments.
“The Dragon King… is coming… to eat our… wives?” 【LaceSupremacy】 finally found her voice again after her daze. She lowered her head, staring at the “Liberation” series blueprint that had slipped from her hands.
On the paper, the semi-transparent black lace and the daring strap design suddenly looked so pale and powerless.
Moments ago, they had been passionately discussing how to use knots that could “liberate” their wives’ true natures more conveniently.
Now, a catastrophe had arrived, ready to physically “liberate” their wives—and the library itself—straight into another dimension.
“I… f*ck!”
At last, a player’s curse shattered the deathly silence, igniting the powder keg of suppressed tension.
The entire workshop—no, the entire Knights’ public channel—exploded instantly.
“A dragon! It’s a dragon! What the hell are the devs doing? Why is the Chapter 2 main boss being released early?”
“Level 40 average, and you want us to fight the Dragon King? What kind of international joke is this? Did the GM get their head slammed in a door?”
“That’s not the point! The point is what the announcement said! The Dragon King’s target is the library! It’s our home! Our wife’s home!”
“24 hours! Only 24 hours! How the hell are we supposed to defend it? With what, our skulls?”
Panic spread like a virus.
Until now, though players chanted “Protect our wife,” it had always been more of a spiritual rallying cry. Their enemies had been 【Book Monsters】, rare material drop rates, and various GM-set barriers.
But this time, it was different.
They were about to face a real, tangible calamity, capable of destroying everything.
Those vast wings weren’t CG—they would fan flames that could incinerate all.
That molten breath wasn’t a special effect—it could vaporize players into data in an instant.
For the first time since the launch of 《Aincrad Era》, players faced such crushing despair directly.
The forums had already devolved into chaos.
【World Announcement Analysis: The GMs Have Gone Mad! Chapter 2 Main Quest 【Greedy Wings】 Unlocked Early!】
【Power Comparison: Current Player Teams VS Golden Dragon King Ignis → Calculated Win Rate: 0.0001%!】
【Emergency! Players in the Western Wasteland Run! The Dragon King Is Coming!】
A cloud of pessimism engulfed the entire server. Countless players in the Western Wasteland panicked, scrambling to flee to other main cities through teleportation circles. Before overwhelming power, all enthusiasm and grinding seemed meaningless.
Yet, amid the wailing, one voice suddenly cut through on the 【Mophis Wife Knights】’ internal forum.
The poster—it was still that same man, 【Data Emperor】.
【Emergency Broadcast! Calm the hell down! What’s with the funeral cries? The Dragon King’s coming and suddenly the sky’s falling? Did the roar fry your brains?!】
That title, brimming with gunpowder, instantly drew the attention of every panicked Knight.
“Easy for you to say, Data Emperor! That’s the Dragon King! How the hell do we fight it?”
“Exactly! If we don’t run, we’ll get one-shotted! Sure, we can respawn, but if the library gets destroyed, then it’s gone for good!”
Facing the outburst, 【Data Emperor】 wasted no words. He updated the main post immediately.
【Idiots! You still don’t get it? Why do you think the devs chose this moment to unleash the Dragon King?】
【Not earlier, not later—precisely when our 【Underwear Research Division】 was having the hottest debate over the ‘Liberation’ series?】
【And what’s the Dragon King’s target? ‘Pure Knowledge Energy.’ Now think—what’s our wife’s identity? The ‘Lonely Keeper of Books’! Still don’t see the connection?!】
【This isn’t a calamity! This is an official conspiracy! A GM emergency intervention!】
【They’re afraid! Afraid of our ‘Liberation’ series! Afraid we’ll turn our wife from a pure Librarian into a walking hormone bomb! Afraid our LSP brigade will get the game shut down! So they’re dropping a bigger monster on us, to distract us, to derail our spicy project!】
Those words struck like lightning, clearing the fog in everyone’s minds.
Right!
The timing was too perfect!
They’d just cracked Emotion Gems and Charm Amplification Runes, and the devs instantly dropped a world boss to crash their party?
No one would believe it wasn’t connected!
“Holy sh*t! So that’s it! The GMs didn’t want us putting black stockings on our wife, so they sent a dragon to scare us off?”
“Too sinister! Too despicable! These devs will stop at nothing to sabotage our art!”
“I get it! I get it completely! They just can’t stand to see our wife thrive! Can’t stand us ‘liberating’ her true nature!”
The players’ rage found a new outlet. Fear of the Dragon King was swiftly replaced with fury at the GMs.
【Data Emperor】’s post continued.
【So what we must do now—isn’t run, and definitely isn’t bashing head-first into the Dragon King! That’s what idiots would do—that’s exactly what the GMs want!】
【What we must do is see through the scheme—and then, shatter it!】
【Now, look again at that CG. Study our ‘enemy’—the Golden Dragon King Ignis!】
【What do you see? I’ll tell you what I saw!】
【First: She’s strong. Very strong. Second: She’s greedy. Extremely greedy. Third—and most important—She’s a woman!】
The last line was blown up in blood-red bold font.
In an instant, the forum’s tone veered into a bizarre new direction.
“A… a woman?”
“Holy crap! It’s true! The official lore says the ‘Golden Dragon King’ Ignis is the reigning Dragon Queen!”
“A powerful, greedy queen… and her target is our gentle, pure wife, guarding the treasury of knowledge…”
“Wait a sec… why does this… sound kinda hot?”
One player timidly typed the thought, as if unlocking Pandora’s box.
In the 【Underwear Research Division】 workshop, 【LaceSupremacy】 watched the forum’s shift. Her eyes gradually lit up.
She saw something.
She replayed the CG of the Dragon King’s awakening, pausing on the close-up of Ignis’s golden eyes.
Those eyes brimmed with cruelty and greed—but also with a sovereign’s dominance and possessiveness, unique to a queen.
A bold, spine-tingling thought surged up within her.
If their earlier “Liberation” series designs had been about guiding their wife to unleash her fiery inner side…
Then…
A mighty, domineering dragon queen descending from the heavens, her gaze fixed on their fragile, lonely, adorable wife who secretly yearned for freedom…
Wasn’t that… the ultimate “Liberation” material?!
“Ladies! Gentlemen!” 【LaceSupremacy】 slammed the table, her voice trembling with excitement.
“I think… we may have been wrong about something.”
“This dragon… perhaps she didn’t come to destroy.”
She drew in a deep breath, speaking almost like a dreamer.
“She came… to steal the bride!”