The Province of Runeterran was located in the southwestern part of the Jurao Kingdom and was considered one of the most beautiful in the nation. The land wasn't very fertile and suitable for cultivation, but on the other hand it was a paradise for those who wanted to admire a beautiful landscape. Thanks to its geographical position, the climate almost always made the air warm and comfortable, never too much in the summer, never too little in the winter; lakes fed by rivers flowing down from the mountains carpeted the region and lush woodlands provided excellent places to take part in a hunting trip. Many varieties of plants and flowers were found only in this province, making it a magnificent riot of color and form. It was so wonderful that ever since the kingdom's foundation the kings of old had proclaimed the land a national treasure and rather than waste time trying to make it into a territory suitable for agriculture or commerce they had decided to turn it into a holiday resort. Since the land was a national treasure, building a mansion on it required the approval of the king, which equated to political support and a lot of money; therefore for a noble to have a house in the Runeterran Province was now considered a reason for great prestige and wealth, since it showed that his house or even himself had made large contributions to the crown and that they possessed great wealth. And of course, it was always the royal family who benefited from all this, who thus obtained allies and money.
Of course, it was also possible that the opposite could happen, meaning that it was the royal family itself that gave a mansion in the Runeterran Province to someone to gain his favor; generally these were promising noble houses or, more frequently, people blessed by the goddess Heloisa, precisely the legendary levels. Even though they had a mission to serve and protect the crown, it was always best to constantly curry favor with them. Thornag, Hara, and Carrion also had a mansion there; in particular, that of Carrion was located on a high hill that offered a wonderful view of the landscape. It was a two-story villa built with extremely refined techniques, with a large garden and numerous luxurious rooms that very clearly expressed all the prestige enjoyed by the person who lived in that house. Those who looked at it from the outside couldn't help but feel envy and respect for the owner of that mansion, even some nobles, since even if they had houses there, they weren't so beautiful.
Carrion, however, didn't usually stay in that mansion. He thought it a waste of time since he'd never been one too interested in luxury and prestige, and he'd much rather spend his time training or training recruits than sprawled out on a bed or sofa with no do nothing or get on a horse and hunt a fox in the woods just for fun. The only times he had stayed in that villa had been when he received it, and therefore he had to spend some time there since otherwise he could have offended the king, and during a vacation period that the sovereign had given him a few years later and which, in fact, had been useful for him to get rid of a lot of accumulated stress. But taking these brief moments away, he had always used to think that this villa would never be a long-term abode for him, at least not until he had aged enough to pass his position on to someone else and wanted to retire to enjoy a retirement calm and free of bad thoughts.
But this perspective had proved to be inaccurate, because by now he had been staying in that place for almost three months, without ever going out except in the garden, and probably that situation would have lasted much longer. Because he wasn't actually staying in his villa… he was confined inside it.
After he and Black Vulture had returned from the desert, they had made their way to the nearest city and there they had waited for Thornag to come and fetch them and bring them before the king. Carrion knew that the king would not approve of his actions and he was not wrong: he had in fact yelled at him for almost an hour before calming down, remarking how much his actions had endangered the whole kingdom. Carrion hadn't argued and he hadn't tried to defend himself, because he knew it would be useless. Marcus was a devoted servant of the goddess Heloisa, but unfortunately his judgment was terribly clouded: he had not seen the things that Carrion had seen and even if he had told her about them he could not have understood them. He was unable to see how the beastmen were immoral and unfaithful beings who only deserved extermination; and precisely because he could not see him, he reasoned thinking of them as if they were his normal subjects. In his mind there were laws, politics and economics; but since he had never seen certain things himself, he could neither imagine nor understand them.
Carrion had therefore let the king vent. He had endured his furious words and his fiery glare without saying a word, and hadn't even reacted to Thornag's and Hara's somewhat disappointed and angry expressions. However, when the king had asked him to remove his disguise and show his true nature, it had been a truly humiliating moment. Even though Carrion knew Marcus was already aware of everything, for him to reveal his true self, the unequivocal proof that the blood of that foul race coursed in his veins, had been the greatest shame. And this shame was even more amplified by the look of contempt that the king had clearly given him when he had finally carried out the order and had taken off his disguise. He didn't know if it was because of his nature as beastmen or because he had tried to kill what in Marcus's point of view should have been his own people, but Carrion knew that in that moment the king had greatly despised him. At that moment Carrion had felt the urge to vomit from anger, shame, hatred and a whole host of other awful emotions that had for some reason found a place in the pit of his stomach, and he wanted to rip off that hideous skin that he was forced to possess from birth with his own nails; but he had resisted and maintained a sort of dignity, because he didn't want the king to think even worse of him than he already thought.
When Marcus finally calmed down, Carrion finally spoke up. He hadn't explained his reasons to the king and he hadn't told him his story; since he wouldn't understand, there was no point in doing so. Rather, he began with a single sentence: "Haku isn't alone; there are sixteen other dragons with him"
Those ten words immediately changed the mood of the room. The king had given up his furious disposition and his expression had changed completely; his fists had clenched so tightly that his knuckles cracked and his entire body had stiffened to the point that a statue would have more vitality. Even Thornag and Hara went white when they heard this. Even Black Vulture, while not showing his face, had emitted a slight trembling: even if she had gone to help him, he had no real idea of how many dragons there really were around, and had thought they were no more than five or six, so discovering that they were actually seventeen must have upset her a little. Such a reaction was normal and Carrion had expected it: anyone would have reacted this way if they had known that so many monsters were gathered together. No, not monsters: real destructive calamities that had already been able to defeat him, a legendary level, and that once they grew up they would surely have been invincible. If that had happened, Haku and his siblings could only be stopped if every nation in the world united against them... or if the gods themselves descended again to mortals as in the past and showed those dragons what it was the real power. Carrion almost wouldn't have minded: it would have been more than right that an evil and vicious creature like Haku should suffer divine punishment... but if this had happened it would have meant that he had failed in his intention to protect the kingdom from all threats, and in that case he would no longer have the courage to show his face in front of the goddess who had chosen him for that.
The king had listened carefully to her explanation of how he had chased after Haku, discovered how many dragons there were, and how he was then defeated after trying to kill him a second time. In particular, he had tried his best to make Marcus understand how dangerous Haku was and how much power he already possessed, and how much was the need to stop him immediately while he was still weak and vulnerable. When he was finished, Carrion had clearly seen a long train of thoughts in his king's eyes, who was clearly reasoning on how to act; as he had imagined, he would not stand by and wait for disaster to befall them. Maybe it would take a while, but surely he would be able to come up with an efficient plan. However, not everything went as he had hoped: he had thought that the king had forgotten what he had done now that he had to think about how to solve the dragon problem, but unfortunately he was wrong. Marcus had ordered him to go away to his mansion in the Province of Runeterran and to stay there until he ordered him back; officially it would have been a holiday, but in reality it was a real confinement.
And so Carrion found himself cooped up in his own home, awaiting orders he knew wouldn't come for quite some time after what he'd done. In one sense he could still consider himself lucky: anyone else in his position would have been punished with capital punishment, and only his being a legendary level and therefore a fundamental weapon had saved him from that fate. So now he lived alone inside those stuffy walls and spent his days reading, looking at the view or working out in the garden. His only company were the servants and maids, but he knew they were there not to serve him but to watch him: he could tell by the way they looked at him. No one had been allowed to visit him, so no one came to see him; the only visit he had received had been from Thornag, who had come only so that he could receive a much more detailed report of everything that had happened and thus discover any possible weak point of Haku, and he had not even informed him of what the king was doing to stop the threat of the dragon. Carrion wasn't even sure they would bring him in when it was time to fight.
Fortunately, he could still receive and send letters; during those three months many of his allies in the noble faction, among the temple priests, among the slave traders and even some of his foreign contacts had contacted him to make sure of his condition. Carrion knew that many of these people had their own interests and weren't really interested in him, and that they only saw him as a useful tool to use; but just as they used him, he used them. Through them he could in fact keep up to date at least a little on what was happening in the outside world and evaluate the situation very accurately. And as he evaluated the situation, new plans began to form in his mind.
There was nothing he could do about it: he was not a person who sat and waited for others to act for him, he was a general, a leader, a conqueror; he just couldn't wait. He had identified the threat and now it was his duty to destroy it as soon as possible, because with each passing second that threat would grow stronger. His was a true warrior's concern. He had already failed to kill Haku twice already, so he was under no illusions: he couldn't win in a fight on equal terms with him... but what if he wasn't alone? What if others had acted before him, and he had only stepped in for the final blow? What if he had devised an extremely effective strategy to trap that damned dragon and eliminate it once and for all? Extremely articulated plans were slowly forming in his mind and were coming together in one grand strategy; Carrion spent his days sitting in his studio thinking about how to perfect it. And thanks to the fact that he still had the ability to send letters to people he knew, he could also start preparing his plan in the concrete, not just the abstract.