When had it started?
When
The cause must have been something trivial.
Sariel's given mission was the protection of primordial life. The fact that Sariel, an angel specialized in combat, was assigned that mission meant one thing: protect primordial life from the other gods. It meant do not allow other gods to interfere. In other words, Sariel's mission was the expulsion of gods. Like the other gods, Sariel was not expected to interfere with primordial life herself.
So at first, she simply watched over them.
Sariel had always watched over the world.
But at some point, she began reaching out a hand, rather than merely watching.
The cause must have truly been something trivial.
Just a child she helped out of a small kindness. She caught someone who had stumbled — nothing so grand as to be called a charitable deed.
"Thank you!"
She was simply thanked for it.
That tiny moment was how it all began.
☆ Stalking refers to the act of repeatedly following a particular person. Naturally, the act of surveilling a specific individual falls under that umbrella as well. While the response varies by country, in developed nations it is treated as virtually a criminal offense.
A criminal.
He, a dragonkind, was a criminal.
The shock Gyuriel received was something only he himself could understand.
But let us simply say it was immense.
Through Fodouï's words, as Gyuriel learned the common sense and customs of humans, he also acquired knowledge about stalking.
And he was devastated.
The fact that the behavior he had dismissed as meaningless was, to humans, an act reviled as criminal.
That he, a dragonkind, would be pointed at from behind and condemned as a stalker.
What an indignity!
At the same time, a sense of crisis gripped him regarding his own ignorance.
He grew anxious that perhaps everything he had done until now was, in the eyes of others, something outrageous.
Driven by that anxiety, Gyuriel set about learning every last human custom and convention.
Dragons did not normally do such a thing.
No matter what humans thought, one's resolve should not waver. It was only natural for humans to revere dragons as sacred. After all, dragons were supreme beings. And it was only natural for humans to look upon dragons with suspicion and unease. If mere humans could not properly comprehend a supreme existence such as a dragon, that was simply how it had to be. Humans who could not understand dragons were the ones at fault — a dragon's behavior could not possibly be wrong.
That was what "normal" meant, for a dragon.
And yet, Gyuriel was the opposite. He let his heart be unsettled by human words and began learning human culture.
At this point, even the other dragons began regarding him with suspicion.
Why would a supreme being such as a dragon need to study the ways of inferior creatures?
Why would a supreme being such as a dragon need to accommodate inferior creatures?
A dragon need only exist as a dragon. If accommodation was to be made, it should be the inferior creatures accommodating the dragon.
Still, Gyuriel did not believe he was doing anything wrong.
Before meeting Sariel, Gyuriel had never once doubted that dragonkind was the supreme existence. Meeting Sariel had introduced a crack in that belief, and being thoroughly argued down by the human Fodouï had widened that crack further.
Dragons were certainly powerful and magnificent.
But were they truly the supreme existence? When he was inferior to Sariel in martial might and had been beaten in argument by Fodouï?
Could it be that, simply because he had not known of them, there existed species superior to dragons?
That notion, heretical from a dragon's perspective, nonetheless made perfect sense to Gyuriel.
That dragons were superior as a species was beyond doubt. But that did not mean it was wise to dismiss all other creatures as inferior. Perhaps there were things he could learn from humans — those he had scorned and never so much as glanced at until now.
The more he studied humans, the more that question hardened into conviction.
Dragons were so superior precisely because they did not bother to push forward. There was no need to make a conscious effort — as time passed, they naturally acquired power. And once enough time had passed, their intellect developed to a corresponding degree as well.
With eternity at their disposal, they were a race that could simply exist and evolve without ever needing to rush.
That was the dragon.
Humans, by contrast, had no time. A human lifetime was but an instant from a dragon's perspective, and in that instant they burned their lives away. The actions they carried out in that lifetime were dizzying — they confronted the act of living with deadly seriousness and reveled in it.
While dragons idled away their time, humans were astonishingly energetic.
Even if the results of that energy seemed trivial from a dragon's perspective, humans were living. Living vibrantly.
He had heard that humans who did nothing and merely idled were called NEETs. Well, by that definition, every dragon was a NEET.
When that realization struck, Gyuriel laughed to himself.
No matter how vast one's power might be, being both a NEET and a stalker — one could hardly blame others for laughing.
While dragons idled, humans lived desperately.
As a species, dragons were superior. That was an undeniable fact.
But Gyuriel no longer felt he could look down on humans as inferior creatures.
A sense of crisis even crept in — if one grew complacent riding on the strength of one's species, might one day be dealt a painful blow by humans?
Even if that was overthinking it, there was much to learn from the way humans lived. He had been made to realize that, and for that he was grateful. Along with the apology he owed for everything up to now.
And above all, to verify the answer, Gyuriel resolved to meet Sariel one more time.
To confirm whether Sariel truly did not use the power of a god.