Don't Mess with That Dragon-Chapter 762 - 003: Shadows of War

Smith kicked off his shoes as he entered, returned to the living room, casually placed the document in his hand on the table, and then plopped down on the sofa.

The living room was empty,

His mother recently joined a square dance group and would be performing soon at a community event, so she seldom returned home these days. His father, old Siran, was a renowned magic theory scientist in the Kingdom, and he was busy preparing for a magic lecture at the Magic Science and Technology University, often staying there. As a result, apart from Smith himself, only the other servants remained in the manor. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

"Sir, your newspaper."

Young York considerately handed over the water and newspaper, placed them on the table, and swiftly left to attend to other matters.

Taking a sip of water,

The cook was preparing lunch for him in the kitchen. During this break, Smith opened the newspaper and began to read it closely.

"According to statistics, the number of refugees fleeing south from the old Central Earth World reached a new high in the first half of this year. The Central Earth Continent has no longer a safe and stable place to reside..."

"To ensure the needs of the northern refugees fleeing south, the government has urgently deployed twelve shifts of steam-powered trains overnight to transport food, clothing, and other necessities north..."

As soon as he opened the newspaper, the official pages mainly featured news about the northern Central Earth Continent.

In recent years, the Blue Dragon Kingdom's economy has been growing rapidly, people's living standards have been improving swiftly. Meanwhile, the northern Central Earth World became increasingly chaotic, with more and more refugees fleeing south.

Numerous news media and television channels worked overtime tracking the situation, informing Blue Dragon Kingdom's many subjects of the latest updates, stirring feelings of unease.

There was no choice,

Many subjects of the Blue Dragon Kingdom were once among the refugees fleeing those days of displacement and hardship years ago.

After settling here, and accommodating relatives and friends, in the face of refugees facing similar situations as before, they developed a different kind of empathy, consciously or subconsciously inclined to read news about refugees.

Moreover, these matters, even elite classes like Smith's father.

In the Blue Dragon Kingdom's atmosphere, they genuinely empathized deeply with the lower class population.

From top to bottom, everyone liked to read this type of news.

During meals with friends and relatives at restaurants, they liked to talk about these matters, discussing national affairs, analyzing certain things on a macro level, even if they might not be professional or knowledgeable, providing topics for post-meal conversation.

Due to this reason, reports on the various chaos and hardship of refugees from the northern Central Earth Continent had very high ratings.

Driven by interest, along with official government guidance, news about northern refugees going south became a trendy topic on newspapers and radio stations.

"Luckily, Father decisively moved south back then, otherwise trapped in the old Central Earth World, amidst such war chaos, it would have been a nightmare..."

Looking at the tragic reports in the newspaper, Smith couldn't help but feel a sense of relief.

Back then, as a teacher at a noble academy in a certain Duchy, Smith's father, old Siran, lost his teaching position following a high-level power struggle where he offended a big figure. Later, one of his father's former students who sought a living in the southern Blue Dragon Kingdom warmly invited him, leading old Siran to take the family to migrate to the Blue Dragon Kingdom.

As a teacher at the old World Imperial Capital's noble academy back then, despite not being famous, old Siran's years of teaching led him to research numerous magic cognition theories due to his somewhat reclusive personality.

Relying on these magic theories not valued much in the old world, after arriving at the Blue Dragon Kingdom, Father old Siran passed the title exam of the Magic Science Academy, ultimately becoming an academician of the kingdom's civilization's Magic Science Academy.

In the whole Blue Dragon Kingdom, old Siran was considered one of the elite human talents.

Through the combination of magic theory and science, he achieved many results, his contributions significant, making him a very famous academician of the Magic Science Academy across the Blue Dragon Kingdom.

Praise to the great His Highness Austin.

Thinking of this, Smith silently recited in his heart.

Continuing to flip through the newspaper,

Suddenly, Smith's gaze sharpened.

"Huh?"

He saw something on the second page of the newspaper.

"...Today a fire conflict erupted at the western border. The monster legion under the King of Calamity from the Red Dragon Empire launched an invasion on our border, destroying a small town in this heartless massacre... A solemn warning: Red Dragon Empire's officials must publicly apologize immediately and compensate for the losses of the border people... Don't say we didn't warn you!"

This was an official announcement.

There was also a stern photo of the foreign minister in his declaration.

Smith's hand immediately stopped.

"Red Dragon Empire, King of Calamity? Looks like war is about to break out again. Hmph, these scoundrels who treat human lives as if they were mere weeds should be completely cleansed; it's the perfect opportunity to swallow the entire Red Dragon Empire and expand continental supremacy."

In recent years, the Blue Dragon Kingdom's economy developed rapidly.

Simultaneously, external wars had never ceased.

Since the invasion by the Eight-Nation Allied Forces on the Blue Dragon Kingdom six or seven years ago, provoking the Dragon Nest Legion to fight back, breaking through the Border Great Wall and sweeping across the Three Countries of Frandy, the Blue Dragon Kingdom had already carved out a huge gap moving north into the Central Earth World.

For years, the war continued without pause, with the Dragon's Nest army gaining successive victories,

one country after another was breached, becoming occupied territories of the Blue Dragon Kingdom, finally undergoing various mature reforms for integration and swiftly converting them into its own foundation.

In short, during this offensive process, Dragon's Nest army almost swept through without encountering too difficult resistance.

The technological weapons, tactical ideas, the overall strength disparity meant that even the old feudal countries directly facing the Blue Dragon Kingdom's army couldn't stop them, no matter how desperately they counterattacked.

Not to mention, after years of propaganda, the enemy's population had no confidence in resisting the Blue Dragon Kingdom's powerful military forces.

From knowledgeable nobles to commoners.

Especially among the vast lower-class peasants, passed mouth to mouth by minstrels, they had long looked forward to welcoming the Blue Dragon Kingdom army, unable to resist the one percent land tax temptation no matter where they came from.

If not for the presence of extraordinary powers in this world, perhaps sparks of uprising would have spread long ago.

The powerful military strength enabled the Blue Dragon Kingdom to achieve numerous effortless victories.

In successive assaults,

there were even two occasions when the Dragon's Nest army hadn't attacked yet, and the opponent collapsed by themselves, welcoming the arrival of the Blue Dragon Kingdom.

This made most of Blue Dragon Kingdom's subjects genuinely feel pride from the bottom of their hearts.

Against this backdrop,

friction with the western Red Dragon Empire stood out prominently.