Dragon Raja: I started out as Erii's older brother

Erii picked up the pink phone, slowly typed a line of text on the screen, and handed it to Su Mo.

"Sakura, or the monster, only one can live."

These words, like a key tempered with ice, unlocked Su Mo's deepest fear of the world.

He looked at the girl in front of him, quietly holding her phone, as if she were stating something as mundane as "curry for dinner tonight."

For the first time, I felt a bone-chilling cold.

The "sakura" she mentioned was herself.

The monster she spoke of was the terrifying power within her, a power capable of destroying the world.

This is a dead end.

It was a fate she had set for herself, a fate where she could only choose one of two options.

And he, Su Mo, a piece of trash with a dragon blood concentration lower than the sugar content of Fanta, was thrown into this dead end, serving as a mascot with a signal range of only five meters!

absurd!

ridiculous!!

How pathetic!

Su Mo plopped down on the folded mat, her mind a complete mess.

He looked at Erii, then at the lavishly decorated Japanese-style room where every detail exuded an air of extravagance, and for the first time, a crazy idea clearly surfaced in his mind—

We need to figure out exactly what kind of place this home is.

The next day, Su Mo used the excuse that "my medical report said I am weak and need to get more sun to supplement calcium" to successfully kidnap Erii and begin his first attempt to escape from prison.

The sunlight was lovely, filtering through the large maple tree in the courtyard and casting dappled patterns of light on the flagstone path. The air was filled with the scent of earth and grass, along with a few birdsongs; everything was eerily quiet.

It would be even more perfect if we ignored the fact that every ten meters there was a burly man in black, scanning his entire body with his eyes from behind a rockery, a tree, or a pond.

"Come on, Erii, let's go take a look over there. The butterflies there are so big!" Su Mo pointed to a cluster of blooming flowers on the east side of the courtyard and, in a tone that sounded like she was coaxing a child, half-dragged and half-pulled Erii toward it.

Erii didn't seem to be interested in butterflies, but she still obediently let him pull her over.

Just as they were about to leave the main courtyard and step onto a cobblestone path leading to the side courtyard, a figure appeared silently at the entrance of the path as if by teleportation.

He still wore the same black suit he never wore, and still had that expressionless poker face.

"Young Master Uesugi Mo," the burly man bowed slightly, his posture impeccable, "for your safety, the side courtyard is undergoing garden maintenance, please do not approach."

Su Mo's eye twitched.

Garden maintenance?

I don't believe you for a second! I clearly saw a gardener leisurely feeding the koi fish inside!

"Oh, is that so?" Su Mo smiled on the outside, but cursed inwardly. "Then let's go take a look to the west. I heard the bamboo forest there has nice scenery."

With that, he pulled Erii along, turned around, and headed towards the bamboo forest to the west.

As expected, at the entrance to the bamboo forest, another burly man in a black suit emerged from behind a bamboo stalk.

"Young Master Uesugi Mo, for your safety, snakes have been spotted in the bamboo forest recently. Please do not enter."

Su Mo: ...

Okay, you guys are awesome.

"What about to the south?" Su Mo pointed to a building in the distance that looked like a teahouse.

"Reporting to the young master, the roof of the tea room was damaged by the wind yesterday and is currently under repair."

"What about that pond to the north? I want to feed the fish there."

"Reporting to the young master, the fish pond is being cleaned and is temporarily closed."

For the entire morning, Su Mo led Erii on a tour of the entire huge courtyard.

He deeply understood what an invisible wall meant.

Wherever he wanted to go, a burly man in a black suit would always appear from some obscure corner.

They all wore uniform, standardized smiles and used various reasons that sounded absurd and ridiculous, yet were impossible to refute, to politely stop him.

Thus, his activity area was precisely limited to this main courtyard, which was only about the size of two basketball courts.

This is the length of the dog leash specifically for his human-shaped pendant.

Back in her room, Su Mo was exhausted, collapsing onto the mat like a dead dog.

The failure of this prison break made him realize a fact: physical breakthroughs were not feasible.

He turned his gaze to the interior of the room.

As a modern youth of the 21st century, his last hope was placed on the ethereal internet.

He began to search every corner of the room like a foraging mouse, looking for any device that might connect him to the outside world.

A decorative telephone in the corner? — The telephone line has been cut.

Television? — Only a few fixed internal channels, looping the glorious history and family rules of the Snake Clan.

A network port on the wall? — He excitedly pried open the panel and found that it was solid inside.

He even secretly checked Erii's precious game console when she wasn't looking, and found that it was a completely offline game without even a Wi-Fi module!

This room is like a meticulously crafted information island, completely isolated from the outside world.

His status as a prisoner was completely confirmed at this moment.

This seemingly luxurious and comfortable Japanese manor was, for him and Erii, a pure, top-class double prison.

Night falls.

Su Mo had given up struggling. He walked to the floor-to-ceiling window in the room and stared blankly outside.

The garden landscapes that looked perfect during the day finally revealed their true colors at night.

He could clearly see that the top of the more than three-meter-high wall surrounding the courtyard reflected a ghostly blue arc of electricity under the moonlight.

Every fifty meters, there is a lookout post hidden in the shadows.

And then there are the guards in black suits, leading wolfhounds, constantly patrolling along fixed routes; their footsteps are dull and oppressive, like the rhythm of death.

This is not home.

This is a cage.

A cage built with money and power, specifically for keeping monsters and watching over toys—a canary's cage.

He raised his head, his gaze passing over the high wall and the flashing electric fence, looking into the distance.

At the edge of that pitch-black night, the city of Tokyo was brightly lit.

Countless neon lights intertwined, dyeing the sky a mesmerizing orange-red, full of vitality and hustle and bustle.

That bustling place, that familiar scene of everyday life, is now separated from him by only a wall, yet it feels as distant as another world.

A world that belongs to people.

Su Mo stood silently by the window, gazing at the unattainable lights for a long, long time.

He clenched his fist silently, his nails digging deep into his palm from the force, causing a sharp pain.