Published: September 9, 2025
This time, the narrator is Zena.
Correction made on 1/13.
Partial revision on 1/12.
――It was a dragon.
An opponent humans could never defeat.
Even mobilizing the Paladins of the Royal Capital was barely enough to drive it away.
Judging by its size, it was probably a low-rank dragon, but such classifications meant nothing. If we fought, we would surely lose—no, it wouldn’t even be a fight. We would be utterly overrun.
It appeared calmly from the mist, glaring down at us.
Just that was enough to make us forget to breathe, shrinking back in fear, unable to move.
Though only a brief moment passed, it felt longer than my entire life until now.
The dragon seemed to lose interest and shifted its gaze back and forth between us and the corpse of the harpy, then turned its head back toward the mist.
Relief almost made my knees give out, but even the slightest noise could draw the dragon’s attention again. I clenched my teeth and endured.
Just as the dragon was about to turn its body—
――A new intruder appeared.
“Hey, hey! I am Torel, the fourth seat ‘Gale’ of the Shiga Eight Swords, renowned throughout the Shiga Kingdom! Here and now, I challenge the dragon to a fair fight!”
He circled above on a wyvern, announcing himself to the dragon.
The Shiga Eight Swords are the strongest warriors of the Shiga Kingdom. Lord Torel, mounted on his wyvern, gripped a magical weapon longer than a lance.
But his opponent was simply too formidable.
It was like fighting a high-rank demon alone in the castle of Seryu City. If the silver-masked honorable hero hadn’t appeared back then, none of us would have survived.
The dragon gathered its strength for a moment and suddenly leapt into the air without a running start.
The glint in the dragon’s eyes as it jumped—like a mischievous kid—was probably just my imagination.
“Lilio! Let’s run now. You too, squad captain!”
I was grabbed by the upper arm from behind and pulled away.
There stood John, wearing leather armor, who had appeared without me noticing.
Behind him, a woman called Mito waved quietly at me in casual clothes, as if she had just gone shopping. Though she wore travel boots suitable for the terrain, it was surprising she had come dressed like that all the way here.
“Hey, squad captain?!”
“Right! Everyone, retreat! Behind those rocks!”
John’s puzzled words snapped me back to reality, and I gave orders to everyone.
◇
Above us, the dragon toyed with Lord Torel in battle. It was like a cat playing with a mouse.
Taking advantage of the distraction, we followed John to take refuge in a crevice in the rock wall of the dried-up valley.
“Seriously, there was no dragon here the last time we came, right?”
“Oh? The rumor about a dragon was all over town.”
“That was the mid-rank dragon on the mountain pass who loves mandarins.”
“Exactly—we have to consider what drove that mid-rank dragon off the mountain pass.”
John and Mito chatted lightly before me, but my mind wasn’t recovered enough to join in. Even Lilio only watched their exchange with annoyance, not joining at all.
Perhaps bored with the chase, the dragon slammed the wyvern to the ground.
The crashed wyvern rolled toward us, knocking over dead trees.
“Hey, not toward us, please.”
“Oh dear, that wyvern might not be able to fly anymore.”
As Mito said, the wyvern’s wing-supporting arm was broken in the middle, badly damaged.
Without advanced healing magic, it wouldn’t fly again.
The dragon’s back absorbed the impact, but Lord Torel was thrown off, bleeding yet still standing firm with his spear.
“Dragon! I stake my entire life on this spear! Warriors, tell of my deeds!”
Lord Torel’s spear glowed red, and a radiant tip formed at the point.
Could that be――
“A demon blade.”
“That’s it…”
Hearing Mito’s assessment, John silently swallowed.
The demon blade is a secret technique used by only two people in the Count’s Domain of Seryu.
“Now! Come!”
Lord Torel charged like a cannonball, spear aimed at the dragon. The ground beneath him cracked, dust kicked up behind.