Tsuyokute New Saga (LN)

“Amazing…So this is what it feels like to fly through the sky…” Lieze basked in the wind hitting her, speaking in admiration.

“The scenery is beautiful…it’s like a sea of trees…” Urza’s golden hair fluttered in the wind, as she spoke in awe.

Kyle and his friends all were riding on Irumera’s back, soaring through the sky. Even into the horizon, the forests of Eddos continued. As humans didn’t grow wings, this kind of scenery was usually something unattainable for humans, so naturally, Lieze and Urza’s eyes were sparkling in excitement at this baffling sight in front of them. However, it’s not like they could afford to take it so easily.

“Hey, make some more room over there.” Seran pushed Kyle.

“I don’t have much space here either…Wait, stop pushing! I’ll fall for good!” Kyle pushed him back.

“Hey, I can’t get a good view here, so let me get on top of you.”

“Don’t climb on me! Also, you can just erase your own body, right…?!”

Shildonia climbed on Kyle, resting on his shoulders.

‘You fools! Don’t cause a ruckus on my back!’ Irumera complained as Kyle’s group did whatever they pleased.

Even if Irumera was a gigantic beast, packing seven people on his back was difficult. Not to mention that this was his first experience of letting somebody right on his back, so he had to be careful to not accidentally drop them. Yet, they were making a party like this.

“Indeed, what a sight…Erina, would you like some as well?”

“Ah…Thank you very much…”

Shildonia offered some sweets to Erina.

“Um…what about you, Yuriga?”

“Don’t bother with me.”

Lieze wanted to offer Yuriga some sweets as well, only to be rejected mercilessly.

‘Don’t start a party on my back!’

Some trouble happened here and there, but they managed to reach their location in the blink of an eye, which would usually have taken several days.

Irumera descended at the lake Kyle’s group ran into Paserane and Roas. If they went to the village of dark elves immediately, it would only end in fighting, so Erina offered in a calm tone.

“She should be guarding this area around here. So if we step into this area, she should approach us.”

“Paserane…I just hope she actually even listens to us.”

Kyle remembered the fury Paserane had shown towards the poachers.

“She will, she’s our best bet. If we tried it with anybody else…negotiations would surely fail.”

“So…with Irumera present, it’ll make things clear that the dragons are involved, right.”

‘…I don’t plan on participating in these negotiations, remember?’

As Erina and Kyle were discussing things, Irumera once again emphasized that his role was to observe the situation, not breaking that limit no matter what.

“No, you just have to stay with us.”

Kyle’s calculations should be fine as long as he is around.

“The problem is the possible condition that she’ll give us in return for helping.”

“Yes, they most likely won’t help us for nothing,” Erina answered, making Kyle think.

“It’d make things a lot easier if they just accepted money…but I bet that won’t happen.”

“Dark elves wouldn’t even be able to use the money…What I could think of is helping with the poachers.”

The poachers evidently were the biggest problem for Paserane and the dark elves, so Kyle’s group could handle that in some way and possibly get the dark elves’ help that way.

“By the way, Kyle, what if we actually run into Ghrud?” Urza asked a crucial question.

“First, talk things out. If he knows that we’re moving under Zeurus’ request, he won’t be able to ignore us.”

The other individual is a logical being. There’s always a good chance rational conversation would work. Not like they couldn’t just use force, but fighting a dragon wasn’t something you’d just do on a whim.

“Indeed, as long as we don’t set up anything, it shouldn’t turn into any abrupt fight…That aligns with Zeurus’ wish, right?”

‘Naturally. I won’t do something so violent.’ Irumera let out a snort at Shildonia’s question.

Kyle glanced at Yuriga just to make sure, but she showed no signs of interrupting them. With that, it was decided they would first talk things out.

“When trying to bring back a young lad who ran away from home, what would you even talk about…What kind of person is Ghrud?’ Kyle asked Irumera, who showed a bit of hesitation.

‘…He can be a bit imprudent, and he’s very frank.’

“Basically, he’s no thinker, and short-tempered…Easy to respond to provocation. Also, we heard rumours about there being a human-sized silhouette around him whenever he approached the town. Do you have any idea about that?”

‘A silhouette? Are you saying that Ghrud was moving together with humanfolk? That hardly sounds plausible.’ Irumera immediately denied that idea.

“We have witnesses saying that, but no accurate way to prove that…Just to confirm one more time, Ghrud left the World Tree half a year ago, right?”

‘That’s right.’

“So, the sightings happened around a month ago, so then…” Kyle was thinking, when he seemingly realized something and looked around him.

“…The scent of blood.”

Kyle started running, with Kyle and the others running after him.

Reaching the source of this stench, they found Roas, currently on the verge of death. He had trouble breathing, as he leaned against the root of a large tree, his body riddled with cuts and stab wounds, even arrows sticking inside of him, coloring his snow-white body blood red.

“Roas!”

Erina started running towards him, immediately starting first-aid treatment to stop the bleeding.

“Ohhh, my maiden…to think I would meet you during my final moments, it appears as if there was meaning in my life after all…”

Even though his eyes were empty and devoid of any energy, Roas’ attitude was never changing.

“Stop talking! Your wounds are deep, but we can save you!” Lieze put bandages on his body, making him drink magic medicine.

Slowly but steadily, his wounds recovered.

“You have my eternal gratitude, my maidens…my regenerative ability was barely enough to keep me alive…”

Roas evidently recovered, as he looked around, spotting Yuriga.

“Is that…a demon maiden?! This is my first time seeing one…I see, a maiden is still a maiden after all…”

Kyle couldn’t help but think that he was fine with anybody as long it was a woman.

“We also have unicorns in our territory…and they’re all the same.” Yuriga looked at Roas with a cold gaze. “Unicorns really lose all their sight around them as soon as a woman is involved.”

“What are you saying, I don’t feel that way towards that female dragon behind—Wait, why is a dragon here?!”

Because Irumera was so big, Roas only realized it now.

“Wha? Irumera, you were a female?”

Lieze was surprised for a different reason.

‘Can’t you tell by looking at me?’ Irumera’s tone had this ‘What are you talking about’ sound to it.

“It’s hard to tell…Ah, and you’re a maiden as well…”

‘I am still 600 years old! My time to bear a youngling is still far in the future! How imprudent, really.’ Irumera complained.

Seran was Seran as always, thinking that he might try his luck with Yuriga since she was still a virgin, but he realized that this might prove fatal, so he gave up.

“Anyway, tell us what happened…Where is Paserane?”

The conversation had started to drift apart, but the moment Kyle brought up that name, Erina realized that Paserane was not with Roas.

“That’s right! What happened to Paserane-san?! Don’t tell me…” Erina assumed the worst, her face growing pale.

“I can somewhat guess what happened…Must have had the tables turned on you by the poachers, right?” Kyle’s assumption had Roas nod, his expression showing clear pain and suffering, as he started explaining what happened.

After splitting up with Kyle’s group, Roas and Paserane chased after the poachers and found their stronghold. They managed to hide their tracks quite well, but because Paserane thoroughly analyzed every small track she found, she managed to trace them back to this place. Normally, she would call for her allies, but the poachers seemingly were preparing to retreat, and she couldn’t let them leave this easily.

The poachers were around ten in number, so with wit and talent, it should be doable—thinking that, however, turned out to be a fatal mistake. In fact, this had all been a plan to lure in dark elves and unicorns who overestimated their luck. Paserane and Roas moved in for a surprise attack, but they were soon surrounded by an ambush who hid inside the grass, marking their scent with feces of the animals living in the forest.

They clearly were skilled hunters knowing how to mark their scent and play with the vision of a dark elf and Unicorn, as they first threw nets at Paserane and Roas, sealing their movement. Following that, they fired off arrows to attack from a distance, and at the end of this coordinated attack, Paserane fell off Roas. After that, they tried their best to resist, but the second they were ambushed, they had already lost. Roas managed to break free from the net, but could only focus on running away on his own.

“I abandoned Paserane…Of course, I was hoping to reach our allies and ask for help, but I only made it this far…All I could do was abandon her, nothing will change that fact.” Roas blamed himself.

“No, you did well. Thanks to you escaping, Paserane might still be alive.”

“R-Really?!”

“Are you sure?!”

Not only Roas, but Erina also raised voices of joy.

“Yeah, there’s a good chance that you could return with allies, so they probably are keeping her as a hostage.”

Kyle knew that this was highly wishful thinking, but acting under the pretense of her being alive would make things a lot easier.

“T-Then, we need to go right away…!” Roas tried to forcefully push up his body, but he immediately collapsed again.

“Don’t move just yet.”

“Urk…But while I’m here, Paserane will…Yet I can’t move…!” Roas cursed his own inability.

However, it was actually Lieze who forced him to collapse, offering him a lap pillow while she nursed him back to health. Kyle watched this, cursing Roas with a glare, when Erina spoke up.

“…Hey, Roas, what is this?”

Erina pointed at a single sheet of paper, looking like a map, which had fallen out of the bag attached to Roas’ back. It seemed to be almost identical to the one Erina possessed.

“Ahh, that was used by Paserane to mark down those guys’ movements so she could better track them…What about it?”

Erina took out her own map, comparing it with Paserane’s. And then, she caught on to something.

“This is weird. The movement from the poachers and the sightings of the dragon…are overlapping.”

“What did you say?” Kyle looked at the map himself, finding the same result that Erina did.

It was like the poachers were using the dragon sightings as a shadow for their own work.

“They are using Ghrud to confuse the humans and dark elves?”

If a dragon was out and about, as long as you didn’t have a death wish, you would not approach this area under any means. At the same time, the people who knew how the dragon would move could use this to their advantage. The only reason nobody even could have anticipated this answer was because no person would expect the poachers and a dragon to work together.

“I-It’s true that I often saw a dragon up and about while we were searching for the poachers, but…are you saying that was on purpose?” Roas said it like he had trouble believing it.

‘Wait…that would mean that Ghrud and the humanfolk…not to mention the poachers are working together!’ Irumera raised a voice filled with fury as if that kind of conclusion was blasphemy.

“Of course, he most likely doesn’t actively work together with them. Either he is being used, or controlled.”

Shildonia was knowledgeable about dragons, and started thinking.

‘C-Controlled?! That shouldn’t be…!’

“It is quite difficult, but not unfeasible…Especially for a young dragon who has barely lived 500 years, his mind and will must be relatively weak.”

Irumera was in shock, not accepting something like this to be possible, but Shildonia was quite serious about it. The magic to control monsters of even mythical beasts existed. And the success rate of such magic relied on the target’s strength of will. For example, controlling an insect is an easy feat. However, when it comes to dragons, who stand at the peak of all life, it is mostly regarded as impossible. However, that would be the only reason a dragon would work together with poachers.

‘Tsk…this is why humanfolk are just…!’ Irumera threw words of disgust into the room.

Naturally, her fury was more than gratified with the possibility of her younger brother being controlled. However, nobody in Kyle’s group wanted to accept that this anger was directed at all of humanfolk. Shildonia sought to dissolve that anger, and began telling a story.

“Hmm…Irumera, do you know the story of the Bikiol, who they called the Dragon of Evil?”

‘…Of course I do, what about it?’

With the name of the Dragon of Evil, known to be the vilest dragon of all, thrown into the conversation, Irumera’s mood dropped even further. This was a story of more than several centuries ago, when an Ancient Dragon with the same power as Zeurus, Bikiol, was still alive and his ambitions ablaze, was trying to use his strength to usurp the entire world and make it his own.

From the view of the dragons under Divine Dragon Valzed, aiming to protect his law, this was regarded as an act of madness. Needless to say, it turned into a great war that not only involved the dragons with Zeurus at their heart, but also humanfolk. In this war, Zeurus’ daughter Mearle suffered critical injuries, and passed away because of them. Finally, Bikiol was slain by a hero that rose from the humanfolk. However, he himself turned into a part of the history of the dragons that none of them wanted to ever bring up again.

“So, with the Dragon of Evil Bikiol as an example, should all dragons be regarded as evil?”

‘Don’t joke around! That is a crime Bikiol alone committed, and blaming it on the entire dragon race, what vile humiliation…’ Irumera spoke that far, and came to a halt.

She was a clever individual, and must understand what Shildonia was trying to say. Reproaching all of humanfolk for this one incident with Ghrud would be the exact same.

“And, it is not as if the controlled Ghrud has no blame to carry at all…After all, he broke the law that was supposed to contain him.”

‘…Hmph!’

Unable to counter Shildonia’s valid argument, Irumera simply averted her face with a sour look.

“Well, we will be able to filter out the details after capturing the poachers…where are they?”

“Are you willing to save us…? I feel rather hesitant to ask a man of this, but thank you, and please take care of Paserane.”

Seeing Kyle show determination, Roas bowed his head. His tone and voice were always cheerful and light, but his feelings towards Paserane were serious.

“We also have a lot relying on this, so don’t worry about it…We might need to ask for your help later, so just keep that in mind.” Kyle said with a faint smirk.