Chapter 32
"——It's Josef."
"——Josef? The 'Unfading Light Sword'!?"
"——You don't know him? He's the training officer here."
"——Who's that huge guy talking to Josef?"
The guild was abuzz. Josef-san's name was apparently that well known. When he approached me, he ruffled my hair and said—"I got some of that hangover cure you made, you know. Reikon, was it? That stuff really worked."—Wait, you drank that pseudo-turmeric juice!?
"Hey, Submaster. Judging by what this kid told us, we can be certain that what appeared at the mine was a dragon. The ducal capital's defenses are strong against land monsters but weak against flying ones. And this is a dragon we're talking about. Evacuating the residents comes first. Issue orders to the adventurers, now."
"...Wouldn't it be better to build a defensive line along the walls and drive it off?"
"Don't be stupid. Even the smallest dragon is as big as this guild building. Arrows will just bounce off it.——Are there any people here with four-star or higher Talents?"
About three people raised their hands. However, none of them had a four-star Talent specialized in a single area; they could use multiple kinds of magic and spells. One of them had 【Four-Element Magic】, the same Talent the cafeteria lady at the mine had used... I wondered if she was still running for her life.
【Four-Element Magic】 was a Talent that allowed its user to wield four types of magic—fire, earth, wind, and water—and apparently, each type had the same power as the two-star 【Fire Magic★★】.
"So there you have it. Submaster, don't expect the adventurers to handle the defense. We'd be better off guiding the residents to safety. There'll definitely be opportunistic thieves taking advantage of the chaos. The actual defense should be left to the professional ducal troops."
"...The ducal troops can't be relied on."
"Why not?"
"The main force has already set out to retake Six Heavens Mine. Only the bare minimum of guards remain in the ducal capital right now."
"Hold on... that's..."
Apparently even Josef-san hadn't anticipated this. He scratched the back of his head and looked up at the ceiling.
"...This is a real mess. Looks like we'll have no choice but to fight like hell ourselves."
The adventurers began calling out things like, "It's impossible!" and "I've never even seen a dragon!"
If the adventurers were truly the only fighting force left to rely on, then everyone here would have to risk their lives.
It was only natural for the lower-ranked adventurers to lose their nerve.
"Now, hold on, hold on."
At that moment, a man wearing the finest-looking red metal armor stood up, gesturing with both hands.
"You must be Josef, the 'Unfading Light Sword,' formerly Gold Rank? I had no idea you were working here as a training officer."
"And you are?"
"I'm Oscar, leader of the party 'Eternal First Star.' Well, some people around town call me the 'Red Comet,' too. All of us reached Silver Rank last month."
The man who called himself Oscar flashed a suspicious grin, showing his white teeth. His hair was the same red as his armor, and he was oddly sunburned. He flashed his guild card at us several times. As befitted 'Silver Rank,' the plate was silver-colored. According to 【All Creation】, it was apparently made of silver.
Still, 'Eternal First Star'? Doesn't that sound like a grade-schooler's idea of a cool name?
Even so, it was impressive that he and all his companions were Silver Rank. There were about six members in the party, including the person with 【Four-Element Magic】. Naming sense and ability had nothing to do with each other.
"——What's a 'Red Comet'?"
"——No idea. Oscar calls himself that."
"——A star's pretty small. Why not call himself the sun?"
The adventurers were quietly taking shots at him, and Oscar apparently heard them; his cheeks were twitching. It was like he had arbitrarily given himself a nickname before it had caught on. Painfully cringe.
"If there's a capable, active adventurer party here, that's reassuring."
But Dantes-san was genuinely grateful. Looking at him, I couldn't help thinking how cloudy and rotten my heart had become... Rikila-san, you should reflect, too. You snorted the moment you heard 'Eternal First Star,' didn't you?
"What about you? You seem to be close to Josef."
"...My body doesn't move properly, you see. Don't count me among the fighting force."
"What are you talking about? With the 'Hard-Silver Greatshield' here, we'd be unstoppable. I saw how you moved in the training grounds yesterday, too. You can still fight on the front lines."
Josef-san was talking Dantes-san up, but Oscar clearly didn't like the fact that Dantes-san had an epithet, and he openly frowned.
"Fine, whatever. The fact remains that your body doesn't work properly, right? So how are you going to fight a dragon that could show up anywhere? You're not part of the fighting force."
Oscar's question was perfectly reasonable. The ducal capital was huge. If the adventurers spread out, their forces would be spread thin.
"That's the difficulty... If we believe what the kid said, the dragon can attack from the air, too."
"Exactly. What I'm saying is that it's easy to talk about throwing away our lives, but I have no intention of dying pointlessly."
The adventurers chimed in with, "That's right, that's right."
But Josef-san's words suddenly struck me as odd. That's right. Wasn't I overlooking something?
"Submaster. What does the guildmaster have to say? Why isn't he here?"
"We've had a summons from His Grace, the new duke, since this morning..."
"The new duke, huh? They haven't even recovered the late duke's remains yet."
"Regardless, when summoned, we must answer. We've already relayed the contents of this transmission to His Grace, the new duke."
I saw the dragon at night. It was so far away that I could only make out its silhouette... Surely it couldn't have seen me, either.
Looking back, the mysterious tremors I'd felt at the mine might have been caused by the dragon.
"...That's right."
The dragon's attacks seemed to have landed around the mine. At least, there were no traces of its attacks in the town I saw afterward. They hadn't hit the forest, either.
And yet——why was the dragon headed for the ducal capital?
"...Dantes-san, something doesn't add up."
"What's wrong, Reiji?"
"You said the dragon flew toward the ducal capital, but even if that report is accurate, how did it know which way the ducal capital was? How did it identify the place where an attack would cause the most damage to humans as the ducal capital, locate it, and come here?"
"...Hm? What do you mean?"
"Simply put, how did the dragon find the ducal capital? There aren't even records of a dragon ever being spotted around here, are there? A dragon that had been sleeping underground in the mine couldn't just fly into the sky and suddenly find the ducal capital, could it?"
"..."
Dantes-san sank into thought.
The mine was a considerable distance from here, the ducal capital. I didn't know what magical communications were like, but assuming it was something like email or Morse code, if a message had been sent from the mine, then whoever sent it must have had some reason to believe the dragon was headed for the ducal capital.
In other words, we should assume that the dragon was intelligent.
"Reiji. Are you saying... that the dragon has some kind of sensory organ and the ability to seek out places where humans are gathered?"
"Yes."
I nodded.
"I think, at least, that the dragon was able to find this place precisely because the residents here have ties to the mine."
"Ties?"
"The people in the ducal capital have items from the mine on them, don't they?"
Dantes-san wasn't the only one to cry out in realization; the adventurers did, too.
"Could the dragon have the ability to sense the Talent Jewels excavated from the mine?"