Chapter 33
What I said was merely a hypothesis. However, since there were no other promising ideas, my hypothesis was adopted——the submaster had resisted to the very end, saying, "Are we really going to listen to some child?" But Josef-san had forced him to back down by asking, "Then do you have any other ideas? Of course you'll take responsibility, right?"
The Talent Jewels excavated from Six Heavens Mine were apparently transported to the ducal capital and sorted there. We didn't know whether the dragon could sense Talent Jewels that humans had absorbed, but it seemed wise to secure a place containing a large number of them for the time being, so the adventurers headed for the Talent Management Bureau, an office whose name said exactly what it did.
It was a bland, three-story stone building, but the barred windows gave it a fairly ominous air.
Ducal soldiers guarded the entrance. Josef-san told them, "A dragon is approaching! There's a good chance this place will be targeted!" But they laughed his words off.
"What are you babbling about?"
"Come to think of it, my nephew said he saw a snake inside the ducal capital, too. He probably mistook a snake for a dragon."
"Ha-ha, no doubt about it."
The adventurers grew hostile toward the ducal soldiers, who refused to take anything we said seriously, but Josef-san was trying to persuade them patiently and thoroughly.
It would have been helpful if the guildmaster or submaster were here at a time like this, but the master was absent, and the submaster had found one excuse after another—like, "It's my job to look after the guild while the master is away"—to avoid going somewhere that might turn into a battlefield.
It was an obvious lie.
"...Dantes-san, do you think Mimino-san is all right?"
We still hadn't managed to reunite with Mimino-san. She probably had no idea that things had turned into such a crisis.
"Mimino will manage somehow. If she goes to the guild, she'll figure out that we're here, too. She's small, but she's smart and quick."
The description "smart and quick" seemed to fit Mimino-san perfectly.
"Still, Josef isn't getting anywhere with the persuasion... At this rate, the other adventurers are going to lose patience first."
The adventurers behind Josef-san were already having ominous conversations like, "Are these people even worth protecting?" and "Should we run while we still can?"
Rikila-san said irritably,
"I mean, is this really the time to be taking it easy? When the hell is this dragon supposed to arrive?"
"I don't know. Ask the dragon."
"I don't want to meet any damn dragon."
"We had bad timing. Josef drew the short straw, too. Apparently, after quitting adventuring and putting down roots in this city, he married a young woman. He'd only just gotten married, and he wouldn't stop gushing about it."
"Thanks for that utterly useless information, old man Dantes."
"You could at least pity me, since I had to listen to it endlessly."
"You reeked of booze, though."
I was talking about that with Dantes-san.
(When will the dragon come, anyway...?)
I had left the mine and made my way to this ducal capital, getting lost in the forest along the way. It had taken me about seven days, I think.
I was slow moving through the forest, so I probably hadn't traveled even thirty kilometers in a day. And since I hadn't come here in a straight line, the mine and the ducal capital were probably less than two hundred kilometers apart.
Then the magical transmission arrived... Let's see, about an hour ago?
How fast do birds fly again?
I wonder how fast dragons fly.
If it was fast... even at seventy kilometers per hour, it would arrive in three hours!?
Did they send the magical transmission immediately after the dragon took off? Can a magical communication device be carried around? If they spent time fumbling around, then we might have only an hour left—or even less...!?
"R-Rikila-san, Dantes-san..."
"Huh?"
"What's wrong, Reiji?"
"Maybe... the dragon is already almost here."
"What!?"
"What did you say!?"
"Can someone get me onto the roof!? I need to check from somewhere high up!"
Dantes-san looked around frantically,
"Josef!"
"...Wait a moment, Dantes. I'm in the middle of persuading them."
"Forget that and get over here! It's an emergency!"
"!"
Josef-san came lumbering over to us.
"Josef, take Reiji's right side. I'll take his left."
Huh?
"Are we doing that thing?"
"That's right. The thing we did when we defeated that horde of goblins."
"Back then, we tied explosives to goblin corpses and tossed them into the middle of the horde. This time, you're saying we throw Reiji?"
Wait, hold on!? Did I just hear something ominous!?
Hands clamped onto my shoulder and waist cord from either side.
"Reiji, look up. There's a passage leading outside only on the third floor. You see that iron ladder? Climb it."
"No, wait—"
"Three, two, one——"
I flew.
"Waaaaah!?"
Wow, people really can fly. I mean, do people who pole-vault experience something like this every day? I couldn't do it. Actually, I never wanted to do it again.
Thrown upward by a force I couldn't resist, I felt weightless, and before I knew it, a passage jutting out from the third floor was right in front of me.
"Eek!"
I clung to the iron railing, and rust crumbled away—probably because it hadn't been maintained. This was bad, bad, bad! It was going to break, break, break!
I desperately hauled myself up and crawled into the passage. Thank you, 【Arm Strengthening】... Without you, I would have fallen straight down and been thrown up again.
"——You bastards, what do you think you're doing!?"
"——Assessing the situation comes first!"
Below, the ducal soldiers and Josef-san were arguing. One of the guards hurried inside the building—which means I'm the target. I get it!
Damn it, I could have done without Rikila-san laughing uproariously at a time like this and Non-san giving me that emphatic thumbs-up!
I immediately clung to the iron ladder and climbed up to the roof.
The rooftop was pitched, and it didn't seem to have been maintained very well either; dust had settled over the clay tiles.
I stood on the roof, taking care not to slip, and looked around. There were almost no buildings three stories or taller nearby, so I could survey a surprisingly wide area. Forest stretched beyond the walls surrounding the ducal capital, and farther beyond that, I could make out the ridgelines of mountains.
Was that large building the duke's castle? Wow, there really was something that looked like an airship moored at the castle——but this was no time to be looking at that!
Let's see... the mine, the mine, the mine—which way was it again...?
"Hey, kid! Get down here!"
Already!? A ducal soldier had emerged onto the passage on the third floor.
"Wait! I'm coming down right away! I just need to check something——"
"What exactly are you checking? Listen, what you're doing is a serious crime!"
"——There."
"If you come down right now, I'll let you off with a warning. We can blame the adults who threw you up here. And... what was that?"
"It's here."
I was stunned.
"There was a dragon."
There was no doubt about it—the dragon was flying straight toward us.
A yellow body and enormous wings.
I realized that the silhouette flying now matched the silhouette I remembered against the night sky.
But——had it really been that big?
"It's here!! A yellow dragon! It's heading straight toward us!!"