Chapter 45
#45. Offer Up Tribute!
"Your Highness! We must form an elite knight unit and pursue it at once! We should also request support from Tower Master Aria, just in case……!"
"I will summon every Platinum-rank adventurer in the guild…! But if our opponent is a dragon from legend, how many casualties will there be…!"
Inside a large room at Winterwald Hot-Spring Resort.
The retainers, including Knight Commander Cedric and Guild Master Walter, were passionately arguing with grim expressions.
Count Rian also chimed in, his face deathly pale.
"We must send warnings to the neighboring territories and temporarily seal off the trade routes as well! If the dragon attacks a merchant caravan, Winterwald's reputation will collapse in an instant!"
Everyone was making such a fuss that it seemed the North was about to be destroyed.
But Kylan, seated in the seat of honor, calmly waved a hand.
"There's no need to make such a commotion."
"……Your Highness?"
The retainers stared at Kylan in bewilderment, then quickly focused on their lord's words with serious expressions.
Whenever their lord began a sentence like that,
there had never been a problem he could not solve.
"There's no need to summon adventurers or knights. Instead, prepare five cartons of banana milk and freshly baked hot-spring eggs."
"……Pardon?"
"And prepare every kind of bread as well. Buy it from the most popular bakery in the new city."
An odd silence descended upon the room.
This time, the retainers truly could not understand what their lord was saying.
Even Cedric merely blinked, as though his fantasy circuits had overloaded.
Sir Walter cautiously opened his mouth.
"Your Highness…… Are you telling us to prepare provisions for the pursuit party?"
"No. The great Water Dragon has come all the way to distant Winterwald. Shouldn't we prepare at least a little tribute?"
Kylan lifted the corners of his mouth as though he found it quite amusing.
"You mean banana milk and eggs, rather than gold and precious treasures?"
Walter asked in disbelief, but Kylan merely turned his gaze away instead of answering.
His eyes had turned toward a corner of the corridor outside the room.
The Gale party was standing there awkwardly, having been dragged in by the Guild Master's emergency summons.
They had shown their faces at the construction sites so often that Kylan was fairly familiar with them by now.
"We paid to come here on vacation, so why are we standing here……?"
"Shh. It's the Guild Master's order, Rick. You said you wanted to be promoted to Gold rank, didn't you? Maybe this is the perfect opportunity."
"G-Gold rank would be nice, but are you telling me to fight a dragon……? I respectfully decline. I only have one life, you know……!"
Kylan suddenly spoke to the Gale party, who had been whispering and grumbling among themselves.
More precisely, he was speaking to the trembling Rick.
"You there."
"……Yes? S-Sir, were you calling me?!"
Rick jumped in surprise and pointed at himself.
"Come here."
"Y-Yes, sir……."
Rick approached with stiff steps, like a cow being led to the slaughterhouse.
"What adventurer rank are you?"
"S-Silver rank, sir……!"
"Perfect."
"I-Is that so……?"
Kylan nodded in satisfaction.
"Yes. Perfect. I would like to make a personal request of you."
"A-A personal commission from Your Highness the Grand Duke?"
You're going to throw a pathetic Silver-ranker to a dragon as bait!
Rick's face turned deathly pale, as though he were thinking exactly that.
Seeing Rick's face grow white rather than merely pale, Kylan, the embodiment of capitalism, whispered softly.
"I-I'll pay you handsomely. Enough that you won't be able to refuse."
***
Inside a dark cave somewhere, damp groundwater flowed.
"……."
Something was crouching miserably in the darkness.
Empty banana-milk cartons and stone-roasted eggshells were scattered all over the cave floor.
The place it had flown to, drawn by the delicious smell, had been overflowing with food.
Up to that point, everything had been wonderful…
The problem was that there had happened to be a monster there.
If it had been even a little slower in escaping, its heart would probably have been frozen solid by now.
"So delicious…… So sweet……"
The dragon hugged an empty milk carton tightly with both front paws and licked it.
After licking it continuously for several days, it no longer tasted like anything.
But a little of the scent remained, so it simply could not stop licking.
"It's not enough…… I want more……! Whiiine……."
Should it go back to where the humans lived?
Sweet yellow liquid, savory eggs, soft bread…!
Just thinking about them made its mouth fill with saliva.
But…
'That human looked so scary and strong……!'
The cold energy pouring from that enormous sword had easily pierced through the hot-spring water and aimed straight for its heart.
Its scales stood on end whenever it merely thought about it.
'B-But…… I want to eat more……. I wonder if that guy has gone back home by now?'
Gulp.
Food or safety.
The somewhat clumsy dragon spent its time agonizing endlessly between the two.
Then it happened.
Thud. Thud. Tremble, tremble……
Footsteps came from the direction of the cave entrance.
Judging by the sound reverberating through the floor, whoever it was seemed to be trembling terribly.
Perhaps it was like a deer that had barely escaped a predator.
It felt familiar.
"O-Oh, my legs~ Th-There's a cave here, so maybe I should rest for a bit~ Ha, haha! M-My, I'm really lucky, aren't I?"
The dragon tilted its head and blinked its round eyes repeatedly in the darkness.
For someone talking to himself, the voice was remarkably loud.
The trembling footsteps soon invaded the cave.
"B-Before I go sell m-milk and eggs in the neighboring village…… I-I should rest a little first…!"
Milk!? Eggs!?
Surely not.
At that moment, a sweet fragrance wafted into the cave.
"Sniff, sniff……!"'
The dragon's snout twitched violently.
This unbelievably sweet scent.
'M-Milk……! It's eggs……! And I smell bread, too!'
The dragon crept toward the cave entrance and watched the intruder.
A single feeble human stood there, carrying baskets bursting with supplies.
The aura was incomparably weaker than that of the terrifying human it had encountered at the hot spring.
The dragon's round eyes narrowed. One human that weak should be……
'Heeheeheehee…….'
If it frightened the human, perhaps they would drop all the milk and eggs and run away?
'That's right! Dragons are great! I don't need to feel guilty about taking things from a weak human! In fact, humans ought to offer tribute to this great one, shouldn't they?!'
Having finished rationalizing, the dragon sucked up the groundwater inside the cave and greatly inflated its body.
Then it grandly revealed itself.
"Grrrrr─!"
Kuwaaaa─!
As the enormous watery body surged up from the darkness, dirt and dust pattered down from the cave ceiling.
"W-Waaaaah─!"
"Human! How dare you trespass upon the domain of this great one! Do you wish to die?!"
Overwhelmed by the giant figure, the human froze in place like a stone.
"E-Eeeek……! I-It's a dragon……!!"
The dragon grew excited at that reaction.
'Yes! Be more afraid! I am a great dragon! S-So hurry up and offer that sweet stuff to this great one!'
"G-Great Dragon……! P-Please spare me! I-I'll give you all of this, so please spare my life……!!"
Trembling, the human held out the milk cartons and basket of eggs in both hands, along with a sack of bread.
'I did it!'
With a cute and delicate motion utterly unsuited to its enormous forepaw, the dragon popped open the lid of the banana milk.
"Sniff, sniff……"
A rich, sweet fragrance.
There was no doubt.
It was the same milk it had stolen at the hot spring.
The dragon, its eyes completely consumed by gluttony, poured the milk into its mouth in a single gulp.
Gulp! Gulp! Gulp!
'Mmmmmm! This is the taste! This taste!'
Pwah─!
The dragon set down the empty milk carton and blew out a satisfied snort.
A carton of banana milk had vanished in an instant.
But the dragon did not stop.
It swallowed the stone-roasted eggs and bread in one bite, then frantically gulped down a second carton of milk.
The dragon's snout twitched happily.
'It's not enough… I want more…'
After greedily devouring all the tribute placed on the floor, the dragon's eyes turned toward the bag slung over the human's back.
'There must be more inside that, too!'
The dragon took a huge step toward the human.
The cave rumbled violently with every movement.
"Grrr! More! Hand over more! If you don't give me everything, this great one's wrath will……!"
"W-Waaaaaah!! However I look at it, that's a real dragonnnnn!!"
The enormous watery monster advanced with its eyes flashing.
Unable to withstand that overwhelming terror, the human turned around and ran toward the entrance.
"Where do you think you're going!!"
There had to be more food inside that bag!
It could not let the human get away like this.
The dragon, having lost its reason, thundered out of the cave after the food.
***
"Waaaaaah!! Your Highness the Grand Duke!! I told you, it's a real dragon! It's definitely a real, gigantic dragon!!"
Outside the cave.
Rick let out a desperate scream as he ran across the snow-covered plain.
A massive Water Dragon was chasing him from behind, shaking the earth with every step.
Kylan calmly waited until Rick had lured the dragon far enough outside.
‘Now.'
Snap─!
Hidden in the forest, Kylan lightly snapped his fingers.
Krrrunch!!
At Kylan's signal, steelwood trees surged upward and instantly sealed off the cave entrance.
It was the work of Pochi, Winterwald's chief forester.
"……Kishishit! Now you can't get through!"
Next, Aria, the master of the Green Magic Tower, who had been waiting nearby, tossed seeds into the air and swung her staff.
"Bloom!"
The enormous vines that burst from the seeds quickly covered the sky, forming a giant dome-shaped prison that trapped the dragon, leaving it unable to move an inch.
Flight and retreat routes blocked. Perfect.
"Damn! W-What is this?!"
The dragon realized that its escape route had been blocked and raged inside the dome.
"You insolent humans! How dare you humiliate me! Do you all wish to drown?!"
Grrrrr─!
The dragon opened its jaws wide and charged the same breath weapon that had blown the knights away at the hot spring.
The dragon's breath weapon was fully charged at last! On the snow-covered plain, the dragon hunt began.