Red Dragon and Dragon Rider — The Shared Toilet
The subjugation expedition to the Red Fang Mountains was a long assignment—no less than a month, and in the worst case, half a year.
For a veteran like Vargan, gauging how long the mission would take was second nature. Hunt the monsters for about a month and the rhythm of the work told you everything. The word "subjugation" was a formality; the true objective was to cull the monsters and drive them deep into the heart of the mountain range.
Which was exactly why what he was seeing made no sense. Vargan furrowed his brow and clicked his tongue.
"Why the hell won't their numbers go down?"
The monsters throwing themselves at the knight order weren't dwindling at all. If anything, more and more of them came charging toward the knights with every passing day.
Sylvia and Seraphina had sensed the same anomaly. The two of them had enjoyed their games of playing at being prostitutes, to be sure, but neither had ever slacked on the mission itself.
"Seraphina. The monsters' movements are strange. If they were acting this agitated, they should have been fleeing inward, away from us."
"Right. I agree. Something else is definitely interfering with them."
Sylvia looked at Seraphina. Who was she, after all?
The strongest living being in the world. The creature closest to a god. A dragon.
If anyone would know or sense something, surely it would be her.
But Seraphina only tilted her head, just as much in the dark as everyone else.
"I don't really know either. I've never seen monsters move like this before."
"...That's what I thought."
Sylvia worried. At this rate, the expedition would drag on and on. Maybe half a year—no, perhaps even longer. She had packed their subspace pockets generously with supplies, but even that had its limits. If they were to finish the expedition safely, they needed to come up with a plan.
While she was still racking her brain, Seraphina cut in.
"Pondering with no information to go on won't get us anywhere."
"Then what do you suggest? Do you have some kind of plan?"
"If the monsters' behavior changed, then we get close to the monsters and find out what happened to them."
"...And how exactly do you plan to do that?"
"...I have a way."
When Sylvia heard Seraphina's plan, she was dumbfounded.
"You want ME to pull off an operation that absurd?!"
"You're a little excited about it too, aren't you? Besides, do you have any better idea than this one?"
"..."
Sylvia bit her lip. Just as Seraphina said, there was no other way.
In the end, Sylvia agreed to follow Seraphina's plan and summoned the knight order, Vargan included.
"You've all felt it as well—the monsters' movements are deeply abnormal. Something is happening inside the mountain range. If this drags on, there's no telling how long our expedition will stretch. Considering our supplies, we must resort to any means necessary."
At Sylvia's words, the knights nodded in agreement.
"Seraphina and I will scout the mountains to find out what's going on. It will take us a few days. Vargan—you will command the knight order in the meantime."
"Commander. Is that not too dangerous? This is the place they call the Demon Realm."
Vargan asked out of genuine concern, but his worry did not last long.
"...Have you forgotten what Seraphina actually is?"
"...Ah."
It was true that Seraphina usually wore the shape of a human woman, but her true nature was a dragon. No monster attack in the world could hope to harm her. Even in a place called the Demon Realm—for only a dragon could stand against a dragon.
Having entrusted the knight order to Vargan, Sylvia mounted the back of Seraphina—now returned to her Red Dragon form—and they soared up across the sky.
"Seraphina. How long can your golems operate without you?"
"Three days, easily."
The golems Ruby and Cassie, which Seraphina had crafted, needed periodic infusions of mana to keep moving. If the two of them stayed away from the group without recharging them, then within three days, the fact that they were fakes would come to light.
"We'll be back before then."
Trusting in Seraphina's certainty, Sylvia nodded. If she couldn't believe in her, who else was there to believe?
Flying through the sky, the two of them arrived at a place where rock oaks had gathered in a massive group.
"This doesn't look like a village. Why are they clustered together like this?"
"Are they moving their settlement?"
"Rock oaks? Moving?"
Rock oaks were famous for never budging once they had claimed their ground. And yet here they were, migrating en masse. Whatever was happening in this mountain range, it was now beyond doubt.
"Well then, shall we proceed with the plan?"
"Haah... You're really going through with this?"
"Of course I am."
Sylvia and Seraphina landed near the rock oak pack and began their preparations. They stripped off their armor and entrusted it to Seraphina's subspace magic.
"And now you rub this all over your body."
"What is this? Perfume?"
"A pheromone perfume that sends oaks into heat."
"...Why on earth do you even have that? No—why does a thing like that even EXIST?"
"Hohoho. Don't be so curious about everything, dear."
Seraphina's proposed operation was simple in outline: infiltrate the rock oak pack and learn what was happening in the mountain range.
The problem was the form that infiltration would take. Like goblins, rock oaks had no females among their number. And so they captured females of other species and used them as pregnancy sacks—brood vessels.
"From this moment on, the two of us are going to be the rock oaks' pregnancy sacks."
"...We can't actually get pregnant, right?"
"Obviously not. Dragons have an abysmally low conception rate."
Dragons did not conceive children of other races easily. It wasn't zero—but the odds were so astronomically small as to be almost meaningless. It was comparable to winning a lottery with a 1-in-8,145,060 chance a hundred times over. To put it simply: it was, for all practical purposes, impossible.
"A dragon only conceives when she mates with another dragon, you see? There's a reason for that."
"Why would that be?"
"Dragons are designed that way from the very foundation. If a half-blood were ever born, this world would be thrown into chaos."
That does make sense, Sylvia thought, nodding along. She had heard of half-elves and half-dwarves often enough, and had even seen a few with her own eyes—beings bearing the traits of two races at once.
But what if a human born with a dragon's power came into the world?
A human wielding the might of a dragon. The human kingdoms would descend into upheaval overnight—of that there was no question.
Wait. Isn't that basically... me? The thought flickered through her mind, but she shook her head and shook it off. Whatever the case.
"You are my partner, bound to me by the soul contract. Your body is growing more and more like mine. You've felt it too, haven't you?"
Sylvia nodded. Lately she had indeed noticed her body growing constantly more sensitive, more reactive.
"Soon you'll have a body like mine. Which means you won't conceive easily either."
Sylvia felt relief and unease in equal measure. Taken at her word, it meant she was drifting steadily away from being human.
"If you've finished with the perfume, let's get going."
And so, to become the rock oaks' pregnancy sacks, Sylvia and Seraphina approached the monsters.
"OAKK! Something's coming!!"
The two naked women deliberately made their presence known as they drew near. The rock oaks who spotted them were wary at first, but thanks to the power of Seraphina's pheromone perfume, the deception passed without a hitch.
"Not an enemy! A female! FEMALE! OGKGRK!"
"A female, after so long! Grab them! The females! SEIZE THEM!!!"
The rock oaks hurled ropes at the two of them, and the two of them surrendered obediently into the oaks' hands.
Bargut was the chieftain who led the rock oak pack. A High Oak, a rank above the common rock oak, he stood well over three meters tall, his body wrapped in formidable muscle.
"Orrrkkk... We must move to avoid the Bone-Cruncher. But a wall of humans stands on that side. We must find a way."
For the sake of his pack's future, Bargut agonized over the problem day and night. Yet no matter how he turned it over, no answer came. Before them loomed the human fortress walls; behind them stalked the Bone-Cruncher. Unless he played some desperate hand, the pack would be annihilated—of that he was certain.
Rumors were already spreading that other tribes had suffered near-total destruction at the Bone-Cruncher's hands.
Just then, a commotion broke out a short distance away.
"Orrkkrk! What's happening?!"
Could it be the Bone-Cruncher?! Startled, he snatched up his axe and rushed toward the disturbance.
There he found two human females being subdued by other rock oaks.
Judging by their small, delicate frames, they did not look like particularly dangerous females.
Sniff! Sniff! Sniff!
But a strange scent hung about the two of them. Bargut, a rock oak exquisitely attuned to smell, caught the oddly sweet fragrance with perfect precision—and in the same instant, the urge to mount those two females surged up through him like fire.
"...This female! She smells DELICIOUS!"
"OAKGGRK!! This female is a pregnancy sack! I'll knock her up!"
The other oaks had caught the same scent; their nostrils flared wide, and their cocks lurched upright in unison.
"STOP! Get away from the two pregnancy sacks!"
"The chieftain! The chieftain has come!"
At the chieftain's word, the rock oaks obediently pulled back from the two women.
Bargut leaned in and noisily sniffed at his two pregnancy sacks, then curled his lips upward in a grin.
Fleeing the Bone-Cruncher, it had been so long since he'd last laid eyes on a pregnancy sack. And these two even smelled good!
"I go first!"
Bargut said, his cock swinging heavily as he stepped forward.