The Red Dragon and the Dragon Rider – The Scheme
"Hmm."
"…"
"Hoo."
"…."
"Hee hee."
"……."
Seraphina grinned from ear to ear, watching Sylvia as though she were watching something utterly delightful.
Sylvia tried to ignore her gaze and focus on her paperwork, but it was impossible to completely disregard eyes that kept boring into her.
"Why do you keep staring at me like that? If you're that idle, why don't you make yourself useful and help me with my work?"
"Ohoh. No, I'm not idle at all. I just felt something very interesting yesterday, that's all."
"…Sh-shall we go check how the training is going, then?"
Sylvia turned her eyes away with effort, trying to shut out Seraphina's words, but Seraphina simply trailed after her with relentless persistence.
"Yesterday. I had a dream, you see. A dream in which I was in someone else's body—not mine—wallowing in pleasure at a brothel."
At Seraphina's words, Sylvia screwed her eyes shut.
She knew that phenomenon firsthand, didn't she? Experiencing that day's events through Seraphina's eyes.
"Ahem! Y-yes! You went! So what?!"
In the end, she confessed.
The previous night, unable to endure the heat pooling in her lower belly, Sylvia had dressed herself up as Cathy and gone to the brothel to relieve her desires alone.
She couldn't use Seraphina's magic, but for the commander of the Bahamut Knights, obtaining a disguise artifact was hardly a difficult task.
"Well. I'm just feeling good, that's all. It seems my dear Sylvia has fallen quite magnificently into corruption."
"F-fallen?! Absolutely not! I-I just… relieved a little stress, that's all!"
"Ohoh. Of course. Of course you did."
Seraphina waved her hand airily and slipped out of the office.
Thud!
The moment the door closed and severed her from Sylvia—
"Just as planned!"
She curled the corners of her mouth into a sly, serpentine smile.
The moment she had dreamed of—indulging in lewd play with Sylvia—was now right before her eyes.
"A little faster… I have to bury Sylvia even deeper in the tomb of pleasure."
As she shut her eyes and deliberated, a certain method came to mind.
Once your mind is made up, hesitate never! Recalling that old draconic maxim, Seraphina set off at once.
Her destination was none other than the training grounds where Vargan was stationed.
"Ugh!!! One more time, that's the last of it!!!"
He was drenched in sweat, hauling a massive weight up and bringing it down in the training yard.
His bare torso left his magnificent musculature on full display.
Honestly, if his skin had been green, the sight could have been mistaken for an orc.
"Hm? Lady Seraphina?"
The moment Vargan spotted Seraphina, he set down his equipment and bowed his head in greeting.
His manner was even more respectful than Sylvia's.
"At your service!"
Sylvia might hold the titles of a duke's daughter and commander of her own knight order, but before a creature like a dragon, such things were scraps of paper—worthless. The gap between human and dragon was like the gap between an ant and a tiger.
Vargan knew very well that provoking her temper could cost him his life on the spot.
"Ah. Vice-Commander. I came to ask you something."
"Me, my lady? Ask me anything at all!"
"There's an expedition coming up soon, isn't there?"
"Ah. You mean the monster subjugation expedition to the Red Fang Mountains?"
The Red Fang Mountains was the name for the range located in the south of the Tiranus Empire.
It crawled with countless monsters, and for that reason it was also known as the Demon Realm.
So thick were the monsters that the empire had erected a great fortress wall before the mountains to hold them back, dispatching its knight orders into the range at regular intervals to cull their numbers.
Were the subjugations ever neglected—or abandoned outright—an overwhelming horde of monsters would burst forth and threaten the empire itself.
And this expedition was to be carried out by the Bahamut Knights.
As the first expedition of the Bahamut Knights, Sylvia was still wrestling with paperwork even now to ensure it went off without a hitch.
"Isn't there anything we could do to raise the knights' morale on that expedition?"
"Hmm. If morale is the concern, then food comes first. Food is the only way to relieve stress on a campaign, after all."
Vargan was hardly a clever man, but he was a veteran who had spent ten years rolling through the Manticore Knights, another of the empire's knight orders.
Naturally, he had experience completing an expedition to the Red Fang Mountains, so he was able to describe the situation in far more detail than she'd expected.
"Socks, for one—the more the better. On a long march, you can never have too many. And also…."
His advice would have made excellent preparation for the expedition, but Seraphina's expression grew sour.
Because the words she was hoping for never left Vargan's mouth.
"…Something else, I mean. Hmm. You know, that sort of thing."
"That sort of thing?"
Vargan couldn't grasp what Seraphina was getting at. When he tilted his head and asked, she finally leaned in and murmured, just loud enough to reach his ear.
"How about bringing prostitutes on the expedition?"
Vargan's eyes went wide.
Bring prostitutes on the expedition?
It was a campaign that would last at least a month, and at most half a year.
However stout the knights' discipline, they were still men in the end.
Pent-up desire turned to stress, and stress piled upon stress could curdle into internal strife.
Indeed, in some countries it was customary to provide soldiers with prostitutes before sending them off to war.
But that happened before departure—that is, in safe zones.
"That would certainly be a fine thing. The knights are men, after all, and desire is bound to build up. The problem, though, is how we'd bring prostitutes on the expedition at all."
The Red Fang Mountains, teeming with monsters, lay far beyond the reach of human hands.
There wasn't so much as a single waystation, let alone a proper road.
Bringing prostitutes to such a place?
What courtesan in her right mind would tag along on a monster-hunting expedition?
"And even if they would, Commander Sylvia would never allow it."
Though he hadn't known her long, Vargan understood what kind of woman Sylvia was.
A duke's daughter through and through—stiff-necked and wedded to formality.
"Absolutely! It will never happen."
"Hmm. But bringing prostitutes would raise the knights' morale, wouldn't it?"
"Well… yes, it would. If it were possible, that is."
"Got it! I'll write up a report in your name and deliver it to Sylvia myself!"
"What? No—I only answered your question—"
"Details, details! Just wait a moment. I'm about to send the knights' morale soaring!"
Cutting cleanly through Vargan's protests, Seraphina scurried off to find Sylvia.
The next day.
Summoned by Sylvia, Vargan screwed his eyes shut.
That damned red lizard! What the hell has she done?!
All he'd done was answer her question! And now a summons to the office! She was clearly playing him for a fool!
Even as he grumbled, his mind raced desperately through one excuse after another.
"Ahem! Vice-Commander Vargan, reporting!"
"It's open. Come in."
He opened the door and stepped inside to find Sylvia seated at the great desk of the office—and beside her, sprawled across the large sofa, Seraphina, gazing his way and winking with a slow, deliberate flutter of her lashes.
So this is what they call a soul contract. A matched pair of lunatics.
"Vargan. I heard it from Seraphina. They say you wrote a report recommending we bring prostitutes on the expedition."
"N-no, that is…."
The instant he scrambled to deny it, his eyes somehow drifted to Seraphina on the sofa—and their gazes locked.
Long crimson eyes, slit vertically like a serpent's.
The moment he met them, Vargan understood on instinct alone.
If I say no here, I die!
In the end, Vargan had no choice but to nod.
"Th-that's right. I wrote the report. But I've since changed my mind. Bringing prostitutes on an expedition is, well, absurd."
"There. You see? He knows better."
The moment Sylvia moved to tear the report apart—
Seraphina rose from the sofa and spoke.
"But it would be a direct shot at raising the knights' morale. Wouldn't it?"
"O-of course it would!"
"I've told you time and again, Sylvia—anything and everything must be done to raise the morale of the knights."
When Seraphina shot him another glance, Vargan nodded and boomed his answer.
"Seraphina… phew. Vargan. Fine. I'll consider it. Return to your duties."
Seraphina flashed a smile, and Vargan—genuinely hopeful that prostitutes might actually accompany the expedition—raised his thumb in a hearty salute.
The moment Vargan stepped out of the office, Sylvia rounded on Seraphina.
"Haah. Seraphina. All of this was your doing, wasn't it?"
"Ohoh. But it's still true that the knights' morale will rise."
"Haah. And how exactly do you plan to bring prostitutes into a demon realm crawling with monsters? We can't even load them into carriages—everyone marches on foot. What lunatic of a courtesan would follow along on an expedition?"
"One who's used to marching, strong enough to hunt monsters, and—above all—absolutely loves sex, of course."
"Where in the world would you find a courtesan like that?!"
At Sylvia's question, Seraphina curled her lips into a grin and pointed a finger at someone.
At Seraphina herself—and Sylvia.
"…Me? You mean me?"
"Not Sylvia, precisely. I mean Cathy."
Sylvia squeezed her eyes shut.
But at the same time, the thought this might actually be fun flickered through her mind, and her lower belly began to warm.
Come to think of it, I seem to be turning more and more into Seraphina by the day.