The Great Demon Fafnir Has No Mother
The Great Demon Fafnir has no mother.
The Great Demon Fafnir has no mother.
"...?!"
A sharp sting. Another. A prick. Then sting, sting again.
From the present crisis all the way back to its root cause—someone had simply boiled every problem down into that single, brutally straightforward sentence. The reader’s mood soured, and she glared a little harder than usual…
It changed nothing.
That was the truth. Lady Fafnir was parentless.
The dragon who had only just inherited her mother’s name no longer had a mother.
The moment a story carries the fantasy tag, that sort of fate is practically guaranteed—and of course this world had heroes.
From slave markets to body-trading exchanges, from medieval settings to near-future sci-fi, the names changed but the business of buying and selling people never vanished. And if people could be packaged and delivered like garlic-soy chicken, then naturally heroes could be packaged too… or rather, a ritual called hero summoning existed.
Ancient ruins occasionally unearthed records proving that whenever help was needed, intelligent beings from other worlds had been yanked into this one.
Maybe Demon Kings kept popping up one after another like cotton candy on a stick. Maybe Demon-King-class natural disasters appeared in buy-one-get-one free promotions. So every now and then the many goddesses would—just a tiny bit—tweak the unfairness into something slightly more efficient.
They might send a quiet message to an otherworlder who had left so many text comments that the novelist suffered serious emotional damage. Or to people who proudly claimed they had spent a hundred thousand hours on a single game inside a “com-pu-ter,” that world’s unique entertainment facility. Or, if neither of those worked, they might detect a Demon-King-level disaster called a subway collapse on the other side and promise to send the hero home once the Demon King was defeated… anyway.
After a rather one-sided request for understanding, quietly snatching hero candidates had become one of the more widely known methods.
The ritual had existed for ages, refined, simplified, even given variations—yet here, on the Floren Continent where the motherless Great Demon Fafnir lived, none of that applied.
Any mage who knew the hero-summoning rite could proudly thrust out a chest too small to be called breasts—human, beastkin, elf, or otherwise—and declare:
“The Floren Continent’s hero-summoning technology is considerably backward.”
It wasn’t that magic itself had failed to advance; opportunities for exchange with other continents had simply been scarce. What had once required a goddess’s absolute assistance had improved to the point where divine help merely made things better… yet somehow it had developed a distinctly Floren flavor.
If the goddesses who still fully outsourced the ritual were asked, they would probably answer: the direction had simply skewed elsewhere.
On the Floren Continent, where the formula “everyone except me is an enemy” held true regardless of race or horns, every summoning aimed to drag in as many heroes as possible. Unlike the goddesses who could chat one-on-one with otherworld intelligences and check cooperation and aptitude, the locals targeted group vehicles—“express buses”—or entire academy buildings instead of single dots on a magic circle.
They would have loved to collapse a subway transfer station for the jackpot, but the goddesses capable of that sort of thing were busy saving up costs to raise a pet rabbit named Daisy or to summon soldiers who looked good at killing demons on Mars.
Contrary to everyone’s expectations, the hero-summoning fad that had swept the Floren Continent faded quickly. Otherworlders with special abilities or tenfold expedition-bonus experience still got kidnapped now and then, but state-level summonings became rare.
The reason was as simple as the fact that Great Demon Fafnir had no mother.
Two warring nations had each performed the ritual on the scale of an “express bus,” then asked the heroes to solve the continent’s biggest “problem.” In a fantasy novel the author’s limited stamina would have wiped out every minor nation under “etc.” before the summonings stopped—but on the Floren Continent one absolute, unchanging truth remained no matter how many disasters struck:
“A… hero… has appeared…? I-I-I must have misheard. Report that again properly…!”
“Yes, Lady Fafnir!”
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. In the staring contest that was the Floren Continent, the first race marked for elimination was the demonkin—the horned ones, not the eared ones. While beastkin, elves, and humans all sat ready to tear one another’s hair out in perfect harmony (half-elves as standard, half-dragons to half-orcs as optional extras, watching just how far human possibility could stretch), the demonkin alone sat dazed, still stuck in individualism and the logic of power.
What actually vanished were the far-too-many Demon Kings for one continent, but the phrasing was the same for those who disappeared alongside them. The annual custom of poking the demon realm with a hero party was tolerable… this time, however, they were serious.
“It… it wasn’t the usual W-W… thing… was it…?”
Even nations that had agreed never to use hero summoning at the state level had all performed it together. That serious.
“I-Investigate everything! What they want, why they were summoned, what they like—anything, just scrape up every scrap of information right now!”
“Your speech! Your speech is collapsing, Master!”
Every nation on the Floren Continent was racing toward continental unification. On a continent where the weak could not survive, one demon among the first race marked for elimination was thinking differently—the one who had no mother… and no parents at all…
“Aaaaaah!!! Why… why… why do heroes appear on the very day I inherit the Four Heavenly Kings title from Mother…?!”
She was not the type who looked forward to fighting the half-forgotten existence called “hero” instead of the occasional otherworlder. Dragon Great Demon Fafnir was merely one of the Demon King’s Four Heavenly Kings who owned a single castle.
She had inherited her only piece of real estate from her mother roughly a month ago. The only differences from a human were the glossy horns sprouting on either side of her head and a tail thicker than a succubus’s. Considering that the kingdom which had successfully summoned the heroes worshipped white dragons as guardian deities, calling her a demonkin was already awkward. Had she been a silver dragon with just a little more luster than pure white, she could have lived in luxury anywhere in the kingdom… but thinking that changed nothing, so Fafnir gave up even sending her thoughts fleeing into the distance.
Until recently the castle had been in her mother’s name. Her forces were pitifully lacking compared to the other Heavenly Kings. The monsters and demonkin who had followed her mother were gone. Those who had sworn loyalty to an adult dragon’s power had left to find new masters. Those bound by contract needed no mention.
At the emergency council someone had even stated that the root of every problem was “because she has no mother”—a low-grade, rock-bottom monster… or demonkin…? The gargoyle whose entire body was stone looked like a loyal retainer by comparison.
Silver Dragon Fafnir’s combat strength was just enough to send packing an adventurer party that had only begun to get used to adventure. The sole reason she had been able to roll around comfortably on a fluffy bed until now—the sole reason no hero or adventurer party with a demon-slaying contract had ever reached her castle—was one:
The path to the castle was blocked by the territories of the other demonkin Heavenly Kings.
“…Sniff.”
Thinking about it made her feel so pitiful that even correcting herself—“It must be thanks to the title of Heavenly King of the Demon King’s Army”—still left her equally sad.
She wanted to burrow under the blankets, but the loyal gargoyle who would not harden further no matter how hard she glared remained on one knee, unmoving. That meant the report was not finished.
Whether it was the dying wish of the mother who had lived out her long lifespan or not, the moment she prepared to hear the report of the retainer who had stayed to the end without abandoning her—
“La-Lady Fafnir! A-A hero is coming!”
Another retainer—one who habitually bet on the reverse by calling her “Lady Fafnir,” yet was still a true loyalist—burst in with the news.
“What about Rank 2? What about Rank 1, the old man?!”
“Th-They’re all dead, Lady Fafnir!”
“Motheeer…”
There was no need to ask after Rank 3 of the Demon King’s Army after that answer. Rank 4’s identity hardly mattered either.
The hero—no, the otherworld contract killer—had already reached the castle of the weakest of the Four Heavenly Kings, the Silver Dragon Great Demon Fafnir.
“Lady Fafnir… from this moment you must listen very carefully…”
And now.
Frankly, the moment she had woken this morning and sat down—before she could even drink coffee—the loyal gargoyle who had declared “The Great Demon Fafnir has no mother, and that is the cause of everything” began laying out the secret passed down through the Silver Dragon family for generations.
“So… have I understood correctly…? No. Is that right?”
The reason Fafnir’s speech had collapsed was simple. The loyal gargoyle before her was… how to put it…
“Uh… um…”
Even a Great Demon had pure feelings, and a lifespan. Naturally her mother had lived an enormously long time—long enough to die of old age without falling to otherworld or local contract killers. Then what about the gargoyle?
If asked whether it was a demon, both Fafnir and Hans (currently charging into a goblin cave with his childhood-friend adventurer party) would answer yes. Yet shouldn’t some other classification be attached?
Something like [Demon/Fixture]. Or [Demon/Object]. Even [Demon/Building] didn’t sound bad.
The only reason Fafnir was entertaining such tedious and pedantic thoughts was one: the pad-lip gargoyle—no, the steward—before her was the “thing” that had existed longer than anyone else in this Silver Dragon castle that would soon be overrun.
“So… you’re saying we should use the Mother Card? Use it, is that it?”
“No, Lady Fafnir. More precisely, the Ancestor Card…”
The vertical pupils of the Floren Continent’s only Silver Dragon—motherless Fafnir—flew wide open.
“In fact even that expression may be wrong.”
First came the shock. At first she understood. She could accept it. The ancestor had come from another world. That much was fine.
The problem was what came next.
A mere monster that flew on instinct and hoarded gold, silver, jewels, and other valuables in its nest… a Silver Dragon… uh… um… human possibility. Otherworld human possibility. Half-elves, half-orcs, that sort of thing.
“Uh…”
“Even Lady Fafnir’s mother, who bequeathed the name, reacted the same way.”
The part about grandmother and great-grandmother showing identical reactions… Fafnir decided to erase from her mind.
“From further back it was… well, the taming stage.”
“Why…?”
“Because that was when they learned Polymorph.”
If magic failed, physical methods would do. The problem was that the Silver Dragon first had to survive the otherworld contract killers before any of that could happen.
“Do it right now! No. We shall do it. We have no choice but to do it!”
Thus the motherless Silver Dragon who still used the name inherited from her mother’s mother’s mother’s… (abbreviated below) decided to use the ultimate technique.
If the other side was using the “summon my own side from another world” move, then this side would do the exact same thing! Through the gargoyle—who could be broken but never died of natural causes, and who was wise enough among low-grade demons to be called a mutant—the Silver Dragon family’s ultimate technique, left one-sidedly down the generations:
Summon the Ancestor!
If there was one problem… the distant ancestor who had already crossed to the other world had lived quite well on the Floren Continent, enjoyed a full lifespan, and passed away long ago. A tiny bit… quite a lot long ago. Slightly earlier than the goddesses currently worshipped on the Floren Continent.
“…Then it’s not the ancestor… is it?”
The target to summon was also a problem. If it was a friend of the ancestor… what relation did that have to the current Silver Dragon clan?
“Not… a stranger…?”
The ultimate technique left by the ancestor was precisely—
“Leave this place to me and flee to the other world!”
—the part that had handled “flee to the other world,” and the solution left by the ancestor who had then found a Silver Dragon in that other world and lived happily ever after was—!
Beg for help from the friend of the ancestor who had sacrificed themselves at the moment those words were spoken. Who might even still be alive.
(If already dead) no contact, oh well.
(If they refuse) oh well.
(If they ignore out of annoyance) oh well.
The Silver Dragon family’s ultimate technique, which first had to pass the three-pack of “or not” aimed at a complete stranger—an otherworld friend of the ancestor—was, well…
Sending a message through the communication channel, the soul IP, that the ancestor had left via the gargoyle down the generations:
BecomeTheUltimateBrainwashingCombatantizationMaster
“Is this real?”
…Fafnir could not understand the highly encrypted mana sentence, and frankly did not want to. She also thought there was nothing to gain from a method even shabbier than hero summoning…
"...?"
This was supposedly the person who had stayed behind to the very end so the ancestors could escape to the other world…
Anyway, that person was correct…
The only ancestor known never to have crossed to the other world was… well…
The fact that contact was even possible while still alive was already amazing…
Um…
Uh…
In other words…?
An extremely strange person.