Grilled Over an Open Flame
I left the shrine and went straight to Japan's Hunter Association.
If I was to carry out the gods' oracle, I needed information first. Where the red dragon was lairing now, what it looked like, what sort of nest it kept—there was a great deal I still did not know.
I came down the small mountain that held the shrine, and in a place empty of people I wrapped mana about my hands and pressed my palms together.
"Sarutahiko Okami, I humbly beseech you. Please open the way."
I prayed to the god revered as lord of roads and crossroads, the one who binds the heavenly realm to the earthly, worshipped also as the deity of highways and travel.
No sooner had the prayer left me than Lord Sarutahiko, having heard it, opened a gate.
Before that gate, warm with a gentle presence, I pressed my palms together once more in thanks and stepped through.
The clerk at the desk went blank for a moment at my sudden appearance, then immediately bowed her head and apologized.
"Lady Shiraishi Tsubaki—I am terribly sorry for the delay in attending you. I failed to recognize your honored face."
"It is quite all right. I did not arrive by any ordinary means, so there is no need to apologize. More importantly, could you contact the Association President for me?"
I soothed the clerk, who looked ready to press her forehead to the floor and kept pouring out apologies, and asked her to reach the president.
"Yes, yes! I'll contact him at once!"
Rigid to an almost painful degree, she immediately set to hammering at her keyboard.
"Lady Shiraishi, he says you may go straight to the president's office. Please accept my apologies once more for this clumsy reception!"
"Yes. Thank you for your trouble."
One more word from me looked likely to make things worse, so I gave her a vague wave and made for the president's office.
Knock, knock.
At a light rap, a voice inside told me to enter. I opened the door and went in.
Seated in the place of honor was a middle-aged man, white-haired, half his face buried under scars.
"Well now. What brings our shrine maiden all the way out here? I really am curious."
"I have come to carry out an oracle bestowed by the gods."
At the word oracle, the playful smile at the corner of his mouth vanished in an instant, and his presence changed.
Kazuya Hirata. He had retired on the excuse of injury and age, and still held the title of Japan's strongest—a veteran hunter who had cleared more than sixty S-rank gates alone. Even I, who received the gods' grace, found his aura oppressive.
"Please compose yourself. This oracle is not like the last one."
"Tch. Sorry about that."
Irritably, the president set a cigarette from the table between his lips, glanced at me, and put it down again.
"You needn't concern yourself on my account."
"Enough of that. So what was the oracle?"
He waved me toward the point, and I conveyed what the gods had said.
"They told me only to find the red dragon, attend it, and see that it does not come to loathe humankind."
"That's all?"
"Yes. That was the whole of it."
"What a headache. The gods toss out a word and they're done, while we down below nearly kill ourselves digging the meaning out of every last syllable."
He clicked his tongue and aired his complaint against the gods with perfect calm, and all I could feel was guilt. If only I had been able to hear their voices a little more clearly, the president's family and comrades might not have lost their lives.
I bowed my head in apology, and he clicked his tongue again.
"No need for you to go doing that. Even if we'd known, it wasn't a calamity anyone could have stopped."
"Yes..."
"Setting that aside—a red dragon. There hasn't been a gate that produced a dragon in the last ten years."
He worked an unlit cigarette between his teeth, thinking hard, then seemed to remember something and took out his phone to show me.
"Here. See the lower part?"
On the screen, alongside awkwardly translated Japanese, was a photograph of a dragon sheathed from head to tail in scales like vivid crimson flame.
"This is...?"
"It just came back to me. I heard yesterday that a red dragon came out of a gate in Korea."
"Then the dragon is in Korea."
"That, I don't know. They say the dragon that emerged subdued the hunters waiting outside and flew off somewhere at once."
"Subdued them—you mean...?"
"Plenty of serious injuries, but no deaths, apparently. Whether that's luck or the dragon's whim, I couldn't say."
"Well. Most of the badly hurt ones were injured by their own weapons, or so I hear."
"I see."
The president glanced regretfully at the unlit cigarette.
From the way the gods said not to let it come to loathe humans, there is still a chance.
When a gate boss emerges, a few deaths are all but guaranteed. That they had called it a subduing meant it might still be favorably disposed toward humankind.
"Then I will head for Korea at once."
"Hold on. It may already have left Korea, and you're talking about going straight there."
"Even if you leave immediately, you'll need at least two S-rank hunters as escort."
"I will be fine. If anything, it is more dangerous for Japan's strength to be reduced on my account alone."
The president folded his arms, looking troubled, then tossed the cigarette he had been holding into the trash.
"You being fine doesn't mean the rest of us are. You have no idea how precious you are."
"You are the only human loved by the gods of Japan, the only one who can actually speak with them. You're living proof that this country's native faith is real."
"It is not that I am exceptional. I merely happened to catch the gods' eye."
"And catching their eye by happenstance is nearly impossible—that's the problem. I won't hear objections. If you're going, two S-rank hunters are mandatory."
He dug in and would not bend: without S-rank hunters, he would not let me go. A sigh escaped me despite myself.
"There is no helping it, then. Very well."
"That's more like it. I'll contact you once the hunters are assembled. And the Association will make intelligence on the red dragon our first priority."
"Thank you once again for your help."
He waved the courtesy off. I bowed to him and stepped out of the Association.
I pressed my palms together once more, asked the god for a gate, returned to the shrine, and quietly brought the day to a close.
Just before noon the next day, the two hunters the president had spoken of arrived at the shrine.
"Good day. I am Ayana Shirasaki. It is an honor to escort you."
"Yuki Takamiya. Looking forward to it."
"Yes—the pleasure is mine. I am sorry to trouble you on my account."
"Not at all. If anything, we will do our utmost not to be a burden to you with our lacking skill, Lady Miko."
"Yeah. You've got nothing to apologize for. If we get to escort the most famous person in Japan, our own names go up in value."
"Then I am glad."
I exchanged a few simple words with them: a girl with blond hair tied back and blue eyes, who addressed me with careful courtesy, and a woman with a roughly cropped bob who made no effort to soften the sharp edge of her presence.
"But the president said he would contact me..."
"Oh, that. He said you don't know how to use a cell phone, so he told us to just come straight here."
"I... I do know how to handle a phone, at least."
For a moment my face burned at whatever rumors the president was spreading, but I forced myself calm and brought the two hunters inside the shrine.
They took a simple tea and a short rest, then asked when we would leave for Korea.
"If it is all right with you, shall we go right now?"
"Now?"
"Yes. The sooner we meet the dragon, the better."
"Well, we don't mind—but you've got more fire in you than I expected, Lady Miko."
Ayana, who had been quietly enjoying her tea beside us, nodded in agreement with Yuki.
"Then should we book a flight? If we book now, we can probably be there by evening."
"Pardon? I was thinking of going by gate."
At that, the two nodded at each other as if they had expected as much.
"Lady Miko, you've never been abroad, have you?"
"No. My place is, fundamentally, to keep the shrine."
"The moment you use something like a gate to enter another country, it's illegal entry."
"That is correct. Moreover, if S-rank hunters such as ourselves—or you, Lady Miko—cross by gate, it is effectively no different from a declaration of war."
"I... is that so."
"We'll look into it as best we can, so you just rest."
"Yes..."
Leaving the two of them to start making calls, I headed for my room to prepare for the journey.
After subduing the hunters, I made for a nearby gate to test the abilities I possessed and the strength I had gained.
Being noticed by humans would only be a nuisance, so I concealed my mana and traveled high enough not to be sensed. It cost me a little time, but I entered a dungeon that was perfect for a test.
The boss's presence inside fell short of Hyeonmu's, yet it was still the sort of creature that promised a worthwhile hunt.
The moment I set foot inside, I sensed the monsters that had been lying in wait near the gate for incoming hunters break and flee.
Like that, were they even earning their keep?
A monster ought to rush you, at the very least. Watching them bolt at once, I clicked my tongue despite myself. Still, it was not all bad—I could head straight for the boss.
When I reached the mountain where that presence gathered, a sharp cry rang across the sky, and dozens of enormous feathers came pouring down.
"Kreeeeee—!!!!"
I raised fire and burned every feather that flew at me, then wrapped mana around my eyes as I looked at the thing that had the nerve to strike first.
A massive lion's body, an eagle's wings and face, and claws grotesquely sharp—a griffin.
When I mixed mana into the words, wariness and a faint fear gathered in its eyes.
Afraid, and yet it refused to retreat. So it really was the boss.
The griffin loosed feathers again from a distance. I leveled my left hand at it and concentrated fire.
In the absurd heat of the flame gathered in an instant, the griffin's feathers burned away before they could so much as reach me.
I aimed the flame gathered in my hand and sent it at the griffin.
The mass of fire left my palm and swelled in size and speed as it flew. The griffin hurled itself downward in desperation and dodged—only for the flame above it to descend in pursuit.
Horrified by the fire chasing it, and worthy enough of a fairly strong boss, it put on speed and tried to flee. But the flame only grew larger and faster as time passed, and ran it down.
"Kreeeeeeeeek—!!!!!"
Struck by the flame and falling, the so-called prince of the sky rolled across the ground in a manner wholly unworthy of the title, thrashing to put the fire out.
But far from dying, the flames only grew stronger, and at last it seemed to give up and stopped struggling.
Only after the fire had burned away every one of the griffin's steel-like feathers did it go out.
A savory aroma began to rise. I peeled back the charred hide and took a bite.
As expected—chicken is best grilled over an open flame.