Not the Dragon You're Looking For
Jjugo!!
The corpse was gone.
Or had there never been one to begin with?
She'd felt something under her forepaw when she brought it down — a solid, yielding weight — but when she lifted it, there was nothing. No body. Only the heap of gold coins and jewels the thieves had stolen, left behind in a glittering pile.
Scrape. Scrape.
No matter how hard she clawed at the dirt, she found neither a corpse nor so much as a single drop of blood.
"You know anything about this?"
"Uh, well…"
When she tilted her head and asked, Haring scratched her cheek and looked away — the face of someone wrestling with whether she was allowed to say what she knew.
So she did know something.
"I mean, I don't know the super-detailed version or anything…"
"What is it?"
"Those thieves — you said they were dressed a lot like me, right?"
"Yeah. Three of them."
"Then they were us— I mean, Outsiders. Have you heard of Outsiders?"
Outsiders?
Come to think of it, the fairies had mentioned that Outsiders had been pouring into this continent. People from another land, with such peculiar habits that she'd already suspected Haring was one of them.
"Outsiders each have their own special abilities. Like how I can take photos, or pull things out of thin air like this…"
Rummage. Rummage.
Haring plunged a hand into empty space and drew out a long sword — a blade far too fine for a rookie mercenary to be carrying around. It looked remarkably similar to the spatial magic the thieves had used.
"…stuff like that."
"Neat. No chant, even."
"Hehe. Anyway, them vanishing is one of those special abilities too. They aren't dead. They probably just relocated to a nearby village."
Haring tucked the sword away again.
So the disappearing corpses were part of an ability…
Interesting, certainly — but the explanation didn't quite settle every question. Haring was one thing; those thieves were another.
For the power they have, their abilities are…
Their physical capabilities were impressive for humans who couldn't even use mana — but chantless spatial storage and teleportation were high-tier arts. Not something people of that caliber should have been able to wield.
"Who gave you abilities like that?"
"Huh?"
"You didn't just wake up with them."
"Uh…"
If the Outsiders were a people, and the power ran in their bloodline, that would be one thing. But in three hundred years of life, she had never encountered a race that possessed anything like this. Of course, such a people might have arisen while she slept in her nest — but a lineage with power on this scale couldn't possibly have sprung up in a mere few decades.
There's something behind this.
The Outsiders were not a natural occurrence. Someone had intervened to create them.
Haring's expression grew even more uncomfortable, and she fell silent. The silence stretched. Growing impatient, she started to raise a fist —
"Ah, crap. Am I even allowed to say this? People on the gallery were all iffy about it too…"
"What are you muttering about?"
"I mean… the Goddess…"
"The Goddess?"
That senile old hag?
"The Goddess… the Goddess, huh…"
The day after Haring left, she sat crunching through the cookies Haring had left behind, sunk deep in thought.
What delusion had that senile old hag fallen into this time, to go and manufacture this many "Apprentice Heroes"?
"Granted, the results were impressive, but…"
That had been because of him — not because the Goddess had bestowed any real power. And from what she'd gathered, this wasn't a matter of a handful of chosen ones.
Ballpark, we're talking over a hundred at least…
At that scale the power would be so diluted they'd struggle just to survive, never mind accomplishing anything. What was she even thinking?
"Is she running a gacha or something? Does that even work?"
A talent that appeared once in ten thousand years was not going to show up twice…
Munch, munch.
"Hooooom…"
Right. She ought to pay a visit one of these days.
If all the lunatics who'd been showing up weren't the product of bad upbringing but the Goddess's own droppings — then at the very least, that former Hero of hers ought to be keeping them in line. The Goddess herself never bothered coming down from on high, so she was out of the equation.
"So tired… so tired…"
"Dragon Miiiiiss!!!"
Haring?
She lifted her head at the sudden shout that shook the nest. Had Haring come back already? But the voice was rather… masculine for that.
"I have arrived!"
"?"
Taat!
A man landed in front of the nest as if he'd vaulted up from below. He had a bold, open face, a bow slung across his back, and gear not unlike Haring's or the thieves'. Judging by the lean build and the aura rolling off him, he looked stronger than any of the previous visitors. He even had a trickle of mana.
Another Apprentice Hero, then.
This wasn't a meet-and-greet plaza. Why did they keep showing up?
The man swept his gaze around with a smile full of pure delight. After a long look, his eyes found her lying inside the nest — and went wide with shock.
"W-wha…?"
"Who are you?"
The first one she'd met, Haring, had come to train. The second group of three had come to steal. So what would this one do?
Steal? Or train?
Going by his looks and his reaction, training seemed more likely than theft. And she was awake, not asleep — not exactly prime conditions for a heist. Then again, she was currently in her Polymorph form. He might underestimate her and pick a fight.
"Aaaah…"
"What's wrong?"
"AAAAAAAH…!!!"
Thud.
The man dropped to his knees and clutched his head. She hadn't done a thing, yet he wailed as if seized by some tremendous agony — then clenched his fists.
"This isn't…"
"Hm?"
BOOM!
"This isn't a dragon!!"
"Excuse me?"
"What I wanted was a dragon so massive its wings blot out the sky, with a cool, badass design! You're telling me this little brat is a dragon?! This piece-of-crap sce—"
CRAAASH!
"Jjugo!!"
The man's head caved in.