An Arrogant Dragon...?
"A... a Succubus Queen?!?!"
I couldn't help but stare wide-eyed in shock.
"Heh heh... That's right. I am none other than the great Goddess of Lust. Queen of the dream demons! Legion Commander Sepheer."
"Not anymore."
"Ugh."
The moment Athena glared at her, Sepheer immediately lowered her tail. In that timid display, there wasn't a shred of a legion commander's dignity to be found.
A Succubus Queen, though...
Through Athena, I had managed to piece together a rough account of last night. Sepheer had tried to kidnap me while I was too drunk to think straight, intending to force me into becoming her familiar. Before she could manage it, though, Athena had caught her. Just as Athena's blade was about to take her head, I had apparently begged Athena to spare her life. And so her execution had been put on hold — which brought us to now.
I think... that does sound familiar...
The hazy memories were starting to surface. Through the fog of my drunken mind, I had seen Athena swinging her sword at someone. Having already decided to keep Athena from walking the path of the mastermind, I had asked her to spare a life — hoping she might kill a little less.
"Hera. If you change your mind, I can kill her whenever you like. She's a demonkin either way, isn't she?"
"Eek?!! He... Hera..! P-p-p... please spare me!!"
Sepheer was on her knees, looking up at me with both hands clasped in desperate prayer. Her pitiful state left me feeling thoroughly awkward.
The Fourth Legion Commander, Succubus Queen Sepheer. In the original story, she had been the weakest of the four legion commanders in raw combat power — and yet she had still been a thoroughly troublesome opponent. With her Authority of Seduction, which could bewitch minds and turn people to her side, she had enchanted Robin's companions and set them against him. Our righteous protagonist Robin had been utterly unable to cut down people who had once been his allies, and so she had given him no end of grief for quite some time.
In the end, with the Saintess's help, he had managed to break the enchantment on his companions — but even then, the Succubus Queen had remained a difficult foe. The monsters under her command had reduced countless villages to ash, and with her exceptional talent for disguise, she had stirred up chaos among various factions from within the Empire itself. An enemy who struck from both inside and out — that was Sepheer.
And now that very same woman was...
"Nngh... hic... I don't wanna die....... Hera.. I.. I'll be good.. okay?"
...sobbing and sniffling, begging me to take her on as my familiar.
When I turned a look of silent demand for an explanation toward Athena, she merely shrugged once and said,
"I figured she'd be pretty useful as a familiar, so I thought I'd attach her to you. Do whatever you want with her, Hera."
"And if I refuse... what happens then?"
At my question, Athena turned a chilling smile on Sepheer.
"You throw away things you don't need, don't you?"
"N-nooo!! Hera.. please..!"
Apparently Sepheer's life really did hang on my decision.
A familiar, though. It had come up a few times in the novel. A relationship formed through a contract. You could take divine beasts, phantasm species, wild beasts, and all manner of other creatures as familiars, and once bound, a familiar's role was to protect its master whenever they fell into danger. In exchange, the master was supposed to provide the familiar with regular compensation — usually mana, or something material.
But...
The Succubus Queen becoming my familiar...?
Was this really okay?
When an uneasy look crossed my face, Athena stroked my hair and offered words of reassurance.
"It's fine. There's not a single clause in a familiar contract that disadvantages the master. Ordinarily you'd have to pay a regular price, but..."
Athena looked at Sepheer and smiled in a way that was somehow deeply unsettling.
"You won't be needing any of that. Right?"
Sepheer answered without a moment's hesitation.
"Yep! O-of course!! All I need is my master's attention!! I don't need anything else!!"
"That's not allowed either."
"Huh...?"
At Athena's words, the atmosphere turned ice-cold in an instant.
"Who do you think you are, daring to want Hera's attention?"
"E-eek.. A-actually I don't need anything at all..!! Unpaid work is way more comfortable for me!! Yep..! Absolutely!!... hic.."
Sepheer forced the words out through brimming tears. Her abject cry stirred something almost pitying in me.
I thought it over for a moment, then answered.
"...All right. I'll do the contract."
At my words, a brilliant light of hope dawned across Sepheer's face.
"R-really?!!"
"Really, Hera?"
"Yeah."
Taking a demonkin as a familiar still made me a little uneasy — but Athena herself had said there wouldn't be any problems, so it should be fine. Besides, Sepheer was one of the highest authorities second only to the Demon King. Having her on our side would help in all sorts of ways.
And for reasons I couldn't quite name... I didn't want her to die. Had I grown attached already? We'd only just properly met for the first time. When had there even been time to get attached?
Right... this is the first time I've seen her today, so why...
Today was the first time...
The first...
......
"Mmnn.... want me to..?.. Okayyy.."
Schlp— schluurp — squelch—
"Ahmp.. hahp.. mmph.."
"Hyaahp.. chluurp....."
......
...
..
"Hehe.. I have to stay still?"
Schlorp— lick—
"Mmph.. your tongue.. is going all the way innn.. that's amazing.."
"Bleh~ hyaahp.."
...
..
..
...........Huh?
Now that some time had passed, the hazy fog clouding my mind was gradually lifting. The missing memories were starting to rise back to the surface, one by one.
The comforting I'd given Athena last night. But the more the memories returned, the more it seemed like the person I'd been comforting hadn't been Athena at all.
It had definitely... been Athena, right...?
Definitely...
And yet in my memories, it wasn't radiant golden hair that kept surfacing — only a gorgeous cherry-blossom pink. The exact same pink as Sepheer's.
Th-then... does that mean...
The person whose fingers I'd sucked, whose ears I'd licked... hadn't been Athena, but...
"Se... Sepheer.."
"Hm?"
She looked at me with a puzzled expression when I called her name.
"D-did you... last night, your ears.."
"Ah..."
At my words, her cheeks flushed pink as if she were embarrassed. So it really was true.
Pop—
Something seemed to burst inside my head. My mind went completely blank, and my face burned scarlet as a ripe tomato.
A-a-am I insane, Hera?
Drunk or not, how do you fail to tell apart the person right in front of you? Are you even human? No wonder Sepheer hadn't felt unfamiliar. Sucking on a stranger's fingers and licking their ears the first time you meet them... How much of a pervert must I have looked like?
Just kill me.. die..
The self-loathing was enough to make me want to curl up and die — but fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, I was able to shake it off almost immediately.
"......Ears what?"
Because a voice so cold it might as well have come from hell itself — a voice that sounded already dead — drifted up from behind me.
""Hic.""
Sepheer and I hiccuped in perfect unison. When I twisted my head around, there was Athena, watching me with eyes as still and quiet as the eye of a storm.
"What did the two of you do?"
At her words, a cold sweat broke out across my body. I didn't know why Athena was reacting like this, but I had a strong feeling that one wrong answer would lead to something irreversible.
My eyes met Sepheer's for a brief moment. As if our thoughts had aligned, we exchanged a shaky, silent signal.
"Ah.. no?! I-it was just that Hera thought my ears were interesting last night and touched them a few times, that's all?! R-right, Hera??"
"Y-yeah.. that's right.. They were all pointy and sticking out, so I thought they were neat.. Nothing else happened, really..!"
Sepheer and I were so perfectly in sync you could have mistaken us for lifelong friends. Demonkin or not, in that moment I felt a genuine sense of camaraderie with her.
".....Is that so?"
"Yep!! Of course..!! What were you even thinking?"
"I-I'm hungry, should we get breakfast?!"
Apparently finding our clumsy subject change suspicious, Athena eyed me doubtfully. She studied my expression for a long while before finally letting out a sigh and dropping her suspicions.
"..Fine. I had something to talk about anyway."
I swallowed hard. It seemed we'd managed to weather the crisis. Sepheer and I exchanged looks of mutual relief, and Athena continued.
"Before that. Shouldn't the two of you form the contract first?"
A familiar contract. A pact that bound a living being to a master, allowing them to be commanded as a familiar. At a glance it resembled a slave contract, but it was quite different.
For one thing, a familiar contract gave the master no particular means of restraining the familiar. However, if the master died, the familiar died with them — so like it or not, the familiar had to protect their master. And once you took a familiar, the master gained the ability to use a portion of that creature's power. If I bound Sepheer, I would be able to draw on her strength, however faintly.
That was all. It wasn't an especially grandiose contract. And according to Athena, the process of forming one was simpler than I'd expected. All Sepheer had to do was drink a drop of my blood and recite an oath of loyalty.
When she said "drink blood," I'd briefly imagined something vampiric involving fangs — but it turned out a single drop was enough. Athena, who clearly had no desire to watch Sepheer's tongue touch my skin, scooped a drop of my blood onto a spoon and fed it to her.
"I.. Sepheer... sob.. devote my entire life.. to serving Hera as my master.. hic.. and on the day she dies.. I swear to enter the earth beside her and take my eternal rest.. waaah.."
Sepheer wailed as if she were being sold off to some labor camp. Well — from this moment on, she really was completely collared. I could hardly blame her. Even though I hadn't been the one to force this, I felt a twinge of guilt toward her all the same.
The moment she finished her oath, a magic circle glowed softly between us. That must have meant the contract was complete.
It's okay, Sepheer...
Even though she was now my familiar, I had no intention of working her to the bone. I didn't particularly want to order her around in the first place. Familiar in name only — in practice, nothing much would change. Though I would, of course, stop her from doing anything wicked.
Leaving the still-sobbing Sepheer where she was, Athena beamed with a thoroughly refreshed smile and said,
"What do you want for breakfast?"
...Do demonkin even eat food, though?
"So they do eat.."
"Mmff?"
Sepheer answered me with her mouth stuffed full of food.
"Never mind.. just eat slowly.."
We were having a simple meal in the inn's dining hall. Athena, who had said she had something to tell me, dropped a startling revelation over breakfast.
From Sepheer, Athena had managed to learn a number of things about the Demon King and his plans. But even more surprising was the reason Sepheer had come here in the first place. She had brought various monsters and familiars to this area in search of leads on a dragon hatchling.
"Thinking they could tame a dragon. Demonkin really are idiots."
"Mmff?!"
Apparently stung by Athena's remark, Sepheer hastily swallowed her mouthful and shot back,
"Idiots?! Just what do you take this Succubus Queen's seduction for?!"
Athena looked at her with pure pity.
"I should be asking you what you take dragons for."
"W-what?!"
"Dragons have no parents. They don't need them. They aren't born — they come into being."
Athena pointed her table knife at Sepheer as she went on.
"Beings composed of infinite mana, perfect from the moment of their existence. That's a dragon. Even a hatchling doesn't change that fundamental nature. Your seduction would probably just get swallowed up by a hatchling's mana and vanish like the wind."
"Urgh..!"
"They're arrogant, but absolute. No race in this world surpasses them. Do you honestly think taming something like that makes any sense?"
"...."
"That's why I called you an idiot. Even I couldn't tame a dragon. They are not beings that place themselves beneath anyone."
With that, Athena set down her knife, sliced into her meat, and resumed eating. Sepheer wore a distinctly sulky expression, but apparently had no real rebuttal; she settled into a pout and followed Athena's lead back to her meal.
Athena's insistence that dragons could never be tamed. I seemed to remember the novel saying the same thing. She was almost certainly right.
Still... I'd like to see one at least once. A dragon.
But before long, that wish of mine would come true — along with something I could never have imagined.
Dragons cannot be tamed, she had said.
Apparently, Athena had been wrong.
".........What on earth."
Athena stared at me with a look of pure disbelief.
"Ah.. looks like it really likes Hera a lot..?"
Sepheer seemed thoroughly rattled as well, staring at me in considerable shock. More precisely — at my shoulder.
"Kyuuu!!"
Perched on my shoulder was a living creature about the size of a small dog. It resembled a lizard, but unlike any ordinary lizard, thick blue scales covered its body. And then there were the two pairs of wings — which were anything but ordinary.
Yes.
It was a dragon hatchling.
I could only sit there with it on my shoulder, staring blankly ahead.
"...Huh..?"
....What was going on?
"Kyuu!!"
.......Didn't they say dragons were arrogant?