Dragon Education (3)
"Dragon Jade?"
"Ah, so you recognize it! As expected of the noble elven race!"
…Didn't this guy just call us 'lowly insects' for bothering him a minute ago? His attitude had flipped faster than a pancake.
More importantly, the words Dragon Jade had shifted everyone's gaze.
"Is that really a Dragon Jade?"
"…It seems so. I can feel an enormous amount of magic power coming from the orb."
"Indeed! Spare my life, and I shall give you this Dragon Jade. But if you mean to take my life, I will pour every last ounce of my strength into destroying it!"
There was a reason he could make that threat.
When a dragon slept its long sleep, it shed tears periodically to keep its eyes from drying out. Those tears hardened into orb form — and that was a Dragon Jade.
You couldn't eat it, but as an artifact that held magic power of its own, its value was immense. A dragon's entire body was magic itself, so even accumulated tears became a vessel of considerable power.
Artifacts like this could be drawn on separately from a person's own magic reserves, which made them objects of intense desire for mages and anyone else who worked with magic.
A Dragon Jade the size of a human thumb was already worth ten gold coins. Which meant…
"Just how much would one this big be worth…?"
Even Freya, who had a bad history with dragons, was staring at the size and value of that Jade as if entranced.
"I'll give you this — just spare me!"
If it had been moderately expensive, maybe. But this was too much money to simply refuse.
Still — how did a Young-class dragon even have something like this?
"Hey. Is this actually yours?"
"It is!"
"A dragon that only just left the Hatchling stage somehow has a Dragon Jade this big? You're not scamming us?"
"When I left my nest, I quietly swiped my father's Dragon Jade."
"…?"
"My father is the sort of being who wouldn't even notice if one or two trifling treasures like this went missing. So I took one."
Great. Now we've got a kleptomaniac dragon on our hands.
Commander Ben Griff, rattled by how the situation was turning, spoke up urgently.
"H-Heroes! What is there to even consider? Agonizing over something like that…!"
"Calling it 'something like that' is a stretch. This is enough to buy a principality castle. Not just any castle — a grand ducal one."
"W-well… even so, this is a creature that harmed people! How can you possibly spare it?!"
He had a point.
A hero's party taking money to free something that had hurt people — that really didn't sit right.
"I have not harmed a single human! I only smashed a few buildings!"
Really?
In place of the agitated Commander Ben Griff, his adjutant explained to us.
"…There are only a few injuries caused by collapsing buildings. The collateral damage, however, is severe."
"So if you factor in building repairs and compensation for the merchants…"
"Taking the Dragon Jade is the better deal, isn't it~?"
"And what guarantee is there that this arrogant thing won't do it again?!"
Also fair. This guy had been picking nothing but correct arguments from the start.
Years from now, it could come back claiming revenge for the past. Spare it carelessly and we might end up looking like suckers later.
Then Letisia spoke.
"That's true, but by then we'll all be old and dead, won't we?"
"…Pardon?"
"It's generally accepted that you need at least Wyrm-class power to destroy a small country. And going from Young-class to Wyrm-class takes roughly a thousand years… whether the Bastien Principality will even still exist by then is an open question."
In other words, there was no danger for as long as we were alive. A thousand years was more than enough time for an entire dynasty to change hands.
How many nations in the real world had even lasted a thousand years? The Roman Empire, maybe…?
"A dragon's lifespan is long. They often forget petty grudges."
"……"
At this point, even Commander Ben Griff seemed to be wavering. Was even he about to fold before overwhelming amounts of money?
That said, sparing this thing might put me in a bind. I wouldn't be able to make the elixir I was planning.
But giving up the wealth and luxury a Dragon Jade of this size would bring wasn't easy either. Even splitting the proceeds fifty-fifty with the principality, we could stay in nothing but the finest inns and eat only the best food from then on.
Money worries would be a thing of the past, obviously.
How do I get both?
"…Hey."
"Hm?"
"It's a lot of money, sure — but a hero's party accepting a deal like this for cash doesn't make a great picture."
Having finished thinking it through, I spoke up.
"Wouldn't it be better to just kill it?"
"W-what?! Then I will not give you this Dragon Jade! I will destroy it with my own hands and die…!"
"He's right that the optics are bad~ But if we kill it, isn't that a waste~?"
Erinn pointed at the Dragon Jade. Even a hero found something that expensive hard to let go of.
"…In that case."
Of course I found the Dragon Jade hard to let go of too. Suggesting we kill it hadn't been sincere.
If we actually tried to kill it, the dragon could easily destroy the Jade and die — so we couldn't just seize it by force either.
Which meant I was about to propose another method. A way to get both the enormous Dragon Jade and the byproducts I needed.
"We can't just let it go free either. Let's make this thing our pet."
"What?"
"…Hmm~?"
"We form a subordination contract with the dragon. Once we're its masters through the contract, everything it owns becomes ours — including the Dragon Jade. And if we ride it around… we probably won't need those uncomfortable carriages anymore."
In short, use it as a mount. The kind of pet you saw all the time in RPG games.
Mounts came in every variety, starting with ordinary horses. And if you had to pick the coolest mount of all, wouldn't it obviously be a dragon?
Not that I was suggesting it just because it looked cool. I had reasonably solid grounds for the idea.
"The hero's party subdued an arrogant dragon and tamed it. And all the damage to the capital was settled with treasure obtained from that dragon. That's not such a bad picture, is it?"
Subordinate it through a contract and we'd naturally get the Dragon Jade — and the byproducts as well. How do you get byproducts without killing it?
You just tear off some scales, and ask it to pull out a claw or a tooth. Getting the materials we needed might actually be easier than killing it — and if we kept it alive, they'd grow back, so we could harvest them steadily. It wouldn't be able to refuse its contractor's orders, after all.
Somehow it felt more vicious than simply killing the thing, but it was the one begging to be spared. What else were we supposed to do?
Hearing my proposal, Erinn giggled as if she found it entertaining.
"That actually sounds pretty plausible~? Not bad for a loser idea~♡"
"…It's not a bad idea, I suppose."
Freya spoke with a faint note of reluctance.
"Dragons are more arrogant and underhanded than you can imagine. They never sincerely serve humans, and you never know when they'll stab us in the back…"
"I-if you spare me, I will serve you with all my heart!"
"And how are we supposed to believe that?"
"We can form the contract upon my Dragon Heart!!"
At the dragon's words, we all froze in surprise.
I didn't actually know what that meant, but everyone else looked shocked, so I pretended to be shocked too. It clearly seemed extremely important.
A Dragon Heart had to mean its own heart — so it was staking something of tremendous significance. Like how swearing on your parents carried the most weight…
"A dragon is so desperate to live that it would form that kind of contract with humans?"
My guess seemed to have been right. Freya looked at it as if she couldn't understand.
"I was under the impression dragons were a race so weary of life's monotony that they felt no fear of death…"
"That's only the old fogeys! I left my father's nest less than a year ago! There is still so much I want to see, so much I want to enjoy…!"
Then why did a creature like you come to a perfectly peaceful capital and cause this mess…?
Freya seemed to share the same question, her tone growing even more baffled.
"Then why did you do this? You must have known this was a human nation's capital. Did you actually think it would be fine?"
"…I could not control my own strength. I believed a human country was something I could bring to heel…"
…This thing has terminal middle-school syndrome.
The dragon flopped its head to the ground.
"But I have just now realized the truth…! Never again will I dismiss humans as lowly insects…!"
It was almost too servile — but Freya's summoned spears of light were still pointed at the dragon's head, so that probably explained it.
When life and death hung in the balance, a little groveling wasn't exactly the problem.
"So you truly accept being subordinated to us~?"
"W-well, a human's life is short, is it not? I need only be bound for that span of time…"
As the price of a guaranteed long life, it wasn't a bad trade — or so it seemed to think.
Maybe it was right. To a dragon that lived through eons, a human life was nothing more than a fleeting instant.
Even this one, treated as a young dragon, had already lived longer than any of us in absolute years…
The very concept of the time it had left to live was different from ours.
"What does the Commander think~?"
At Erinn's question, Commander Ben Griff hesitated for a moment. Then Erinn added,
"Half the proceeds from selling the Dragon Jade will go toward the principality's reconstruction and investment funds~."
"If it fights on humanity's side as a servant of the Heroes, that would not be a bad choice in its own right."
This guy's answers sure got faster.
"We've got permission. So you decide, loser~♡"
"…What?"
"You're the one who proposed it~?"
Well, yes, but…
"Shouldn't the party leader be the one to decide?"
"I don't mind killing it as is, and I don't mind raising it as a puppy like you said either~♡"
"……You were just fretting about losing the Dragon Jade, and now you don't care?"
When I hit the nail on the head, Erinn slightly averted her gaze.
"…Talkative men are the worst~♡"
She only ever said that when she was losing an argument.
"If we form a contract, who will be the one to make it?"
"That should be Erinn…"
"I refuse~."
"What?"
Why refuse, you little—
"I don't want to be tied to that lizard~♡"
"…Ah. Is that so."
Then who was supposed to form the contract…
"T-this humble one believes the person standing here would be most suitable."
"…What?"
Me?
