Ep.8 - Burning Lumün
Ep.8 - Burning Lumün
***
The closer they drew to the heat of L'Yune, the louder the wailing of the dwarves became.
L'Yune was a major commercial city that had flourished precisely because it bordered human territory, and it was home to countless dwarves.
Which meant
that just as many dwarves were now pouring out of the burning city, fleeing the catastrophe.
Weeping literally saturated the air everywhere.
"Oh god, this is awful..."
Delin walked while watching the dwarves—whose stature was similar to Eva's or even smaller—cry, and he found it hard to move his feet, for their cries sounded to him like the wails of children.
Even though they barely differed from him in build and height, Delin noticed he was reacting more sharply to their tragedy.
He had never particularly liked children, nor had he ever been especially fond of them,
but ever since crossing into this other world, he kept catching himself glancing at those who looked young.
And because those glances happened to fall on dwarves in the midst of tragedy,
Delin's heart grew uneasy as well,
yet even as it gnawed at him, the instinctive pity would not stop.
"Look over there."
Chichi raised her staff and pointed toward the city gate.
As cleanly severed as if carved out with a knife, the gate no longer served its function and lay split in two.
Yet there was one slightly strange detail.
The severed cross-section had frozen solid.
"Did they pull that shit off with claws?"
Riko muttered incredulously, staring at the bizarrely clean cut, and Kaede answered the question.
"Not claws. That was a sword."
"Those bastards crawl around on all fours and use swords too?"
"They fly around more often, I'd say."
"Indeed. A Dragon is a being that forges a sword imbued with its own power and wields it."
Kaede relayed the information to the party in a voice unlike her usual one.
She had faced a Dragon before.
"...Dragons are on a different level. Though my body has grown stronger than it once was, I am still not confident I could fell a Dragon, even with this body."
"You've encountered a Dragon before?"
Kaede turned and stared intently at Helen. Her eyes held nothing but gravity.
"I have. I never wished to meet one a second time, but I did not think I would face another one here."
Inside the blazing L'Yune, heat and cold rippled simultaneously.
The massive fire, which had started from a nearby dragon's vein, had burned all the dwarves' homes and the mountains alike,
and in the places where the Dragon had carved through and passed, ice bloomed that would not melt even under the heat of the dragon's vein.
"First, we need to put out the fire."
The small dwarves were struggling to draw water buckets larger than their own bodies and desperately hurling them at the fire, but with such a paltry amount of water, they could not extinguish it.
"Rain will fall soon."
Chichi raised her staff and began painting a picture across the sky.
The witch's painting, using the whole sky as her canvas, was wondrous.
Her magic was always beautiful.
"P-P-Professor! Earlier you told us not to use magic because we must not get caught!"
"Sometimes one must take risks, Miss Eva."
Soon, rain began to fall from the sky.
Rain thicker and denser than the dwarves' tears
poured down to cool the entirety of L'Yune...
A small amount of water would only make the high-heat fire blaze hotter,
but Chichi's rain, descending in torrents, subdued even those raging flames entirely.
The weeping dwarves raised their heads, bathed in the rain that seemed to cry on their behalf.
As the fiercely burning fire of L'Yune gradually subsided, they began trickling back into the city one by one.
-------------------------------
"Thank you, thank you..."
The dwarf receiving healing from Helen and expressing her endless gratitude was named Berial.
She was the lord of L'Yune, the noble who governed the dwarves of this region.
"Tch. Told you there's no need to save 'em."
"Saving the injured is God's will."
Those burned by the fire, those crushed under buildings.
Helen, healing everyone, was truly worthy of the title of Saintess, but such conduct only struck Riko as frustrating and foolish.
"Those bastards are the ones who stationed an army to kill us. You still want to save them?"
"For human suffering is equal before calamity."
However, since there was no obligation to perform volunteer work, Chichi agreed with Riko and demanded compensation from Berial.
"We put out all the fires and healed all the injured, so you must grant what we desire. As that one-eyed human said, you lot tried to kill us, but we instead bestowed a favor upon you."
Neither Kaede, Neva, nor Helen
stopped Chichi from extracting compensation commensurate with their aid.
That was simply how the world worked.
If you did something, you must receive due compensation.
"O-Of course. Anything. Anything at all..."
Her face contorted with pain, Berial struggled to rise and nodded.
"Let me ask a question first. Is it because Albator's Queen ordered it that you stationed troops here?"
"That is correct, yes..."
The women exchanged glances.
The Queen was predicting their route.
They did not know if she had figured out they intended to cross over to the Demon Continent, but if she had noticed they were heading south, then pursuit would surely harry them until they crossed the entirety of the Elf Territory.
"We're in serious trouble. What on earth shall we do..."
"It is merely going to be a bit annoying. No matter how persistently they pursue, we can beat them easily."
"I dunno. Feels like it's gonna be fucking hell until we wreck the whole damn kingdom."
Just because pursuit was attaching itself to them, they could not afford to dodge it while wandering aimlessly.
None of them had much time.
According to the Twins, once every 10 years, for exactly 15 days, the [Giant Whale Yop] appeared.
If they missed that chance, God's Garden or whatever it was—it would all be over. Because of the terrifying schedule gap where missing it once meant waiting a full 10 years, they had only a single opportunity.
Crossing the Euratisha continent, which would normally have taken three months, was proceeding at a fairly rapid pace thanks to actively making use of Chichi's magic and so forth, so it would take roughly five weeks.
But Yop's arrival was four weeks from now.
Since Yop was said to stay exactly three days upon reaching the land's end before departing,
at this rate, by the time they arrived, it would be at least four days after Yop had left.
"Ah, no...!
Even by a rough estimate, the timing did not match.
Even with Delin's dull head, he could easily calculate that time was far too tight.
"There's no time for this! Dragon or whatever, we fixed everything, so let's hurry up and go again!"
Delin's heart grew impatient and he urged the women on. As if it was not enough that time was crazily short, there was persistent pursuit clinging to them, and now they were getting tangled up in things like Dragons!
"Since we helped you, at least block the troops the Queen sends...! You just need to hold out and stall for as much time as possible!"
All the other women also nodded at Delin's words and began gathering their luggage, for every hour was precious if they were to keep their tight schedule.
But Berial, the leader of L'Yune, clung to their legs and then burst into tears, bawling loudly.
"Huh, huuuung... Wait! Just a moment!"
It was a thoroughly pitiful sight for someone called the head of a city, but it seemed she did not care a whit about such appearances if it was for the sake of her people.
"Oh, Dragon-slayers! Please, I beg of you, save our L'Yune. I implore you, please!"
"Dragon-slayers, my ass. Why does everyone think if they just call us Dragon-slayers and praise us, we'll roll up our sleeves and jump in? I don't get it."
Riko coldly shook Berial off and turned away. Berial hurriedly clung to the other women as well, begging for mercy.
"We have no time for that."
"I wish to help, but a Dragon is beyond even our power. All of you should evacuate first, and wait until a proper expeditionary force is assembled."
"That is how it stands. Regretfully, it cannot be helped."
As a rule, when humans are consumed by their own affairs, even consideration for others vanishes.
The women left callously on their way, and behind them, Delin hesitated for a moment before soon following after them, leaving together.
He wanted to help, but had no leisure to do so.
Because if they missed that flying whale or whatever it was at this rate, there would be no answer.
"I-I'm sorry. Everyone, fighting..."
"Huuueng, huk... I-it's alright... Oh dear, what on earth are we to do now..."
The dwarves, who looked middle-school-aged at best, gathered around the weeping Berial and shed tears together.
Taking in that sight, Delin's heart was torn once more, but still, he had no choice but to walk after the other women.
So sorry, so heartbreaking, but still, there was no leisure to help total strangers—moreover, women who had stationed an army to attack hi...
"What do we do now, Berial-nim...? In a few days, it'll fly in again and turn everything into a complete mess..."
"Huaaaaang..."
"I-it's fine, so don't you all worry! Huk, huuuuk..."
...no leisure.
He truly could not do anything about it.
Other people would save them. When he saved Arwen, it was because there had been no one else who could save her if he did not, but this was a different case. Other adventurers or the army would surely help...
"A boy imbued with God's mana, they say. Where in the world are we supposed to find such a boy and offer him up...? Even normally, there aren't many boys..."
"It's clearly meant to torment us...! She's taking out the grudge she holds against our ancestors on us!"
...Everyone's footsteps halted abruptly.
It was not because the cause of the burning city, which he had thought was the tragedy of total strangers, turned out to be Delin, that they stopped.
"Ha..."
They stopped because of the vast mana felt from the skies above,
and the clear insight into what the owner of that mana desired.
"Load first. Really, fuck..."
"It seems we have gotten ourselves quite thoroughly entangled..."