Daniel Was Sad
Inside the reception room of the Havelock outpost—which served as the command tower receiving reports from every watchpost along the Dragon's Border—the four of us took our seats.
“Kehehe, introducing yourself as a student back there.”
Hassim Bellok laughed heartily, patting his plump belly. His booming laughter jabbed at my ears and grated on my nerves, but I didn't bother answering.
No point getting tangled up here only to have this topic drag on forever.
“Are you really just a student?”
Jaguar Backflin stroked his chin instead, glancing at me again and again. He seemed to be trying not to show it, but it was obvious.
“Still, it's a relief the dragonmen received us so well.”
“Of course they would, once they heard our names. Speaking of which—let's be honest among ourselves.”
Hassim gestured and dropped his voice to a whisper.
“The kid's a student, so we'll let that slide. Are you two really the captain of the Beast King's direct unit and the Guardian of Yggdrasil?”
“Asking unnecessary questions.”
“Haha, do we look like liars?”
Jaguar snorted dismissively while Eris asked back with an awkward smile.
“Well, as a Meister I shouldn't say this, but these aren't people who gather in one place easily. Especially the Guardian of Yggdrasil...”
The dwarf Hassim stroked his beard and muttered,
“We've really run into giants among giants.”
“I won't deny it.”
Eris was humble by nature, yet right now she stood here not as the elf Eris but as the Guardian of Yggdrasil.
She could not lower her dignity carelessly.
“But I heard the Guardians of Yggdrasil are chosen for looks as well—and that turned out to be true.”
“Excuse me?”
What was this all of a sudden?
Hassim threw his head back and laughed even louder.
“This is the first time I've ever looked at another race besides dwarves and thought them beautiful. Of course, dwarves are still the best.”
“......”
“Too skinny. Plump, with some meat on the bones—that's the ideal. Tsk. A woman shouldn't be like that.”
Hassim smacked his lips while Jaguar glared at him with pure disgust.
Eris's face flushed as she opened her mouth to speak, but I had already stepped in first.
“What? Where exactly is Eris skinny? Just look at her—her figure is excellent, her face is beautiful. What are you even comparing her to?”
“Hmm? The kid's too young to know how to look at women.”
“If your eyes are crooked, at least speak properly. How dare you compare a short dwarf to an elf called the fairy of the forest? If you lot were any shorter you'd be walking on your arms like monkeys instead of your legs!”
“Y-you little brat!”
“Pfft.”
“D-Daniel?”
Jaguar watched our fight with open amusement, barely holding back laughter, while Eris grabbed my shoulder in a fluster and told me to stop.
I only pointed at her and shouted even louder.
“Look at this! Radiant golden hair, sapphire eyes! A slender waist set against a full, generous chest! And you're comparing a woman like this to some barrel of a dwarf!”
“You're looking down on the bold spirit of dwarf women! A proper woman should have excellent mettle and hold a man's center! Look to the Earth Mother! Flesh itself is the symbol of abundance and virtue!”
“Bullshit! Everyone on the continent knows dwarves are henpecked! And what's with the fancy packaging dragging the Earth Mother into this? Do you even know what kind of woman Eris is?”
“Da-Daniel!”
Seeing Eris's face turn beet-red, half in tears as she shook my shoulders back and forth, I finally realized I had gone too far.
I had gotten far too excited.
I cleared my throat at the thought, and Hassim seemed to cool down as well, sipping the tea set before him.
In the awkward silence that followed, Jaguar Backflin snorted and spoke up.
“Still, beastmen are the best.”
“Where do you get off shoving beast brats into this!”
“Ah, these bastards' taste in women is pure trash.”
We kept arguing for quite a while until Eris finally raised her mana and declared that if we did not stop she would kill every last one of us. Everyone promptly shut their mouths.
Reading the murderous look in Eris's eyes, I carefully steered the conversation elsewhere.
“So if someone higher than a high-ranking Extermination Officer is coming, who would it be?”
All eyes turned to me again.
A high-ranking Extermination Officer was already no low post, yet given how flashy our backgrounds were, someone of matching caliber would surely arrive.
“Since this is the front line, the one who could come right away would be an Elder, wouldn't it? I heard Elders are somewhat scattered about.”
Jaguar nodded at Hassim's words.
Eris, however, shook her head.
“Hmm. I heard the dragonmen's magic is highly advanced, so warping shouldn't be that difficult. A Cardinal will probably come.”
“A Cardinal, huh.”
Not quite on the level of a Guardian, but still a heavyweight.
And just then the door opened, delivering the answer in person.
A large man wearing priestly robes that differed from the ordinary—designed for free movement and even offering defensive protection—introduced himself as Cardinal Theosender.
A Cardinal, just as Eris had predicted. That much I understood.
But the red-haired girl who accompanied him carried an extraordinary air. If not for the crimson horn rising from her forehead, she could easily have been mistaken for human.
“I am Jane, the Dragon God's Maiden.”
Dragon God's Maiden?
The dragonmen, a theocracy, determined the will of the dragons through their council. Those who cast votes there were high-ranking clergy such as Cardinals.
And among them, the sole being who could exercise two votes by herself—the Dragon God's Maiden.
In our terms, it was the appearance of a Saintess.
While Daniel McLane met the Dragon God's Maiden, a chase was raging through a village near the city of Elgrid.
Damn! Damn! Damn!
The man who served as a Dogfight spy raced through alley after alley, desperately trying to shake his pursuer. Yet every time he looked up and saw the expressionless white-haired girl leaping across rooftops, his strength nearly left him.
How? How the hell did they find out?
He had kept contact to the absolute minimum.
For five full years he had lived in this village, naturally blending in as a flower-shop owner. So how did that female student know about him?
Still running through the maze of alleys, the spy decided he first needed to get outside the village. At the fork ahead he twisted his body sharply—
“Guh!”
A precise strike to his Adam's apple dropped him flat on the ground.
“Hey, mister. Don't you know?”
A girl with reddish-brown hair, a candy tucked in her cheek, looked down at him with a wicked smile.
“You have to be careful in alleys. Otherwise kids like us will clean you out.”
Behind her, a crowd of delinquent students surrounded the fallen spy and stared down at him.
“Caught him.”
Sen spoke into the communication orb as she dropped from the rooftop.
The ones who received that call were Tana and Eve, waiting in the dormitory of Aeos Academy.
Both of them held several communication orbs of the sort normally reserved for the royal palace—every last one supplied by Bertia, Elise's head maid.
“Haman Village is cleaned up.”
As Eve's report flowed through one orb, another girl's voice answered from a second as if refusing to be outdone.
“Here too. Done.”
Hayun's blunt voice.
After the battle in Betel, her swordsmanship had grown explosively; Dogfight's small fry were no trouble for her.
“We're finished as well.”
Elise's eerie voice.
Having boosted her physical abilities with magic tools, Elise had been rated by Daniel as equal to or above Apviel; she too was sweeping up remnants with ease.
“Then the last one is...”
The communication orb belonging to Rin—who had taken charge of Hainam, the largest concentration of remnants and a full city rather than a village—remained silent.
“Rin?”
“Ah... yeah. This side is done too.”
Elise's voice had been eerie—elegant, yet carrying the sense that some scheme lay hidden beneath.
Rin's was pure fear.
The overwhelming dread woven into her tone made Tana flinch for a moment.
Rin ended the call there without another word.
The city of Hainam.
This place was one of Dogfight's core strongholds.
Security was so poor it made an ideal market for drugs, and it supplied no shortage of people willing to handle dirty work that could never be spoken of elsewhere.
The old woman and the trio who had run the murder hotel in Betel had all been recruited from here.
“H-how...”
Inside the underground pharmacy run by Dogfight—a spacious place with numerous guards—the pharmacist could only tremble as he stared at his shop, now pitch-black as though every shadow in the world had been poured into it.
Those many guards no longer protected him.
The girl who poured ominous black energy from her cleavage had already raised the dead, forced former comrades to slaughter one another, and turned every living soul except the pharmacist into a corpse.
“I have a great many things I want to hear from you.”
She could have made him a thrall and rifled through his memories, but her skill was still incomplete; she could not extract everything that way.
In the end Rin chose a more extreme method, and she offered a small, apologetic smile.
“It will hurt a great deal. But it can't be helped.”
“P-please spare me! Please!”
The pharmacist dropped to his knees before the far younger girl and begged, yet Rin only placed her hand gently atop his head.
“Daniel... was sad.”
And then the man's scream tore through the pharmacy that held nothing but darkness.