A Spotlight for the Dragon
Dragons were fiercely solitary creatures by nature, and yet even they maintained a degree of contact with their own bloodline.
What Count Stadler had called a "clan" was something like a small circle bound by kinship. Dragons did not prize family lines the way humans did, but when something as grave as war loomed, the survival of the species came first, and the clans often found themselves aligned in purpose.
That was the extent of the Count's explanation. Cantares, who had been listening in a daze, asked haltingly.
"So you're saying... maybe not the dragons as a whole, but an entire clan could have thrown in their lot with them?"
"I cannot say for certain, but the possibility is certainly there."
The notion that some individuals might have survived the ancient war was something Arendt and Cantares had already discussed between the two of them before. If a dragon clan and the cult were still maintaining close ties after all this time, nothing could have been more troubling.
"According to the old lore, a dragon grants a piece of its own bone as a token of friendship—but only to a being the dragon itself has acknowledged. Dragon bone obtained that way is said to be of the finest quality."
Count Stadler muttered on like a man whose soul had left his body.
"Which means, in other words... a living dragon carved the bone from its own body. Truthfully, only another dragon could properly work dragon bone in the first place. No one else of lesser kind could manage it."
"So what's the actual point here?"
Cantares finally lost his patience and raised his voice, and the Count turned his head toward him with a stiff, creaking motion, like something about to snap.
"More investigation is needed, but if that artifact truly is dragon bone... and if it was crafted recently... then the dragon who gave the bone might still be..."
"You mean it might still be with the cult?"
"That's it exactly!"
When Arendt cut in to finish his trailing sentence, Count Stadler leapt into the air as though struck by lightning, stretching the ends of his words longer and longer.
"Good heavens, good heavens! Would it be all right if I examined it in more detail? A dragon—a living dragon!"
"Yes, yes, so calm down first, Count!"
It seemed the Crown Prince's words weren't getting through at all. This was precisely the moment when the Count's inner mad researcher surfaced in full.
In the end, it was Laios who pressed Count Stadler firmly back down into his seat.
"Your point is a valid one, Count, but perhaps you could save the excitement for after the investigation is complete."
"Yes, sir..."
The Count nodded with a face still dripping with reluctance, then continued in a somewhat subdued tone.
"In any case, I will take this and study it myself."
"I'd appreciate that. Is the on-site investigation of where the ghouls appeared finished?"
"I've sent my assistants there for now. We plan to transport the wyvern ghoul and the orc ghoul to the laboratory for deeper study, but the first thing I must report is this."
As Cantares hastily steered the conversation elsewhere, the Count pulled a report from his coat and handed it to the Crown Prince.
"The magic circle on the floor was drawn in human blood. It's a modified sealing circle, and it appears to be at least ten years old. And comparing the corpses of the two ghoul types..."
The Count turned one more page of the report in Cantares's hands.
Two similarly shaped ghouls were sketched side by side. One was an ordinary ghoul; the other was the kind that had possessed intelligence and could speak.
"Their methods of creation differed. It remains technology I can't fully comprehend, but the one confirmed to have intelligence appears to have been made from a still-living human as its base. Of that, I'm quite certain."
"So it's true, then."
A groan escaped the Crown Prince's lips.
It was a horrifying thing.
Zereon, who had been frozen stiff until that moment, finally set the teacups and refreshments down on the table and asked carefully, "Then... are you suggesting they have been conducting live experiments, my lord?"
"That would be a reasonable inference."
The Count added one remark more.
"This person is a researcher of an entirely different lineage from Vincent. This has gone beyond anything that could occur within the realm of alchemy."
In other words, yet another researcher had recently entered the cult's ranks.
Clicking his tongue, Arendt scratched his head furiously.
"Well then—fine. Everything's still just a possibility at this stage, so worrying about it in advance won't do a lick of good."
What mattered was what to do from here on out.
Lost in troubled thoughts, no one found it easy to speak for a long while.
When Arendt returned to the dormitory, a mountain of paperwork was waiting to greet him. Count Stadler had dropped it off before leaving the scene.
"Not a single easy thing in this life. Damn it all."
Sinking into his chair with an irritated huff, Arendt picked up the half-finished book he'd been reading.
The Count had narrowed the selection down for him, but even so, the sheer volume was staggering. Having to comb through it all piece by piece while responding to an increasingly insane situation was enough to make his head throb to the point of wanting to throw the whole thing out the window.
You could call it smooth going, I suppose.
Nothing had been taken from them yet. They had stopped Vincent and Blake, and the Empire was still at peace.
But the constant, dizzying shifts in circumstance were nearly impossible to keep up with.
A dragon—and now a ghoul made from a living person. Things were drifting in yet another direction he hadn't foreseen.
It was nothing but riddles, top to bottom.
Why had the god of night, the god of darkness, become an evil god? Why had he only now reappeared? And what in the blazing hell was up with the dragon?
The dragon's existence, much like the evil god, was an element barely mentioned at all in The Blue Knight of the Sacred Sword. After the dragon ghoul Vincent had unleashed fell to Laios's blade, it vanished from the novel entirely. Not once after that—not even when the Empire was razed to a scorched wasteland—did their side ever show its face again.
So they're reluctant to reveal themselves, are they?
Unable to focus on the book, Arendt slapped it shut and sprang to his feet.
Then he would simply have to drag them out onto this stage by any means necessary. He had zero intention of standing around watching while they cowered in the wings, holding their breath.
If you're going to hide, you shouldn't have butted in to begin with.
If a villain was going to be cut down by the hero, then the villain, too, had to be dragged out in front of the spotlight first. Only after being consumed by the hero's narrative could their very existence be forgotten.
That was the basic formula of every good-triumphs-over-evil story.
Granted, whether that would actually let him handle a dragon was a somewhat uncertain proposition—but better to keep an enemy in view and on guard than to be blindsided and thrown into chaos.
A dragon's remains, and an artifact made from a dragon's bone...
There had to be a way to use that. At the moment, though, no brilliant plan came to mind.
"Ah."
After a long stretch of agonizing, a short exclamation burst from the apprentice knight's lips.
"What are those bastards up to right now?"
There was one faction that had yet to make an appearance since he'd intervened in this story.
Truthfully, in the current state of things, he probably wouldn't have to deal with them for a while yet. The war hadn't broken out, and everything that had happened so far could still be written off as internal incidents within the Empire.
But waiting for disaster to strike before acting was always too late. And those people might—just might—possess information related to the dragons.
Trouble is, there's no way to make contact.
Yet another worry, hot on the heels of the last.
After racking his brain for a long while, Arendt eventually gave up and slumped back into his chair.
"Ugh, damn it. Nothing's ever easy."
He sat there for a long time with his eyes closed, mind drifting blank... and then suddenly, his eyes flew open.
"Hold on."
There was one thing. One chance to forge a connection with them.
Arendt shot upright and, like a man struck by lightning, checked today's date on the spot.
"Why on earth did I forget this?"
A moment later, a satisfied smile bloomed across his face.
Truly, even a man backed into a corner had yet to die from it—the founding anniversary of the Callion Empire was fast approaching.
"Right—it'll start getting busy around next week or so."
When Arendt barged unannounced into the office and asked about the founding anniversary festivities, Cantares gave a cooperative nod.
"It'll be quite grand this time as well. Come to think of it, this is your first founding anniversary inside the palace, isn't it?"
"Yes, so I honestly don't know how it all works."
"That figures."
Setting down his pen, the Crown Prince offered a brief explanation.
"For several days, there'll be a festival throughout the capital. And here at the palace, we hold a banquet and invite distinguished guests from the allied nations."
"Do most of the allied nations attend?"
"Mm. The founding of the Callion Empire also marks the day a long war came to an end. Some of the nations that owe their survival to the first Emperor even send members of their own royal families."
"Hmm."
Royal family members, hm.
Perfect.
In The Blue Knight of the Sacred Sword, the founding anniversary held at this point in the timeline had carried the atmosphere of a funeral. With civil war shaking the nation inside and out, that was only natural.
But circumstances were different now.
Anxious over the Evil God Cult as ever, yes—but news that Laios had cut down the dragon ghoul had spread, and the palace was humming with considerable excitement.
Scratch the old saying that nothing in life comes easy. Where the sky falls, there's always a hole to crawl out through.
"What's with you? Why are you so interested all of a sudden?"
"Oh, nothing. I just have one small proposal to make."
Ignoring the wary edge creeping into the Crown Prince's voice, Arendt simply said his piece.
"No—don't propose it. Nope. Every single time you open your mouth like this, nothing good has ever come of it."
"Aw, come on, don't be like that."
Cantares rejected him with great fervor, but Arendt couldn't have cared less. He was already starting to grin.
"How about displaying the dragon's remains at the banquet hall? We could honor the achievements of the knight who hunted it, and offer the distinguished guests a truly spectacular sight into the bargain."
"......"
A leaden silence fell.
And a moment later, a hollow voice escaped Cantares's lips.
"You really... are going to be struck by divine punishment."
Put a dragon on display.
Easy to say.
It wasn't an entirely absurd suggestion, to be fair.
But mere days ago they had been discussing the very real possibility that not only was a dragon mixed in somewhere in the human realm—it might be actively working with the Cult of Cernion.
And now he wanted to parade what might be that creature's own kin in front of a crowd as a spectator attraction?
"Do you know when people get angriest?"
"When something of theirs gets stolen?"
"When the thief waves what he stole right in front of their faces, taunting them with it. I say we use this chance to rub their nerves raw."
"Wait—hold on. Don't tell me by 'rub their nerves' you mean..."
"The Evil God Cult bastards, obviously—and any dragon that may well be alive out there somewhere."
"Are you out of your damn mind?"
A curse finally burst out of the Crown Prince.
But Arendt stood his ground, entirely unabashed.
"Give me one good reason not to? Weren't you the ones saying they've turned the human realm into a wasteland every time they've shown up?"
"......"
"And now there's evidence of human experimentation on top of it. Do we really need to feel guilty about putting one old picked-clean bone on display for people to look at?"
It was nonsense delivered with tremendous sincerity—and the problem was that it kept sounding alarmingly plausible.
"The allied nations need to be brought up to speed on the situation anyway, so this might be a fine opportunity. The Callion Empire has no obligation to carry these bastards all on its own."
"......"
"And frankly, why should we be the only ones suffering? Back during the old war, those very nations only survived thanks to the first Emperor. Let them repay their ancestors' debt while they're at it."
Parading a patriotism he could never have been found displaying under normal circumstances, Arendt rattled on shamelessly.
As a matter of diplomacy... yes, fine, not a word the brat said was wrong.
And yet.
Somehow, Cantares had a feeling that before long, he'd be suffering the same burning sensation in his chest as a certain ill-fated commander somewhere.