Linus's House (7)
"So Priestess Maya's patient logs are actually surveillance reports on me?"
"The odds of that are pretty high. Knowing Rormane the way we do."
"Ha. Yeah. Why didn't I think of that?"
I scratched my head, and Celine spoke up.
"It's because she's a priestess. Priests have always been a little difficult to deal with, so your thinking gets stuck in that mode whenever you interact with one. Rormane was our comrade, so we treated her without any of that formality."
"I'll have to sneak a look when I get back to the academy. This is just..."
"It's a heavy thing to bear, being the object of Rormane's attention and affection," Linus said, watching me rub the back of my tingling neck. "The one silver lining, I suppose, is that she's currently the Grand Chancellor of the Church, which makes it hard for her to move around as she pleases. If it weren't for that heavy shackle, she'd probably..."
"Rormane is an Oracle Priest. She can never leave the Church for the rest of her life. So that's a meaningless hypothetical."
My appetite gone, I set down my fork and leaned back against the chair.
"Let's drop the Rormane talk. I came here to relax, not to suffer."
"Haha, sorry."
"What's that guy up to these days?" I changed the subject, trying to shake Rormane out of my head.
"That guy meaning Kayden? He's working as a professor at the Illusion Magic Tower."
"Wasn't he with the Mage Alliance? And what's this about the Illusion Magic Tower all of a sudden? If he wanted to play to his strengths, shouldn't he be at some offensive magic research institute?"
"Being good at something and wanting to do it aren't always the same thing."
"The guy who was obsessed with blowing things up, doing illusion magic? Doesn't fit. Illusion magic is about constructing virtual worlds and that kind of thing... that's the complete opposite."
"From what I hear, he's producing some decent results in his own way."
"Well, yeah. A genius like Kayden would succeed at whatever he put his mind to. I've got a favor to ask him, actually."
"What's that?"
"I want to put a Magic Brand on Hindrastar. So she can't run away."
"Hmm. Magic on a dragon." Linus stroked his chin. "That's definitely not something anyone short of Kayden's caliber could pull off. Stop by the Illusion Magic Tower later and ask him. Though it's quite a ways from here, so you'll need to plan the trip."
"We've got a magic professor at the academy who can open dimensional gates. I can just hop through one of those."
"Has Hindrastar actually agreed to this?"
"Of course not. You think she'd agree? That's exactly why I have to drag her there. This is a secret."
"I see. Though it seems like someone already overheard everything."
"Huh?"
Linus pointed toward the dining room entrance. I got up from my chair and went over, but there was nothing there.
"Hic..."
Just as I was turning around, I heard a strange sound and looked down.
"When did you get here?"
Hindrastar was crouched against the wall, trembling and in tears.
"You're going to... brand me with a Magic Brand...? You're going to make me a slave...?"
"Not a slave. I'm just trying to keep you around until you graduate."
"Liar... It's because I look like this... you're having dirty thoughts..."
"Oh, for crying out loud."
I raised my hand as if to give her a forehead flick, and Hindrastar wrapped her arms around her head and flattened herself against the floor.
"Dian. Bring Hindrastar in. Let's eat together. She must be hungry."
"Come on. Eat."
At Linus's invitation, I grabbed her arm and pulled her up, but Hindrastar staggered and started yanking herself backward violently.
"No! I can't eat with you Hero bastards!!"
"The food's already out, so eat! Stop being stubborn!"
"Aaaagh!!"
Hindrastar let out a single scream, as if being dragged to a slaughterhouse, as she was hauled into the dining room.
"Have a seat, Miss Dragon. Everything here is perfectly safe to eat."
Celine smiled brightly and gave the maids a look, and tableware and a plate were set in front of Hindrastar.
"Urgh..."
Seeing Linus across from her, Hindrastar trembled violently, dropped her gaze, and made a strange noise.
"Here. Dragons like meat, right?"
I tore off a plump, well-roasted turkey leg and set it on her plate. Hindrastar looked up at me with desperate eyes.
"Dian, please..."
"Just eat. If you don't eat now, they'll have to set the table all over again later."
"That's right, Hindrastar."
The moment Linus opened his mouth, Hindrastar flinched in terror and pressed herself against me. This brat. She was clinging to me because Linus was here. She must have been pretty desperate.
"Let's forget the past. Neither you nor we had any personal grudge. You're a student at Dian's academy now, so we'll treat you accordingly."
"That's right, Miss Dragon. It's already been ten years. For us humans, that's more than enough time to let old grudges fade, you know?"
"Th-that's ridiculous..." Hindrastar forced the words out in response to Celine. "That's a long time for... you people... For me it still f-feels like yesterday..."
"Even so, it's time to let it go. There's no other choice." Linus smiled gently as he sliced his steak. "Dian and I ran into you a total of four times. You were always the one running, and you were even in your true form back then. But I understand you can't return to that form now."
Even so, Hindrastar showed no sign of eating, so Linus played his trump card.
"As it happens, I recently spotted a wyvern flying over our territory, and it brought that incident back to mind."
"Eek?!"
"Haha!"
I couldn't hold back my laughter. The story Linus had just brought up was from our third encounter with Hindrastar. Back then, we'd beaten a wild wyvern into submission on the spot, tamed it, and ridden it in pursuit of Hindrastar as she fled through the air. We'd gotten right above her head and jumped onto her back, but we'd missed catching her by a paper-thin margin.
After that incident, Hindrastar had gone into hiding for several months. She'd probably been pretty shaken by the realization that humans were that dead-set on catching her. Then again, Hindrastar was quite young as dragons went, and she hadn't been stirring up the battlefield out of malice — she'd just been doing it for the fun of causing chaos. She must have been shocked when the humans she'd dismissed as insects came charging at her with that much hostility.
That Linus. A few years of palace politics, and now he actually knew how to threaten people.
Clackclackclackclackclack—
The memory must have come flooding back, because Hindrastar's hands started shaking, her fingernails rattling against the plate.
"Hey, Celine. Got anything to put on the floor? Looks like she's about to wet herself again."
I tossed out the joke, and Celine gave me a somewhat stern look.
"That's enough. She's genuinely terrified."
At Celine's words, Linus smiled and raised both hands.
"I only said it because she wouldn't eat. If she agrees to have a proper meal, I won't say another word."
Celine offered an encouraging smile.
"Go on, Miss Dragon. Don't be scared, just eat. If anyone says anything unnecessary, I'll scold them myself."
"Okay..."
Sniffling, Hindrastar tore off a tiny piece of turkey leg with her fingers and put it in her mouth. Then her eyes suddenly went wide and she whipped her head toward me.
"It's delicious!!"
"Why are you looking at me?"
Hindrastar hurriedly grabbed the turkey leg with her bare hands and started tearing into it with gusto. Oh boy. I was going to have to teach her table manners from scratch. She'd been a dragon, then after becoming human she'd only been with the crude Leblanc Mercenary Corps, so of course she'd never learned formal dining etiquette.
With Hindrastar now at the table, we kept the conversation going with plenty of laughter. Sorry, Hindrastar, but the main topic of conversation was memories from the war. So much had happened over those four years that the stories went on without end.
Linus kept bringing out wine from the cellar, every bottle an outrageously expensive, top-shelf vintage. They all tasted incredible, and so Hindrastar started knocking them back like a madwoman. No room to join our conversation, and Linus was terrifying, so she figured she might as well just drink? That was probably her thinking.
"She can really hold her liquor. Must be a dragon thing." Celine laughed out loud, watching Hindrastar, who'd already downed a dozen bottles on her own.
"Take it easy, seriously. You come to someone else's house and try to drink the cellar dry?"
"It's fine, Dian. The Imperial Palace restocks the cellar on a regular basis."
"I'm saying it could be a problem if she gets drunk and starts wrecking the place. She might look like this, but she's ridiculously strong."
"I don't think that'll be an issue."
Linus pointed with his finger, so I turned to look. What the— Hindrastar had suddenly gone half-lidded, her head lolling to one side. She'd been fine just a second ago.
"What are you doing?"
"Hwaaeeungghgaah..."
Making a completely unintelligible, slurred sound, Hindrastar planted her face on the table.
"She drank too fast and got drunk all of a sudden. Would you mind taking her to a bedroom?"
"Huh? Why me?"
"Like you said, she may look like that, but she's a dragon, so she's heavy. The maids apparently had a hard time with her."
"Is that so? Fine. I'll take her."
I scooped up the passed-out, drunk Hindrastar and headed for a second-floor bedroom. A bedroom. A bedroom... Just how big was this house?
Following a maid's guidance, I walked for what felt like forever before finally reaching a guest room, where I tossed Hindrastar onto the bed.
"Ueeegh..."
I sighed as I watched Hindrastar, reeking of alcohol, sprawl out on the bed with her limbs splayed. How was this thing a dragon.
