The Dragon Slayer (1)
A quiet, upscale tavern. Leopard sat at the far end of the bar, nursing his drink in silence.
Soon came the scrape of a chair being dragged out, and someone settled into the seat beside him. The man lowered his hood, revealing short green hair and strikingly handsome features.
The contractor, Sailor.
"Bartender. Give this man a drink—the same as mine."
"Right away, sir."
"So. You went to see Ariel, I hear."
"I only went to report the completion of my contract to Marquis Dragonia."
"Tomato, tomahto."
"······."
A glass of brandy was pushed in front of Sailor. He stared at it for a long moment before finally raising it to his lips.
"Ariel... when did she start becoming like that?"
"No idea. It was fairly recent when I even noticed something was wrong."
"What in the world happened to her all this time······."
Sailor shoved the glass aside and dropped his head onto the table with a thud. The reality he refused to believe had finally caught up with him. The Saintess who had fought beside him through thick and thin was now a completely different person. It wasn't simply that she'd lost her memories—an alien presence had taken over the Saintess's body.
He hated it.
He despised the thing that walked in the Saintess's flesh and spoke with the Saintess's voice. He hated the dragon that had defiled her purity.
And yet, the Saintess's daughter—he couldn't bring himself to hate her.
"I miss the old days. When we all stormed the Demon Realm together and fought side by side. Some days I'd give anything to go back."
"Back to what, exactly? You couldn't pay me to do it again."
"Even if it meant seeing the old Ariel again?"
"······."
Ariel. God, how he longed to see her again—and yet he had no wish to return to the past. Because back then, Ariel had looked so terribly, unbearably miserable.
Only someone like Leopard—who needed the stench of blood on a battlefield just to feel alive—would ever romanticize those days.
"Still not going. I don't trust myself to survive living through that again."
"Weakling. Anyway, what was the commission the Marquis gave you?"
"If I breathe a word of it, I'm finished in this business."
"Then I'll buy it. Name your price. Information on the Marquis's commission."
"One hundred million."
"That's steep······. Fine. One hundred million."
I should have asked for a billion.
Sailor felt a flicker of regret—he hadn't expected the man to accept without so much as a haggling session. If word ever got out that he'd leaked the commission's contents, he would bear the full brunt of the Marquis's wrath. But this was Leopard they were talking about; there was little chance his loose lips would come back to bite him.
"A method of crossing between dimensions. I've confirmed it exists."
"What? What are you talking about?"
Leopard's eyes went wide. Crossing between dimensions? What kind of absurd nonsense was that? But the utter absence of mischief in Sailor's expression as he downed his brandy only deepened Leopard's confusion.
"To put it precisely, it's a method of communicating across dimensions. But if you can transmit a person's memories, fully intact, into a body in another world—that's dimension travel, isn't it?"
Sailor had accepted the Marquis Dragonia's commission and traveled to a certain gorge deep in the Demon Realm—a canyon where, ages ago, hundreds of dragons had been slaughtered in masse, their corpses stacked into mountains. A place so treacherous that even grave robbers coveting the dragons' treasure-hoards dared not approach. And there, Sailor had confirmed that contact with another world was possible.
Contact with another world meant the possibility of dimension travel. It would take an astronomical amount of energy, but theoretically, it could be done.
"No······ what······."
"You didn't know? Dragons used to tear through dimensions all the time. But after the ancient massacre, their numbers plummeted, and with them, the dragons lost the power to cross between worlds."
"Who doesn't know that? Even I know that. But if we can go to another world from here, that means someone from another world can come here too."
"Exactly."
"Ariel—no, Yulia. That's how she came here. It has to be······."
A being from another world had possessed the Saintess's body. In other words, the memories of a person from another world had been transplanted into the Saintess's flesh. Which also meant—it might be possible to send Yulia back to her original world.
"If we send Yulia back, won't Ariel return? Huh? Right, Sailor? It makes sense, doesn't it?"
"Leopard."
"Incredible, right? It's so damn plausible! Say it! Say it's plausible! Hurry up!"
"You're the one who said it. Ariel's soul has been completely annihilated. You confirmed it yourself."
"No. I've been thinking it over, and I think I was wrong. Maybe Ariel's soul was just forcibly transported to another dimension too? It would only look like she was annihilated?"
"······."
Leopard himself had been the one to say it. That he had confirmed, using Ariel's ring, that her soul had been utterly destroyed. Apparently he'd forgotten the whole hysterical, sobbing breakdown he'd had at that tavern.
"So? What do you think of my idea? The two of us join forces and force Yulia back to her original world. Then Ariel might come back!"
"······."
Leopard thrust his hand out boldly. Sailor simply sat there, staring blankly at it.
Leopard was not in his right mind. His mental state had deteriorated to the point of warping his own memories to fit what he wanted to believe.
But there was one thing—just one—he could agree with.
"It might be worth attempting."
"See? I told you!"
If they sent Yulia back, Ariel's soul might return. That possibility was worth hoping for.
Sailor gently took Leopard's hand. The bones in his fingers creaked and ground against each other, and the pain was excruciating—but he let nothing show on his face.
Still senselessly, absurdly strong, this one. Since the Demon King's death, the man had lived like a corpse—and now, for the first time, he was showing genuine passion for something. For the first time in fifty years, Leopard looked like the Hero he was supposed to be.
Life at the villa was already approaching the one-month mark. Like it or not, I was gradually getting used to it.
Though our relationship had started off at its absolute worst, things between me and the Marquis weren't so bad these days. No groping, no sexual harassment. The rumors that the Marquis had a spotless record with women were apparently true.
Which made it all the more baffling. How could a man so indifferent to women have done what he did to me in that corridor on the night of the banquet······
"Haaah."
No. That memory was not something to dwell on. Of course I wouldn't forget it—but there was zero good to come from chewing it over.
Merely thinking about that night was enough to set my body ablaze, my breath turning ragged in an instant. I desperately took deep, steadying breaths to calm myself. There was no way I could let the Marquis see me in such a disheveled state.
Once I'd regained some composure, I knocked on the office door.
"My lord, I've brought the documents······"
"Mhehehe!"
"······."
That all-too-familiar laugh drifted out through the crack in the door. The excitement I'd barely managed to smother flared right back up, and I felt my grip tighten on the door handle. I let out a long sigh and turned it.
"Ah, there you are. Just set the documents on the desk."
"What exactly are you doing right now······"
"Can't you see for yourself?"
"Piggyback!"
"······."
Tia answered for him, looking down at me from atop the Marquis's shoulders with an expression of pure delight. For some reason, heat rose in my chest. I wasn't so much angry at the Marquis as I was... just a little, at Tia.
"Get down. The Marquis has work to do."
"Oh, it's quite all right! We'll resume business after a short break!"
"······."
Of course it was all right. He barely had any work to do—I did everything. So that's where all that energy he conserved for actual work hours went: frittered away entirely on playing with Tia.
"Whew······."
Swallowing my irritation, I dragged a chair over and sat down. Then I watched the Marquis wheel around the spacious office again and again, Tia still perched on his shoulders.
The old me would have had a full-blown panic attack at the sight. I'd have schemed every possible way to pry Tia away from him.
But at this point, I'd essentially given up. To put it generously, I supposed I'd developed a certain degree of trust in the Marquis.
There is no universe in which the pervert who assaulted me gets anywhere near my daughter—that had been my thinking on day one. Now, my view of him had shifted somewhat. He was still the pervert who'd raped me, that much hadn't changed, but at least one thing was clear: he was no child molester.
Part of it was guilt over how I'd kept him cooped up in a back room all this time. Part of it was how attached Tia had grown to him, and how diligently he played with her in return. And so, in the end, I decided to tolerate the two of them goofing around together all day, every day.
"So why the sudden interest in piggyback rides?"
"Mmuh? Tia didn't ask for it! Mr. Marquis said he'd do it!"
"······What?"
"N-no, it's not like I saw the contractor riding on Sailor's shoulders the other day and got so jealous I wanted a piggyback ride too. It just suddenly came to mind, that's all."
"······."
I hadn't even pressed him, and he was confessing all on his own. Honestly, the Marquis's mental age didn't seem all that high either. He saw someone else giving Tia a piggyback ride and got jealous enough to do it himself. There was a surprisingly childish streak in the man.
"Tia. Having fun?"
"Mmuh! I feel sooo tall!"
"Is that right······."
My mood soured all at once. I was too short—even riding on someone's back, I didn't get very high off the ground. No matter how hard I tried, Tia's favorite was always going to be me, right? Right. Keep telling yourself that.
"I really do think it's time you got back to work, my lord."
"Ah, you're right. Time to hop dow—"
"Mmyaack?!"
CRACK.
A dull thud, and Tia let out a bizarre shriek. Startled, I looked up to see the chandelier swaying wildly overhead.
Did she just headbutt that?
I rushed over and hurriedly lifted Tia down from the Marquis's shoulders.
"Mmuuoooooowww······! It hurts!"
"Ah—ow. I'm sorry, Tia. I'm so sorry."
"I hate you! Mean old Marquis!"
"Hnnnngh······."
"Why don't you get started on those documents in the meantime. I'll take care of Tia."
Taking the hand of my hiccuping, sobbing daughter, I led her out of the office. Even as the door swung shut, the Marquis remained frozen in place, wearing the expression of a man whose world had just ended.
I settled Tia into a seat and examined her head first. The center of her forehead had swollen up bright red—a proper goose egg. Aside from that, though, she didn't seem seriously hurt anywhere.
Thank God for Tia's iron skull. For the first time, I found myself genuinely grateful that she wasn't an ordinary human child.
"You really should be more careful."
"Mmuh. How am I supposed to be careful when Tia isn't the one moving······"
"Fair point. Still—from now on, no more climbing on the Marquis. If you want a piggyback ride, Mommy will carry you around as long as you like."
"Mmuh······."
Tia nodded and burrowed into my arms, hugging me tight.
There it was. I'd won. Tia really did like me far more than that pervert, after all.
I tightened my arms around her and savored the quiet thrill of a small, hard-won victory.