Volume 2, Episode 1
People revered the guardian dragons as divine emissaries sent to protect humankind, but the real dragons did not limit their affection and care to humans alone.
“You should at least give a gift to someone who kept their promise.”
'I really hope we don't run into them if I can help it.'
The green wyvern had faithfully carried out Winter Bell’s request. Not only had he himself kept the promise he made, he had even warned his own kind not to come anywhere near them, so the party had not so much as seen the shadow of a wyvern while crossing the mountain range. Thanks to that, they had been able to travel through a place with such a ferocious name as Wyvern Nest without any trouble at all.
So Seherbian decided to return the favor.
「The second route uses the chill of winter to...」
“That’ll do, then.”
Without bothering to hear any more, Seherbian reached out into the empty air.
Chrrrk.
At his will, white particles came into being.
It was cold air that one of the silver kin could create as naturally as breathing.
What began as tiny grains like snow soon surged forward like a storm, quickly taking the shape of ice crystals no larger than a palm.
In the blink of an eye, the space around Seherbian was filled with countless glittering fragments, each one shining like a star hung in the night sky.
Once he had gathered enough cold, Seherbian lowered his hand lightly, like a conductor bringing an orchestra to the end of a movement.
Whoooom—
The suspended ice crystals split the night sky and plunged all at once toward the ground.
It was a sight that might have been beautiful enough to remind one of a meteor shower, but Seherbian watched it with a bland expression.
Dragon breath.
The chill exhaled by a silver kin like him was powerful enough to freeze an entire village with a single fragment.
So if all those countless shards flew down and struck their target...
KWA-CRACK!
With a terrible crashing sound, the volcano that had been spewing foul smoke was instantly swallowed by white frost. The cold that blanketed the mountains and turned them pale stirred up blizzards that seemed as though they belonged in a snowfield, and only after it had covered every inch of the range Seherbian had wanted did it finally stop spreading outward.
Even the rocks that had already grown so hot they seemed ready to burst, even the magma deep underground that looked as though it would never cool, fell utterly silent.
True to the name Dragon breath, the cold froze and destroyed everything it touched without mercy, succeeding in freezing the boiling volcano right down to its roots.
「Volcanic activity has ceased. Probability of rebound: 0%. Dangerous reactions have disappeared.」
The white staff reported the result.
The ground, which had been rumbling to warn of danger before the frost swept over it, at last sank into complete silence.
“Ah.”
Seherbian looked at the scenery he had created and muttered under his breath, suddenly aware of something.
Wyvern Nest, buried in snow and ice.
Snow had piled over the green vegetation, and the flowing streams had frozen solid.
Every breath sent out a pale plume of mist, and the spring wind that should have been warm had become a knife-sharp gale, whipping snow into a blizzard....
“...Is this too cold?”
「....」
It was the moment the mountain range, once seething with volcanic activity, was transformed into a silent snow mountain.
* * *
Meanwhile.
In the snowy wastes of Blanconia, at the Winter Dragon Temple.
The temple, which had always been full of stillness, was now bustling with visitors who had come after hearing rumors of Winter Bell.
Most of them had come hoping to meet Winter Bell, but with the temple’s master absent, they had repeatedly gone home disappointed.
The one guarding the temple in Winter Bell’s place was the only dragon priest, Kisha Hartney.
'I'm still an apprentice, though!'
Kisha smiled brightly as she held a broom in her hands.
The Winter Dragon Temple was always cool, even when the braziers were lit, and in the snowy plains blizzards blew constantly, so no matter how often she swept, snow kept slipping in and cleaning had become second nature. But Kisha found it no trouble at all to rise every morning and sweep away the frozen clumps of snow.
“Hehe, still, I’m glad there are more people who like Lord Winter Bell.”
Having finished clearing away the snow piled at the temple entrance all morning, Kisha murmured to herself and smiled with quiet satisfaction.
The reputation of the Winter guardian dragon, Winter Bell, had spread throughout the Alferios Kingdom.
Winter was considered a useless season anyway, and people believed it possessed nothing but destructive power with no benefits at all, so there were few who wanted to grow close to a guardian dragon of winter. If anything, one could understand the dragons of other nations—Sidbell, Asubell, or Akibell—who brought blessing and prosperity to their respective lands.
To the people of the Alferios Kingdom, Winter Bell, who kept calling down harsh winters to gnaw away at their territory, was worse than useless.
Likewise, the people of Hartney Territory had originally been trapped by the same prejudice.
But...
'Lord Winter Bell only looks frightening because of the image people have of winter. In truth, he's an incredibly benevolent person.'
No matter how rudely those who came to see him behaved, Winter Bell had never once raised his temper.
In fact, Kisha often thought it was strange that she herself had not been scolded for barging into Blanconia without permission and constantly asking him for one favor after another. But Winter Bell had granted the girl’s wish and even cured the sickness of the people in her territory.
And that wasn’t all. He had even shown kindness to the royal mage Oze Lobern, who had been unbearably arrogant.
Kisha had thought that if she were a dragon, she might have frozen that shameless man solid on the spot.
'Though, to be fair, he did give him a bit of a hard time.'
He had sent a fake double created by the white staff to Oze Lobern, leaving him to return to the royal palace empty-handed; the man had probably been completely flustered once he reached the castle.
Imagining the royal mage sweating nervously under the king’s questioning was a little funny, but at the same time it made her worry a bit.
“What if he comes back again...”
Standing motionless at the temple entrance, Kisha fiddled with the deep crimson pendant hanging around her neck.
It was a token Winter Bell had given her together with her priestly robes when he recognized her as an apprentice priest.
She kept it with her at all times, even taking it off only to bathe or sleep, just as he had told her, but unease still lingered in one corner of her heart.
Oze Lobern was a proud man. Even though Winter Bell had appointed her, he did not seem like the kind of person who would simply give up on harming a mere apprentice priest like her. Kisha could not easily put her worries aside.
Piii!
At that moment, the sound of a bird crying out from the sky made Kisha lift her head eagerly. It was the call unique to a white crow.
Bang!
Liliana, transformed into a human with white wings, landed right in front of Kisha.
“Kisha!”
“Good morning, Liliana.”
“Uh, good morning— no, wait!”
As the brown-haired priestess smiled brightly, Liliana, who had been waving back with a delighted face, shook her head furiously.
“You’re sweeping snow again? Honestly, you don’t have to do that. It snows here every day in Blanconia, and there’s a barrier around the temple anyway, so the snow can’t get inside!”
“That’s true, but... if there’s snow piled up at the entrance, the faithful have trouble getting in. I’ve already swept it all away, though.”
Even at Liliana’s scolding, Kisha only tightened her grip on the broom and went on.
“W-well, there was a time before when I slipped on black ice and almost got hurt... It may not be much, but if we take care of little things like this one by one, maybe people’s view of winter will improve.”
With her hands on her hips, Liliana looked down at the apprentice priest’s meek, pale green eyes with a strangely impressed expression.
'The more I look at this kid, the more amazing she gets.'
She was a human who had managed to catch Winter Bell’s eye, after all.
So Liliana had been paying fairly close attention to her.
Kisha was a girl who carried both childlike innocence and the sense of responsibility she had gained from growing up as the daughter of a lord. From a very young age, she had helped her mother manage the territory, so she had a clear line between right and wrong, and yet, once she put her trust in someone, she never doubted them—that was the sort of stubbornness she had too.
Kisha trusted Winter Bell completely. She believed in him because she had received his grace, and she was a child who tried to contribute even in the smallest ways, out of affection for him.
The more Liliana watched her, the more she understood why Seherbian had brought that girl into Blanconia and accepted her as an apprentice priest.
Feeling oddly proud, Liliana was watching the top of Kisha’s head as the girl checked over the finished cleaning, when the young priest suddenly spun around with her broom still in hand.
“Thank you for worrying about me, Liliana.”
“What? W-when did I say I was worrying about you?”
Startled, Liliana stammered without meaning to.
“I just— no, that’s right! The Master entrusted you to me, and you keep doing odd jobs like this, so as a guardian I don’t exactly look good, do I?”
“Hehehe.”
“Hey, why are you laughing? Don’t laugh!”
Liliana flailed in outrage, her face turning red, but Kisha could not stop smiling.
However sharp her tone might be, it was obvious that Liliana truly wasn’t scolding her at all.
To Kisha, the Winter Dragon Temple in Blanconia was certainly very cold, but in her heart it was warmer than anywhere else in the world.
“Oh, right. I actually have something to tell you.”
“Yes?”
As Kisha finished checking the entrance and set her broom against the wall by the doorway, Liliana trotted after her on light feet and opened her mouth.
“Your country. The Alferios Kingdom.”
“Y-yes.”
“It’s just that, until now, they haven’t shown the Master any interest at all— like, literally n-o interest whatsoever.”
For some reason, there was even a hint of irritation in her tone, and Kisha blinked her round eyes.
What Liliana said was true. It wasn’t merely that they had shown no interest; they had actually despised him. Unlike other countries that proudly held up their guardian dragons as symbols of honor, the Alferios Kingdom had only ever treated Winter Bell as a disaster that ruined the land.
Unlike elsewhere, it was only natural that the Winter Knight Order, Varzian, had been treated like a second-class afterthought there.
“But look at this.”
Liliana suddenly held both hands out toward Kisha.
In her pale, delicate palms rested a transparent crystal sphere. Kisha was just thinking that it looked like one of the props she had seen in the fortune-telling shop in the village when, with a curious gaze, she peered into the orb.
Crackle, pop!
Inside the clear crystal sphere, colors swirled together as if someone had dropped paint into water, gradually taking shape.
This crystal sphere was a modified form of a communications device.
It was a surveillance artifact that could show a desired location somewhere within Blanconia.
“...!”
Kisha’s eyes widened when she spotted the people reflected inside the crystal sphere.
“Do you know them?”
“Ah... no.”
After a brief moment of thought, Kisha shook her head.
“But I do know where they’re from. The lion ornament embroidered on the flag is the royal emblem of the Alferios Kingdom.”
“Exactly. So they’re from the royal family, right?”
“Yes, and especially the person in the center there is probably a member of the royal house. Most likely...”
There were only three blood relatives left in the Alferios royal family to carry the dynasty forward. The youngest was Princess Lewini, who was still about Kisha’s age, while the second son, known as a spoiled troublemaker, had long since renounced his claim to the throne and left the palace, receiving a separate territory and house instead.
The remaining one was the twenty-three-year-old young man who was recognized as the king’s legitimate heir.
“His Highness Prince Leynep.”
The royal family’s characteristic arrogant golden eyes appeared in the crystal sphere.