CH 25

Chapter 25: Tiamat the Magic Dragon

Translator: yuzu

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“I heard that you adopted a human.”

When Tiamat appeared, Luya thought that an inferno1 had come. The atmosphere and sheer destructiveness of the elements was similar to the day that the Demonic World Eye appeared.

The red dragon shooed Luya into his lair, and Ludding was so scared that he hid in the corner of the cave holding the Shiba Inu. However Luya was not resigned to this fate, and she sneakily tiptoed back to the entrance of the cave, trying to eavesdrop on the conversation between Tiamat and the red dragon.

“Farus… I understand that you’re curious about humans, and I don’t want to get in the way of your fun. But I need to remind you, humans are greedy and evil. Once they find it profitable, they’ll easily betray you. I trust that you aren’t so misguided to divulge our secrets to them…”

“Get to the point, Tiamat.”

The red dragon impatiently interrupted Tiamat’s warning, “Hurry up and leave. You’re scaring my little girl.”

“Have you really become such a fool, my friend? Are you still the great Farus from my memories who stands as Bahamut’s equal…?”

“That’s your own misunderstanding.”

“Whatever. I have no intention to become your enemy, and I’m just here to remind you, Farus.”

Lighting and thunder were mixed in Tiamat’s voice. The magic dragon did not act aggressively, and it only stated its position to the red dragon calmly.

“There were some witnesses that saw you. You brought that human into the Dark City Dünbruck… they reported your behavior to Godot, the archbishop of the Demonic Eye Church.”

“Gudius gave her permission.” The red dragon replied.

“Don’t you understand? Even if the demon archduke permits it, that is not the will of the archbishop… the Demonic Eye Church is the symbol of the dark side. You can’t, or at least you shouldn’t, cross the line. It will affect our reputation.” Tiamat spoke slowly.

“I don’t care about reputation.”

The red dragon stared at Tiamat. “You should leave.”

“Fine, if you really are this stubborn, my friend… I hope you don’t continue to do stupid things. If Nidhogg comes looking for you, he won’t be as easy on you as I am.”

After leaving a warning behind, Tiamat departed from the lair. Once the dragon’s figure disappeared into the sea of clouds, the cyclone of rain and wind faded, and the sky started to clear.

Although Tiamat’s attitude wasn’t friendly, Luya felt like the dragon had still warned Farus as a friend. Luya wasn’t bothered by what they had said about her, but when the red dragon discovered that she had been eavesdropping, she still felt a little guilty.

“Um…”

Luya couldn’t help but try to explain herself, but the red dragon didn’t give her the opportunity to speak. He immediately said, “You don’t have to worry about anything Tiamat says.”

“I’m not worried!” Luya hurriedly responded, “To me, everyone aside from you is irrelevant. I don’t care about anyone else, and I only worry about your thoughts and whether it’ll cause you any trouble…”

This was her guide for surviving in another world — Luya believed that she just needed to continue hugging the thigh of the person most important to her. She had faith that the red dragon was capable of protecting her, and furthermore was willing to protect her. Why should she care about other peoples’ threats?

It was enough to please the red dragon and win his affection. What’s more, Luya had gradually started liking him. He was just like family, and she had become dependent on him without realizing it.

“You don’t need to concern yourself with that.”

The red dragon spoke indifferently, as if those were all trivial things.

“Mhm, I believe you Farus!”

She spoke sweetly and rubbed the red dragon’s neck again. The red dragon was already accustomed to her intimate and cute behavior, and he seemed to be happy.

“What do you want to eat today?” He asked unexpectedly.

“Meat is fine.” Luya responded.

Now that Chef Ludding was here, dealing with ingredients wouldn’t be a problem. Even if the red dragon brought back a bird monster, Ludding could surely turn it into a luxurious three-person banquet.

Not long after, the red dragon returned with a young pigman child.

???

Not this kind of meat!

Luya and Ludding stared at the trembling pigman child at a total loss. After the red dragon dropped it from the air, the pig gave up on struggling and laid on the ground waiting to die.

“If you want to kill and eat me, then fine! Humans! Oink!”

After looking at the piglet a little more carefully, it didn’t look that disgusting. In fact, it was just like a pet piglet. It’s voice was sweet, it didn’t smell that bad, and it looked rather cute…

After examining it twice over, Luya looked up blankly at the red dragon and asked, “This is…?”

“You’re unhappy? I thought you would like it.” Farus stared at her.

“…”

It wasn’t a question of liking it or not liking it! Even though she was very happy to eat the braised pork, she wouldn’t want to eat it if there were other choices!

What’s more, it was still a child, so that made eating it even worse…

Ludding had never seen such a small pigman. The ones that he had seen in the human ranch were all ferocious adult pigmen who were strong, terrifying, and smelled disgusting.

Anyone would feel pity for the young of any animal. Although he hated the pigmen in the human ranch, it was difficult for him to raise his hand on such a helpless child.

Holding the kitchen knife in one hand, he struggled for a long time. Finally, he shook his head at Luya.

“Sorry… Eve, I can’t do it.”

“Don’t worry Uncle Ludding, I understand you. This is what makes us different from those monsters. We have compassion and a conscience, and that’s what makes us human.”

Luya sighed. Compared to facing a life-threatening opponent where it was easy to finish off the enemy without any hesitation, this helpless little thing in front of her even looked cute. It really made her unwilling to harm it.

Just like in foreign films and American dramas, even the most ruthless killers rarely killed children and dogs directly.

“Bah! You think you humans are the good ones? You’re not so innocent! Humans eat everything and destroy everything! It’s humanity’s punishment that the world became like this! Oink!”

The piglet child had originally ignored Luya and the others, but after hearing her conversation with Ludding, he suddenly became angry.

“Shut up, if you make another noise, I’ll bake you.” Luya’s face immediately contorted, and she turned around to stare at the piglet threateningly.

“Fine! Bake me or fry me, do what you want! Oink!”

The piglet did not show any weakness or beg for mercy. He closed his eyes and seemed to accept his fate.

Luya’s head hurt a little. The pigmen had intelligence close to humans, and they were totally different from domestic pigs2! Conflicted, she struggled with herself for a while and then spoke: “Hey kid, have you eaten human meat before?”

“I don’t want to eat filthy human meat! Oink!”

He glared at Luya angrily, “If I survive, once I grow up, I’m going to take over my dad’s ranch and catch bad humans like you! I won’t feed you at all! Oink!”

“Hah you think you’ll grow up? Oh dear, I think you’re dreaming…”

Luya was about to laugh at the piglet, and she continued to threaten to butcher him3. However, she suddenly caught a key word in his sentence and froze.

“Wait, you said your dad is a rancher?”

“That’s right! My dad is responsible for raising humans. Thanks to him, you humans have a place to live and things to eat in this post-apocalyptic world. You humans don’t know how to be grateful at all. Oink.” The piglet spoke smugly.

“What number ranch is your dad’s?” Luya stared at him curiously and asked.

“Why would I tell you?! Oink!”

“It’s D37, right?”

“So what if it is?!”

Ludding didn’t know what Luya was planning with these series of questions, and he looked at her a bit bewildered.

After Luya considered it for a while, she suddenly grabbed the piglet by the back of his neck and lifted him up. She declared excitedly, “It’s decided! This kid will be our hostage!”

“Hah?”

Ludding couldn’t help but be stunned, and he didn’t follow Luya’s train of thought.

“Let’s trade this bastard for Matthew.”

“You mean…?!” Ludding’s eyes lit up, and his heartbeat accelerated.

“Right, and it should work.”

Luya looked at Ludding with one hundred percent seriousness. “I know that you’ve been blaming yourself about Mathew, Uncle Ludding. I hear you sleeptalking at night, and I see you waking up from your nightmares… Matthew is a good man. If there’s a chance to save him, let’s not waste it.”

Luya wasn’t so audacious to ask the red dragon to destroy a human ranch in order to rescue the people inside. The human ranches were a food basket for monsters. If one of them were destroyed, it would be equivalent to a declaration of war. There would be immeasurable consequences for making the entire demon race their enemy, and she wasn’t so foolish to disregard that.

And even if she managed to rescue those humans, she had no idea where to put them.

Not counting those who had their souls stolen by the necromancer, humans who had been fed for more than a year in the human ranches had slow reactions, decayed brains, and they basically lost the ability to think for themselves. They didn’t know how to resist, and they could only act by instinct.

Even if those people left the ranch, they would quickly be killed and become food for monsters.

She wasn’t cut out to save the world. In this kind of difficult universe, it was already difficult enough to protect herself.

But if you could exchange a hostage, the situation was far more manageable. Nobody would care if one or two pigmen were killed.

Luya felt like Matthew was a kind, upright, and excellent archer. Most importantly, he was also really handsome.

When the time comes, he could help them with hunting or defense, and then she’d have more time to slack off and live a leisurely life.

Author’s notes:

Remember Matthew? He’s the archer in the heroine’s memories who jumped out and stood in front of Luya when the adventurers wanted to sacrifice her to save their captain.

Without Matthew, the heroine would already have to put in the GG.

He also sacrificed himself to let the cook escape, so he’s a rare good man in this post-apocalyptic world.

This will be one chapter for now. Tomorrow morning at six, I’ll pay off the remaining fertilizer.

Thank you holy lurkers for the bombs!

Translator’s notes:

Sorry about the slower updates~ This was a busy week and I have a wedding I’m going to tomorrow~