Volume 8 - CH 5

Translator: Silver Editor: Namorax

「The Dragon Kings Arrive」

The sky was dyed a rusty red shade by the time I finished moving the last of the supplies over from Rhoden. I rolled my shoulders a few times after I entrusted them to the waiting soldiers.

“Hmm, the repetition of the work was more challenging than the constant use of transfer magic.”

My eyes wandered over the scenery as I voiced my complaints.

The almost idyllic royal courtyard from this morning was now overrun with soldiers and supplies, with tents being set up all around me.

Normally it would be considered a major problem for foreign soldiers to be stationed in the royal palace, but priority was given to the emergency at hand.

Rhoden would surely be destroyed if they didn’t join this alliance, even if they changed the location they confronted the enemy, the situation would not.

And Rhoden’s forces weren’t the only ones here.

The elven soldiers were setting up their own camp in another section of the courtyard, and the palace was starting to take the form of a base camp.

The soldiers’ morale seemed considerably high, I could feel the pre-battle excitement all around me.

Everyone bowed or nodded in my direction as I passed them by.

Though I had become quite the celebrity, I didn’t particularly regret it.

A world where humans, elves, beastmen and dwarves could live together was still an idealistic dream…… yet I still wanted to see such a thing, so if using my abilities could one day bring it about, I was happy to do so.

……That’s all it was.

When I first came to this world, the unique nature of my body had formed a desire to remain inconspicuous, but I was unable to ignore the wronged and those in need.

Living like a hermit in a remote place, blocking out everything else…… the people who were capable of that were a rarity.

When you live in a world, it was surprisingly difficult to separate yourself from it.

When I heard a familiar girl’s voice, I turned in the direction of its origin.

“You seem tired, Arc-dono.”

When I turned around I found Chiome, who’d been here since before noon.

She proudly exposed her cat ears and tail, which were the characteristics of a beastman, even as human soldiers walked by, her tail swaying in a long arc behind her.

“Chiome-dono. Were you able to meet up with Goemon-dono?”

She slightly shook her head in response.

Seeing her answer, my eyes wandered upwards to look how dusk was slowly but surely approaching.

A large amount of time had passed but, but they had yet to arrive……

While I was wondering about Goemon’s well-being, Chiome’s ears stood straight up and clear blue eyes looked straight ahead.

“If he does not get in touch tomorrow, I will go search Delfuento. Arc-dono, I──”

While she was in the middle of speaking the surroundings suddenly changed. Chiome felt it too and immediately began scanning the surrounding area.

“What the hell is that!?”

Everyone’s eyes were focused on the same spot in the sky…… when I turned my eyes skyward to have a look myself, I saw an irregular dark spot within the dusk dyed sky.

Two large shadows had appeared east of Soulia.

And those shadows were heading straight for the capital.

Their figures grew as they approached at considerable speed, and when it became possible to identify them the entire palace was thrown into chaos.

The two shadows were dragons.

Both of the dragons were rather huge, but the one leading the pair was twice the size of the other dragon.

The lead dragon had two heads sprouting from its head and it was covered from head to tail in black scales, with a violet pattern rippling through its wings. The tip of its tail seemed to reflect sunlight or emit light itself.

Even though this was the first time I saw that dragon, I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d seen it somewhere before.

However, the smaller dragon I definitely remembered.

Two sets of wings sprung from the bluish dragon’s body and four horns grew on its head. I’d crossed blades with this dragon several times before.

Dragon King Williahsfim.

The dragon king who presided over the forest beyond the Wind Dragon Mountain Range, the place where his massive tree was rooted…… he and the other dragon, probably another dragon king, were lowering their altitude as they flew in this direction.

“In that case, that massive dragon must be Ferufivisurotte-dono, right?”

I hadn’t seen her dragon form until now, but I was getting the same feeling from the huge dragon I got from her humanoid form.

Perhaps Ferufivisurotte had convinced Williahsfim to join the war effort.

Dragon King Williahsfim was very infatuated with Dragon King Ferufivisurotte and she must have been aware of it.

Perhaps she used that to her advantage.

“A reassuring ally is joining.”

Chiome looked to the east and voiced a impression similar to my own as she wagged her tail.

I had to nod along with her statement since this made defeating the great undead army easier, although the surrounding soldiers lacked my leisurely reaction to two dragon kings appearing in the sky above.

Some had drawn the weapons, while others collected their belongings to flee, while others still shouted orders in an attempt to restore order.

Unlike elves, humans didn’t see dragon kings all too often.

When I began to consider methods to quell the commotion, trumpets were blown several times throughout the palace before being repeated again and again.

The soldiers who heard the trumpets looked at each other in utter confusion, but those who had raised their weapons reluctantly sheathed them.

Like that, the spreading confusion had started to slowly subside.

The trumpets must have been some kind of signal to the soldiers.

Eventually, the two dragon kings lowered their speed and descended upon the royal courtyard, although they still managed to kick up strong gusts of wind.

The dragon kings had landed in the elven camp.

Ariane and Furgas should be meeting with them right now, so I called for Chiome so that we could go there as well.

“Shall we go?”

However, Chiome looked in the opposite direction, the ears atop her head standing higher than I’ve ever seen them.

“Arc-dono, please go on ahead.”

After she said that, Chiome ran off into the crowd of still dazed and confused soldiers.

Based on her behavior Goemon must have gotten in contact somehow.

While my ears and eyes were pretty good, they still paled in comparison to those of the beastmen.

For a few moments, I kept looking in the direction she’d disappeared in, but when I realized she wouldn’t be back anytime soon I began making my way over to the elven camp.

The elven camp was a bit smaller than Rhoden’s camp.

It wasn’t that Nozan was neglecting the elves, it was just that Rhoden needed the extra space for all the supplies they’d brought with them.

Though now the center of the camp had been cleared to make room for the dragons, and the two dragon kings were now tightly packed into that area.

Ferufivisurotte’s full length was probably around eighty meters, and the pressure exuded seemed to increase as I took in the full scope of her size.

As I approached the two dragon kings, they gradually shrank and completely changed shape, all within five minutes.

Two figures stood in the middle of the elven warriors.

Ferufivisurotte had returned to the form she’d taken when we fought in Maple’s arena and proceed to stab her crystal sword-tipped tail into the ground.

Her violet, vertically-slitted eyes, which matched the color of her hair, slowly scanned the area until they landed on me.

Beside her stood Dragon King Williahsfim in his four-meter tall humanoid form.

However, with his height and figure it was easy to tell, even from afar, that he was far from human.

In the first place, his head was still that of a dragon and his body was completely covered in blue scales.

In contrast to their dragon forms, Williahsfim was twice the size of Ferufivisurotte and the differences between their human forms were easily identifiable when they stood next to each other.

“Arc-han, sorry for being so late. Thanks for waiting.”

Ferufivisurotte smiled as I finally made my way through the crowd of elven warriors, I arrived just as Ariane and five other people appeared from the opposite direction.

Behind her were the leaders of the elven forces, Dylan and Fargas, Prince Sect of Rhoden’s forces and Nozan’s representatives, King Asparuf and princess Lille.

Ariane, who was still embracing Ponta, offered me a small nod before addressing the two dragon kings.

“Good evening, Ferufivisurotte-sama. Williahsfim-sama.”

When Ariane greeted the pair, Ferufivisurotte gave her a small smile as she replied with a wave.

“You’re Ivana’s younger sister, Ariane, right? I thought it was better to have more fighting power, so I bought this guy without permission, is that okay?”

At Ferufivisurotte comment, Williahsfim immediately bowed as if he was trying to make his large frame as small as possible.

Since the dragon king, the apex of the world, was gonna take part in a human war, it would have been fine to have a more pompous attitude, but Williahsfim’s current conduct seemed a bit different.

Contrary to his proud appearance, he was giving off the impression of a new recruit before their first campaign.

“I, Williahsfim, will be participating in this war as well. I am the cause of our tardiness due to having to cross the Wind Dragon Mountain Range. Thou would have been quicker if thou hast traveled directly from Maple……”

Williahsfim was showing a rarely seen side of himself, claiming responsibility for the lateness Ferufivisurotte had brought up.

While I didn’t know the exact distance they flew, it must have been a considerable amount since they flew from Maple through Canada, and then from the Wind Mountain Range all the way to Nozan.

Given that they managed to make that trip in half a day there was no doubt that they had the fastest movement speed in the world, if you excluded my transfer magic.

The royalty was listening to their story with surprised expressions.

“We made a mistake and wound up in a completely different human country. When you think about it, we don’t really know the layout of the human countries.”

She accompanied her comment with an indifferent chuckle.

The reason they’d arrived when they had was because they’d gotten lost, otherwise they probably would have gotten here sooner.

The country they had accidentally ended up in, was probably Rhoden Kingdom.

Then Rhoden’s King met with them earlier…… but could they really have gotten lost?

In response to her comment, elder Fargus bowed before her and spoke in a polite manner, as he greeted the larger Williahsfim.

“It seems you had quite the journey Ferufivisurotte-sama. And, Williahsfim-sama, I’ve heard of you from my granddaughter Ariane. I would like to thank you personally for supporting us alongside Ferufivisurotte-sama.”

Great Elder Fargas’ face was covered with a big smile as he said so.

“Y-Yes. Since it was a request from Ferufivisurotte-done, this one is happy to lend his power to you all. Hahaha.”

Williahsfim’s usual haughty manner returned, but it seemed that he couldn’t decide how to act with Ferufivisurotte, the object of his desire, standing next to him.

Bits of clumsiness remained, even as dry laughter escaped his dignified draconic face which indicated that he wasn’t used to this type of thing.

Under my helmet, I moved my eyes from him and focused on Ferufivisurotte as she and Fargus spoke with one another.

However, I couldn’t do much but speculate based on their expressions.

Behind Ariane prince, Sect was listening to their conversation with a troubled look on his face.

Apparently, King Asparuf had been waiting for the two Dragon Kings to finish their introductions before suggesting to move the discussion to another place, because once they were done he stepped forward to greet them

“On behalf of my country, I would like to thank you for helping with our plight. I’ve set up a place to discuss our future plans inside the palace, let’s continue this there.”

“I’m tired after flying for so long. I could use a place to sit and rest.”

Ferufivisurotte enthusiastically agreed with Asparuf’s suggestion and began walking toward him, but then she suddenly stopped as if she had remembered something

“Willi-han, you’re too big to go in there, so could you stay here and keep an eye on things?”

Ferufivisurotte turned to Williahsfim and told him what to do before giving me a flirtatious glance and heading towards the palace.

Williahsfim, who had basically been turned into her signpost, openly hung his head from his long neck.

While he could enter the castle in his present form, it would be difficult for him to use furniture meant for humans. Signpost was an accurate description.

King Asparuf led everyone into the palace, with elder Fargus and prince Sect following directly behind him. Ariane, who was still holding Ponta, fell behind them and looked all around shortly after matching my pace.

“Arc, where’s Chiome-chan? She was going to see you last time I checked?”

She’d been looking for Chiome, with whom I’d split up a while ago.

“Ah, I did meet Chiome-dono, but she said she had to meet someone and vanished. Perhaps, she sensed that one of her companions had been nearby. It may have even been Goemon-done.”

Despite being well-behaved till now, Ponta suddenly leaped from Ariana’s embrace and landed atop my head with a cry.

“Kyun! Kyun!”

“What’s wrong, Ponta? Did you find something……”

A familiar person entered the edge of my vision as I asked Ponta what was going on.

Even in these crowded base camp, a man over two feet and fifty centimeters stood out…… his muscular body was wrapped from head to toe in black cloth.

The cat ears atop his head showed that he of the same race as Chiome and his black and silver hair reminded me of a mackerel tabby.

One of the Blade Heart clan’s six great ninja…… Goemon.

Chiome was walked next to him.

“Chiome-dono, Goemon-dono. You’ve arrived safely.”

“Mm……”

Goemon replied with a small nod when I called out to him.

As usual, he was a man of few words.

In such a manner, Chiome informed us of what he discovered in the neighboring country.

“Goemon has informed me of the situation in Delfuento Kingdom. It seems that Delfuento’s capital has already fallen, and things are deteriorating rapidly from there.”

Goemon nodded in affirmation of her report.

This confirmed that Nozan’s two neighboring countries, Delfuento and Salma, had already collapsed and that this country was being set up for a pincer attack.

“There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of time left… Goemon, would you accompany us to the meeting with the king?”

Everyone nodded at my suggestion and we resumed our march into the palace.