171 Lesson 41: The Golden Empire

"Nice to meet you, Dragon Slayer. My name is Katya."

That was the first voice of childhood taming in Ilia.

The location is the rooms on the top floor. It's a room that Ilia and I used to stay in. In that room, we heard the story from a girl named Katia.

I didn't realize it when I looked at it from a distance, but Katia was obviously shriveled (soggy). Though she is deceiving with dark makeup, her eyes are dimmed, her cheeks are peeled, and her voice is blurred to speak.

I prioritize ease of movement, or I put my brown hair together in a dough behind my head, but there's no way to tie it, and it hurts to look like the girls of my age.

"As you can see, I am one who serves the God of the Law. When I was little, I lived in the same village of Merte as Mr. Ilia."

As Katya turns her attention to Him and Ilia, the cleric warrior of "The Sword of the Falcon" nods snugly to affirm Katya's words.

I had guessed from the chest seal (emblem) that Katia was a former member of the A-rank party Silver Star. He reunited with Ilya, who had gathered information about the king of beasts (Behemoth) in this city, and told him about me from the mouth of Ilya.

Katia, who eventually found out that the Dragon Killer (I) was visiting Berca again, was waiting for me to come to Ilia regularly. That is what led us to today.

The problem is that Katia wanted to see me, but, well, this doesn't have to be interrogated. If you are a dragon killer, the demons of the desert are not enough to fear. It is easy to imagine what Katia would have thought.

In fact, the next word that came out of Katia's mouth was what I expected.

"Dear Dragon Killer, please help us search for our fellow Silver Stars! The untouched area is the deepest part of the Catalan desert, where the King of the Beast (Behemoth) has been witnessed in the past. I think it is also in line with your purpose!

That's how Katia bows her head with a desperate face.

If you ask me, they say it was the leader of 'Silver Star' who freed Katya from her slave status, and this girl feels deeply beneficial to the leader. Perhaps he also has more emotions than benevolence to observe from his disgrace.

I hear that the leaders of "Silver Star" were out of the news months ago. After just enough time to be treated like a public death, Katia is running for her former companion.

The situation surrounding the girl in front of her, referred to as the situation she had fallen into slavery since childhood, was worthy of sympathy. I can't be ruthless enough to put that kid's desperate wishes in front of me and say, "I'm sorry I worked for free". You're right, we're going to the desert to find the king of beasts. It's not a big hassle when it comes to it.

The childhood taming of Ilia and Lars would naturally be familiar to both Priest Saila. I had no intention of refusing to cooperate in that sense either.

- To briefly state something like that, Katia brightened up her face and said, "Thank you!" I've bowed my head many times.

To Katya, I'll say "but".

"Exactly forever, so I want you to understand that"

For example, if a king of beasts (Behemoth) is found outside the untouched zone, I will defeat the king of beasts (Behemoth) there and return to Ishka. Even after defeating the King of the Beasts (Behemoth), he cannot remain in Berca to search for the Silver Star.

I didn't even intend to continue my search by turning over the horn of the king of beasts (Behemoth) to Pope Noah before turning to Berca. Whatever it is today that went missing yesterday, I can't find any significance in a long search in the circumstances after months.

Bad for Katya, but the members of 'Silver Star' are probably dead. The body was also buried in the sand or eaten by demons, either way, it would be difficult to discover.

If I left without a lid, I wouldn't be cooperating to find the Silver Star, but to make the girl in front of me feel better. As it stood, Katia kept running in hopes that there would only be, because she finally thought she would fall down forcefully.

... when it did, it did. So, maybe it's what Katia wants.

I sigh small to avoid Katia noticing me in tears in my eyes. "Silver Star" was also likely to be another troublesome seed, in a different way than "Desert Eagle", which had teased him with his presence.

"Um, thank you for Katia..."

In the room where Katia leaves, she bows her head with an irritable salute.

Seeing such Ilia, I faintly narrowed my eyes. Unlike Lunamaria and Miroslav, Ilia remains a Class VI Adventurer still belonging to the Ishka Adventurer Guild and a member of The Sword of the Falcon (Hayabusa).

When I stayed in Belka earlier, after eating my soul in Ilaria, I left Ilaria in Belka and headed to Kogashima. It is true that I was just a little concerned about what Ilia's attitude would be like to be away from me for a long time. In fact, it also considered the possibility that Ilia was disappearing from Berca.

But this is how Ilia remains in Berca.

- Hmm, apparently there's no problem. Well, if you tried to make Ilia, who was exposed to Hydra's death poison, you wouldn't have been able to leave me in order to get the antidote, so you wouldn't have had a choice but to obey.

Hiding those insides, I responded to Ilaria.

"It doesn't matter. As I said to her, the king of beasts (Behemoth) has priority. But we were talking about childhood tampering in the village, but how did we meet again? Did you just face each other in the temple of the law?

"I don't know... I heard someone was gathering information about the king of beasts (Behemoth) and he came to see me from the other side. That's when we noticed each other."

"Right. Have you notified Lars yet?

It was a question I didn't care about, but Ilia chewed her lips and nagged when she heard this.

"No, Katya stopped me. I'm not going back to Merte Village anymore, so stop letting me know about myself."

I heard that. I put my arms together. If you had been freed from slavery, you would have been able to return home at any time. Even if you couldn't leave Berca because of circumstances, it's not hard to let your family know you're safe.

I guess the fact that I didn't do either of that means I don't want to see the face of the family that sold me, there's no untrained in the village either. Naturally, that is not the exception to Ilia or Lars...... apparently the reunion between Ilia and Katia did not turn out to be very moving.

Seal didn't lack a service to his family even after he became a slave - but I guess this is because Seal sold himself for his family of his own free will. It's not hard to imagine that Katia's situation was completely different.

And if Ilia and Lars, who lost their childhood in that way, aspired to a stronger adventurer's path, Katya's presence would have a damning effect on me, too.

I met that Katia in Berca today. There was a strange edge, I think.

With that in mind, I changed the subject. I noticed Ilia looking spicy - not because there was something I had to check for the future.

"By the way, how's your health? As far as this goes, it doesn't look particularly unusual, but after you broke up with me, did you have a recurrence of poison?

Poison is, of course, Hydra's poison. Ilia fought an aquatic horse (Kelpi) in the village of Merte, and via this demon half her face collapsed after being exposed to the death poison of a fantastic species. Although the symptoms have greatly improved by taking the antidote with my blood, the fear of recurrence has not disappeared.

My level is even higher with the defeat of the gods in Kigajima. Inevitably, the effect of blood sperm is also greater than before. If the symptoms of poison were recurring while I was away, I would need to use it. That's what I turned the question to, but Ilia's answer was "no problem at all".

"Rather, my body is in better shape than before I was poisoned"

"That's cool. I don't think I'm gonna have to kill you with this."

When told to tease him, Ilia pulled her lips together to wonder what she had answered. I have previously declared to Ilya that I will kill her if it is too late, fearing a painless death from death and poison. That's what I saw on this occasion.

I was sucking on Ilia's mood at the time, but it's a very hard word for the priests and little ones to hear. If they ask around Lars, it could be another duel noise.

It's just that Ilia clearly looked relieved then, and Ilia here never showed any anger either.

Instruct him to sit next to such an Ilia. Ilia followed my instructions without saying anything, although she blindfolded slightly.

By the way, Suzume and Lunamaria are moving into separate rooms a little further away. We can't just stay in a room for two or four, so we took another room.

Right now, the only two people in this room are me and Ilia. If so, it was decided to do so in one.

◆ ◆ ◆

Three days after I came to Berca, I was alone, on Klau Solas, flying through the Catalan desert sky.

I initially thought it would be bad to stand out in the heels, and I hid it in the nearby mountains, Klau Solas, but now that I'm involved with 'Desert Eagle' and 'Silver Star' early in my arrival, it doesn't make sense where it shrank to be inconspicuous. Instead, I should have clearly boasted of my existence. Dragon Slayer. If you tell him it's here, it'll be harder for Desert Eagle to get his hands on it.

It was Cardinal Cyrala (Sukuki Today), the chief head of the Divinity of Law in Berca, who endorsed that idea. The Cardinal promised me his full cooperation and even gave me permission for Klau Solas to enter and leave the city of Berca freely.

To begin with, I thought the generosity over there was due to Pope Noah's letter of introduction, but when I asked him carefully, he said that one of the cases where 'Silver Star' had gone missing was that Cardinal Cyrara had chest pains, too. He also cared about Katia, and even if I did not have the Pope's letter of introduction, I would not have spared any cooperation, which is the cardinal's valves.

"Alou is a very courteous man. When it comes to adventurers for the inhabitants of Berca, the rough guys and the market are set, but Alou and his people are the exception. '

When we first met, Cardinal Cyrala said that to me with a sinking face. The named arrow here is the leader of "Silver Star". The alias is White Knight.

Everything Allow said he was taking care of those who had lost their closeness and those who had been abused as slaves, and they were in a cooperative relationship with each temple, including the Temple of the Law. Katia was one of them, he said.

Around taking the alias "Knight" while being an adventurer without a master, I can see how his honest (Kingston) personality was admired by people.

I would add that Cardinal Cyrara, who thought she was a woman from the sound of her name, was a majestic man over fifty.

Flying through the desert sky, I recall the words of an old Cardinal.

"When the Arrows went missing, I gave them the temple of the law and searched... and the place where the Arrows headed was the deepest part of the untouched area. There are many demons out there and no oasis nearby. Even the skilled adventurer went and came back to his best, and he could hardly hope for a hipster search… '

When I heard that, it was what I thought. I wondered why 'Silver Star' went to such a dangerous place again.

Of course, I'm an adventurer because I risk it, but naturally, there has to be enough reason to risk it.

There are a lot of demons out there, no oasis, and even a skilled adventurer can just go and come back and die. What was Alou's purpose in bringing his people to such a place?

I turned to Cardinal Cyrara for an inquiry I couldn't turn to Katya.

In contrast, the Cardinal closed his eyes so that he could catch something only for a moment, then uttered one word.

Golden Empire (Imperium).

It is the ideal place in the desert to keep its name only in legend. "Silver Star" is - no, the White Knight Alou was stepping into the Catalan Desert in search of its legend. Many, dozens, hundreds, according to this.

And get some kind of clue to the legend, step into the untouched zone ready for danger - and didn't come back.

"The white knight who disappeared into the desert, huh? Well, what the hell happened?"

Crushing that, I turned Klau Solas' neck to Berca. That's enough for a test flight. I was going to go back to Berca by the end of the day and take the tins to challenge the sand demons again tomorrow.