Chapter 71 - The Dragon with a Cold Heart (1)

On a hill in the white desert, knights had gathered and were watching one place.

The bitter cold of the fierce north wind stung their eyes, but the knights paid it no mind and only looked toward the distant horizon.

They were waiting.

For the torches that would bring a cold breath with them.

“I see them.”

And the iron knights bearing torches did their utmost in the duty entrusted to them.

A massive mass of cold was approaching at great speed from far away.

And around that mist-like cold, knights bearing torches were riding in.

They were knights of the Iron Duke Baranoff Family.

“Prepare.”

“Yes, sir.”

At the order of the man who appeared to be the commander, the knights watching from atop the hill began mounting their horses one by one.

Each held a magic torch that would protect him from the cold, and they glared at the remnant of a fallen dragon charging toward them as it breathed out rough plumes of steam.

“Now!”

At the adjutant’s hand signal, the knights began racing down the hill.

“...”

As the knights charged, the ponytailed man pulled one of the spears stuck in the ground and quietly closed his left eye.

A knight’s sword was sharp, but it could only wound an opponent once it reached them.

And the fallen dragon they were about to face was so fast that it was not an existence they could easily reach.

That was why the Iron Duke had sent here the knight he believed best suited to this task.

Volkov of the Javelin.

The spear in his hand began to dye itself a vivid blue.

“It’s a breath attack!”

The white dragon, roaring as it looked at the knights clinging to it, seemed to have its temper twisted and opened its mouth, drawing in a deep breath.

Its chest swelled greatly, and its white scales bristled, warning of what was about to happen next.

The knights, sensing destruction, were quickly attempting evasive maneuvers.

“Hup!”

Toward the dragon that had paused for a moment to gather its breath, Volkov thrust his spear.

The spear, filled with aura, began to cut through the wind with a supple motion.

This would be enough.

At this distance, it would not notice the javelin flying toward it.

But in that instant, Volkov met a pair of blue eyes in the distance, staring straight at him.

“What?”

A remnant of a fallen dragon.

Lindwurm.

The dragon that lived with cold frost in its chest twisted its body with movements swifter than a wolf’s.

CRUNCH!

GRAAAAAH!

It had been fast, but it was too late.

The spear that had merely grazed past it drove deep into the ground.

Together with scattering white scales.

“Damn it!”

Before he knew it, Volkov let out an angry cry.

He had known it was fast, but he had not predicted it would be this sensitive.

“Stop it from moving!”

“Surround it!”

The knights, realizing Volkov had failed, rode their horses ceaselessly around Lindwurm and cut off its escape routes, but the fallen dragon had realized that it had already fallen into the trap the humans had dug.

GRAAAAAH!

With a furious roar, Lindwurm quickly broke free of the knights’ encirclement and began racing into the snow fog.

Because judging the time and place was a basic attitude any predator needed to have.

“Chase it!”

“Block its path!”

At Lindwurm’s retreat, the knights urged their horses on, but catching up to a dragon accelerating at such speed was a harsh task for the horses.

The horses, exhausted from driving the dragon here, began stopping in place one by one with foam at their mouths.

“Damn it!”

Seeing the encirclement come apart, Volkov thrust the javelin in his hand with a short shout, but Lindwurm had already disappeared into the pure white fog.

Only the dragon’s furious roar filled the hazy snow fog in the distance.

* * *

The stable prepared at Rose’s Smiles.

In the place Madam Marcella had taken special care with, Vlad was staring blankly at Got.

“Please, just once. Please!”

Got even clasped both hands as if begging, but the pitch-black one only snorted without the slightest hesitation.

“Let me put a saddle on you just once!”

NEIGH!

The pitch-black horse raised its forelegs threateningly at Got, who kept pestering it.

Seeing that, Got could only step back again.

“What a shitty personality. Seriously!”

Got, panting in anger as if he could no longer endure the pitch-black one that did not even pretend to hear his pleas, turned his head this time and looked toward Vlad.

There was another shitty bastard here too.

“Do something about this!”

Got burst out in anger at the one of the two who at least understood words, but the blond bastard was just as bad at listening.

“He doesn’t listen to me very well either.”

“Isn’t this your horse, boss?”

Seeing Vlad shrug as if to say there was nothing he could do, Got lifted his head and looked up at the sky.

A pitch-black bastard and a blond bastard.

They had found each other well.

“... I want to quit.”

He had braced himself, but he had not expected the task to be this difficult.

Even if it was a wild horse, it had followed a human, so he had thought something could be done, but that had been a grave mistake.

However, the reason Got was angry was not simply because he could not put a saddle on it.

“Zemina did it just fine. Why can’t you? Maybe you just lack skill?”

“...!”

Hearing Vlad’s teasing voice beside him, Got clenched his teeth.

'Why does it listen so well to that damn girl...!'

This was the biggest problem.

Though it was a violent creature, the problem was that in front of the red-haired girl, it became like an innocent lamb.

Since there was clearly someone who had tamed it so meekly, the current scene could only make people doubt Got’s ability as a stableman.

“... It’s because it doesn’t have a name.”

“What kind of nonsense is that?”

“Its wildness hasn’t died down. You have to give it a name so it knows its place!”

It was clearly a ridiculous claim, but at the former swindler’s words, which were surprisingly plausible, Vlad found himself nodding.

It really might be true.

Seeing Vlad stop still and ponder his words, Got said he should go have a beer or something and went into Rose’s Smiles.

“... A name.”

Vlad scratched his chin as he watched the pitch-black one walk into the stable on its own feet.

“That’s true. I should give him one.”

The creature that had run across the plains had come all the way here after the boy, even leaving its duty behind.

If so, it was only right to give him at least one new name.

“Is Sir Vlad here?”

Vlad, who had been meeting the pitch-black one’s eyes and thinking of a name, turned his head at the voice calling him from behind.

“Lord Joseph is calling for you.”

Hearing the words of the man who had come from city hall to find him, Vlad nodded.

“I’ll see you after I get back.”

The pitch-black one nodded, as if he understood Vlad’s words.

For the man who had given him, if not a name, then a title he could carry proudly anywhere, Vlad moved his feet.

* * *

Joseph wore a subtle expression as he looked at the man who had suddenly come to see him.

It was not as though the man had come somewhere he had no right to be, but neither was he someone who would go out of his way to seek Joseph out.

“Still, Mother’s eye really is remarkable. Wherever I go, I can never taste tea this good.”

Rutiger raised the teacup in his hand toward Joseph and put on a playful expression.

As if his words were no empty praise, Dorothea’s ears perked up while she drank from her teacup.

“You should have asked Mother to give you some. It cannot be all that expensive.”

“... That is not easy.”

At Joseph’s words, Rutiger gave a bitter smile and shook his head.

“Should I say there is something about it that is hard to explain in words? You know what I mean, don’t you?”

Joseph nodded as he looked at Rutiger, who was wearing a complicated expression.

Though Oksana was not someone who would refuse one small request from Rutiger, their relationship could not help but be awkward in many ways.

Because they were in a position where they had no choice but to compete over the same thing, Rutiger had never been able to expect Oksana to play the role of a mother since he was young.

“...”

Watching Rutiger speak so openly about a sensitive point that Joseph himself would not have let show, Joseph let out a small sigh.

The two brothers were truly different, and they were people who each possessed what the other did not.

“What is your reason for coming all the way here?”

“Well, brothers do not necessarily need a reason to visit each other.”

Rutiger, who had been looking at Joseph with both arms thrown back over the backrest, saw his younger brother staring at him without the slightest movement and nodded as if he had expected as much.

“Do not look at me like that. I came because there is a reason.”

Joseph would not even accept a brief joke tossed out before getting to the point, but Rutiger was not flustered in the slightest.

Because it was the sort of thing he had seen all his life.

“Father received the report you sent and entrusted me with investigating the barbarians’ region. And there, I discovered unusual movements.”

Joseph raised his brows and waited for Rutiger’s next words.

“A dragon is coming down. It seems what that barbarian fellow you had with you said was right after all.”

“... Lindwurm.”

Joseph uttered one word and leaned his forehead against his clasped hands.

In the end, Age had been right.

The dragon that lived in the coldest place even within the bitter cold of the north wind was coming down.

“It should still be early in the season for it to come down... Besides, it is not a creature that moves unconditionally just because it is winter, is it?”

“That’s right.”

If the West had the Death Worm that burrowed through the ground, the North had Lindwurm, which was said to live within snowstorms.

The coldest, and the fastest, dragon.

The Death Worm, aside from the damage caused by its enormous bulk, did not particularly attack humans, but the dragon called Lindwurm was different.

Lindwurm, which came down into human territory following the severe cold that returned every few decades, was a vicious creature that would wreck two or three villages each time.

To humans, the remnants of fallen dragons were existences like natural disasters.

“Which direction is it coming down toward?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps because it moves too quickly, we are having difficulty finding its trail.”

Rutiger, having finished his tea, spoke to his half-brother with a serious expression instead of his usual leisurely smile.

“So Father ordered me to prepare defenses against Lindwurm and to subjugate it.”

“As the mayor of Soara, I will spare no effort in offering the utmost support.”

At Rutiger’s words, Joseph straightened his posture and answered.

His elder brother had come not with a simple request, but with the solemn command of Count Bayezid.

Though the two brothers were competing over the position of the next Family Head, in a crisis like this, they would have to join forces.

One must not forget the goal for the sake of the means.

Because what the two brothers desired was not simply the seat of Family Head, but the strong Bayezid itself.

“What can I help you with?”

“I require reliable reconnaissance from Soara, as well as the assignment of a knight.”

At Rutiger’s words, Joseph nodded as if he understood.

A request of this level was common sense, and moreover, it was something he had already expected.

“How many knights would you...”

“One will be enough.”

At Rutiger’s answer, even Jager, who was standing beside him, looked at him with somewhat surprised eyes.

To face a dragon, powerful blades would surely be needed.

It would have been a matter no one could object to even if he dragged out every knight in Soara, yet Rutiger was requesting only a single knight.

“Will only one be enough?”

“Lindwurm is different from the Death Worm. It is an opponent that a sword can reach well enough.”

Rutiger’s words were correct.

Lindwurm was not a creature that hid underground like the Death Worm, and it was also a creature that had certainly been successfully subjugated before.

So they would be able to do it this time too.

So long as the sword could reach Lindwurm’s swift movements.

“Whom should I provide you?”

At Joseph’s question, Rutiger answered with a sly smile.

“That blond brat you’re fond of.”

“... Do you mean Vlad?”

Seeing Rutiger request squire Vlad rather than Jager or Gregory, Joseph briefly furrowed his brows.

The boy possessed unique strengths, but strictly speaking, he had only just reached the threshold of knighthood.

“Yes. That one.”

Rutiger remembered.

The boy who had shouted so proudly against the Death Worm on the plains that summer day.

“Because that fellow is the finest dragon driver I know.”

The boy from that day, together with the pitch-black horse, had been shining brightly.

With that much presence, even Lindwurm, with its heart like ice, would surely have no choice but to look his way.

Just as the Death Worm had, when it burst out from underground without realizing it in order to catch the shining boy.