On the next day, the Pack Dragons launched an attack for the third time.
And now, on the third attack, they had learned from the past and killed more Pack Dragons than during the second attack, successfully repelling them.
Seeing the Pack Dragons attack in flesh, they confirmed that the pack was the same as the one that had wreaked havoc on the Salt Road.
They had found a dragon that had an arrow stuck in its back. Once they killed that dragon and pulled out the arrow, it turned out that this arrow was shot from a “Dragon Bow”.
Not even a single soldier in the army of Valentia was using a “Dragon Bow”.
It proved that the pack attacking Valentia was the same pack that had caused a turmoil on the Salt Road.
It seemed that all his speculations had been spot on.
In order to make the fourth attack the last one, the army of Valentia “led by Zenjirou” started working on their final move.
The thick forest lay east of Valentia. As the commander, Zenjirou had entrusted a part of the army of Valentia to Xavier Guzzle, who faithfully pursued the mission given to him inside the forest.
Xavier was commanding soldiers, who he had met for the first time yesterday, instead of the well-known soldiers of his own domain, so his face revealed more nervousness and fervour than necessary.
“Understood.”
As far as Xavier could tell, the Valentia soldiers were just as disciplined as the soldier from the March of Guzzle he had led before.
(Still, Her Majesty Aura had said she would put me in charge…)
His current position was a frontline commander under the direct command of Zenjirou, the supreme commander of the army of Valentia.
But the Prince Consort Zenjirou was the supreme commander, albeit just for show, and Raffaelo Márguez held the title of “staff officer”.
Moreover, the soldiers from the Uppsala Kingdom of the North Continent were participating, too, even if only a few of them, but Xavier had no authority over them as well.
It was understandable that Xavier was plagued by such a worry.
He shook his head and tried to focus on the task at hand, when he suddenly heard the well-known voice of the bearded hunter.
“Really! Good, then begin as discussed!”
Once Xavier gave the order, two soldiers took a wooden barrel and headed for the tree that the bearded hunter had identified as a “waymarker”.
After setting down the barrel in the scrub, one soldier wiped the sweat from his forehead and heaved a sigh of relief. Following this brief rest, the soldiers opened the lid of the large barrel and scooped its content with a long ladle.
“Well then, please scatter it evenly around this tree.”
“Be careful not to get any into your eyes. If you think it happened nevertheless, stand back and wash out your eyes with the water from the water barrel.”
“Here I go!”
“Still, will something like that really fool the noses of the Pack Dragons?”
“Well, yeah. We’re just following orders anyway.”
Once Zenjirou had found out that most dishes in Valentia made use of clams, he had grinded the seashells with a stone mortar after burning them at an high temperature, in order to present it to Aura for the glass manufacture.
When you let the burnt lime react with water once, it turned into slaked lime after the reaction subsided.
Nonetheless, Zenjirou was an amateur in this field. It remained to be seen if the slaked lime he created would work properly. He had put it into a wooden barrel and sealed it for what it was worth, but the reaction might have continued, turning it into calcium carbonate. The slaked lime admittedly worked against the smell of excrements from dogs and cats, but it was questionable if it would work all the same against the excrements from Pack Dragons. And lastly, it was unknown whether this deodorant was strong enough to fool the nose of the Pack Dragons, since the bearded hunter had claimed that they had a “strong sense of smell”.
Thus, they had concluded that it was at least worth a try.
Xavier had given all the necessary orders, so he walked over to the bearded hunter and asked him that this late in the game.
“Hard to say. If this deodorant really works like Master Zenjirou has said, then I would say it is possible.
The skin was taken from the Pack Dragons they had defeated during the third attack and the urine was secured along with the urinary bladder dissected from the same dragons.
That was the substance of the Pack Dragon Extermination Strategy from the Valentia Army.
Anyway, it drastically raised their chance to completely annihilate the Pack Dragons, instead of just repelling them, if they managed to drag them out onto a pre-prepared battlefield.
Xavier muttered as if to convince himself.
Regardless of how, the prey had already escaped once from General Puyol. It would definitely go beyond the credit of a mere Dragon Subjugation, if he defeated them.
“I will not let it drag on any longer.”
His small stature trembled from a sense of duty and a desire to fight.
Around the same time, the farm that had been chosen for the final clash was quickly remodelled into a battlefield.
It had been chosen for three reasons. Number one being its sufficient distance to the thick forest.
And lastly, the relative recent foundation of the farm provided the third reason.
It would be somewhat problematic, if the Huge Pack Dragon insisted on staying inside the forest by all means, but they had a countermeasure for that as well, just in case.
As for the third reason, it was linked to the second one. Since the whole farm was becoming a trap, they temporarily had to evacuate the farmers behind the stone walls of Valentia.
“Sir Raffaelo! We have finished setting up the stake wall at the entrance of the farm!”
“Same goes for the northern hill.”
“Understood. When you are done with your work, escort the farmers back to Valentia. Do not lower your guard until you are there.”
Of course the soldiers could not do all the work by themselves, so they had rounded up the farmers, mainly young men, to help out.
All this money required for the operation came from the pocket of Zenjirou. The very money Aura had given him to “buy anything he took a fancy to”.
Thanks to that, everything could be funded without problem so far, but he also had to pay for the livelihood expenses in Valentia of the farm refugees.
As a matter of fact, Raffaelo understood his inmost intention the best.
As he had no more orders to give right now, Raffaelo cast a glance at the distant walls of Valentia and muttered to himself.
Lady Octavia had said the following:
Well, his mother had the tendency to exaggerate the compliments more than necessary, when evaluating someone, but putting the “extremely” aside, Raffaelo had noticed during their short acquaintance that Zenjirou indeed possessed an adequate wisdom, reasoning and determination.
Although he voluntarily discredited himself as “incompetent” and “effeminate”, he always did everything in his might to make things convenient for the Queen, so it was undeniable that his affection and faithfulness towards her were anything but normal.
Even if it was in name only, Zenjirou did get involved with the Dragon Subjugation as the “supreme commander”. Raffaelo accurately reasoned about that worry of his as well.
Originally, Raffaelo had been put in charge, but Xavier Guzzle had barged in from the side as he was sent from the Capital.
Raffaelo was the “staff officer” and granted just as much authority in the planning of the operation as Xavier, but he would have almost no chance to fight a real battle.
“It might prove to be an interesting ‘story’ to report to my father later on.”
Mumbling that, Raffaelo showed the usual calm smile on his face.
At around the same time in the residence of the Duke of Valentia in the centre of Valentia, Zenjirou confronted the passionate persuasion from Governor Damian, with a stern face.
The middle-aged man appealed almost pleading, but Zenjirou answered brusque while giving him an indifferent look.
“Master Zenjirou…”
“Frankly speaking, it is utterly insane that you want to go out on the battlefield yourself, Master Zenjirou. If something were to happen to you, I would not be able to face Her Majesty Aura in the Capital again.”
The matter that plagued him was the fact that Zenjirou was going to lead the soldiers onto the battlefield himself.
Zenjirou intended to deploy himself and the soldiers far away from the trap village, where Xavier lay in ambush.
Of course Zenjirou had no idea how to lead an army, so Raffaelo Márguez would actually give out the orders as the “staff officer”. In other words, Zenjirou would be a mere figurehead there as well.
As a matter of fact, his opinion was completely warranted, if you only took the efficiency at the scene into account.
(I hope he would stop trying to persuade me so passionately. To be honest, I’m already starting to doubt my decision.)
“A battlefield is unpredictable. Permit me to remark that your safety is far more important than the safety of Valentia.”
From the point of view of simply increasing the practitioners of the “bloodline magic”, it would be no exaggeration to say that he was even more important than Queen Aura or the infant Prince Carlos.
But he shook off the thought.
Zenjirou spoke like a short-sighted person obsessed with fame to get rid of the protest from Sir Damian.
Then why did he insist on leaving the safe stone walls, although he knew that he would be a hindrance? Because this incident was a “subjugation” of the dragons.
In such a case, the person giving orders on the frontline was acknowledged as the highest ranking person for the mission, automatically assuming that the superior officer behind the walls had “entrusted all authority” to the commander on the frontline.
(If Xavier ends up as the highest ranking person, they’ll believe that I, the fully authorized representative for the Duke of Valentia, have accepted the intervention from Queen Aura and changed the personnel.)
Either decision would cause problems. After wracking his brain over it, Zenjirou had come up with this desperate workaround.
Xavier would have to put up with being the “highest ranking person in the field”, although he was promised to be put in charge by Queen Aura. Raffaelo would have to put up with being the “highest ranking person for strategic planning”, although he had been put in charge once before. And Zenjirou would reluctantly act as the “highest ranking person in name only”, although he originally had intended to do nothing.
(Rather than compromising, I get the feeling we’re walking a really fine line here.)
Still, a following political scandal could not be avoided wholewise, so this was the tamest solution Zenjirou had been able to come up with.
“B- But what are we going to do about Princess Freya? If you take your guards with you, she will be all alone here with her own guards.”
“No need to worry about that. I have already discussed it with Princess Freya. She readily agreed to accompany me. Needless to say, that goes for her guards, too.”
“Sh- She will… No way…”
No surprise. After all, not only Zenjirou, one of the three most important people of the country, was going out on the battlefield, but also Princess Freya, an acknowledged royalty from overseas. Any sane person would only take that for a joke.
Once his guards left the city, the only troops remaining in Valentia would be the coast guards and the city patrols.
“The decision is set in stone.”
When Zenjirou spoke resolutely like that, Damian abandoned the persuasion at last and hung his head disappointed.
Two days later then.
Their target was the farm near the river, where Xavier was waiting with his troops after laying a snare. With one attack alone, it could not be said whether the idea from Zenjirou had success or if it was a mere coincidence, but either way, the important fact right now was that this outcome was playing right into their hands.
“Good. All hands, take your position! All orders from now on will be given by hand signals until the battle commences. Do not make a single sound in the meantime!”
His whole body from head to toe was rubbed with plant sap and mud in order to erase the body odour, which in all honesty, was not really a fascinating sight.
The whole situation was just disgusting, but even so, Xavier suppressed that instinctual disgust and simply waited for the right time.
He persuaded himself like that and strongly crunched with his back teeth from the bitter plant sap taste in his mouth.
The original mission had been prepared by his father Marquis Guzzle for him in order to ease his worry about succeeding the title of Marquis. Because of a lack of forces, he had given up the leading role once, though. And even though he had called General Puyol for reinforcements, he was now, at the end of the road, entrusted with the full command over the decisive battle.
“GII GII!”
There was an enormous number of them. They definitely amounted to almost a hundred. The first rough estimate from Xavier counted around ninety-four, which seemed a bit too few. During the second and third attack, some dragons had been defeated, so that might be the reason they no longer filled up the hundred.
A fence of trees with sharpened tops blockaded the entrance. Its height only extended to around the shoulder of a human at best, though.
That height was no challenge for the Pack Dragons to skip over. The bunch of Pack Dragons leaped over the fence one after another. Instead of skipping over it, some well-built dragons even dared to jump against the fence, destroying it in the progress.
To begin with, it had been built to prevent the “Meat Dragons”, which were left inside the farm as bait to lure in the Pack Dragons, from escaping, instead of defending against the Pack Dragons.
“PIGI!”
The Meat Dragons screamed and scattered in all direction, when the carnivores suddenly appeared.
That thought suddenly crossed Xavier’s mind and he took a small peek out of the hole on the hill, observing the entrance of the farm. But its silhouette was nowhere to be seen.
It was a bit disappointing, but not really a problem in itself. They did choose this farm, because there was enough distance between it and the thick forest.
The Pack Dragons had always been so annoyingly quick to retreat, because their boss, namely the Huge Pack Dragon, had made all the calls. The Huge Pack Dragon had developed an abnormal intelligence, but all the other Pack Dragons were not even smart enough to go against their wild instincts.
Xavier licked his lips, which had gotten dry from nervousness, while the cruel game of hide and seek between the Meat Dragons and Pack Dragons in the uninhabited farm entered its final phase.
“PII!”
Normally, the Meat Dragons would have no chance of escaping from the Pack Dragons, but that would have been inconvenient to Xavier and the others, so they had set up round logs vertically between the buildings like clothes poles to stop the Pack Dragons.
As a result, the majority of the Meat Dragons managed to escape death and fled to the open square of the farm. Chasing after them, the Pack Dragons reached the square a bit later.
All of the Pack Dragons had already entered the farm without exception and around forty percent of them had gathered in the open square so far.
(Okay, now is the time!)
The soldiers on the other hill across were supposed to see it, too. At this point, there was no way to tell, if they really had, though.
In the next moment, all the soldiers around him sprang to their feet, drew the longbows in their hands and shot the arrows.
Three hundred archers had hidden on the hill and another three hundred on the other side. That made a volley of six hundred arrows in total.
The Pack Dragons that could scream were still better off. Most of dragons were hit by the rain shower of arrows from above and died without knowing what was going on.
Moreover, the bows from the soldiers of the Valentia army were longbows. Its range and penetration power was on a completely different level from the short bows, which the soldiers from the March of Guzzle led by Xavier had handled.
Under these favourable conditions, the longbow demonstrated the same penetration power as the “Dragon Bow” on a plain.
A sad, but necessary sacrifice.
“GIIII!”
The little slope was nothing for the powerful legs of the Pack Dragons. Utilizing their two thick hind legs and even thicker tail, they rushed up the hill, where the archers stood, with a speed no human could ever hope to achieve.
“Archers, fall back. Spearmen, forward!”
Their spears were almost twice as long as the wearer himself was tall. Needless to say, an average soldier could not wield such a long weapon at will.
“GII!”
No matter how strong the legs of the Pack Dragons were, they definitely could not make a jump on a steep hill. The Pack Dragons ran straight into the risen spears and did not advance any further.
The soldiers pointed the spears down from atop the hill and the Pack Dragons were running up the hill from below. It usually was difficult to upset the collision between these two, but the higher ground made their momentums barely equal, if not inverting their initial situation.
A few Pack Dragons slipped and fell down the hill, whereas the reorganised archers shot the dragons that were still barely standing, with arrows through the gaps between the spearmen.
Before long, the few attacking Pack Dragons had kicked the bucket without achieving anything.
“Wow… Is this what General Puyol meant?”
According to General Puyol, the strength of humans lay in technique, weapons and cooperation.
The army from the March of Guzzle had been pressed for a though fight on the Salt Road, because of its limited space. During the following hunt in the forest, even the “Dragonback Archery Knights” led by General Puyol had to put forth an effort to finish off a couple of Pack Dragons.
They had exchanged the short spears meant for the thick forest and the short bows meant for even terrain, with long spears and long bows and instead of leaping into enemy territory, they had drawn the enemy onto a battlefield prepared by them, attacking at the same time with the whole force.
Somehow calming his excitement, Xavier now watched over the battlefield below him.
At this point, it would be alright for him to participate in the battle himself, would it not? He did not want to brag, but Xavier was confident that his skills with the bow were at least as good as the skills of the soldiers around here.
His hands were holding the “staff of command”. It was not his favourite bow or spear, but rather a small wooden stick that had literally no offensive power.
Reminded of his given role again, the young commander overviewed the whole battlefield and then gave an order.
In the end, only very few Pack Dragons had been able to escape from the trap under Xavier’s command.
Some time earlier.
Its size would surely mess up your perception of distance, when you were somewhat familiar with the animal called Pack Dragon. At the very least, it was twice as big as a normal Pack Dragon. In actual fact, the Pack Dragon was classified as a medium-sized carnivore dragon, but this dragon was an expectation, large enough to be called a large-sized carnivore dragon.
Even while its subordinated Pack Dragons charged the farm as hungry as a wolf, only the Huge Pack Dragon had obstinately not taken a single step outside the thick forest.
And right now, it was displaying that very prudence again.
Six hundred arrows cut through the air and then rained down on the subordinated Pack Dragons, whose death cries reached all the way to the forest, to the ears of the Huge Pack Dragon.
The sounds were not descriptive enough to allow an accurate grasp on the situation.
Should they retreat? The exceptional developed brain of the Huge Pack considered that option.
Over the years, the Huge Pack Dragon had grown bigger and accumulated wisdom, but in exchange, it also had lost various things. The first being its agility and the second being its tolerance for simple food.
As a result, the Huge Pack Dragon could no longer live without subordinates that provided it with food.
“GRR…”
Between the forest and the farm extended a plain without any place to hide.
After advancing for a while, the Huge Pack Dragon stopped, when it noticed a shadow ahead.
It was fully armed human soldier. The Huge Pack Dragon was well aware how scary an armed human was. With a hundred of them, the Huge Pack Dragon would surely abandon its subordinate and run away. Not quite, it would probably already turn on its heel with just ten of them, considering there was no ally in the vicinity.
However, there stood no hundred men before the Huge Pack Dragon right now. Not even ten. Only a single human blocked its path.
The blocking soldier aka. Victoria Kronkvist let her blonde hair tied up in a ponytail wave in the wind while she looked at the nearby Huge Pack Dragon with an unconcerned expression void of any fighting spirit.
Saying that, the female warrior drew her favourite short spear.
When they had decided on this tactic, the first problem that came up was how they were going to deal with the boss aka. the Huge Pack Dragon.
That was what they had predicted, but a prediction was nothing but one possibility. Even this time, the Huge Pack Dragon might remain in the thick forest again.
But it was difficult to appoint people to it. After all, they were anticipating that the Huge Pack Dragon would likely appear at the farm. In other words, the special forces would end up not being needed, if everything went according to plan.
It was a delicate appointment that would be useless, if everything worked well, but earned the biggest credit otherwise. Moreover, the position required the ability to prevent a possible escape of the Huge Pack Dragon.
But then Victoria Kronkvist had volunteered for the position as she had been present at the strategy planning.
She had confidently declared: “I have the means to stop the Huge Pack Dragon.”
“The Huge Pack Dragon will choose to flee once the odds are against it. What are you supposed to do then, if you want to defeat it without it running away?
The female warrior mumbled that as if it did not concern her and closed the distance to the Huge Pack Dragon with movements that seemed to suggest she was being unwary.
To begin with, a human was not capable of fighting a dragon one on one.
Even most of the well-trained “Dragonback Archery Knights” would lose a single combat against a Pack Dragon with a spear or sword.
No surprise. Wild animals would not follow a weak leader. The Huge Pack Dragon had lead up to five hundred dragons, so it was capable of ripping an average soldier to pieces without using its fangs, if it felt like it.
And right now, the Huge Pack Dragon was totally up for it.
But the absence of fear in the female soldier was in no way inferior to the dragon.
Saying that, the female warrior aka. Skathi pointed the short spear in her hands straight at the Huge Pack Dragon.
Although Skathi was exceptional tall for a woman, she was still no match for the dragon. Most likely, the Huge Pack Dragon only considered the height difference between a normal woman and Skathi as a “variance of error”.
On the contrary, she quickly confronted the approaching dragon and suddenly swung the spear in her hands to the side.
Suffering a vertical wound at the chest, the Pack Dragon turned furious and exerted its two short front legs like crazy.
Skathi stopped that very attack with her spear.
While she did that, she did not retreat a single step backwards.
Going by her words alone, it sounded like she was wary of the attack from the dragon, but in reality, she stood in front of the Huge Pack Dragon and brushed off its attack head-on.
And while she deviated all the attacks from the dragon, she managed to cut the thick skin of the dragon with every swing of her spear, making it spill deep red blood.
“GII!”
“GRR… GUU!”
And certainly, not even Skathi could stop or deviate its attack now. But she made no exaggerated evasive moves.
Knowing that the charging Huge Pack Dragon could not make any small turns, the female warrior took a small sidestep to the right. They passed by each other at such a close distance that the left leg of the dragon barely bruised the right shoulder of Skathi.
“Hah!”
Along with the shrill sound of metal, the tip from the long tail of the Huge Pack Dragon was cut off.
The cut-off part was not really all that long, not even ten centimetre. But losing a part of its body certainly caused an intense pain for the Huge Pack Dragon.
Of course Skathi was the complete opposite of timid: She was an Amazon.
“GYA! GI, GIGI!”
On a closer look, the ratio of attacking and defending was even inclining in favour of Skathi.
Naturally, the fact that Skathi deviated all the attacks from the Huge Pack Dragon and hit it with all of her attacks, did not change.
For any animals with a tail, not just dragons, the tail always fulfilled the important role of balancing out their bodies.
The Huge Pack Dragon might get over the disability with time, but Skathi was obviously not giving it that time.
As the Huge Pack Dragon continuously attacked at random without success, its screams gradually sounded more rushed.
Her attacks were limited to shallow slashes. A thrust with the spear or a deep slash for more damage, came with the risk of getting stuck. The situation would reverse in an instant, if she were to take even one hit. No matter how advantageous she got, the seasoned female warrior never forgot that fact.
If Skathi were to trip in that viscous red puddle, the battle would turn out differently, but she had foreseen this development from the very beginning, so she wore special made shoes that had short nails worked into the soles.
“GYAA!”
This little creature was strong. Even just one of it was stronger than itself.
“GII!”
It was more sluggish than before, because of the blood loss and damage to its tail, but it was still a lot faster than a human in full sprint.
But even now, Skathi still showed no sign of worry on her face.
‘Grant me a flame that even burns the ground. As compensation, I make one hundred and eight offerings of magical power to the fire spirit.’
Any spectator would surely be astonished again by the audaciousness and calmness Skathi exhibited.
Evoking magic required the “correct intonation”, the “correct amount of magical power” and the “correct perception”. The problematic part from evoking magic on a battlefield was the “correct perception”.
In that state, you were quite vulnerable. Frankly speaking, you quasi fell into a “deep microsleep” that left you almost completely defenceless on the battlefield.
But it seemed to be no challenge for Skathi in particular.
Then she started to spin on the spot. One step, two steps, three steps. After exactly three steps, she had made a complete turn and used the motion of that spin to launch the short spear after the fleeing Huge Pack Dragon.
Accelerated from the spin, the spear was further sped up by the kick at the end and swiftly darted at the Huge Pack Dragon.
Still, that worry was of no concern to the superhuman female warrior, either.
The spear launched by Skathi pierced the head of the Huge Pack Dragon faithfully.
That alone was hardly ever lethal, since dragons had a relatively small brains, but it had been no ordinary spear.
That flame ignited the inside of the head, toasting the brain.
The Huge Pack took one last step toward the thick forest and at the end of its tether, it collapsed on the spot with a dull thud noise.
“Seems I finished it off alright.”
But before she could reach the corpse of the Huge Pack Dragon, there came rustling sounds from within the thick forest and in the next moment, several silhouettes approached the Pack Dragon.
“That’s our Victoria-sama! Common sense doesn’t apply to her.”
“You mean, is she actually human?
Even Skathi had not been so arrogant to guarantee for sure that she was able to kill the Huge Pack Dragon all by herself.
Needless to say, she would have given a signal at once, if the Huge Pack Dragon was beyond her strength, and tackled it together with the help of these men.
Skathi had not the slightest intentions to bite the dust and leave her sworn princess behind in this foreign country.
Seeing as there was no reaction, Skathi could be sure that it was really dead, so she put a foot on the ridiculous huge head of the dragon and drew out her beloved short spear.
Although the spear was stuck in the hard skull, Skathi had no trouble pulling it out, because of her outstanding strength and skills.
“Guess it needs some sharpening again.”
Even the magnificent spear made from the tusk of a Sea Elephant needed some maintenance after the fight to the death with the Huge Pack Dragon.
Muttering to herself, Skathi then looked at her subordinates for the first time and said with a small smile.
The soldiers completely trusted Skathi, even though she was a much better soldier than them despite being a woman.
“Roger!”
Although their answers were not in unison, the robust men obediently followed the female warrior and left the place.
While Xavier eliminated the main force of the Pack Dragons and Skathi defeated the Huge Pack Dragon in single combat, the other forces under the command of Zenjirou stood by for any emergencies in some place far away from the battlefield.
Of course Zenjirou himself was aware of that fact more than anyone and was not even discontent about it. If anything, he was grateful that he ended up having nothing to do, considering what would happen if a real emergency actually were to take place.
Hence Zenjirou felt a bit small in the presence of the girl standing next to him, who he had made play along with his political scheme.
“Are you okay, Princess Freya? If you are tired, I can get you a chair.”
“Thank you very much, Your Majesty Zenjirou. But please do not mind me.”
Even if the chance of Pack Dragons coming all the way here was pretty low, it was still far more dangerous here than inside the city of Valentia.
“You appear to be rather calm. Could it be, you are quite accustomed to situations like this one?”
“No, not at all. It is my first time lying in wait like this. So, to be honest with you, I am rather excited. Did I really appear that calm to you?”
He could have related to it, if she had said nervous, but excited? She was one hell of a princess.
“But I have to say, who would have thought that you really tamed land dragons here? I have heard the stories, but seeing them with my own eyes really impressed me.”
“Are dragons rare on the North Continent?”
“Yes. We really have very few land dragons living on our continent. Although dragons per se are not that rare, since our seas are filled with Sea Dragons as well.”
“Indeed. That is why waterways on the North Continent are said to be so much more dangerous than the land routes. In reality, though, it is not all that dangerous anymore these days thanks to the advance in ships and sea travel.”
“Master Zenjirou.”
Maybe Zenjirou just imagined it, but his smile looked brighter than usual.
Asked curtly like that, Raffaelo broke the goods news to him with a bright smile.
Sir Xavier has engaged the main force of the Pack Dragons and pretty much wiped them out without any causalities.
Zenjirou could not hold back his delight at the long-awaited report.
“Congratulations, Your Majesty Zenjirou.”
“Thank you. It is thanks to your cooperation, too. Your guards are truly excellent warriors.”
“Thank you very much. I am sure she, too, will be pleased to hear that.”
She was sure that her trusted retainer had defeated the Huge Pack Dragon one on one, but Skathi had mentioned that she would “immediately call the others for help if things looked grim”. It would shame Skathi later on, if she carelessly assumed wrong facts now.
Raffaelo asked that and Zenjirou did not object, of course.
“Yes. According to the report from Sir Xavier’s unit, very few Pack Dragons escaped here and there. I am sure these dragons will flee into the forest for now, but we are better safe than sorry.”
A cold shiver ran down his spine, when Zenjirou heard the explanation from Raffaelo. The city of Valentia was located between them and the battlefield, where Xavier and his men had engaged the main force of the Pack Dragons, so it was close to impossible that the scattered surviving dragons would come here, but Zenjirou just not felt comfortable in his skin, when he it was brought to his attention once again.
“Rest assured, Master Zenjirou. Even in the unlikely event that the Pack Dragons come all the way here, we will be able to take care of a dozen of them.”
“I know!”
Zenjirou answered a bit overhasty, as he somehow sensed that he was seen through.
Zenjirou was a surpassing slow walker and could not even ride a Raptorial Dragon, so Raffaelo had prepared a dragon carriage drawn by two Raptorial Dragons. The relative small carriage was originally intended for four people, but right now, it only carried three.
Zenjirou sat next to Princess Freya while Ines sat across from them.
If you were not careful, you could bite your tongue. Zenjirou had experienced that painful fact first hand, so he