Vol 6 Chapter 1

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Kapros furrowed his brows and raised his head to examine the dragon's body, which lay like an impossibly high wall. Vague information about the fantasy creature called a dragon briefly surfaced in his momentarily blank mind.

'This mountain-like thing is a dragon?'

Kapros must have made a very strange expression, because the man gestured to him with a look of suppressed laughter.

"Don't just look over there, let's talk over here. If you are indeed his successor, I can roughly guess why you've come here."

He had said that this enormous red thing here was a dragon. If the voice Kapros had heard when he first entered was that of the dragon, then this man who appeared afterwards had identified himself as the dragon's mental manifestation...

"Could it be that you're the transformed version of that dragon you called Kor?"

Despite the gesture to get to the point, Kapros couldn't help but ask.

The man didn't get angry and just shook his head.

"I am Kor, but Kor is not me. If Kor were me, why would the physical body be here separately? I'm just a strand of the great mind that has emerged from the deepest part of Kor, who is listening to our words with closed eyes here, to converse with you."

It was incredibly confusing. Kapros wanted to grab the man's collar and ask him to speak more simply, but he held back and after mulling it over about three times, he concluded that the man's words meant that one of the dragon's wills had emerged to converse comfortably with him and manifested in human form.

'Huh, the dragon's will? Is such a thing even possible?'

Although he didn't understand well, it seemed that the man wanted to talk with him on behalf of the dragon, so Kapros figured he should speak as if addressing the dragon.

"Ah, I see."

"Yes. It seems you understand. The reason you've come here is to obtain what that mage left behind, right?"

"Yes. I've come this far in search of Lord Superior's traces."

"As I thought. I asked just to be sure. Kor, or rather, I have also been waiting for this moment. It's quite nostalgic."

The man looked up at the dragon, which still appeared as nothing more than a huge wall, with a sentimental expression. Unlike before, the atmosphere had been good from the start, making Kapros think that he might be able to complete the quest easily, but he also felt uneasy. If the quest was resolved this easily, it would be completely opposite to the atmosphere of the Superior quests he had done so far.

"I can feel various emotions from Kor as well. After all, it was he who created this resting place for me and Kor and left a request for this moment."

Watching the man caress the red-scaled tail that seemed more fitting to call a boulder than something capable of emotion, Kapros focused on the strange words he had just heard.

"Wait a moment, please. The person who created this place... who did you say it was?"

"The mage whose traces you said you've been following."

What...? Surely he wasn't saying that this entire cave was now a home that Lord Superior had created for this monster dragon?

This was a splendid dungeon by anyone's standards, just without monsters. Kapros looked at him with a dumbfounded expression, remembering the warning-laden Superior secret text and the lava-boiling valley he had passed through earlier, but the man who claimed to be the dragon's mental manifestation didn't seem to notice his gaze and continued speaking excitedly.

"500 years ago, when Kor had not yet fully escaped the constraints of his physical body, he was severely wounded in an attack by a now-vanished country seeking dragon blood and flesh. The mage who helped Kor then and provided a new home after the war ended was that very mage. He displayed amazing abilities, carving out the mountain to create this home for Kor, who had been wandering without a place to sleep. Moreover, thanks to him arranging for suitable cohabiting races to move in nearby, we've been able to live very comfortably until now. Considering the favor we received then, his request is a small matter."

"..."

According to these words, this dragon had known Lord Superior for a very long time, from before the war ended until after. This was the second person Kapros had met who spoke about Superior after the war, following the elf Ilumine he had met in the desert village.

With such a relationship, they should be close, so why had the Superior in the stick told him not to say anything about himself? As Kapros was lost in thought, the man examined his expression and asked a final question.

"If you have no more questions, may I now fulfill my promise to him?"

"...Please do."

Thinking that he should first confirm what Superior had asked of this dragon, Kapros quietly answered, and the man smiled and extended his hand.

"First, here are the memories he entrusted to me."

"Pardon?"

Whoosh!

Just as Kapros looked, thinking the man was about to hand him an object, a bright light burst forth from the man's palm. It was the familiar light that signaled the start of a quest memory video.

'To show the video in this way this time, as always, there was nothing predictable about this quest in particular.'

With such thoughts, Kapros was sucked into Superior's memories, which he had seen so many times he had lost count. Soon the world blinked to black, and when he regained his senses, an unfamiliar cave he had never seen before unfolded before his eyes.

The view, descending as if plunging from the sky, revealed a huge red dragon inside the cave surrounded by what looked like a sea of blood. Of the two people standing beside it, the man with long red hair trailing like a tail, Lord Superior, opened his mouth with a long sigh.

"I managed to divert it somehow... but the bleeding won't stop."

"What are you going to do now? Because of you, I've basically just betrayed my country."

"You're not the only one. Me too. We just need to not get caught~ Just not get caught."

Ignoring the slightly resentful muttering of the man in black armor, the Dark Knight, Superior approached the dragon's face, which had its eyes closed and mouth tightly shut, and tapped its scales.