Chapter 129:
The Pact
“I SEE! What a fascinating idea!”
Living such long lives meant that the elder dragons had lots of time to get bored. Zalm, much like Kragon, had found a form of recreation in mingling with the lower life-forms. Knowing this, Mile had been hopeful that she could get Zalm on board with her plan, and her hunch had proven correct.
“Shall we proceed, then?”
“Wait a moment. I have something to say before that,” the boss dragon cut in from the sidelines of their conversation.
Clearly, he had zero interest in introducing himself to lesser life-forms. He might well get offended if such lowly creatures were simply to ask for his name. Therefore, the girls’ only option was to keep referring to him as “the boss” or “the bigger one” in their heads and avoid using identifiers aloud.
So, the “boss” went on, “You must first engrave my horns and talons!”
“Sure thing!”
The members of the Crimson Vow could agree to that, especially since, once that was out of the way, the boss dragon might say his business was finished and head home. Hoping for exactly that, Mile decided to hurry up and get the makeover session over with. She had racked up plenty of experience doing decorative carvings for elder dragons, so it wasn’t going to be a challenge for her at this point.
Besides, even if he wasn’t satisfied with the final product, it was said that elder dragons could grow back their horns and claws. This meant that Mile could go about her carving with relative peace of mind. If the dragons were going to be stuck with her engravings for the rest of their lives, she might have been a little more hesitant about it.
An elder dragon lived a long time, after all. As an artist, it would be pure torture to have the unpolished works of her youth endure for thousands of years.
***
“…And then I gathered light energy from the stars and unleashed it into the enemy’s path of attack!”
“………”
Mile was chatting with the elder dragons as she did their talons. Carving in silence for hours on end would have been more psychological stress than she could bear. In her past life as Misato, simply talking to someone she had never met before would have been quite a hurdle to overcome, but in her new life, sitting next to someone in total silence was a different flavor of agony.
Aiming for a combination of small talk and information gathering, she had listened as the elder dragons regaled her with their stories. Eventually the boss dragon had said, “It’s not a conversation if we are the only ones doing the talking. Tell us something about yourself.”
Most elder dragons would never show curiosity about one of the lower life-forms, and they certainly wouldn’t be interested in or even understand their idea of small talk. So, naturally, Mile stuck to talking about her dealings with other elder dragons or the final battle on the old continent. Though it was hard for humans to tell, the two dragons wore dubious, bemused expressions as they listened.
The boss dragon had already heard the whole story from a young dragon named Kragon, an emissary from a foreign clan. Still, hearing it and believing it were two different things.
The divine messenger. The fulfillment of their creators’ decree. And it was this fragile, female, lesser life-form who had made it all possible…
Unbelievable! He refused to acknowledge it!
What’s worse, the foreign fledgling had spat in the face of his elder dragon pride to practically idolize this lowly creature. The only reason a dragon of the boss’s status had deigned to come here in person was to confirm the facts for himself.
And yet…
“I think it would look cooler if I sharpened your talons a bit, but that might weaken them. Should I leave them be?”
“Shave them down all you like.”
“Will do!”
And so the girl blithely continued to scrape away at an elder dragon’s talons.
Impossible… This cannot be…
The talons of an elder dragon could tear through steel, rock, and everything in between. Yet according to the fledgling, they had been easier for the girl to whittle than a soft piece of wood with a knife. To prove his point, he had allowed a close inspection of his own horn and talons.
Even so, the boss had been skeptical—no, he had refused to believe it.
What would happen should the female lower life-form standing before him thrust the blade in her hand into his heart…
This is insanity…
Just then, the fledgling’s words came back to haunt him.
“You must not make an enemy of Lady Mile. She may be human, but she is not to be trifled with by an elder dragon. She is a true messenger of the divine, one with compassion for all living things.”
“This cannot be…”
“Hm? What did you just say?”
“Nothing.”
The elder dragon had blurted out what he was thinking before he could stop himself.
This cannot be…
***
“How’s it look?”
“Mm, let’s see… I suppose it is acceptable.”
The elder dragon was playing it cool, but there was a grin plastered across his face. He was clearly quite taken with the design.
“Next, for my horns…”
“Oh, hold on. I’d like to do the other guy’s…the other dragon’s talons first. If I have to alternate between doing talons and horns, it’ll throw me off my game.”
“Hmph… I once heard from a human that technicians and artists have their own self-imposed rules. Do as you see fit.”
“Great, thanks!”
It was a little surprising that this boss dragon had once talked with a human about these matters. And he was rather accommodating, too.
This guy…er, dragon…may not hate humans as much as it seems!
That was Mile’s take. It was probably truer to say that, much as few humans feel love or hate for water fleas, it was not often that an elder dragon went out of its way to develop positive or negative feelings toward a human. Or any feelings at all, really.
Though as the phrasing “not often” implied, it did happen on occasion.
***
“………”
The two elder dragons stared wordlessly into the giant faux full-length mirror Mile had created through optical interference. Apparently, they liked what they saw.
Mile had explained that she would do the boss’s horns after she got into her groove, which meant carving Zalm’s talons and horns first. Then, she would finally get around to carving the boss’s horns.
Even that explanation served to make an impression on the elder dragons. If an elder dragon said to do something, it didn’t matter if it seemed like there was a better way to go about it. No living being would dare object! Though this was a nice ego boost for the elder dragons, it got boring when the same thing happened over and over again. But alas, there wasn’t a creature in existence that would risk offending one of their kind.
This lower life-form, however, had flat-out refused the boss dragon’s demand to do his makeover first. It wasn’t out of some petulant need to rebel, either, but so that she could craft a better design for the senior than his junior. Out of pure consideration and attention to detail, she had risked the wrath of an elder dragon without a second thought.
If only she had kept her mouth shut, he wouldn’t have known if her work was up to par or not.
She was an idiot, the elder dragon decided.
However, an “idiot” and a “fool” were two different things. And he didn’t have anything against idiots like her.
It would be a waste to go straight home…and I have nothing better to do, besides. I suppose seeing this through to the end with Zalm could prove a suitable diversion.
***
“All right, time to begin the preparations for our plan. Let’s start by building the dogsled…or wolfsled, I guess?”
Now that she was done rewarding the elder dragons, it was Mile’s turn.
***
“We’re in trouble! It’s a monster stampeeeede!!” shouted the sentry posted outside the village perimeter, charging into the heart of the village with a face as white as a ghost.
“WHAAAAAT?!” the villagers screamed back, but there was little to be done.
If the news had come from a survey team sent from the capital, there might have been a way forward. They could fortify their defenses, even evacuate if necessary. Unfortunately, if the sentry had been the one to witness the incoming threat, the time lag between his report and the arrival of the monsters could be no more than a few seconds. A few dozen at best. With so little time, the most they could do was retreat into their houses and shut the doors. And against a stampede of monsters, a rickety wooden house would offer no more defense than a wet piece of paper.
We’re done for! thought the villagers.
Just as all hope was lost, something burst into view.
And that something was a sled.
It was being pulled along by a team of dogs…no, wolves. Another two dozen wolves followed close behind. Riding atop the sled were four familiar girls and one pure white pup.
Relief washed over the villagers. Evidently, the sentry had mistaken this bizarre spectacle for a “monster stampede.”
“Wait a second, nothing about that is a relief!”
“What in the blazes is going on?!”
The villagers went back to panicking.
Then Mile bellowed, “Ho ho ho, I’ve got a couple of village big shots on my naughty list!”
“AHHHHHH!!”
***
“…And you claim these wolves told you the full story?”
The bulk of the villagers were gathered in the town square, where the Crimson Vow, the village chief, and the other big shots had settled down for their talks. The wolves weren’t allowed in any of the buildings, and both the opponents of the chief’s faction and the neutral parties had insisted on being present, so the square was the only suitable place for the meeting.
Such a large gathering also meant that most of the village was currently accounted for.
The villagers had been terrified of the wolves at first, but they calmed down when they saw how obedient the wolves were to Mile and how the white pup, who appeared to be the leader of the pack, sat nicely beside her. Granted, this didn’t mean they had let their guards down completely.
“Got it in one!” said Mile. “The wolves told us that they never went to your village. Submitting a fraudulent request to the Hunters’ Guild means deceiving the guild and endangering its hunters, so it’s considered a very serious offense. You won’t get off with just a fine or a warning. In addition to guild sanctions, you’ll be charged with attempted murder for intentionally putting hunters in harm’s way. The authorities will come arrest you and sentence you to penal servitude.”
The chief and village bigwigs were taken aback, but even a child should have known what she was telling them.
“B-but what of the damage to our livestock?!” the chief protested, distraught. “How do you explain—”
“Oh? Now isn’t this curious,” Mile cut him off, deliberately adopting a grating drawl. “The Forbidden Forest is filled with monsters and animals that wolves love to hunt. With such plentiful prey available to them, I find it very hard to believe that they’d go so far out of their way to look for quarries. Besides, remember what you told us when we first came to the village? One animal is killed each night, and its carcass is left behind. Doesn’t add up, does it? A pack of this size, hunting one animal at a time? And they don’t even drag the body home? What about the pups back in the den and the females left behind to protect them? Are we sure this was the work of wolves or monsters from the forest?”
The chief’s faction blanched and fell silent.
Anger began to overtake the villagers’ faces as they realized what Mile was getting at.
“Wh-what proof do you have of these claims?!” the chief countered.
“Do you have any proof that it was these wolves, and not humans, who attacked the livestock? Surely you wouldn’t blame them without proof and submit a fraudulent request to the guild?” Mile shot down his argument. “Heck, the people—the wolves in question have already flat-out denied the accusation, so you don’t have much of a leg to stand on.”
Aha! That’s where we strike!
Backed into a precarious position, the chief seized his opportunity for a comeback. His opponent had screwed up and told a blatant lie. If he just exposed that lie of hers, he could write off the rest of her points as bogus as well.
With that in mind, he didn’t hesitate to go in for the kill. “You expect us to believe that you can communicate with a wolf?! Nonsense! Everything you’ve said so far has been a bunch of lies and hogwash!”
Grin.
The corners of Mile’s mouth turned up a fraction.
Oh, yes—she had left that opening on purpose. Just as the chief thought that he only had to expose her one lie, all she had to do was definitively debunk his counterargument.
“Oh, but I can.”
“Prove it, then!”
Fully aware this was impossible, the village chief was assured of his victory. But then…
“Okay. I will.”
“Huh?”
Ignoring the blank look on the chief’s face, Mile shouted, “You’re up, Zalm!”
No one by that name was present. Thus, Mile’s call to action sounded like some kind of indecipherable nonsense to the village officials. Until…
YES, YES, WE’RE ON IT!
Though a touch disgruntled, the nanomachines relayed her message to Zalm, who was waiting just outside the village. A few seconds later, two elder dragons appeared in the sky over the town square, only to swoop down in a straight line and land gently in the middle of the crowd. It must have been done through some sort of gravity control magic, as their wings didn’t kick up a gust of wind or send the villagers flying.
Indeed, after flying low enough that the humans wouldn’t detect their approach, walking slowly and silently the rest of the way, and lurking in the nearby shadows, the elder dragons had finally made their entrance.
“AHHHHHH!!”
Despite their panicked screaming, the villagers just stood there, trembling. They were too scared to move a muscle.
It was an understandable reaction. Even if they tried to run, there was no escaping an elder dragon’s attack on human legs. Besides, there was nowhere to go; at best, they could duck into their houses and bolt the doors. That wasn’t going to help them against such a fearsome creature.
Just as it dawned on the villagers that the destruction of their village and their own deaths were imminent, one of the elder dragons said, “Are there any naughty humans around? Any naughty villagers here?”
This was a riff on the namahage, a child-terrorizing ogre of Japanese lore. Mile was the one who had pitched the line, but Zalm seemed to be having fun with it.
“Wha-wha-wha-wha…”
The chief and his villagers slumped to the ground, shivering and shaking. The sheer presence of the almighty erased even the thought of escape from their minds. Not many could keep their wits about them in the face of an elder dragon. And these were ordinary villagers, not fighters…
Then Mile asked Zalm, “O mighty elder dragon, you interpreted for us and the wolves, didn’t you?”
“I did indeed.”
“And the wolves went on the record that they didn’t attack the village livestock, didn’t they?”
“They did indeed.”
“And wolves don’t have the intelligence or courage to lie to an elder dragon, do they?”
“Indeed they do not.”
Mile turned back to the village officials. “There you have it! QED!”
“………”
It was all over in the span of a moment…
What kind of girl called upon an elder dragon to prove that she was telling the truth? Most people would rather shut up and take the false accusation than ask such a fearsome being for help with their petty human errands. It was what anyone with common sense would do, lest they anger the creature into wiping out the entire kingdom.
Yet Mile and friends had dared to seek an elder dragon’s aid. And not just one—two of them.
There was no hope of standing up to such a mad bunch. Nothing was worth incurring their wrath. Not unless you were interested in seeing your homeland reduced to ashes…
Seizing real power over the village? Making a profit from the resources in the forest? What a joke that had all turned out to be. If it resulted in the destruction of not only this tiny village but also the entire territory and kingdom, what was the point?
The elder dragon turned to the village chief and said, “On that note, I have a question of my own for you.”
“Mm-mmh?”
It was all the man could do just to get down on his hands and knees. He couldn’t hope to form proper words.
“Several hundred years ago, I mediated a dispute between the forest dwellers and the humans and negotiated a non-aggression pact. What possessed you to violate it? Why would you disgrace me as a witness to the agreement?”
At these words, the village chief and most of his faction passed out cold, a few even frothing at the mouth.
***
“…In short, the wild animals and monsters of the forest all know to stay away from the humans or else face the wrath of the elder dragons, but on the human side, the villagers were just told not to venture into the Forbidden Forest with no further explanation. The details of the story were only passed down to the chief and elders by word of mouth, so parts of the story were lost over the generations. You never know when an old-timer is going to kick the bucket, so as the years went by, there were cases where the chief and elders died in quick succession before they could pass the information on.”
In a village like this, it wasn’t uncommon for deaths to occur at the same time from the same cause, such as an epidemic or food poisoning. Tragically, that could very well extend to the village chief and elders…
“One way or another, all that remained was a vague warning to not enter the Forbidden Forest. Eventually, it was assumed that the practice arose because of the dangerous monsters lurking inside, and people began to talk of hiring hunters to slay them in order to get their hands on the forest’s resources. That’s when a conflict arose between those who wanted to uphold the practice of staying far away from the forest and those who wanted to reap its bounty. In conclusion, no one here meant to disobey Zalm; they were simply unaware of the pact in the first place.”
The elder dragon called Zalm huffed in acknowledgment of Mile’s summary. “I am aware that human generations turn over in the blink of an eye. I shall grant that the humans did not knowingly violate the pact and drag my name through the mud, even if the forest dwellers managed to preserve the history by sharing a simple dictum among their kind. Can I trust you all to keep your word henceforth?”
“MM-HMMMM!” squeaked the villagers.
With the non-aggression pact between the forest dwellers and the humans now reaffirmed, the elder dragons and animals prepared to take their leave.
Just then, one of the wolves pulling the sled nuzzled up against Reina.
“Eek! Aww, there, there. Are you sad to be saying goodbye?” asked Reina, ruffling its fur with gusto.
“No. It says its back was just itchy.”
“………”
Next, the white pup licked Mile’s cheek.
“Aww, there’s a good boy!”
“It says you taste nice and salty.”
“………”
“You don’t need to translate every little thing!” both girls bellowed.
Sometimes, it was better not to speak an animal’s language. That was Mavis and Pauline’s takeaway.
***
With that, the dragons and wolves went home.
But before they departed, one of the elder dragons even told Mile to call on him if she needed anything else. The big surprise? It wasn’t Zalm, but the older dragon, who offered his aid.
“He sure seemed to like Mile,” Mavis noted.
“………”
Mile, Reina, and Pauline all looked spent.
“Well, we should have seen that coming…” said Reina.
“This is how it always ends,” sighed Pauline.
“What’s that supposed to mean?!” Mile objected.
The villagers shot the girls looks of incredulous amusement.
It shouldn’t have been a particularly lighthearted moment, but the reality probably had yet to sink in. After being cross-examined by an elder dragon and living to tell the tale, the village chief’s faction was praying to the gods with tears streaming down their cheeks, thanking the heavens for this storybook miracle.
Little did they know that the true danger had yet to pass…
“Now then, Mr. Chief,” said Mile. The village chief looked up in surprise and stopped his crying. “I told the elder dragons that story to stop them from destroying the kingdom…but you really did know about the pact, didn’t you?”
The chief gave a start. “H-how did you—”
“Well, you instructed us to eradicate the wolves, with a special focus on the white one. You wouldn’t give an order like that unless you knew that it spoke for the monsters and animals of the forest in diplomatic dealings with humans. The forest is home to bears and all sorts of dangerous animals, plus various species of monsters, but you went out of your way to single out the wolves—specifically the white one, who’s still just a pup. What purpose would that serve but to nullify the pact?”
“………”
“Plus, there’s a faction here that clearly opposes your actions. That implies a strong, deep-rooted taboo against trespassing in the Forbidden Forest. Otherwise, those who insist on going despite the risks would be free to run off and get themselves killed. Not that they’re any less guilty of tricking the Hunters’ Guild and endangering its hunters. We’ve got you all on one count of attempted murder of a hunter by deceiving the guild with a fraudulent request. Plus one count of treason for angering the elder dragons and sparking a crisis that threatened the very survival of the kingdom. Even if you believed the elder dragons hadn’t resurfaced in hundreds of years, surely you didn’t think you could get away with this, did you?”
“………”
The big shots in the village chief’s faction slowly sidled away from him.
“Don’t even try it! You guys are just as guilty!”
The other villagers slunk away from the chief’s supporters, but Mile turned to them as well.
“Not so fast! The Hunters’ Guild, your local lord, and His Majesty the King won’t distinguish between the various factions within the village. They’ll just consider it the work of Such-and-Such Village. All of you—from the village chief and the top officials to the regular villagers—decided this together, didn’t you? You better believe that you’re all in the same boat!”
“Nooooooo!”
“P-please spare us!” the village chief begged, getting down on his hands and knees.
“Well, we can’t exactly pretend like this never happened! If it comes out later that we covered up a serious scandal involving elder dragons, it’ll be curtains for us,” said Mile. “And if we let you off scot-free after the mess you made, word might get around to the other villages that you can be pardoned for any crime if you just get down on your hands and knees, or that you can scam the Hunters’ Guild with impunity as long as you apologize. We certainly can’t have that…
“If we go easy on you now, the secret will definitely get out, the village kids will go around bragging about it like it’s some kind of epic tale, and heck, those same kids will probably go on to repeat your mistakes. Not to mention, we have to document stuff like the pact and the elder dragons in the city records, and we have an obligation to provide a full and accurate account of this quest to the guild. This is a responsibility that we, as hunters, absolutely must uphold. Sorry, but our only option is to tell the guild the full truth.”
“If you had just asked us to ‘exterminate the monsters in the forest,’ it wouldn’t have been an issue,” Pauline elaborated. “However, your request specified ‘exterminating whatever is preying on the livestock,’ when nothing of the sort exists. That means you dangled made-up bait and scammed the Hunters’ Guild with a fraudulent request, endangering professional hunters by pitting them against monsters far beyond expectations.”
The villagers swallowed hard.
“So what does that mean for them?” Mavis asked, and an ominous smile rose to Pauline’s face.
Of course, all of this had been explained to the girls when they first came to the continent and registered as hunters, so Mavis knew the answer to her own question. She was just playing along with Pauline.
“Knowingly endangering a hunter with a fraudulent request is considered a first-degree attack against not just the Hunters’ Guilds, but the Mercenaries’ Guilds, Merchants’ Guilds, Artisans’ Guilds, Maritime Guilds, Medical Guilds, and so on. All the guilds on the continent will deem the perpetrator a common foe. While the different guilds may be in conflict more often than not, if someone picks a fight with the system in and of itself, they are considered an enemy of guilds everywhere. It’s the only way to defend the authority of the organizations and ensure that no other fools attempt a similar stunt.
“If this village is deemed an enemy of the guilds’ organizations, structure, and system as a whole, no hunters, peddlers, traveling doctors or apothecaries, herbalists, knife grinders, or tinkers will ever come here again. No one with ties to the guilds will purchase the crops or monster carcasses you bring to the port city, and no innkeeper will rent you a room. That’s what happens when you antagonize a guild.”
“………”
The villagers turned white as ghosts.
“We’re your clients! You work for us! You little ladies are supposed to be following our orders! Refusing to exterminate the wolves is a breach of contract! We’ll lodge a complaint with the guild about what happened here! We’ll tell them that you used the ridiculous excuse of the elder dragons’ appearance to extort a huge sum of money from us, and when we refused to pay, you started spouting utter poppycock! If it’s the testimony of four novice hunters versus an entire village, including its chief, who do you think the guild will believe? But if you girls back down, I promise to sign your job completion form. You’ll get the agreed-upon reward for completing the quest, plus the contribution points that go with it, all without lifting a finger! It’s not a bad deal by any means!”
“Aww, he’s still going at it…”
“He doesn’t know when to give up…”
Mavis and Reina seemed unmoved by the chief’s arguments.
“We’re contracted hunters, so of course we plan to carry out the job we were hired to do. It’s only right!” said Mile, a grin spreading across her face. Upon hearing this, the other members of the Crimson Vow smiled along with her. “Since the request was to ‘exterminate whatever is preying on the livestock,’ we need to take down the real culprits who harmed and killed those animals—and that means you and your crew! Isn’t that right, Chief?”
“Huh? Wha…?”
“Whaaaaaat?!” the villagers exclaimed, flabbergasted by Mile’s insane leap of logic.
And then…
Whoosh!
Many of the men gathered in the square had armed themselves with hoes or sickles, thinking a monster stampede was on the way. Those same men now surrounded the Crimson Vow with fierce glares and farming tools brandished like weapons.
“You girls leave us no choice. We’ll have to kill you here,” said the elderly chief. “A group of young female hunters who lacked the skill to make it as hunters took on a mission beyond their abilities, failed, and never made it back from the forest. That’s all there ever was to this story. We cannot risk offending the elder dragons, which means staying out of the forest, but they won’t be any the wiser if you lot up and disappear, nor do I suspect they care overly much about our human affairs anyway. All we have to do is claim that you failed the job and died somewhere along the line.”
Awww, c’mon, the girls whined internally.
The villagers had yet to see the Crimson Vow fight. All the girls had done so far was go into the forest and return with a bunch of wolves. From the villagers’ perspective, it likely looked as though the girls had simply run into the wolves and the elder dragons, who just so happened to be checking in on the forest dwellers. It might appear they had simply talked things out and then all come back together. No combat was involved, which meant that the Crimson Vow had not had a chance to show their stuff. As far as the villagers knew, they were just some lucky little girls who had encountered a few gentle, understanding elder dragons and gotten lucky enough to make it out alive.
In that case, the difference in numbers would be far too great for them to overcome. What’s more, the villagers’ daily routine of farming, logging, fetching water, and hunting had given them quite a bit of muscle mass; any one of them could easily wipe the floor with a scrawny female hunter. Or, at least, it was inevitable that they would assume as much.
“Don’t kill them,” Reina instructed. “But feel free to hurt them all you like!”
With Mile and Pauline around, a few broken bones or mangled organs would be no big deal. Whatever injuries they suffered would be healed up with magic later on. For now, it was okay to inflict a little pain on people who were literally trying to murder them. Why, the men ought to be grateful they were willing to spare them at all.
“Roger that!” the other three cried out with enthusiasm.
“Get them!”
The villagers descended at their chief’s command.
***
“I guess it wasn’t gonna end any other way,” muttered Mile, viewing the hellscape laid out before her.
The adults of the village littered the square, sporting all manner of broken bones and bruises. Not all of them, though—just the dozen or so who had attacked the Crimson Vow.
Needless to say, the girls had held back quite a bit. Unless the difference in strength was significant, it was difficult to capture an enemy who was out to kill without dealing them a fatal blow. Here, however, that hadn’t proved an issue. The girls had barely had to hurt their attackers. The power imbalance had been so great that they could even take care not to break the farming tools the men were wielding as weapons.
The members of the Crimson Vow made sure to inflict enough pain to teach the villagers a lesson, but endeavored to keep injuries to a minimum. To that end, magic had only been used for restraining purposes, and Mavis and Mile had done most of the heavy lifting. All of their blows had been delivered with the flats of their swords—“blunt strikes,” as the girls called them.
No matter how much the pair pulled their punches, a blow from an iron rod was bound to result in bruises and fractures. But with Mile and Pauline, both of whom were top-class users of healing magic, around, it was okay to rough the men up a bit.
Offensive magic was difficult to calibrate to the desired level of injury, and burns were both harder to heal than bruises or broken bones and tended to leave scars. Therefore, Reina had done the villagers the kindness of not using her fire magic.
“Should we take these guys back to town with us?” Reina proposed. “There’s no way we can remember all their faces. If we leave them here and head back alone, they’ll blend in with the other villagers and we won’t be able to tell which ones stepped up to kill us later on. If that happens, everyone in the village will be tried as accomplices to attempted murder, and I’d feel kinda bad for the ones who weren’t involved in the attack.”
The other villagers hastily bobbed their heads. They obviously valued their own lives more than those of their neighbors who had resorted to violence.
The peasants of this world were good at surviving against the odds, even if that meant resorting to cunning tactics and taking advantage of others. They were a bit like weeds, choking out their fellow plants for the sake of survival…
***
In the end, Mile drew sketches of the attackers and had a few randomly selected villagers whisper their names to her. She had explained beforehand, “If you give us a fake name, the fact that it differs from what the others tell us will be a dead giveaway. If that happens, the liar will be treated as an accomplice and face the same punishment as the culprits.” And so, the testimonies had all been consistent. It seemed that not a single person had lied. Clearly, they really did care more about themselves than those who had mustered up the courage to resort to violence and protect the village.
Even under the circumstances, it was unlikely that any villagers would try to escape. They knew what became of farmers who abandoned their lands and fled. Furthermore, they were probably naive enough to think that no one would benefit from their arrest. The local lord would lose subjects, which would reduce crop yields—a.k.a. taxes. The Hunters’ Guild would have fewer people to submit requests. These newbie hunters would gain a reputation as the angels of death who had brought a village to ruin.
They were citizens of the region who had worked diligently all their lives. If all their testimonies were consistent, the accounts of a few fresh-faced rookies would mean nothing.
If they could just ride this out, everything would be okay. Even if the city police got involved, they could claim that these girls had made false accusations against the village and blackmailed them for money and goods without fulfilling their request. Such overly optimistic thoughts crossed many a mind. At their core, they were a sheltered bunch who knew nothing but what passed for common sense in the village and interpreted everything to suit their own convenience.
With that, Mile and friends returned to the port city, leaving the chief’s faction and the other villagers behind. It would have been a pain to travel all the way back to town with the chief and his gang in tow, and on the off-chance the men deserted their land and ran, they wouldn’t have the means to support themselves for long.
When the band of rookie hunters walked away without apprehending them, the villagers dismissed the girls as pushovers, assuming that all their threats had been empty words and letting them leave in peace. Of course, it wasn’t up to the Crimson Vow to decide what to do with the villagers. The girls thought it best to turn the matter over to the proper officials.
***
“What?! The request from the village was a hoax?” the Hunters’ Guild clerk exclaimed in surprise upon hearing the Crimson Vow’s report.
As the guild staff and hunters listened in on the conversation, their expressions turned grim.
“Yes. No monsters or animals had attacked the village. It was all staged by the village chief and his clique. They tricked us hunters into trespassing in the Forbidden Forest and breaking a pact negotiated by elder dragons. And that’s when a couple of elder dragons just happened to show up…”
Shouts rang out throughout the guildhall. “HOLD ON! BACK UP, BACK UP, BACK UP, BACK UP!!”
“W-w-wait just a moment! Stop right theeeere!!” the clerk stammered. “By the power vested in me as an employee of the Hunters’ Guild, I forbid you to say anything more here! L-Let’s head to the second floor! Come upstairs to the conference room! All executives are to assemble in the conference room at once! Someone run to the Merchants’ Guild and bring back the guild master coordinating next month’s caravan escort schedule! This is top priority!! All hunters and staff present are forbidden to speak of what they just heard! Anyone who leaks this information before it’s made public will be subject to disciplinary dismissal if they’re an employee and permanent loss of their badge if they’re a hunter!”
Silence settled over the room. The color drained from the faces of the hunters and staff.
If this information were to get out and wreak havoc across the kingdom, they would have more to worry about than a lost badge. Punishment from the local lord—not to mention the Crown—could very well entail a beheading or hanging. Worse still, the consequences probably wouldn’t stop with the individual responsible. Their families, relatives, and loved ones who had helped spread the story would also be implicated.
“What are you standing around for?! Go summon the guild master!”
With a start, a young staff member rushed out the door.
***
“………”
Silence enveloped the conference room.
Mile told the audience what had happened, exactly as it had transpired. This was neither the time nor place to show mercy or cover for the villagers. As a hunter, it was her sworn duty to report the outcome of the mission and the existence of those who would do the guild wrong. It wasn’t a rule that she could break out of cheap pity.
If she gave an inaccurate account, it could trigger a catastrophe in which hundreds of thousands or even millions of lives were lost. Such was the case when elder dragons were part of the picture. Consequently, if it came out that she was withholding the facts, she and her friends would face punishment. And a rather severe one, at that…
Still, the Crimson Vow didn’t want to see all the villagers punished and their home brought to ruin. There were people living there who had opposed the chief’s actions. The whole fiasco could be chalked up to the village chief’s faction and his supporters—in other words, a single subset of the village—getting out of hand. Thus, if she placed the blame squarely on the ringleaders, it was unlikely that anyone else would attempt a similar stunt. Not for another few centuries, at least, assuming this episode became part of the local lore…
As such, the Crimson Vow may have gone a bit overboard in emphasizing that most of the villagers had played no part in the incident—or rather, that they stood in opposition to the chief’s faction. In reality, the sheer clout of the chief and his cronies was a sign that the majority of the community tacitly condoned his methods.
To cover their bases, they had put a full confession in writing and made the chief sign it. Under the delusion that he could later dismiss it as something he’d been coerced into writing, he’d complied without much of a fight, but obviously this did wonders for the Crimson Vow’s case.
“And there you have it. The matter is settled, more or less, and we reached an understanding with the elder dragons. Oh, and should the elder dragons get mixed up in this case again, just call for Zalm…uh, an elder dragon…and drop my name, and I’m sure he’ll work something out.”
Pfff!
Just as the guild master had taken a sip of tea to calm his nerves, he spat it back out…spraying it right into Reina’s face.
Though Reina’s first reaction was rage, it wasn’t the guild master’s fault that he had reacted thusly. She understood that, which was why she was shaking with the effort of holding herself back.
No matter how understandable his surprise had been, the guild master ought to have apologized to her straight away, but he was in no state of mind to consider her feelings. “Y-you exchanged names?!”
“Well, of course. It would be rude not to introduce myself to someone—well, some dragon—I’m meeting for the first time.”
“It’s not you I’m surprised about! Th-the elder dragon told you his name?!”
“Th-that’s right…”
The guild master was right to be surprised. When poking an ant with a twig, most people wouldn’t bother to introduce themselves. In the same vein, an elder dragon hardly ever deigned to tell a human being its name.
“………”
Silence reigned in the conference room once more. Apart from Mile and the guild master, no one made a sound save for the occasional breath.
“And you think the elder dragon remembers your name?”
“Yes, I’m fairly certain.”
“………”
No way. It was impossible. The only way that could be true was…
“Ah!”
The guild master recalled a rumor he’d heard from a foreign sailor not too long ago. It was such a ludicrous story that he’d laughed it off and forgotten all about it at the time.
“One, two, three, four… Yeah, there sure are four of you…”
The numbers added up.
Almost without meaning to, the guild master muttered the title of the story to himself. “The Four Dragon Priestess Sisters…”
“Ack!”
The name that escaped his lips certainly rang a bell for the Crimson Vow. Perhaps a bit too much of one…
This being a port city, information of interest to sailors traveled blessedly fast, but the same could not be said for news from the royal capital. Unless a merchant caravan happened to be passing through on land, information was slow to arrive from that direction. And though news had spread among the residents of the capital within the day, the formal public announcement that their kingdom had established cordial relations with an elder dragon and his foreign princess friend had been delayed a few days due to a slew of meetings, so word had yet to reach this town.
“No, hold up, the rumor said that the elder dragon and the priestesses were friends… These girls just so happened to encounter the dragons in a forest mid-mission, so I guess there’s no connection. Maybe it’s just a coincidence that both stories featured four girls…”
The Crimson Vow nodded along in enthusiastic agreement. So enthusiastic, in fact, that a few of the guild executives shot them skeptical looks. The guild master, who had more brawn than brains, carried on, oblivious.
“All right, I think I get the gist of it. For now, we’ll proceed with our investigation under the assumption that everything you’ve told us is true. There’s zero reason for you girls to lie, after all… You’re new around here, don’t know anyone, and don’t have any attachments. And I know you’re not stupid enough to risk expulsion from the guild by filing a false report about a low-paying quest that you basically took on as volunteer work. Why bother? You could make an honest living easily. We also have a written confession from the village chief, though we can’t say for sure whether it was forged or not. Aside from the story itself sounding completely unbelievable, nothing seems amiss.”
Indeed, the story itself did sound completely unbelievable. The Crimson Vow didn’t need to be told this.
Oh, I know!
Eureka! A brilliant idea popped into Mile’s head.
“Would you accept this as evidence?”
“Huh?”
She took something out of her inventory and set it on the conference table. And that something was…
“A scale?”
“It’s a giant…scale…”
“Yes, it’s the scale of an elder dragon. He let me keep this as a memento!”
“WHAAAAAAAT?!”
The scale wasn’t a recent acquisition. All she had taken from this particular encounter were horn and talon shavings. Nail clippings wouldn’t make much of an impression, however, and no one would even recognize talon dust at a glance. Instead, Mile had pulled out the scale she’d kept in her inventory from a previous incident.
Bending the truth and tricking others with false evidence was wrong, but lying to convey the truth and serve justice was permissible. It was a stance that Mile’s flexible mindset (read: self-serving ideology) allowed her to embrace. It seemed that the rest of the party agreed with her philosophy, as they watched her do this without saying a word.
The scale of an elder dragon, let alone one in mint condition with no defects, couldn’t be found on the market. Even if there were one for sale, a young hunter would have no way of acquiring it.
In other words, the item on the table must have been obtained directly from the source.
“………”
“Okay! In light of your testimony, our Hunters’ Guild branch will let the villagers present any counterevidence they may have. At the very least, we know for a fact that an elder dragon was involved. None of us doubt your word.”
The guild master and staff seemed to have resigned themselves to the reality the Crimson Vow had presented them with. And then…
“Hey, any interest in selling this scale to the guild? If we sell it to His Majesty through the capital branch, you’ll get a boatload of money and contribution points, and our branch will score a lot of guild points! C’mon, whaddya say?!”
In fact, the royal palace was already in possession of two pristine scales, and a third wouldn’t be worth quite as much coin or contribution points. This scale had no connection to the other two, and the elder dragon to whom it belonged would never come around to inquire about the selling price. With that in mind, the royal palace would try to negotiate as low a price as possible, or even decline to buy it for “lack of budget” and tell the guild to sell it to a leading domestic merchant.
But the point was moot, anyway.
“It was a gift from an elder dragon, so we really shouldn’t…”
“Yeah, I figured.”
The Crimson Vow wasn’t hurting for money, and theft wasn’t a concern as long as they stored their belongings in Mile’s enormous inventory. Thus, there was no need to rush to sell their valuables or anything that could be worth more if they held onto it. Once they made it to the capital, they could choose to sell their stock directly or put it up to auction.
For these reasons, the guild master had made the suggestion mostly just to see what they would say. He didn’t actually seem too disappointed by their refusal.
With that, the case was closed. The rest was for the guild and government officials to handle.
Mile and friends left the conference room, stopped at the first-floor purchasing counter to sell a few premium monster corpses (which they claimed to have hunted in the Forbidden Forest but had actually removed from Mile’s inventory), and went back to their inn.
***
A few days had passed when a handful of village youths showed up at the inn where the Crimson Vow was staying. Evidently, they had gone around and checked with all the inns in town to track them down.
Innkeepers never divulged information about their guests, lest it reflect poorly on their integrity, so it was unclear how the youths had managed to find the hunters. Going to the guildhall likely would have been a quicker way to go about it. But regardless…
“One of the elder dragons says he wants to see you. He’s waiting in the nearby forest, so we’ll show you the way.”
The girls certainly couldn’t refuse a summons like that. Even if a dragon were to offer to come meet them in town, total panic would ensue at the sight of such a creature in a populated area. A happening like this could very well end in mass death. Their only option was to go where they were summoned.
Besides, the kids didn’t look especially distressed. It probably wasn’t about anything too serious.
***
The village kids led Mile and the rest of the Crimson Vow to the local forest, where they found the elder dragon Zalm.
“What can we help you with, sir?” Mile asked respectfully.
“Silva was worried that its meat dispenser wasn’t coming back, so it asked me to look into the matter.”
“Give me a break! And are they really calling me their ‘meat dispenser’?! I thought I was supposed to be Silva’s lover!”
Mile was furious to discover that the wolves hadn’t thought of her as a lover or a mistress after all.
“What’s your problem? Did you actually want to hook up with that white wolf?” Reina asked.
“I’m not surprised,” said Pauline. “The only thing Mile loves more than fluff is little girls.”
Mavis bobbed her head in agreement.
“It’s not like thaaaat!!” Mile fumed.
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