The Man Who Speaks the Language of Dragons

The 〈Sword Emperor〉 Elma had been keeping a sliver of her attention on the surroundings during the trip — but only a sliver. Most of her wasn't here at all.

— Because of me. And of all states, it had to be Mūzeg…

The reason it had finally hit her now was that she had, here, the first slack of breathing room in days.

While she'd been running for her life, none of it could surface. The moment the pause came back, the doubt couldn't be shaken off again.

Think it through plainly, and the chief reason Mūzeg was hunting them was her.

She was the one who had pulled the others into it.

Damn it.

Mūzeg, of every state pursuing Demon Lords, was in a class of its own. Better to be hunted by any of the lesser ones, frankly, than by Mūzeg.

"Elma, Elma, let's go to the basement. Looks like there's a lot to see down there!"

"Hm? Ah — yes…"

— Merea's bright voice, slicing into her thinking.

"Something the matter?"

"No. Nothing."

His beautiful red eyes pinned hers, and for a moment Elma thought he might have read straight through to what was inside her. But seeing his puzzled head-tilt, it must have been a misread.

She let out a small inward breath, and followed him.

---

In fact, her worry hadn't been misplaced.

What's the right way to handle this…

In a vague sort of way, Merea had picked up that Elma was blaming herself for something.

He had seen that kind of expression on the summit of Lindholm more than once — the look the heroic spirits had worn whenever an old regret rose up on them. Elma's looked very like it.

— But she's not saying anything.

That, too, was the same as them.

He had no intention of leaving it alone. The trouble was — he didn't know how to bring it up.

When. How.

He'd struggled to ask the heroic spirits, even with all the time in the world up there. How, then, was he supposed to ask a woman he'd only just met?

Pathetic of me.

Not knowing how to step alongside someone in pain — that, even to himself, was frustrating.

---

Shortly after, Merea followed Shaw down into the basement of the Sherwood Firm's branch.

"There really is a lot down here. Lots that's alive down here, too."

The basement held merchandise sourced from across the regions.

Merea laid the still-sleeping Lilium gently on a soft sofa in a corner of the room, and started looking around.

Mineral and botanical items of obvious value first; then a row of pictures and art whose value was harder to read; then implements whose original purposes were unguessable. — Even cages, with creatures inside.

While they waited for the monocled Zaido to come back with the transport, Shaw obligingly walked them through it all.

For Merea, almost everything was new. The curiosity in his face grew with each new item.

But Elma's strained look stayed in the back of his head. Every now and then he'd glance over. She was, even through Shaw's running commentary, miles away.

"Oh — there's something rare."

Toward the end of the basement tour, Shaw let out a small surprised note.

He was looking at a cage.

The animals on offer as trade goods were, of course, kept in cages. They'd seen a few already; this one was distinctly oversized.

Merea drifted over and followed the line of Shaw's eyes — and immediately understood why this one was different.

"— A dragon."

Or close to one.

Inside the cage, a creature very like the 〈Sky Dragon〉 Cortista sat parked, heavy and still.

Where Cortista's hide had been white, this dragon's was black.

"A young 〈Land Dragon (Reirnote)〉, I'd say."

Not 〈Sky Dragon (Teishia)〉 — 〈Land Dragon (Reirnote)〉.

Only when told did Merea finally see what had felt off about it.

The wings were small.

Cortista's twin wings had been enormous; presumably, lifting that body required them. The black dragon in front of him had wings out of proportion to the body — far smaller. By contrast, the legs were considerably more developed than Cortista's. Built, plainly, for the ground.

"Land dragons don't fly, do they?"

"They don't. — They leap."

Land dragons couldn't fly, but they could leap.

With brute leg-strength and the small twin wings for posture-control in the air, they 'sprang' great distances. On the ground, naturally, they ran. At a speed no horse could compare with — possibly the fastest creature in the natural world. The small wings doubled as auxiliaries during sprint, so the saying went: a land dragon's wings were not for flying, but for running.

"Hmm. Wherever did we even buy a land dragon? Not exactly something you come across often."

Even Shaw was at a loss.

Right then, the monocled Zaido returned, slightly out of breath.

"Sherwood-sama. The horses are arranged. Swift horses — fifteen of them."

"Excellent. With some doubling-up, that'll do. Well done. — While we're here, a question."

"Yes?"

"This land dragon. Where did you buy it?"

"— Ah."

Zaido let out a sound of immediate understanding at Shaw's question, then a troubled mmm.

"At the central commercial district's auction, several days back. I picked it up thinking it could be sold on at a fine margin to a noble or royal household."

He glanced at Shaw's face, mumbling, visibly reluctant to continue.

Shaw lightly waved him on — go on.

"…It was sick. Healthy at the time of purchase. Latency, evidently — not a sign of illness at all. Two days after we'd got it down here—"

A small wince.

"—well. They got me."

"I see. Still room to grow. Want me to retain a biologist who knows that area?"

"No, no. I won't make the same mistake twice. I'm reading up on it myself."

"Good. That is a Sherwood Firm merchant."

Shaw was generous about Zaido's stumble.

His attention moved back to the cage.

"Sick, you say. Can it not be cured?"

"Probably not. Sick it may be, but it's still a land dragon. No ordinary human can really get hands on it. And worse — the disease this one has contracted is 〈Fatal Draconic Disease〉. No established treatment. I went hunting for one and ended up only learning how thoroughly nasty the disease is. I've started accepting we'll lose the merchandise. Not that I want to…"

The land dragon was, indeed, lying limp in the cage.

Aiz stepped close to the bars, looking at it sadly.

Elma — at last shaking off her absent-mindedness — looked at it too, with a pensive heaviness. As though she were laying her own future across the weakening creature in front of her.

"— All right. Let's see if it can be cured."

Of all the people in the room, only the man with the snow-white hair said it.

"I don't know whether it'll really work. But if you've thrown up your hands, please — give me the last chance."

Merea's gaze, like his words, was honest and straight.

---

What is this man about to do, every face in the room was asking.

Merea walked over to Marisa and held out a hand.

"Could you lend me one of the daggers off your back?"

Marisa tilted her head.

"You intend to do something to the dragon's body with a blade? Against a land dragon's scales, this short dagger is at rather a disadvantage—"

"Ah, no — not for that. To stab myself."

"Right now, I rather strongly don't want to lend it to you…"

Really — what was he saying?

Marisa's usual composed face cracked; her brows drew down.

But Merea didn't lower his hand. Quickly, quickly, his expression said.

"…What a wilful master, honestly."

Marisa gave first.

She drew one short dagger from the sheath at her waist and handed it over, reluctantly.

"Just to make sure — there's no problem on Merea-sama's end with this, is there?"

"Mm. Fine."

Merea answered somewhat distractedly, took the dagger, and walked to the cage.

Then —

"■■■"

— Merea said something.

Something.

What it was, no one in the room could tell.

The first to register what it might be was Shaw.

"Could that be — Dragon Tongue, by any chance?"

"Hm? — Ah. Yes. A sky dragon I know taught me."

"Wai- wait! Several things at once! Taught by a sky dragon — that situation alone is utterly absurd to begin with—!"

Shaw's voice carried real urgency. Merea's eyes answered, just let that slide, clearly put-upon.

But Shaw was not going to let it pass.

"And isn't Dragon Tongue something a human throat physically cannot produce, without a special vocal organ?"

"It is."

"…It is?"

"The vocal organ — was given to me. By an acquaintance. There was an idiot among my acquaintances who once tried to become a dragon to get hold of more power."

"That is an idiot. Unquestionably an idiot. A human becoming a dragon — the very premise shouldn't function—"

"He didn't quite become a full dragon. But he did manage to embody a piece of a dragon's power."

"—"

Shaw had no words.

His cheek twitched; he could say nothing.

Marisa, eyebrows raised, wore a look of rare astonishment. Aiz, head tilted — eh? A person became a dragon? …Eh?! — both struck dumb.

"Anyway, the vocal organ was sorted thanks to him. After that, it was just learning the language. I worked at the Dragon Tongue myself. Felt like a waste otherwise. Cortista was extremely strict about it, though."

Merea said it lightly, a small wry smile of remembrance crossing his face.

The words alone strained credit. But the dragon in the cage had visibly responded — and in the face of that response —

"I'm not generally fond of situations that force one to believe…"

— there was, in the end, no choice but to accept that this man was, in fact, the strange sort of human who could speak the words of dragons.