Ch.94■■■(1)

That day, until the morning, things weren’t really that different from usual.

After a satisfying breakfast of rabbit stew with multigrain bread, I was handling the simple morning administrative tasks as always. Nothing complicated—just reports about construction sites needing additional lumber or slight delays in firewood supplies.

Once those simple duties were finished, I was thinking about having a light sparring session with Hannah to stretch my body when…

*Knock knock knock*

I happened to hear someone knocking on the door of my office.

“Who is it?”

“It’s Steward Pierre, Lord Alzar. May I come in for a moment?”

“Of course, please come in!”

As soon as I finished speaking, the door with its slightly worn wooden hinges opened carefully, revealing Pierre and… Felix Jaeger accompanying him?

“Felix Jaeger? What brings you two here?”

Though I’d been seeing him around regularly, for some reason it felt like it had been a while. As I addressed him, Jaeger carefully entered the office and spoke to me with a rather serious expression.

“Lord Alzar. I’ve come because there’s something I must report to you.”

“…A report? A sudden report—has something happened?”

“No. Nothing has happened yet, but… one of our hunters entered the northeastern forest and discovered this…”

With a grim expression, Jaeger produced what appeared to be a large, bright red scale—something like a reptile scale.

At first, I wondered why he was being so serious about it, but then I suddenly felt something from the scale, like a radiating heat…

“Heat, and a scale?”

“…Yes. If it’s what I think it is, this could potentially be a serious matter, which is why I’ve taken the liberty of disturbing you.”

When thinking of red scales that radiate heat, the first creature that comes to mind is the Red Dragon, also known as the Fire Dragon. My expression couldn’t help but harden at the thought.

In the media of my previous life, dragons were portrayed in countless ways depending on the work—from mere beasts to transcendent beings. But in the world I now live in, dragons are considered one of the “strongest races,” a naturally superior species of tremendous power.

To put it in perspective, the original dragon species and subspecies like wyverns and drakes are classified separately as “dragonkin” rather than being treated as magical beasts.

In reality, they show clear differences from ordinary magical beasts in both mystical and biological aspects, and these characteristics directly translate into the high combat capabilities of dragons and their related species.

There are roughly three reasons why dragons are so powerful:

First, their overwhelming physical capabilities, said to be at the limit of what a living being can achieve. Second, their innate magical abilities, which could be described as the pinnacle of what a physically manifested race can possess.

And finally, the special nature of their heart—the “Dragon Heart.”

While magical power typically regenerates very slowly, a dragonkin’s heart produces mana at such a rapid rate that people use the term “pumping out” to describe it.

Of course, for lower-ranked dragonkin, this merely means their recovery speed is faster compared to other creatures of the same rank. But when it comes to higher dragonkin—especially true dragons—they display virtually unlimited magical power.

Their mana recovery speed is so fast that, while there may be limits to the total amount of magical power they can use at once, in terms of pure endurance, they approach infinity.

Because of these characteristics, dragons and dragonkin are consistently recognized as the strongest in their respective ranks without debate. In reality, even I couldn’t confidently say I could easily handle a dragon…

“Let me see that scale.”

“…Yes.”

I carefully took the scale that Felix Jaeger handed over with trembling hands, and my expression hardened as I felt the heat and pulsation emanating from it.

If the owner of this red scale truly was a Red Dragon, there would hardly be a greater threat to this small domain.

Unlike lesser dragonkin with beast-level intelligence, true dragons possess intelligence surpassing humans from a young age, and their innate temperaments vary widely.

For example, Gold Dragons are known as “Guardians of Order” due to their moderate temperament, while Ocean Dragons that inhabit the seas are so benevolent they’ve been known to rescue drifting ships.

And Red Dragons (Fire Dragons) are among the most stereotypically “evil” of dragonkind.

They actually enjoy consuming intelligent beings, have an excessive greed even by dragon standards, and obsessively collect gold and jewels that serve no practical purpose to them.

What makes them particularly dangerous is that despite their wickedness, they’re quite cunning—despite their high pride, they have no qualms about using hostages to win.

They even demand “tribute” in the form of gold and fresh humans from settlements near their territory under the pretense of “protection” (which they do provide, to be fair). If one truly has appeared, this conflict won’t end until one side is dead.

“…Where was this found?”

“In the rocky area of the forest, Lord Alzar. That place we occasionally visit when we need stone materials…”

“…Not far from here, then.”

From what I was hearing, this scale was found near the village, meaning a confrontation between us was likely inevitable, whether we liked it or not.

The only consolation was that the scale was smaller than expected, and the magical power I sensed from it seemed somewhat intermediate rather than truly high-level.

In other words, the owner of this scale was likely a mid-ranked adolescent dragon or some dragonkin subspecies, but…

“…Haah.”

“…”

Honestly, even if it was an adolescent, that wouldn’t change much.

While it would be more manageable than a fully mature dragon (high-rank), even adolescent dragons or dragonkin subspecies are formidable creatures in terms of pure combat ability.

Truthfully, I could probably handle it somehow with support if I were alone, but the problem is what such a cunning Red Dragon might do in the process.

One wrong move, and the village we’ve carefully built could be burned to the ground by its vile schemes—truly a species whose very appearance is a disaster…

‘What’s with this domain… Is it actually cursed or something?’

I was seriously beginning to wonder if this land was cursed, with such incidents occurring one after another in less than two months.

…Of course, a significant number of these incidents were due to the cultists’ plots—in other words, they happened because of me.

But even excluding those, the current situation was far from normal.

Attacks by amateur bandits, the rampage of a knight on a pilgrimage, the appearance of a basilisk that was the former master of this area, the fur merchant’s scam…

Even for a pioneering village in a largely unexplored domain, such a high density of incidents occurring so frequently…

‘…No, perhaps that’s exactly why?’

Belatedly, I finally understood why pioneering villages that receive domain-level support frequently fail.

Of course, our village has mid-level fighting power with me and Corinne, plus substantial support, but the vast majority of pioneering villages are more barren than ours, never more prosperous or comfortable.

So purely arithmetically speaking, perhaps the hardships we’ve faced are what other domains experience too, but…

Just because others have suffered the same, is there any reason or karma dictating that we must be exposed to the same misfortunes?

While we were grimacing at this pessimistic situation, realizing that a well-functioning domain could collapse overnight…

*Creeeeak!*

“Ya-hoo! I’m back!”

It was Hannah, bursting into the office energetically as always. But no matter how oblivious she might be, even she couldn’t miss the serious atmosphere permeating the office right now.

So after reading the room and tempering her usual energy, she noticed the scale I was holding and brightened up, saying:

“Oh? Is that… something you found in the forest?”

“That’s right. Miss Hannah, do you know something about this?”

While asking this, I wasn’t really expecting much from Hannah, whose brain was pure in many ways, but her answer was something I truly hadn’t anticipated at all.

“Ah, yes. So… there’s a chimera near that quarry in the forest. I was going to ask if I could hunt it… but why is everyone so serious?”

After the word “chimera” left Hannah’s mouth, the atmosphere changed from tense silence to something more hopeful.

“Well done, Miss Hannah!”

“Huh? Really?”

“Of course! You want to hunt it? Let’s prepare and go together.”

“…Thank goodness, truly thank goodness…!!”

“…?”

Thanks to what she said, we now knew that the owner of this red scale wasn’t something as dangerous as a Fire Dragon, but rather a chimera—comparatively less dangerous than a dragon.