episode_0041

The accommodation was not much different from what I had imagined. It seemed like the second floor was run as an inn and the first floor was used as a bar, but due to the timing, there were no other people in the building. As I waited at the counter for a while, a good-looking middle-aged woman appeared wearing an apron.

“Welcome. Are you staying overnight?”

“Yes. Are there any double rooms left?”

I was worried that I couldn’t get a room due to the outdoor sex craze, but luckily there was an empty room. It turns out that on Star Calling Day, there are a lot of people watching the sky all night long, so despite the crowds, there is quite a bit of room left.

“It was very noisy just a moment ago. Was there a fight in the square?”

the innkeeper asked as he handed me the room key. It wasn’t a fight, you almost died just a moment ago.

People who did not look at the sky to see the stars had no choice but to be unaware of the fact that they had come so close to death. Additionally, I realized once again how many lives Arjen had saved.

“Haha, I don’t know. I was also very restless… Well, if it was a big deal, an announcement would be made tomorrow after dawn.”

Still, I had just returned with a lot of envious looks on him, so I didn’t have the desire to kill him by scratching him and making a mess, so I hesitated for a bit and brought Arjen into the room.

“Thank you for your hard work, Arzen.”

“Ugh….”

After laying him down on the bed to rest comfortably, I tried to get off, but Arjen wouldn’t let me go at all. Even though his voice was crawling with no strength at all, the hand holding my collar was so firm that I didn’t dare do anything.

It felt like they were clinging tightly to each other and didn’t want to let go, so I gave up on trying to separate them and started talking to Arjen.

“Is it very difficult?”

“It’s been a while since I used too much energy…”

Arjen said as if whining. Even if it were a dragon, it would make no sense for a meteorite of that size to be pulverized without even leaving a trace, leaving behind energy.

“I’m sorry. I asked for a useless favor.”

“No. Seeing Eugene happy makes me happy too, right?”

I couldn’t help but feel good about those words. Arzen usually listened to any request I made, but in this case, there was something a little more special about it.

It was something that had been said at the time of the request, but this time it was not something that was taken lightly even by Arjen himself. Not only was it not a task she could easily grant as she pleased, but stopping the meteorite was not something she absolutely needed.

Arjen’s attitude as soon as he noticed that a meteorite was actually falling on his head was to watch for a while and then take an opportunity to run away with me, which was an extremely simple and not difficult method.

Because of my request to save the humans who were just a meal to Arjen, she used up all her strength to stop the meteorite.

So how could she not be lovely? On the one hand, I regretted whether I had caused Arjen a hard time by burning out a sense of justice for no reason, but I honestly wanted to do something for her who took the risk of destroying the meteorite.

“Hehe… Eugene, you don’t have to try to do anything for me.”

And Arjen spoke to me as if he had really penetrated my heart. It’s been a long time since she stopped reading my mind, but she did reveal my inner thoughts like this.

“For me, just having Eugene by my side is enough.”

“…Arjen.”

Arjen never wanted me to do anything. If you think about it, all she asked me to do was ‘please don’t do it’ and she didn’t want anything more from me just to be by her side.

Most of the things she asked me not to do were out of my control, so in the end, I was doing what Arjen wanted just by staying by her side.

Arjen’s pet doll. It was truly a perfect fit for the title I could hold in this world.

“It would be quite embarrassing to say it out loud in front of other people.”

“Huh? What is it?”

“It’s nothing.”

In any case, it is expected that Arjen’s name will become a hot topic due to this meteorite destruction incident. Since more than one human life was saved, wouldn’t there be a very positive reaction?

Of course, since Arzen has eaten more than one human so far, the evaluation will not be overturned just this once, but I still feel relieved that people talk about the dragon I love as a good dragon rather than a crazy dragon. Because.

As for the results, my expectations were way off in a good way.

***

“Breaking news… Breaking news! The meteorite has disappeared!”

Verfia’s capital, Metanos, was truly in chaos. Unlike Eletrove, where a meteorite falls directly in the area and everything that happens can be immediately understood, they were unable to obtain any new information after observing the sudden collapse of the meteorite.

Since they could not even accurately determine the cause of the meteorite’s destruction, it was natural for them to cause an uproar.

“Count Duneld…! There hasn’t been any further contact from Eletrobe!?”

“There has been no news since news stopped 30 minutes ago.”

“Keu…what on earth is going on…”

Berfia’s court wizard, Yehilam, found it difficult to understand the situation even with his own head, so he grabbed what little hair he had left.

It was good enough to calculate the landing point as soon as it was observed that a meteorite of such a large size that there is no room for current human power to do anything would collide.

The problem is that the landing site included not only Berfia but also the granary region, which is responsible for more than half of the world’s food production.

As Yehilam was appropriately located in a large city, it was calculating the damage that would result from the predicted destruction and was doing its best to calculate how to recover from the damage.

But that calculation has become meaningless. The meteorite disappeared before impact without leaving a trace.

Of course, the situation was unconditionally better than a meteorite collision. If a meteorite, not of any size but with a diameter of up to 200 meters, had hit the ground, the granary would have disappeared that day and a large basin would have been created.

“What on earth happened…!”

The situation was definitely better, but Yehilam couldn’t help but feel frustrated because he didn’t know how the meteorite disappeared. As he was in a position to report to the king, he had to figure out the situation somehow, but the result came out in a way that he could not come up with.

“There is only one being in Eletrove who can erase a meteorite of that size without a trace…”

Since Yehilam did not get the position of court wizard by fooling around, he was able to quickly guess the identity of the person who removed the meteorite. The problem is that no matter how hard you try to turn your noble brain around, you don’t know why Arjen intervened.

“Were Count Duneld’s management skills that great…?”

Yehilam, who was thinking of various cases, quickly shook his head. No matter how talented a human was, it was impossible to move a dragon.

Dragon is the embodiment of magic. A living, breathing disaster. Among magicians, it is said that it is a being in the shell of a natural creature.

Unlike the general public, wizards who were ‘vaguely’ familiar with mana had no choice but to be well aware of how fearful dragons were and how difficult they were to communicate with. It was a kind of Dunning-Kruger effect.

In any case, it was impossible to understand Arjen’s intentions in the capital city of Metanos, let alone in the field, Eletrobe. It was a miracle that came about because of Eugene’s request, something that Arzen himself would never have done.

Yehilam learned all the facts 10 hours later, when the day of star-calling had passed and the sun was rising the next day. Count Globec, who had organized everything, sent a letter to the capital using parchment imbued with magic.

“The man who induced Arjen’s actions…?”

Even after reading the letter, Yehilam could not easily believe it. Since it meant that there was someone who could give orders to Arjen, the so-called crazy dragon of Eletrove, and not just any other dragon, it was not unreasonable to not believe it.

“I couldn’t feel any mana… It was like an inanimate object…”

He suddenly realized that a hero had been dispatched to Argen’s Lair. At that time, a dragon, presumed to be more powerful than her, had appeared in Arzen’s lair, and a subjugation order was issued to the hero.

However, surprisingly, according to the hero’s words, there was only one dragon, Arjen, and therefore, because there was not enough reason to subdue it, Arjen survived without being subjugated.

As Arjen alone was enough of a threat to humanity, there were some voices of dissatisfaction in the capital at the time, saying that the hero was too principled, but looking at it this way, if the hero had subdued Arjen, humanity might have been caught up in an irreparable accident. It was something I didn’t know.

“Hehe… Is this also the hero’s utilitarianism…?”

Yehilam, who was impressed by the warrior’s judgment that no matter what action he took for a moment, resulted in the benefit of humanity, immediately returned to the main topic.

‘The report said that there was a dragon that was believed to be more powerful than Arzen, but when the warrior checked, it was not the case. Then, what exactly is that person’s identity?’

A fact that he ignored at the time has now turned into an unbearable curiosity. When it seemed clear from the context that he was involved, Yehilam’s thoughts turned to the warrior.

‘I guess I should meet the hero sometime…’

It was the moment when Eugene’s presence was imprinted in the human kingdom.