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Chapter 61. Earth Dragon

Why is he joining in without understanding the situation and destroying buildings in the process… Is he a beast? I mean, it’s good that he helped, but I could’ve managed on my own… No, more importantly, what happened to Princess Elissa’s faction that was causing such a fuss downstairs?

“I killed the enemy Theo was fighting, but was that a problem?”

“It's not really a problem, but… from now on, make sure you understand the situation before acting, okay? It wouldn’t be funny if you accidentally killed a noble.”

“Don’t worry, Theo. I haven’t lost my sense of judgment that much.”

Is that true? Honestly, if a noble had been attacking me one-sidedly, he would’ve probably jumped in from above and killed them.

“So? This guy… doesn’t seem to be from the public side.”

“Who knows… I don’t even know who hired him, but he seems like an assassin. No, he might not even be hired but someone raised for this purpose.”

Probably… the person pulling the strings from behind wouldn’t trust someone they just hired. If they were someone who moved people with money, they would have acted long ago.

The robed woman I met in the alleyway before clearly worshiped her master like a god. I thought it was some kind of cult… but maybe it’s not a religion but just brainwashing to make them obedient. If that’s the case… these people wouldn’t have any proof of their existence. They wouldn’t leave such evidence.

“Can I kill him?”

“... Ideally, we’d keep him alive to extract information, but he probably won’t talk, and he’s likely got something to kill himself with. Even if that’s taken, he’d probably bite his tongue and die.”

“Is that even… possible?”

“It’s possible. If a person is controlled absolutely by someone, they can become like that.”

Oh, Nina seems to have thought of something, as she nodded with a grim expression at Princess Elissa’s question.

“If he’s under someone’s control, trying to extract information is pointless. Unless we have some magic to directly peek into his brain.”

“... Ancient magic might, but modern magic can’t.”

Ancient magic has all sorts of spells that make you wonder how they were even realized. Some deny their existence because they’re only depicted in ancient texts, but traces of them remain around the world, said to be impossible to replicate with modern magic.

Directly reading a brain… is that even possible when we don’t fully understand how the brain works? Well, since we can’t, that’s why torture exists. If we could, there wouldn’t be a need for torture.

The enemy isn’t moving. Knowing they can’t take on both Nina and me, they should’ve escaped by now… or are they expecting reinforcements?

“Hm? What’s that sound?”

I was wary, thinking the enemy might be doing something suspicious, but Nina detected a sound and looked at the ground. However, Princess Elissa and I heard nothing and looked at each other, puzzled.

“I don’t hear anything… what’s wrong all of a sudden?”

“No, it sounds like… something digging.”

“It’s time.”

As soon as he spoke, he turned and fled. As I was about to chase, a loud explosion, or rather a vibration that shook the entire building, made me grab the roof.

“What’s happening!?”

“What is this shaking!?”

“Could it be… the enemy!?”

Nina, who had mentioned the digging sound, immediately suspected the enemy and was about to jump off the roof when something burst through the ground, destroying the building.

My first thought seeing it was, “It’s huge.”

“What the heck is this!?”

“An earth dragon!? In a coastal capital!?”

It seems to be called an earth dragon, but judging by Princess Elissa’s reaction, it’s not something that appears in the capital. Well… if something like this appeared, the capital wouldn’t exist.

It’s called an earth dragon, but it looks like a giant, muscular worm or centipede. It doesn’t have a lot of legs, but calling it a dragon doesn’t fit.

“A dragon! Interesting!”

Oh, Nina’s adventurer spirit is on fire.

Challenging a dragon is an honor for adventurers. Even if killed by a dragon, it’s considered an admirable death among adventurers… isn’t that too savage?

Nina always said she envied me for killing a red dragon during training, so should I leave this to her? I couldn’t care less about this giant worm, I want to chase the assassin.

“Theo, don’t interfere!”

“Alright, I’ll chase that guy then. I’ll leave Princess Elissa here.”

“Huh? Wait!”

Chasing an assassin in the city is difficult… but it’s easy to track someone in a robe hiding their face. If they ditch the robe in a crowd, it might be tough, but there’s some distance to the main street. I’ll catch him before then!

“You’re not getting away!”

“Damn!”

I grabbed him mid-air as he tried to flee to the main street and slammed him to the ground. In a one-on-one fight, I wouldn’t lose, so I just had to beat him up.

I drew the prototype my master’s apprentice made for the first time… it’s light and suits me. For someone who overwhelms with speed, a heavy sword is unnecessary.

Seeing me draw my sword, the assassin took a stance with his knife. He must have realized it was disadvantageous to be close when I had a sword and he only had a knife. Usually, with a knife, you’d close in, but maybe he wasn’t taught how to fight one-on-one.

The fight was over in an instant. He threw his knife as I stepped in, but I dodged, circled behind, and pierced his chest. He couldn’t keep up with my speed, so killing him quickly was the best.

Not understanding what happened, the assassin moved his head slightly before collapsing.