The entrance was shocking, but my head cleared in reverse. My heartbeat slowed and my blood went cold.
It was a survival reflex the moment I realized this was a trap you couldn’t wriggle out of with ordinary improvisation.
“Seeing you after so long, your face is a wreck. Think a beauty ploy like that will work on a dragon?”
That signature cold voice and sneering cadence. Confronted again with what I’d managed to forget for a while, my fingers itched to smash his face.
I shoved down the temper that wanted to flare without listening and coolly scanned our surroundings.
The pit was about three meters deep. Even with a fleeting opening, it wasn’t somewhere you could run from.
And there were big Dragon Hunters with Jed. I could see about five, so there were more.
As always: the emptier the man, the more flunkies he drags around.
“C-Ceryl...”
A trembling hand clutched my collar. I hid Kallen behind my back on instinct.
“Shh. Quiet, and get behind me.”
For whatever reason, Jed didn’t lay hands on Ceryl Aylos easily. He’d beat me to a pulp, sure.
But Kallen was different. Last time, during the red salmon theft incident, he’d tried to interrogate her without a blink.
Jed treated monsters carelessly, but humans without value to him were flies.
When I put one hand back to soothe shaking Kallen, pleasure gleamed in that gray eye.
“I didn’t expect you to still be dragging your aide around. Guess she’s grown on you?”
“......”
“Or is she an offering to present to the dragon?”
I clenched my teeth at the playful tone.
All things considered, it was a thousand times a relief this happened while Varen wasn’t here. If he had been, we wouldn’t have fallen for this kind of trap—but still.
Come to think of it, even with all the commotion he hadn’t shown himself. We’d only just split, so he couldn’t be far.
If Varen learned I was in danger, he’d charge in without thinking. His lack of response meant he’d entered a place where he couldn’t sense what was happening now.
So Varen made it safely to the Eterna Nest.
The thought, stupidly enough, lightened my heart.
“Where’s the dragon?”
When Jed got to the point, I put on a confident smile. With my heart lighter, my shoulders straightened of their own accord.
“You’re a step late. He’s already gone home.”
“He left you?”
“You seem to be misunderstanding. The dragon and I aren’t that tight.”
“Hm. Then you’re... sticky.”
How do I kill this bastard.
Sure, Varen and I swapped tongue and rubbed below. Not technically wrong, but the crude phrasing pinched my brow.
I shrugged like I had time to spare and changed the subject.
“Jed, don’t tell me you planned to catch a dragon with a trash trap like this. I knew you were a moron, but this is even lower than I thought.”
All the while, my mind worked.
First, stall for time. How do we get out of here.
I mustn’t call Varen. We’d worked hard to avoid them; I couldn’t bring him now into a place where Dragon Hunters had set up camp.
Ella? Elfera could handle ten hunters, but I hadn’t heard her cry. She hadn’t left Kallen’s side this whole time.
Did she bolt at the appearance of humans? If so, all the better.
Not a dragon, but Elfera is S-rank and rare. If she were seen, Jed wouldn’t let it go.
Then... it was Rami, after all? What a shadow lizard could do now was at best call for help from outside.
No—Serif would be better to spread the word.
“Ceryl. Quiet.”
Jed clicked his tongue shortly and lowered his voice.
When I lifted the eyes I’d been running around, he even shook his head.
“What.”
“The sound of you scheming. I can hear it from here.”
Jed, who’d been crouched the whole time, rose lightly. He reached a hand back, and a subordinate waiting there passed him a small pouch.
“Ceryl, you’re the one misunderstanding. This isn’t a trap to catch a dragon.”
Jed tossed the pouch down into the pit. I stepped back a pace to avoid it as it fell.
The pouch hit the ground with a dull pop. Smoke began to billow up from the floor.
At the same time, I heard a monster’s cry I knew well.
“Ihihing, ihihihing!”
Kallen, who’d been hiding behind my back, sprang out on reflex.
“Ella! Don’t hurt Ella!”
Without a moment’s hesitation Kallen tried to scramble up the pit, but she slipped to the floor in just a few steps.
The smoke leaking from the pouch kept swelling in volume. What pooled thick at our feet was already up to our waists.
“Damn it, Jed! What are you—ugh!”
A sharp, nauseating stench rushed in. If the smell alone did this, I didn’t want to learn what would happen if the smoke reached the lungs.
I tried belatedly to climb the wall after Kallen, but strength bled from my hands.
“Tsk tsk. One little rat stole my dragon away.”
How is Varen your dragon. He’s mine.
I wanted to bite that out, but the smoke lapping at my jaw made my head swim.
With a thud, I looked over at the sound and saw Kallen collapse.
“F... fu— you, son of a—”
I didn’t finish the curse; my tongue was stiffening. My limbs trembled out of my control.
I really didn’t want to do this in front of Jed, but my staggering legs finally dropped me to my knees.
“This trap is, how to put it... bait for a dragon, not a trap for a dragon. Yes, that’s the precise way to put it.”
Even as my mind drifted off, Varen’s face shimmered before my eyes.
Ah... even if I go, I have to say this... I don’t know what he’ll do...
“I—don’t run—koff—not that... for real...”
“Hm? What was that?”
“Don’t... set the forest... on fire...”
With the shutter down all the way, my brain couldn’t think rationally.
“Ceryl, was that a last will?”
Even so, his voice pulled up one instinctive thought.
God, what rotten luck.
***
“Kh—kugh, koff...”
When the smoke strangling my windpipe vanished, a hacking cough burst out. I still couldn’t open my eyes and spat everything left in my throat.
I had to focus every nerve on getting my breathing under control. Only after gulping enough clean air did my sight slowly return.
A floor with raised, rough grain; stone walls furred with moss. And an old, thick wooden door.
A cramped room barely two pyeong. At least a small window let in sunlight to brighten it.
I tried to stand, lurching, but the aftereffects of the smoke left me weak. Only after several grunting tries did I realize I was bound.
Both hands behind my back, feet together, wrapped tight with thick rope. Same trick as last time.
Jed. Textbook bastard.
“Koff... ngh...”
At the sound of coughing I jerked my head up. Against the opposite wall, Kallen lay hacking.
I thrashed to get to her, but all I could manage was to squirm across the floor like a worm.
“Kallen! Kallen! Stay with me!”
“Haa... ha... Ce— ryl... koff...”
Unlike me, Kallen’s hands and feet weren’t tied. Whether out of “consideration” for a young girl or carelessness, at least that part was a relief.
She just managed to brace herself up to a seated position. She shook her still-dizzy head to cast off the smoke.
What we’d inhaled was apparently an anesthetic. Even with the drug mostly wearing off, my tongue stayed stiff and wouldn’t work right.
“Kallen, slow, deep ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) breaths. Draw in deep, let it out long. You can do that, right?”
With clumsy diction—one, two, three. Again—one, two, three. I counted and paced Kallen’s breathing.
She was smaller than me; having inhaled the same dose of anesthetic, the effect lasted longer on her.
“Kiiyuuung...”
“Oh no—Rami! You okay?”
For Rami, who was as always in my pocket, it was worse. Exposed to a human dose in a palm-sized body, she couldn’t come to.
I needed to get Rami out fast and at least give rescue breaths. But with my hands bound, I could go mad.
I writhed to get her out of my pocket somehow. In the process, the body I’d barely gotten upright pitched to the floor.
Thunk—my head hit and my skull rang.
Damn it, damn it. My throbbing head was so heavy I couldn’t lift it.
With my ear against the floor like that, at least my comparatively sound hearing picked up a presence.
Heavy footsteps were approaching.
“Haah... please, Kallen. Wake up!”
Kallen, who had free limbs, needed to get up—but she still huffed raggedly, eyes barely open.
Then the heavy wooden door creaked open with a skin-crawling screech.
My gaze went there by reflex. A brawny man stood in the doorway. On his left forearm, sure enough, the armband marking a Dragon Hunter.
“Oh. You’re up.”
“......”
“The girl isn’t yet, huh.”
His eyes went to Kallen, not me. The bearded mouth on his face tugged up on one side.
That expression sent gooseflesh from my soles to my crown.
“Heh heh. Thanks for bringing a woman.”
“...What?”
Eyes soaked in greed dragged over Kallen’s body. Like there was a fine dish before him, the man even flicked his tongue and wet his lips.
“Man, how long has it been since I’ve had a woman.”
