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ROLF stroked the dragon’s saddle as he ate some snacks. It was the very one that Meine had used, and as the Dragon Consort had mentioned, a magic circle was written on it. It didn’t have much of an effect, merely strengthening the Dragon King’s protection and filling one with courage. Meine could only escape back then because the Dragon King had taken the brunt of the dragon killer spell, and the gold-eyed, red dragon used brute force.
Currently, Rolf couldn’t feel anything from the magic circle, and the one who inscribed it must’ve made sure of that. But perhaps the creator had slipped, let his guard down, or made some sort of wish. Rolf chuckled in the back of his throat as he traced the magic circle with his finger.
“As I thought… The lad’s done somethin’,” he muttered.
“Oh? What does that mean?” Camila’s voice echoed behind him.
Rolf was a moment too late to react to the lantern light. A man with enough strength to wield a greatsword put the elderly man in a Nelson hold.
“We finally caught you, geezer!” Zeke growled. “What were you doing until now?!”
“Damn it! Let go!” Rolf shouted. “Why in blazes are ye here anyway?!”
“We were searching for you, of course! Grandpa Igor told us all about the secret exits of the Lehrsatz manor, along with all the places related to dragons!” Zeke said.
“Hey, these are His Majesty’s handmade snacks!” Camila cried. “There isn’t a secret passageway to His Majesty’s room, is there?” Camila picked up the bag of sweets and taunted Rolf as she took a snack and ate it.
“That’s mine!” Rolf cried.
“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Camila replied. “If you tell me what you’ve been up to, I’ll give them back to you.”
“Hah! Who’ll ever tell youse— Aghhh! Stop! You’re hurtin’ me, brawns for brains lad!”
“I heard that you let the Arks’ cardinal go,” Zeke said.
“He got away from me, lad. Don’t misunderstand,” Rolf replied.
“That’s what our Captain claims, but we have a hard time believing that, you see,” Zeke pressed.
“Grandpa, you resemble the raccoon of Kratos quite a bit,” Camila said. “I feel like you’d trick even your allies.”
“Oh? Is that the name of the one who inscribed the magic circle on this saddle?” Rolf asked.
The other two Knights of the Dragon Consort furrowed their brows.
“Now, now, no need to scowl at me,” Rolf said. “I admit, I let that darned Arks’ cardinal flee. But only because I wanted to see the spell and magic circle to control those beasties. I’ve memorized it all in ’ere.” He tapped the side of his head, prompting Zeke’s release of his neck.
“What’s the point in memorizing that?” Zeke muttered.
“Why, to win in the war, of course,” Rolf replied.
“Don’t say something so ominous,” Camila huffed. “You know that the meeting’s tomorrow.”
“Wake up and smell the roses! Ye both truly believe that Kratos won’t try to do somethin’ to us and cause a war?! Yeesh! Ye both must be blind as a bat!”
“You don’t deserve to talk to us like that, Grandpa! You were mostly gone for this entire ordeal!”
“Your reasoning?” Zeke asked. He sat on a wooden box in the corner of the storage shed with a loud thud.
Rolf huffed with a bit of annoyance. “Can’t ye tell? The magic circle on this saddle should be proof enough.”
“I heard that that was placed so that Jill’s dragon could at least make its escape should anything happen,” Camila replied. “There was something fishy about the empress candidate.”
“The dragon killer spell is unique to the Arks,” Rold explained. “To repel it, ye need a special magic circle, or, if all ye need is for it to work for a moment, just flip the magic circle itself. So, I ask, why can that danged raccoon write such a magic circle so precisely? It’s not every day you see the Arks’ magic circles, yeah?”
Camila sighed as she placed a hand over her forehead and tousled her bangs.
“I knew it, that raccoon was up to something…” Zeke muttered. “He was connected to the Arks in the background, wasn’t he?”
“I don’t think the two shared a bond of total cooperation,” Rolf said. “They just used each other as they saw fit. They both have common enemies—the Dragon God and the Dragon Emperor. It ain’t hard to imagine them becomin’ allies.”
“Gramps, please. Lend us your help,” Zeke said as he bowed his head.
Rolf looked surprised. “Boy, that came outta nowhere. Got some sort of personal grudge? I say ye kill ’im and get it over with before he casually burns a city to the ground just because he can.”
“To be honest, we can only reach him after the city burns down. But if you’re here, Gramps, I think the outcome will change.”
“Oh yeah, it’d burn a lot better if I’m ’ere.”
“But Grandpa, you actually want to extinguish the flames, don’t you?” Camila asked.
They were two sides of the same coin. They could only put out the flames swiftly because they understood the mind of the arsonist.
“We can’t keep going like this,” Camila pleaded. “When I saw him with the queen who stopped the Sacred Spear, I got this weird feeling of déjà vu—that we’d be repeating the same mistakes.”
Rolf silently stroked his chin as he stared at the other two knights. They were excellent soldiers, but mediocre at best. Perhaps that would’ve been fine if the Knights of the Dragon Consort had a large army at their back, but he found it odd that Jill had specifically selected these two as her only guards. On the other hand, the raccoon that they spoke of was brimming with talent and could even move the wheels of history. And the two knights didn’t want to destroy that talent, but simply to stop his plans. What a strange twist of fate, Rolf thought.
“And Gramps, you’re already a fellow Knight of the Dragon Consort,” the man with a greatsword said, cheekily staring right back at Rolf.
The one with the bow didn’t avert her gaze either. “Please don’t run. This is your job.”
I guess there’s some truth to that. Rolf couldn’t help but crack a faint smile. He grabbed the paper bag of snacks from Camila and sat on the ground.
“All right, then,” he said. “Tell me all ye know about that lad. Oh, and tell me your names again.”
“Wait, you don’t remember our names?!” the archer yelped. “But you’ve got a great memory!”
“And ye both better listen to my orders! They’re absolute!” Rolf added.
“I thought you’d say that…” the greatsword-wielder muttered.
Rolf took a snack and popped it into his mouth. As he chewed carefully, he knew he was about to undertake his first great task in a long while.