The air in the usually lively guild building was oppressive. Adventurers who were usually all smiles whispered to each other, unease carved into the lines of their faces. But when they spotted Shiori and Alec and—more importantly—the wolf with his evening-colored pelt, their eyes went wide. Zack, who was solemnly working through some documents, glanced in the direction of the commotion and noticed Violid. His shock was like that of a man who had bumped into a dragon on the road purely out of happenstance, and he almost toppled over completely.
“What the...?! Alec...you...that...what...?”
All the heavy tension Zack had been exuding until that point crumbled to pieces with his stammering. Bla poked him in the leg to calm him down, while Shiori and Alec offered wry chuckles. Rurii wobbled at how odd it all was.
“It’s a long story and I’ll happily get into the details later, but for now all you need to know is that I made a Fenrir my familiar. And uh, it’s not actually a Fenrir, just a snow wolf variant.”
“Wait a sec, you just walked out there and made a Fenrir your familiar? Just like that?” asked Zack.
Violid, who had seen this reaction over and over for the last two days, offered a bark to the confused Zack: “It’s a pleasure to meet you too.”
“As you can see, he’s not out to hurt anyone,” said Alec. “And the clients are pleased that everything’s all wrapped up. Here’s a permission slip from the knight captain in Brovito and the completed request form.”
“Huh. Yep...it’s all here, no mistaking it,” muttered Zack, looking down at the signed request form before heaving a great sigh. “And while I’ve got a mountain’s worth of questions for you, I’ll save them for later. Sure hope you can work a similar kind of magic on the dragon out there and bring things to an end peacefully...”
“So it really is a dragon,” said Shiori.
It was surreal; it still felt like something out of a distant fairy tale.
“Yep. We just received a second report from the knight corps. They’re all but certain of it, though they’ve been unable to ascertain the exact species. There’s a chance we might be looking at a variant, or maybe an entirely new type of dragon altogether.”
“You mean there’s a chance it might be the ice dragon of the frozen lake?” asked Alec.
Everyone gathered at the Guild had considered the same thing, but none had voiced the idea save for Alec.
“We don’t know,” said Zack. “We don’t have a clue, so prepare yourself for the worst.”
An audible gulp could be heard from among the adventurers.
“Everybody, listen up,” announced Zack. “We’ve just received an official suppression request from the northern knight corps to handle the dragon to the north. The Guild has of course accepted it, but you should all know that many have already died during the dragon’s first attack.”
The light whisper of conversation stopped. Complete silence fell over the Guild. Nobody moved. Zack closed his eyes for a moment to think about something and seemed troubled by the thought. In one hand he held some documents; the other hand balled into a tight fist, then relaxed. When he spoke next, there was a heavy weight in his words.
“The dragon is an unknown type. We do not have any known tactics for dealing with it. We are going in blind. The northern knight corps have their hands completely full, as they are controlling the magical beast stampedes that have erupted in the same area. There’s also a refugee camp nearby, and they fear there might be panic or riots. All of that means that we’re mostly on our own. This request has therefore been designated as a special S-rank.”
A sliver of silence followed Zack’s words, but as they sank in, gasps could be heard among the gathered adventurers. Alec pulled Shiori close, but even then she felt the nervous tension running through his body. The air in the Guild felt suffocatingly heavy. Shiori sighed, her breath trembling.
Special S-rank.
This was the rank given to calamity-level incidents, in which losses—both human and environmental—were to be expected.
“I am glad to see that so many of you responded to our emergency call for adventurers. However, the circumstances have changed since we sent out word. Some of us may not make it back alive. Should the vanguard line break, even the backline support may find themselves fighting for survival. So I am not going to force anybody to fight. Each and every one of you has your own circumstances to consider. I will not look down on you should you choose to back out. You are our comrades, regardless of what choice you make. Our freedom is what makes us who we are. I ask that you think carefully and make your choice.”
“Where there is life, there is hope” could be called the first principle of adventuring. It was for this reason that Zack was not going to order anyone to stake their own lives on this request. Instead, he would stand at the head of the charge. Today he was not dressed in his usual light armor, but instead decked out in dragon scale mail. He looked every bit the portrait of his “dragon slayer” renown as he looked around at the gathered adventurers.
Still, Zack was careful not to meet any one person’s gaze; he did not want to place even a sliver of pressure on anybody to make them feel compelled to go. However, in truth, it was perhaps the opposite as well; Zack did not want to meet any adventurer’s eyes, so that he would not feel compelled to tell them to sit the request out.
Many raised their hands and elected not to go—a man supporting a large family, a young mother working for her young baby, the young adventurers who had only just registered... Some cited their age as a reason for dropping out; the oldest adventurer in the country, Hailard Bjorne, was among them.
“I’m just too far gone to go head-to-head with a dragon,” he said, then with a chuckle, added, “but you can leave the Guild in my trusty hands.”
If the worst were to occur, and the front line was to fall, then it was possible the city would itself face an onslaught: a dragon, stampeding magical beasts, and rioting refugees. It was for this reason that Hailard wanted to leave the battle ahead to the Guild’s finest, and put his efforts towards protecting the city they called home. The others who had dropped out intended to be there with him.
“Nobody safer to leave the Guild with than you, gramps,” said Zack. “Thanks.”
“You’ll be fighting with me in spirit,” added Clemens.
Ever since Zack was young, Hailard had always seen him as no different from a grandchild. Clemens, too, was his beloved pupil. The old man smiled at the sight of the two determined adventurers, and with hands lined by both age and injury, he gave them a slap on the shoulders and nodded. No words could have possibly expressed his feelings in the moment.
When Clemens had finished speaking with his teacher, Nadia took Clemens’s hand. The two nodded at one another; without a word, they had both agreed to take on the dragon.
Shiori looked up at her lover, who nodded, then down at her friend, who wobbled. Violid’s tail wavered gracefully. None told her to stand down, or to stay home. Neither Alec nor her friends gave any hint that they thought of her as a hindrance in need of protection.
Shiori could not deny that she was afraid. She knew better than anyone that she was weak, and that she would provide little help in direct combat. But if her friends—the most important people in her life—would have her by their sides, then there was nothing else to worry about. She would give everything she had, all the power she could muster, to see the unknown dragon defeated, and to aid her friends when they needed her.
Zack Ciel was a hero, the dragon slayer who had defeated the dragon in Lyria Valley among the Florit Mountain Ranges. When he gave the call to action, those who were set to join him let loose rousing shouts that echoed through the Guild.