But there was no sign of Galdorba now. He must’ve moved in pursuit of us.
The crowd was still running around in confused chaos. Old people were crouched on the side of the road. A girl of about seven or eight crying across the street locked eyes with me. “Help me, miss!” she pleaded as she looked over, her arms stretched wide. And I...
“Gimme a breeeeeak!” Wham! I promptly spun around and unleashed a kick to her face with all the force I could muster.
“Gbweh?!” The girl let out a strange cry as she smashed into a nearby wall!
“What?!” Morgan shouted, aghast, but I didn’t take my eyes off the girl.
The girl immediately sat up and howled, “You! What are you doing?!”
I glared at her coldly in response. “You’re a bad actor, Regenell!”
Yup, that was the name of the game. The girl in front of me was no innocent victim amidst all the turmoil. It was Regenell, who’d taken the form of a human child in hopes of pulling the wool over my eyes. If he’d been a better actor, he might have gotten away with it too. But his disguise notwithstanding, he’d ignored closer adults to run straight toward me—not to mention he was brimming with hostility. I’d been deceived by a high-ranking demon in child form before, so he was gonna have to get up way earlier in the morning than that to fool me.
“Damn youuu!” Regenell howled as he transformed into a green dragon about the size of a horse. And then... “Huh?”
“Regenell,” I said, gazing at him. “You really should’ve listened to your friends, dude. Too bad it’s too late now.”
With a clink, Gourry—who was standing right next to Regenell—sheathed his sword.
As he realized what had happened and tried to struggle, all too late, Regenell’s body tilted to the side and collapsed to the ground.
The moment he’d perceived that an enemy was upon us, Gourry had adroitly moved to slice through the dragon mid-transformation. Maybe if, instead of cursing, Regenell had retreated straight for the sky like when he’d transformed from cyclops to giant bird on Galdorba’s advice, he could have dodged it, but...
There was no light left in the fallen dragon’s eyes.
Only Nelfic and Galdorba remained. That said, we couldn’t afford to hang around all day. I began walking in the opposite direction from where we’d left Nelfic earlier. My companions followed suit. Gourry, Ran, and Captain Morgan—
“Wait, Captain Morgan, what are you doing here?!”
“What do you think?” he replied. “I was ordered by my kingdom to track you down, Mistress Lina.”
Aha... Stopping to think about it, that did make sense. Captain Morgan had met us personally, after all.
Ignoring the fact that I’d stopped in my tracks, he said, “And when I finally caught up to you... this was the situation. It didn’t exactly seem appropriate to apprehend you. I’ve received reports of the damage they’ve caused to the Knights of the Silver Spear, but to think this is the Neosfeed in the flesh...”
I quickly resumed walking. “Neosfeed?”
“A group that worships Flare Dragon Ceifeed. We’ve only ever heard about them in rumors ourselves. They’re distinct from the church of Ceifeed you find in cities here and there. It’s fine enough that they venerate Ceifeed and advocate for defeating demons, but...” We cut down a side road onto a different street. Things were pretty chaotic here too, but there was no obvious damage to the area. “Their group consists of only nonhuman species like dragons and elves.”
“Dragons and elves?!” I found myself shouting. I was surprised but, reasonably speaking, it only made sense that elves and dragons worshiped the same god we did.
Captain Morgan nodded. “They call themselves ‘Neosfeed,’ the religion of the true Flare Dragon Ceifeed. Since we humans aren’t really strong enough to oppose demons, and we produce large amounts of negative emotions, they scorn us as mere demon fodder. So they refuse to let us join them and consider us disposable in the pursuit of their goals, or so I hear.”
“Huh?!”
“It’s said that long ago, when a greater demon appeared in Maricida, they came to slay it, but they happily burned the city and its army in the process.”
“What?!”
That explained why Regenell had seemed to take such glee in attacking the knights during our fight near Renihorn Village. And they were concerned about a prophecy that I was dangerous? That was... seriously messed up, if I’m being honest.
But if Captain Morgan was aware of these Neosfeed guys, surely the knight commander had been as well. Granted, he’d been under no obligation to share intel with wanted fugitives...
“So, how many of them are there in total?” I asked.
“I don’t know. As I said, we’ve only heard rumors.”
“And those guys just have free rein out here?”
“It’s not as if they’re actively trying to kill humans. They just don’t care about collateral damage. And we don’t know where their home base is, how many of them there are, or—”
“Raaaaaaaagh!” A howl from the main avenue interrupted the captain. Was something happening there?
“What now?” he asked.
“We’ll just have to handle it,” I replied instantly.
Naturally, Toltas had its own garrison or something like it. When we returned to the main avenue, the city guard was engaged with Galdorba and Nelfic.
That said, it wasn’t really much of a battle... The garrison shot volleys of arrows from a distance, and Nelfic fried them with her fire breath, leaving nothing more than burned-up sticks to fall to the ground. She spread her black wings and crushed houses, and when the flying rubble made the guards flinch, she closed in on them with her claws or her hair turned to blades. Some managed to block these attacks with their armor and fight back with their swords, but no slash could penetrate her torso before she retaliated with her claws and hair.
Though she appeared human right now, she was a dragon. Even her bare skin was likely as tough as scale hide. Piercing it with any average skill or weapon would be nigh impossible. The black claws, the freely moving black hair, and the dragon wings folded on her back made Nelfic look like a true she-devil.
Meanwhile, Galdorba was throwing out spells here and there to mow through the surrounding garrison. When he’d first removed his hood and mask, he’d had the semblance of a silver-haired man with a torn-open mouth, but it seemed he no longer felt compelled to keep up the act. He’d taken on a sort of weredragon form, with a bestial face covered in silver scales and two horns protruding backward from it.
I suspected the reason they weren’t reverting to their full dragon forms was because they were wary of my Dragon Slave. Obviously I wasn’t gonna throw that around in town, but if I could do it above town—for instance, if a massive enemy took to the skies—I would consider it a viable option. And they were clearly intent on denying me that opportunity.
Even if the garrison couldn’t defeat Nelfic or Galdorba, as long as they could just lure one of them away, that would make things easier. Sadly, however, based on what I could see, most of the guards were already dead or in hiding. No one was fighting back—so I ran out with a chant on my lips! I was aiming for the closer of the two dragons, Nelfic!
“She’s here!” she cried when she saw me, her voice teeming with hatred. Hearing this, Galdorba looked over.
Gourry, Ran, and I dashed across the ruined flagstones toward Nelfic. She showed a moment’s hesitation, then began chanting something.
Ignoring her, I finished my spell! “Dynast Breath!”
✦ ✦ ✦
