We headed for the forest where Parfeil and I had found the hot spring source. Since it would take a lot of time to travel there by foot, we rode there on the backs of transformed dragons. I sat on Van’s back, while Madeleine, Parfeil, and Lady Opera rode on the backs of knights. Meanwhile, Roche was riding on a wyvern, patrolling the skies to keep us safe.
It would have taken an hour to get there on foot, but doing this took us no time at all.
The flag I had planted was now completely buried in snow. I had even picked a long flagpole expecting that this would happen, but it would seem that it hadn’t been enough. I hung my head in dismay.
I thought that I would need to use a dowsing rod to find the spot, but Van offered an unexpected suggestion.
“Mille-Feuille, don’t worry. I’ll look for it.”
Van transformed into his tiny dragon form and crawled onto the snow. He buried his nose in the snow and started sniffing around. I recalled Van saying that he could smell mana. Dragonkin had a higher level of mana compared to regular humans, so we left mana trails on everything we touched, even when we weren’t using magic. Van was searching for the flagpole by seeking out the scent of my mana trail. The way he was looking for the flagpole was exactly as I imagined—like a dog.
Upon seeing Van, Roche lamented aloud. “Oh, milord... How pitiful...”
Lady Opera, seemingly bored of the search, turned to talk to me. “Mille-Feuille, is that little red dragon not here?”
Hearing that, Roche shivered. While the little red dragon Lady Opera was referring to was indeed right here, I hesitated on whether to give that away.
“Um, Aura, are you okay with that red dragon being your fiancé?” I asked.
“I thought about it some more after that, and now I long to be with him even more,” Lady Opera replied.
“O-Oh, okay then. But you know, he might be a cute and adorable little dragon, but he has a human form, and he’ll grow up eventually. Are you okay with that?”
“I do not mind at all. I did not fall for him based on his appearance.”
I gave Roche a sidelong glance. He was listening to Lady Opera’s words and his face was beet red. It didn’t look like he was opposed to Lady Opera’s affections.
He should just hurry up and reveal himself as that tiny red dragon.
Suddenly, Van poked his head out from the snow. Perhaps he had found the missing flagpole.
Instead, he turned around and shouted, “Everyone, we’re being attacked!”
Roche immediately sprang into action at his words. Parfeil drew her twin swords and stood in front of me. Madeleine then grabbed me and Lady Opera and pushed us low to the ground. She even activated a defensive scroll to give us a safe space.
A gigantic white bear appeared from the forest. It wasn’t just a White Bear—it was a Burrowless, like the one that Van had previously defeated. In fact, this creature was even bigger than the Burrowless that had attacked us.
Roche tried to strike at the bear with his sword, but its thick fur and skin repelled his blade. The bear didn’t look like it took any damage at all.
Van, still a tiny dragon, rolled away from the fighting and jumped onto my chest. “Mille-Feuille, are you okay?!” he cried.
“That’s not a line for you to say while jumping into someone’s chest!”
“And you are absolutely right about that!”
Van must have had a reason for retreating. I held him to warm him up—he was very cold from all the snow.
Suddenly, I figured out what Van was trying to do. He was trying to reveal the identity of the tiny red dragon to Lady Opera.
Roche, judging that he was at a disadvantage while in human form, transformed into a fiery-red dragon. When Lady Opera saw his dragon form, her mouth gaped open in shock.
“Is that not the dragon I determined to be my fiancé?!” she shouted.
Roche might have been a gigantic, fearsome dragon right now, but Lady Opera had immediately identified him.
“I see... I thought that red dragon seemed familiar. So that tiny dragon was Roche all along.”
Roche’s dragon form, said to be the largest in all of the Dragon Duchy, exuded strength and power. He bit the rampaging bear’s neck and flew with it high up into the sky. Up above us, he launched a breath attack reminiscent of fireworks. Soon after, he returned to the ground and reported to Van while still in his dragon form.
“Lord Dragon Duke, I have finished downing the beast!”
“Good work, Roche. You were incredible.”
“Milord, your words humble me.”
Now, how will Lady Opera react to this? But the moment I tried to look at her, I realized she was no longer beside me. She had run toward Roche and thrown her arms around his large neck.
“You have done well!!!” she cried out.
“U-Um, th-thank you,” Roche stammered.
“My future husband, you have done great work today!”
It seemed that she had completely accepted that Roche was the tiny red dragon. Van looked smug, as if to say that everything had gone according to his plan.
“Well then, let’s leave this young couple alone and get to work digging,” Van said.
“You’re right.”
According to Van, he had found the flag as he had noticed the Burrowless approaching.
Van reverted to his adult dragon form and buried his head into the ground. A short while later, he resurfaced, with the flag I had stabbed into the ground in his mouth.
“Mille-Feuille, is this the correct spot?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“Can I dig now?” he asked.
“Please do.”
I left Van to dig, and Roche joined him. The rest of us stayed a safe distance away.
“Roche, let’s get started,” Van announced.
“Yes, milord.”
I had thought that they would dig using their breath attacks, but they started digging into the ground with their claws instead. It reminded me of an old folktale from another world about a dog told to dig in the ground. While the dog in the folktale was told to dig under trees for treasure, Van and Roche were here to dig for the hot springs’ water. Perhaps, if we considered that we would be making a business out of the hot springs, it could be deemed a sort of treasure in itself.
As they dug through the snow, they finally hit solid ground.
“Nngh... This is much harder than I thought,” Van complained.
“The soil must have been pressurized by the weight of the snow,” Roche surmised.