Keel and Father both had their arms extended, but the assistant didn’t move, holding on tightly to the dragon.
“I don’t know . . .”
“But if you stay here . . .” Father trailed off.
“We’re waiting for Father to come back,” she replied. “If he comes back and we’re not here, he’ll be sad.”
Who is the girl’s father? Since this was the dragon den, did that mean it was the boss dragon?
What an unfortunate father to have, I say.
In the first go-around, the filolials in Father’s village did tell me that this girl was really helpful though. If she had helped the filolials, then I shall accept her fully! Even if she was the child of a dragon, I had to repay her kindness!
“And your father is?” Father rubbed his face, unsure of what to say.
“Gar! Gar!” said a young dragon, standing up and taking a few tottering steps forward.
“Hey! Wait! Where are you going?”
“Gar! Gar!”
“But . . . but what about Father?”
“Gar!”
The young dragon turned to Father and pointed.
“O-okay . . . So it’s really okay for us to go with him?”
“Gar!”
The dragon jumped onto the assistant’s back and the girl walked toward Father.
“Okay,” she said. “Please, can you help us just for a little?”
“No problem,” Father said. “Let’s get out of here. I’m going to take care of them,” Father said to the adventurers. “Do whatever you want with the treasure. I’m off.”
Glaring at the adventurers, Father took Keel and the assistant’s hand and led the dragon back toward me and the filolials, and we left the den.
“Let’s get out of here,” Father said.
Sakura and Luna didn’t look happy about having to help out dragons, but since Father was protecting them, they nodded and came with us as we left the dragon den behind.
Once we made our way about halfway down the mountain, we paused. Father scratched his head.
“Hm . . . what to do now.”
Keel slowly approached the assistant and tried to cheer her up.
“Hey, can I ask you a question?”
“Uh, okay.”
“What’s your name?”
“I’m . . . I’m Wyndia.”
“So Wyndia, is it?” Father said. “Well, what do you want to do now, Wyndia?”
“I want to find Father,” Assistant responded at once.
I was pretty much sure by this point that Assistant’s father was the boss dragon. Which meant that he was no longer in this world, I say.
“Before we look for him, there’s something I want to ask you first. Is that okay?”
Assistant nodded.
“Would you rather live in a fantasy where you can still hold on to hope or face the harsh truth?”
She understood the meaning of Father’s words at once, and burying her face in her hands, started to cry.
“Big Bro! That’s so cruel!”
“I know it is, but it could’ve been way worse if we didn’t get out of the dragon den. They need to move forward.”
“But still!”
“But still, Wyndia needs to decide for herself what to do.”
“Big Bro . . .” Keel trailed off.
Assistant continued to cry.
“Gar gar!” The little dragon tried to cheer her up.
She wiped the tears away. “Yes, I know. Thank you.” She looked up at Father. “I want to see Father.”
Father went pale and shook his head. “I . . . I don’t know about that. I wish I could’ve protected him. I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything else.”
Assistant watched Father. The little dragon climbed back up onto her back.
Well, things turned out the way they did. We wouldn’t be able to undo the death of the dragon or what happened to all the treasure. We also couldn’t let anyone find out that the Shield Hero was the saint of the bird god, or all of our plans would go to waste.
If you left it all to me, I would’ve just killed everyone so we wouldn’t have to deal with this situation in the first place.
“Father told us before,” Assistant said, “that he might die someday—that we needed to focus on protecting ourselves before mourning him . . . I remember my little sister got so mad.”
“Is that your little sister?” Father asked, gesturing to the dragon.
“Gar?”
“Yes, she’s my little sister.”
Assistant did her best to put on a smile and turned to Father and Keel.
“Thank you for helping us.”
“No need for thanks,” Father said. “We haven’t taken you to see your Father yet.”
“Yeah!” Keel agreed. “I’ll keep you safe, Wyndia!”
“Keel, you need to be more careful,” Father said. “There were so many enemies in there—you can’t just rush into them.”
Keel hung her head. “Got it, Father. I’ll be more careful.”
“I was surprised,” Luna said.
“Me too!” agreed Sakura.
“Sakura and Luna, I know that these two may smell like dragons, but they’re not your enemies,” Father said.
“I understand,” Luna said. “If I look closely, they look kinda cute. So I don’t want to fight them.”
“I get it,” Sakura said. “They’re our friends now.”
Hearing the voices of the filolials was like a breath of fresh air for me. I had been starting to feel pent up and angry after seeing so many horrible sights.
“I can kill every last one of those adventurers single-handedly,” I declared. “If they lay another hand on you, it’ll be over for them. And then I can erase all the evidence of the deed!”
“M-Motoyasu! No, I’m begging you, no!”
I knew that Father wouldn’t let me.
I wasn’t exactly thrilled about having to work alongside people associated with despicable dragons. But I wasn’t so uncouth to steal someone else’s accomplishments either, I say! The easy thing to do would be to just go into another mountain and get some dragon’s treasure yourself, after all.
We slowly descended the mountain with Assistant and the little dragon. I kept a close eye on the dragon. Looking closely, I realized it was a little different from a typical dragon. It seemed like it had blood from other monsters in it as well. I think I remember one of the filolials telling me in the first go-around that mixed dragons were actually quite common.
I don’t like having it around, but I may as well give it a name. So I’ll call it Monster. If it grew up into something more dragon-like, I’d just rename it.
Once we approached the cliff near the area where the dragon corpse was, Father paused and turned to Assistant.
“Wyndia, it’s coming up.”
She nodded without a word, and as we made our way around the crag, the sight of the dragon corpse appeared.
Assistant gasped. Large teardrops fell from her eyes.
Father gave her and the dragon a squeeze.
“No need to be brave. No need to hold back.” Father nodded. “Cry into my cloak. And don’t ever forget this feeling.”
Assistant fell into Father’s arms and sobbed her eyes out into his cloak so that her voice didn’t leak out. Sakura and Luna also chanted a spell to summon a rush of wind that hid the sound of her voice.
She let out an anguished wail into Father’s chest and didn’t stop crying for a long time.