Sigebert left the hospital.
The plan was to head to a port town within the day for the conquest of the next Eden.
But when he cut across the hospital garden, he ran into a black-haired boy.
His hair and eyes were the same color as Sigebert’s.
He was a seventeen-year-old boy.
His name was Sigurd Siegfried, and he was Sigebert’s son.
Sigebert came to a stop in front of his son. But he didn’t say anything.
No—he couldn’t.
Sigebert was no good at talking to people. He would rarely ever initiate conversation with anyone. He was the same with his son, but this was a different breed of reticence.
Sigurd gave him an accusatory look with the wide black irises that resembled those of his deceased mother so much.
Sigebert didn’t know what to say. Dealing with his dragon daughter had been far easier than this.
Sigurd seemed to tire of waiting and began himself. “…So you went to see Brunhild.”
“…I did.”
Sigurd was in his rebellious phase, so he never addressed his father with proper respect. But that was just as well.
“You’re heading to the port without stopping by home?”
“…That’s right.”
Sachs had said that there was an invisible bond between parent and child.
Sigebert thought that was true. Whenever he spoke with his son, for some reason, he struggled with his words far more than normal.
“So they’re putting her in the military register and taking her into custody? And giving her a rank?”
“…That’s right.”
“You were never that considerate with me, though.”
Sigurd was also in the military, as a sergeant. It was a high rank, uncommon for one so young, but nepotism played no part in his achievements. There was a tendency for everyone to assume that Sigurd had succeeded due to pressure from the Siegfried family, but at the very least, the head of the family had never exerted any pressure that they accommodate him.
Sigurd had started as a private and achieved the rank of sergeant all on his own.
Sigebert knew that Sigurd had worked hard.
But…
“…Quit the army,” he said icily. “Killing dragons…is not as fun as you think it is.”
Sigurd took one step toward Sigebert. It looked as if he had stopped himself from grabbing his father by the cuff. “I have to show you what I’m capable of…or you won’t let me inherit the name of dragonslayer!”
“No matter how hard you work…you’ll never inherit the name…nor the Balmung… Not you.”
“Not me?”
Sigurd sensitively picked up on the meaning behind his words. “You can’t mean to suggest that Brunhild…”
“…It’s possible.”
“…Why? …Why would you hand them to someone who’s been absent from the family for thirteen years?” Sigurd was so angry it seemed like he couldn’t even speak anymore.
Sigebert didn’t know what to say. So he left his son behind and headed to the port city.
“I’m not giving up on the military!” His son’s voice came at him from behind. “I’ll prove to you that I’m better than her! Then when I do…!”
Pretending he couldn’t hear his son’s voice, the father left.
✦ ✦ ✦
Johann Sachs was a colonel in the Norvelland army.
He had enlisted at the same time as Sigebert Siegfried, and they were the same age as well. But that was where the similarities ended. In just about every other respect, they were total opposites.
Sigebert was a violent man of few words. He was a rationalist and always took the shortest possible route to his goal.
Sachs was a jovial chatterbox. He was optimistic and believed that one of life’s greatest pleasures was traveling.
Another might have viewed their friendship as the most unlikely pairing, but perhaps it was because they were polar opposites that they could find areas in which to complement each other.
Since one was a rationalist and the other an optimist, one would naturally have an easier time ranking up than the other, but that didn’t bother Sachs. He wasn’t a man to attach a lot of importance to status. In fact, he even thought of it as a hassle.
This was the sort of man Sigebert sought to make a request of.
It wasn’t anything unusual. Sigebert and Sachs had a give-and-take relationship. If he happened to receive work in an area he wasn’t the most proficient in, he would seek his friend’s aid without a second thought. That was a much quicker solution than worrying over it or trying to figure it out on his own. Since they were polar opposites, if there was something Sigebert couldn’t do, Sachs surely could.
Sigebert most commonly required Sachs’s assistance in fields requiring sociability.
When training their juniors and correcting those soldiers who were capable but had problems, Sigebert would try to resolve things with violence. Violence would settle things for the moment, but it was far from a fundamental solution.
This was usually where the sociable Sachs stepped in, but…
“Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…” Sachs let out a big yawn in the car as it headed to the hospital for pickup. It startled the driver, and he looked at Sachs through the mirror.
The problem child this time was on another level entirely.
She has the blood of a dragon and was raised by a dragon, but she hails from a famous clan of dragonslayers… And on top of all that, she’s a sixteen-year-old girl…? You’ve got to be kidding me.
Sachs restrained the urge to paw at his scalp. He’d gone through the trouble of gelling and styling his hair, so he couldn’t ruin it. First impressions were particularly important with girls, after all. Since he was already old enough to be considered middle-aged, Sachs cared much more about making the right first impression than the average man.
The name of this problem child was Brunhild Siegfried.
She was the girl who had been retrieved the month before, during the mission to take Silver Island.
By Sachs’s analysis, there were four problems.
First, the dragon’s blood.
It was publicly known that dragon’s blood was a deadly poison that had about a 99 percent chance of killing a person if it so much as touched their skin. However, even if they were lucky enough to survive, there was also the risk of it causing severe mental decline. This particular side effect was not very well understood outside of military personnel, medical staff, scholars, and researchers.
In Sachs’s estimation, the girl had, in all likelihood, suffered a similar mental affliction.
That had to be the case. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be calling herself the daughter of a dragon. This self-identification was the second problem. Or was it? He’d heard the story of a girl being raised by wolves before. Perhaps, under unique circumstances, calling oneself the child of a beast wasn’t the most outlandish thing…?
Then, there was the third problem… Running counter to her barbaric upbringing, they said her bloodline was of the esteemed Siegfried family. Ridiculous.
She just so happened to be the daughter of a man without peer.
Even if I am a close friend, would you really ask me to take care of your own daughter just because you’re bad at communicating with her? She’s your daughter! At least try to have a civil conversation with her! You’re parent and child. So he had persuaded the busy Sigebert to stay in the city until Brunhild had awoken.
After Brunhild had woken up, Sachs had had Sigebert go visit her in the hospital.
He didn’t know what sort of conversation they’d had.
On Sigebert’s return, he had said in his usual dour tone, “…It’s no use. I can’t deal with her, and I refuse to. I want her put down.”
Come now, that’s a bit much, don’t you think? Maybe it’s because you haven’t seen her in thirteen years… Well, actually, considering how the Siegfried family operates, it was probably your first time meeting her… But you’re still her father, aren’t you? You should never say that you want her “put down”!
Sachs was typically a mild-mannered guy, but he snapped then. He had yelled at his friend and was prepared to get physical.
And so Sigebert decided to foist Brunhild off on Sachs. He’d said, “You’re the one who retrieved her from Eden, and you’re the one who’s actually worried about her. Any way you slice it, you’re far more fatherly than me.”
Stroking his carefully groomed beard, Sachs considered this.
…Don’t you dump this on me.
Johann Sachs knew Sigebert Siegfried.
The world knew him as a heroic dragonslayer. This was a fact. The conquest of the Edens wouldn’t be possible without him.
But Sachs thought that Sigebert’s true weapon was his power of insight. His small irises were always fixed on the nature of things.
He would surely rise to the top of the military—with his shrewd intuition as his weapon.
“But you know, Sigebert…,” Sachs grumbled. “This is one of those rare instances where I think you’re mistaken…”
Even if I was the one to save her, and no matter if I’ve been worried about her…
You’re her father, Sigebert.
Not me.