Chapter 748

“Why was that bear wandering around here?”

Asha, now looking like a snowman with an extra layer of bear hide over her fur leather outfit, tilted her head curiously while munching on roasted bear meat.

“Such a place? Isn’t it normal for bears to be in the mountains?”

“Well, yes, but… it was shivering from the cold, wasn’t it? That’s a bit strange. An animal that can’t even endure its own habitat’s environment should have gone extinct or moved elsewhere by now, right?”

“…Huh, now that you mention it, that makes sense…?”

Milia widened her eyes and nodded hesitantly. As the daughter of a hunter, encountering bears in the mountains was such a natural and ordinary occurrence for her that she hadn’t even noticed the oddity of a shivering bear wandering around.

“Then why…?”

“It must mean this isn’t its original habitat. Even in the Sky Mountain Range, there are places that are slightly less cold.”

Ophelia, who had been guiding our direction beside me, turned to Milia and Asha and provided the answer.

“If such a creature was shivering and wandering around here… it probably fled or was driven out from its original home.”

Fled or driven out, huh…

Well, it did seem that way. Even though it roared loudly upon seeing us, its eyes were gleaming with something closer to fear rather than hunger.

It must have witnessed something terrifying and horrifying. Something so dreadful that even the mind of a beast couldn’t forget.

Yes, for example—a dragon, a being filled with nothing but malice and evil.

“It might be closer than we thought. That bug’s hiding place.”

“I think so too. Nidhogg must be nearby. At most, it’ll take us three days to find it. If it were any farther, we’d have encountered a frozen bear instead of a shivering one.”

Ophelia nodded in agreement.

“Three days, huh? That’s a relief. We can descend before our provisions run out.”

Nigel smiled brightly, and the others also looked pleased.

Well, of course, they’d be happy. It meant this grueling ordeal might end sooner than expected.

…Though, considering the reason and purpose for my coming here, even if we slay the dragon, this hardship won’t truly end.

No, in fact, after slaying it, the real suffering will begin.

We’ll have to stop the fairies and dragonkin who will come charging at us with bloodshot eyes, transport the dragon’s remains to the Empire, and retrieve the Holy Sword hidden somewhere in the mountain range.

The last task is a secret I haven’t shared with anyone in the group.

Only I know the location where the Holy Sword lies dormant. It’s not yet time to reveal it.

I need to prepare a proper explanation for how I know about it.

======[ ??? ]======

Ophelia’s guess was wrong.

Ha-shal-leur’s guess was also the same.

The snowfield bear they encountered had indeed strayed from its original habitat and was wandering in the middle of an unbearable snowy mountain, but it wasn’t Nidhogg that had driven it to such a fate.

“——Found it.”

The Fairy Guardian, Tersillius Zephinia Carnelruiod, who had been waiting in a cave as a hideout, lifted his head and let out a cold smile.

He sensed that the snowfield bear he had released had met its end.

‘Southwest, a day’s distance.’

The death of the familiar he had planted with a simple contract informed him. The target—they had been waiting for—had finally come within their reach.

“It was faster than expected. I thought it would take at least four more days to arrive… Did they fly here on that ship we saw yesterday?”

Ereneisia, who had been leaning against the cave wall roasting frozen meat with a spirit, glanced up at the snowstorm-filled sky and recalled the memory.

The steel galleon that had sailed through the sky with a loud roar. It was such an impressive sight that she had almost forgotten to stay hidden and nearly jumped out.

“Yes. It was too crude to be a dwarven ship… It must have been made by humans.”

“It’s still hard to believe. Just eight hundred years ago, they were little more than livestock, and now, in just eight hundred years, they’re mimicking the dwarves’ aerial warships. Isn’t their progress too fast?”

Ereneisia let out a deep sigh and voiced her concerns.

The airship itself wasn’t a significant threat. Even if they flew around in ships, all they had to do was catch up with a high-level wind spirit and shoot them down.

However, the fact that the lowly creatures, who were once mere slaves, had acquired flight technology on their own in just eight hundred years was something she couldn’t easily dismiss.

If they managed to obtain flight technology in just eight hundred years, what kind of beings would they become after a thousand, or two thousand years?

Perhaps they might even achieve a transcendent level of development surpassing the ancient dwarven mechanical civilization.

‘If only Carolus, that monster, hadn’t existed…’

Ereneisia’s mind flashed back to the nightmare of eight hundred years ago.

The leader of the slave race created by the heavenly Elpinel and the star Ausrine, a monster who could control spatial coordinates with mere willpower, turning simple sword swings into slashes that tore the sky and split mountains.

Carolus, the Dragon Slayer.

To all races other than humans, his existence was nothing short of a calamity. The twelve butchers of Elpinel who followed him with their blue-silver spears were no different.

The dragons that ruled the sky fell, the beastmen that roamed the plains were dismembered, and the dwarves of the underground cities were buried alive amidst screams.

The last of the orcs were fried alive in boiling oil, the merfolk who couldn’t escape to the deep sea were caught in nets and turned into sashimi, and the giants that once shook the earth with their steps became mountains and hills of decapitated corpses.

A few giants managed to survive, but… their descendants, having failed to inherit their ancestors’ strength and knowledge, degenerated into small, stupid, and weak creatures—what humans now call ogres or trolls.

Within fifty years of Carolus’s birth, all races had fallen to a pitiful state.

The great fairy nation, Alvheim, was no exception.

The Great Forest of Alvheim, which once covered half the continent, was reduced to ashes. Only the capital where the World Tree stood remained.

More than half of Ereneisia’s comrades were also slaughtered by Carolus and the twelve butchers. Their deaths were not dignified.

Those who were burned alive were the lucky ones. Those who were captured alive instead of dying in battle had their ears and limbs cut off and were thrown to the rebelling slaves as spoils of war.

What followed was a level of violation that even the centuries-old fairy psyche couldn’t withstand.

Carolus, who had been endlessly merciful to humans, was nothing but a cruel demon to the other races. At least, that’s how Ereneisia saw him.

In a way, it was the price they paid for enslaving and oppressing humans for over a thousand years, so it wasn’t entirely unfair…

But without reflecting on their own actions, only remembering what was done to them and accumulating resentment and grudges, is the very nature of fairies. So, it’s only natural that Ereneisia sees Carolus as a demon.

—-

“So, what now? We’ve located them, so should we ambush them right away?”

“Hmm… No, let’s leave them be for now. It’s better to wait until they clash with Nidhogg.”

After a moment of contemplation, Tersillius shook his head and stopped Ereneisia.

In his opinion, ambushing them now wasn’t the worst plan, but it wasn’t the best either.

“Do we really have to do this? It’s freezing.”

“The reaction of the bait we used was unusual. The moment it saw them, the simple contract I placed on it shook with fear.”

Ha-shal-leur thought the snowfield bear was fleeing from a terrifying presence, but in reality, the bear was terrified of her.

It had been forced to approach due to the simple contract placed on it, but if not for that, it would have fled the moment it caught her scent, running until its lungs burst.

“If a familiar shows such a reaction… it means that, in its eyes, the target is a being so dangerous and horrifying that it can’t even compare to its master. It can’t rely on its master’s power, so the loyalty implanted by the contract wavers.”

Ereneisia clicked her tongue and frowned at Tersillius’s explanation.

“So… you’re saying that short-lived girl is on a level that even you can’t handle alone?”

“You could say that.”

Tersillius nodded.

“……That short-lived girl, isn’t she only nineteen?”

“According to the reports.”

Ereneisia’s frown deepened.

“…So, in just nineteen years, she’s caught up to our centuries of progress. What a monstrous freak. Even that demon Carolus wasn’t this bad.”

“That’s why the order to kill her was given. Before that short-lived girl becomes a reincarnation of Carolus, or even surpasses him.”

Tersillius muttered gravely and softly, staring in the direction where the snowfield bear had died.

Their target was never Nidhogg. Not from the beginning.