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“Eek… What is this… Hehe!”

“St-stop that right now… Hah…!”

“Enough already… Hiyang!”

It seems like the dragon keeps talking, but since my attention is solely on its tail, I couldn’t really catch what it was saying.

The dragon’s tail had a texture that felt even weirder than I had imagined, and it felt so good to touch that the more I petted it, the more I wanted to keep going.

If petting my boss in cat mode was a 10 out of 10, then I could probably give this dragon’s tail a solid 9.5.

Of course, I never pet carelessly. I poured all my focus into stroking it with care, making sure to go against the grain at times for a little extra thrill without being boring.

After all, a top-tier assassin possesses skills rivaling that of any craftsman.

Of course, I wasn’t creating masterpieces infused with soul like those craftsmen, but rather using my skills to throw projectile weapons with more accuracy or to quickly draw weapons for assassination without being noticed.

And now, I have surpassed both elite and super elite tiers to become the continent’s best assassin, officially in my previous life and unofficially in my current one. So it was obvious my skills were anything but clumsy.

And those skills had already been tested by my boss.

Back in our Academy days, my boss would sometimes escape if she didn’t feel like my touches, but now, after having become skilled at petting, she couldn’t move an inch under my hands.

Nowadays, even when she wasn’t in cat mode, she would sit on my lap and silently protest for a head pat, so there was no way a dragon, who typically wouldn’t be used to this, could resist my touch.

Look at that. A dragon that could have possibly swallowed me whole now…

“Huh?”

As I finally realized the presence of the main body instead of just the tail and turned to look, there laid a blonde girl on the floor, trembling all over while holding her mouth tightly shut with both hands.

Now that I thought about it, I had been so distracted petting the tail that I hadn’t really listened to what she was saying, but I remembered her shouting something at me.

Based on the way she covered her mouth, I cautiously deduced that she had bitten her tongue while babbling at me.

I could understand her feelings well. Back in my days being trained in the Assassin Guild, I had experienced the agony of having my tongue partially cut and having to heal repeatedly all in the name of torture resistance training. I empathized with her pain.

But time tends to heal pain. I decided to wait patiently until she felt okay.

After all, if I meddled at a time like this, I might further ruin any goodwill I had left, which was already scarce.

While my friends were worried about whether they would be safe up on the cliff, the dragon girl finally managed to stand up slowly, having escaped her pain.

Her eyes were teary, drool marked her mouth, and her face was bright red.

I felt bad for her suffering, but intertwined with her beautiful appearance, it only served to make her look even more alluring.

“You… You…!”

The girl glared at me while tightly hugging her thick tail with both hands. Yet, with those teary eyes, it somehow had a charm that stirred something in me.

“What did you do to my tail?!”

“Hmm? I don’t think I did anything particularly noteworthy…”

I had only petted the tail a little. Of course, I knew that petting was not something you’d do upon first meeting, but that was solely the fault of the girl with the tempting tail.

“It’s definitely nothing…”

The girl murmured while carefully stroking her tail with her own hands.

Then, after a moment, she seemed to realize something and raised her head quickly to look at me with one corner of her mouth curled up.

“Hmph! It seems you used magic. Sneaking it in without being caught is quite something, but now that you’ve been spotted by this lady, it’s all for naught.”

“No, I swear I’m just a pure swordsman…”

Of course, I used to be an assassin, but ultimately I belonged to a sword-wielding class, and the only magic I knew was basic magic learned back in the Academy and the wish magic from my boss’s system. Even that was clumsy at best.

“Hmph! You can try to play dumb, but it’s futile! Anti-Magic Field!”

Without chanting or even a magic circle, the dragon girl unleashed her magic.

Waves of mana spread out from her.

“Such powers can’t be used by mere mortals who use magic like you clumsily.”

It seemed that the Anti-Magic ability indeed prevented the use of magic.

But it was just her misunderstanding; I really had no connection to magic whatsoever.

The hero before me, Selian, was an ideal hero who had perfect mastery of magic, but I was merely a hero from the ranks of humans.

“Hehe… Now your grand feats are useless. You’ll have to pay for teasing this lady.”

Yet, it seemed the girl still thought I was using magic. With a confident air, she looked down on me.

However, given that she had transformed into a human and was shorter than me, the intimidation factor wasn’t that strong.

“Hehe, why don’t you try to pull a fast one again? Although with magic blocked, it would be for nothing anyway.”

She unfurled the tail she had been hugging and started swishing it enticingly in front of me.

Once again, I must mention that the girl’s tail had an unexpected charm that made anyone want to pet it.

I wasn’t exactly sure what her misunderstanding was, but given how openly she was laying it out for me, it would be rude to decline.

So, I reached out and placed my hand back on the swishing tail.

“Well… if you apologize and bow your head to the ground right now, I might just let you live as my designated tail-petting maid…”

And then, I slowly started to pet it again.

“Hmm.”

*

“What on earth is happening…?”

As I came back to my senses from the tail petting, I noticed the girl was rolling on the floor again. Her eyes brimmed with tears as she whimpered in frustration.

“U-um… I actually ended up here because I fell off the cliff due to the fog. Of course, I know how much you hate having your territory invaded, but can you let this one slide?”

Of course, if we were to argue about fault, it would likely be more so the girl’s for setting up shop in a place where people go by, but as I was the one who needed to apologize, I decided to go first.

“Heh…”

Fortunately, this time she didn’t puff herself out like before.

Unlike the last time when she would not keep her head down nor apologize, she now couldn’t even seem to look at my face directly, seemingly embarrassed to apologize right in front of me.

“Actually, I really need to hurry through the mountain range to take down the Demon King’s Four Heavenly Kings.”

“The Demonic Race…? Four Heavenly Kings…?”

“Yeah. I may not look it, but I used to be a hero.”

I drew out the holy sword that was strapped at my waist and showed it to her for her to see.

Fortunately, she seemed to recognize the holy sword as well.

“Wait. Is that Serena’s…?”

Kaboom!

That instant, as soon as she said “Aunt Serena,” a huge thunder struck down between us, accompanied by a blinding light.

Although it was true that the sky was clear above the cliff, because the entrance was so narrow, there was no way for natural lightning to strike here.

But the blackened spot on the ground was undoubtedly proof that lightning had struck.

“…So, you’re Serena’s agent.”

Seeing the overwhelming sight made the girl change how she addressed the Goddess.

If she had the power to call down lightning like that, wouldn’t it be better to directly punish the Demon King instead? But I didn’t dare voice that thought, fearing that the lightning might decide to change direction and strike me.

There must be some reason she wouldn’t do that. Maybe she can’t directly take an enemy’s life.

“So that’s why you had some cocky attitude before me. Fine. If you ignore Serena’s agent, who knows what kind of retribution you would face later… I’ll just look up towards the cliff again, right?”

“Y-yeah…”

I didn’t think I had been especially arrogant, but whatever.

The girl emitted a bright light again; this time, she transformed into the majestic form of a dragon, just like when I first met her.

“…Huh?”

However, I noticed something odd that I didn’t catch when I first fell upon her back.

According to the records, dragons were supposed to be as big as large mansions, but the dragon before me, while big, didn’t seem that enormous.

Measuring it, it was only about 20 meters long, maybe?

“Isn’t it smaller than I expected…?”

“I’m still growing, you know!? I’m going to get bigger!”

She seemed to have heard my mumbling and shouted back angrily.

“And you, didn’t you use some form of telepathy before?”

“W-well… It just seems more dignified that way…”

Now that I had heard her real voice, there was nothing dignified about it anymore.

“Enough! Just get on already!”

She seemed to know she was embarrassed, and out of irritation, she yelled at me. When I moved my hand closer to get on her back, she flinched and shrank back.

But as I placed my hand on her scale instead, she let out a sigh of relief.

After leaping up to grab hold of something on her back, she spread her wings wide.

Though it might seem smaller than what I’d seen in the records, 20 meters was no small size. As she spread her wings, I couldn’t help but marvel at her overwhelming size.

With a powerful flap of those enormous wings, she took off into the sky.

With each strong flap, she soared upward with incredible speed. I must have fallen for quite some time. Without the Sylph’s power, I might have ended up in pieces.

“Humph! You’re the first ever to ride on me, so consider it an honor!”

She returned to her somewhat arrogant tone. But having witnessed her in various states, it just felt cute now.

“Thanks for saving me. I owe you my life.”

Since there wasn’t anything I could do while riding on her back, I just expressed my gratitude while gently stroking her back as I had with her tail.

“Hmm…”

Just then, she started to wobble wildly in the air. I clung tightly to prevent myself from falling.

“Just… stay still while flying!”

Barely regaining her balance, she screamed at me.

I almost fell off. Seriously, be careful. You are a dragon but can’t even handle a tickle or two.