"Temares."
A dragonkin is one who walks alone. So they name themselves, too.
Temares, just past childhood and on the verge of leaving his parents' side, named himself in the tongue he had awakened to.
It meant the essence of life.
In a way, it suited the racial nature of the dragonkin.
'Don't most of us name ourselves along those lines?'
Temares thought that as he chose his name.
Special eyes, special lungs, a special stomach, special skin, special talents.
A race born with everything. Even so, nothing can be achieved without learning.
Once Temares grasped that truth, he applied himself to learning anything and everything.
Of course, if Enkrid had watched his life, he'd probably have said, "Applied? Aaaap-plied?"
For a race that lives near to immortality, he put in considerable effort. And Temares lived a very long time.
So long that counting the years had no meaning.
'Why should I live?'
A dragonkin is always troubled by that. They are nomads who wander in search of the reason for their life.
They rarely feel desire, have no cravings, no wants. Thus they can walk alone.
And because of this temperament, they must roam to find a reason to live.
A ship needs an anchor to make berth; they, too, needed an anchor to live. Keen intellect won't allow a life without meaning.
So, to others, a dragonkin may seem to live armed with sublimity—or, conversely, with an utterly unfathomable abstruseness.
"Dragonkin differ completely from individual to individual."
Because they walk alone, they do not resemble each other. Where all other races grow alike by looking at one another, these reveal only their inborn traits instead of any such similarity.
They do not resemble each other—but they are a race alike in showing boredom.
That was the cautious conclusion offered by leading scholars of the continent.
Half right, half wrong.
They do share a commonality. Put in a single word, you could call it an anchor.
More precisely, an anchor that lets them go on living.
If you have no cravings and no wants, what reason do you have to live? With what will you make the ship of life come to berth?
Beastmen are drunk on sex or appetite, Frog cannot resist the drive to inquire. Fairies seek a stable society and circumstances, dwarves are drawn by the urge to create.
Giants are a species with an innate lust for slaughter. They aren't called beasts drunk on blood for nothing. Humans become drunk on all those desires—and also overcome them.
And dragonkin lack desire. Therefore, to berth the ship of life, they drop an anchor called duty.
They decide what must be done, make it their goal, live by it, and shake off boredom.
Because they live immortally, they need a reason to remain in this world.
And because they live immortally, they must not be easily swayed by cravings or wants.
Life is a storm; waves beat endlessly.
Only by being insensible to all of it can one live immortally.
Call it the Creator's arrangement.
Insensibility is one condition of immortality.
That does not mean insensibility brings only gain.
If they sink into boredom, dragonkin fall asleep—and waking grows remote.
What do you call sleep from which you cannot wake? You could as well define it as death. Those who can die at any time—that is what dragonkin are.
'Duty.'
Drop anchor.
Once, long ago, Temares saw traces of a Salamander, and he also understood this being need not be called a monster.
'It was being controlled.'
By whom? Finding that would be far-off work. A Salamander is a phantasmal beast. That much he understood. Temares found an anchor that would keep him in reality.
'Protect it.'
Put in human terms, a pastime. Like finishing a hard day's work and then playing cards.
Not particularly important—one could do it or not—but enough to become a reason to live.
Like how a card game with a beer and a few jokes helps you endure a hard job.
Temares found a duty. And to a dragonkin, duty is something to be kept even at the cost of one's life.
He meant not only to guard the Salamander as a phantasmal beast, but to tend its will as well.
His duty expanded, and Temares's aim grew clear.
He would let no one harm the Salamander, and he would let no one die directly to the Salamander.
It had meaning because it was not easy. If not joy, it could at least bring a quiet sense of satisfaction. Along with that, his calculation was precise. He drew a line.
'The aberrant flames spread around it by virtue of its being a phantasmal beast carry no will'.
Therefore, they lie outside the realm of his duty.
Only the Salamander's direct exertion of power falls within the fence of his duty and responsibility—or so Temares calculated.
And so he passed again into a span of time too long to count.
A dragonkin is not swayed by this or that desire or want. In general. And if in general, then there are cases that are not.
Aside from an anchor-like duty, there is exactly one thing that can draw goodwill from a dragonkin.
Put into language, you could call it a "grand dream."
In Temares's diction:
'A will that looks like it will never bend.'
That is another way to say it.
In life, he had met such intelligences a handful of times.
Temares showed goodwill to them all. They were beings worthy of respect. Beyond good and evil—beings who showed a pure will.
Those who moved toward an ideal, not a craving.
A dragonkin cannot hate or dislike such people.
When dragonkin choose sides, there is only the one reason.
'Respect for will.'
They shine. They shine like stars and burn their lives.
What a dragonkin can feel only by forcibly clutching and wringing out duty—those who shine of themselves spill naturally.
Dragonkin have the senses to catch and perceive that.
It is why, crossing blades with Enkrid, Temares showed goodwill without reason, along with delight and expectation.
As Frogs love beautiful faces and fairies love clear airs, a dragonkin feels nothing but pleasure when they meet someone filled within by a will that's so rarely seen.
It is like looking at a beautiful work of art; like listening to music that strikes the heart.
More bluntly, you could call it something addictive.
Not that it comes before duty.
They have no grand cause, no justice, no morality. But neither do they put malice and murder foremost.
For a dragonkin, duty is paramount. It is the reason to live, so it could only be.
Temares held several thoughts at once as he grasped what was happening now.
In the past, when the phantasmal beast was active, magical life-forms made of flame were born by the bushel in the surroundings, and those who drew too near the Salamander fell drunk on illusion and lost their minds. That was its native faculty.
Temares had no intention of letting anyone behind him die.
'The phantasmal beast's mind is tainted.'
Why? He could not know. Even a dragonkin cannot divide his body into hundreds of duplicates. Nor can he wield magic at will. He can only wield authority.
Thus he missed the parasitic malice burrowing into this place.
'Tricks.'
He could tell it by intuition, at least. Someone had done this. Finding the reason comes later. What needs doing now is to resolve what's at hand.
Temares found it particularly a waste to let the man who had shared blades with him die. That one pleased him to quite a degree.
'A waste?'
Did he even get feelings like this?
Unfamiliar. This, too, would be a matter to revisit later. For now, he had to keep those drunk on vision from becoming food for the flames.
The moment he resolved that, one of the party who stood behind him opened her mouth.
"Enki."
It was the black-haired mage. She shattered the Salamander's glamour with ease and opened her eyes. Truly in the blink of an eye.
And then Temares had to see a sight he had never seen before in his life.
"What the hell kind of cheap trick is this?"
A gray-haired human. He, too, broke the vision. Nor was he the only one—and so, the dragonkin experienced a surprise he had met only a few times since birth.
***
Lately, by means of the Illusory Sense, Esther had experienced her spell-world overlapping the real world.
It was hard to forget that moment when thrill surged past and turned to rapture. But is there anything good in getting drunk on that feeling?
There is not. The boundary between reality and illusion must be clear. A mage must be able to draw that line.
'To be drunk on illusions is like being trapped in a maze you can never escape.'
If you're satisfied to live in illusions and phantoms of your own making, you'll cease to look for any reason to live in reality.
She overcame the Illusory Sense. Therefore, crushing, grinding, and breaking the vision the Salamander showed was easy.
Her dead master appearing to speak bitter words?
'Even if a necromancer raised him, he wouldn't say such a thing.'
The vision was clumsy. Instead of boring into human psychology, it was just a resonance that shook emotion.
Of course, even that alone can smash a human mind without mercy—but among those who had come this far, not one was ordinary.
"What the hell kind of cheap trick is this?"
Rem's voice reached her.
At Esther's call, Enkrid turned his head and asked back:
"Why?"
He sounded offhand. He'd cleanly overcome paltry illusions and phantoms.
"I know it's not yet the time for the Lord to call me."
With a prayer, Audin let white sanctity flow from his whole body.
"I am the continent's greatest guide."
Ragna spouted nonsense.
"How many times have I met demons and fought them? You think I'll fall to something like this?"
Shinar sneered at the vision. Of course, being a fairy, you had to listen closely to catch a sliver of her feeling.
From the instant you face them, demons gnaw at your mind. Balrog alone—if you can't overcome his force and pressure, your lungs crumple and you die. That's death that simply arrives.
And the one who sought to make her his bride? A single brush from his blade could kill, yes—but didn't he ultimately try to swallow an entire fairy city?
Picturing the worst is not Kraiss's special skill alone. Rather than reveal emotion, fairies sang despair and frustration from deep within.
The whole city did so.
So this level of vision, compared to when the city was being eaten away and dying, was only adorable.
And Enkrid's will went without saying.
He does not waver at this. Even faced with a child he failed to protect, he goes on. If he couldn't manage even this, he'd have long since been trapped in some "today."
There was no difficulty in distinguishing reality and illusion. Enkrid had never been drunk on omnipotence, either.
'If we'd brought Dunbakel along, maybe there would've been a little wobble.'
He had enough leeway for such idle thoughts.
Giants or beastmen are, by nature, weak to tricks of this sort.
By simple fighting power, Dunbakel could give Teresa a match; she could cross weapons with Lawford and Pel and not be pushed back. Of course, if it were a fight to the death, guessing who'd win would be meaningless.
'Even so…'
Dunbakel would have overcome it, too.
In the East, she learned how to handle fear. She had shown mental growth as well. Even if illusions and whispers shook her, she wouldn't collapse.
As for the others, they could handle it fine on their own.
"If I were a beastman I might have staggered a bit, but me? Not a chance."
Rem said it. A barbarian is rough on the outside, but careful within. The fact he thought of Dunbakel now shows it—he named the one he worried about most.
It's just that his way of showing affection is so coarse that it's torment for Dunbakel.
"Slipshod."
Enkrid heard the Ferryman's whisper.
Yes, slipshod indeed.
The flames draped over their heads looked like red clouds. Flame burning scarlet covered the sky above.
Strictly, not clouds, but sheets of fire spread wide.
"From above. Fire's falling."
Temares, the dragonkin, spoke. He didn't stop there.
"My name is Temares."
"I am a dragonkin."
"You are a human."
The Salamander had awakened, so what he had to do was now clear. For that, he repeated the same words.