Shinar quietly steadied her breathing and rose to her feet.
The Dragonkin, watching her, asked,
"How did you do it?"
His duty was still tied to the fire lizard — or, more precisely, to realizing that spirit beast's wish.
"I made it a place to rest, so it might bask in peace."
Shinar spoke, her complexion pale. The Dragonkin pondered a moment. Could this be counted as fulfilling his duty?
Originally, he had intended to stay and watch over the spirit beast until it returned to its own world.
Why had he set that goal?
To avoid watching the spirit beast suffer. That, too, had been a fitting part of his duty.
So — had the goal been achieved?
Half, perhaps. The other half was left hanging in uncertainty. Still, the Dragonkin decided that at least part of his duty was complete. There was nothing more he could do with his own hands. If the Salamander was now in a stable space, no demon could stir its mind again.
It wasn't the beast's return that was his obligation — it was ensuring its peace. The Dragonkin accepted that.
"Damn it, but this isn't going to burn the whole city down, is it?"
The Salamander's traces remained plain. Many large fires still burned nearby.
"It's fine."
Shinar answered. What happened next could have startled even Esther.
At her gesture, the flames dimmed, clumped, scattered — and vanished. The blazing fire went poof and went out, as if it had simply been erased. Though what had been burnt stayed burnt, and the heat lingering in the air didn't fade immediately, it was still a sight to marvel at.
Some embers remained, but when Esther lifted her face to the sky and murmured a spell, a light drizzle began to fall.
Raindrops smothered the lingering flames. The pattering rain seemed to declare that everything had finally come to an end.
"Let's stop by the upper ridge. There's a basin."
It was Shinar who spoke, pointing up toward the mountain range.
"If not now, it'll be hard to guide you there. This friend will soon fall into deep sleep."
As she spoke, she extended her hand — and faintly, the small fire lizard they had seen earlier shimmered above it.
Through merging with the Salamander, Shinar had seen and felt many things. What she said now came from what she had confirmed then — and from what she had learned, after mingling with humans, or rather with Kraiss, as a fairy who could now clearly tell what objects held true value.
Of course, even before meeting Kraiss, she'd known the usefulness of coin.
And right now, she knew something useful awaited up there. That was why she spoke.
"What's up there?"
Rem asked. Shinar closed her lips, as if choosing her words, then opened them again.
"What do humans say at times like this? Ah, right. The goddess of fortune just winked."
At those words, Enkrid's gaze turned upward too. Everyone was exhausted, but not to the point they couldn't move.
"Let's stop by, then."
Enkrid said. Ragna looked indifferent but followed the flow.
"My heart's pounding. Like opening a treasure chest buried beneath some ruins, Sister Fairy."
Audin said with a grin as he started walking.
"The true treasure's already gained. What we're going to fetch now is just a byproduct."
They had made the Salamander their friend. Shinar could feel a change within her — the fairy energy inside her shifting. She would likely be able to display some impressive abilities from now on.
The thought of her fiancé's astonished face when he saw it later gave her strength.
Together, they climbed the mountain path.
Halfway up, they ran into a peculiar monster — a drake that breathed fire — but compared to the Salamander they had just faced, it was almost cute.
Crack!
Rem split its skull cleanly with his axe and flung it down the slope, gauging their position.
Ordinary drakes couldn't breathe fire. The fact that this one could meant its hide was heat-resistant — same for its innards. Cutting it open might reveal something useful.
"That hide'd make good clothes, don't you think?"
Only Rem could look at a beast that size and think of fabric. Well — not only Rem.
"Reasonable, my brute of a brother."
Audin agreed, and the rest simply went along. Enkrid found nothing to object to.
For them, butchering monsters and turning them into equipment was commonplace by now.
After slaying a few more beasts and monsters, they reached the upper ridge. The basin was wide.
It could easily fit hundreds of people. Shinar guided them across. Descending into the hollow, it felt as though rounded walls enclosed them.
The clouds hung low, cloaking their bodies in mist and dampness. Esther's summoned drizzle didn't reach here, yet they were soaked in moments.
When they looked up, the sky felt close. At night, the stars Esther loved would surely shine clearly here.
They were atop the mountain — the heavens near, the ground far.
Turning their gaze to the walls, they saw natural caves scattered about. Shinar stopped before one entrance and picked up a few stones with her fingers.
"Behold."
At a glance they seemed like ordinary rocks — but of course they weren't. The Salamander had slept in this basin, a spirit beast of fire. It had ceaselessly heated and scorched the earth and stones around it. How many years?
At least a hundred. Likely more.
The stones Shinar picked up were white, faintly warm to the touch — the discovery of a new magical metal.
"That bug-eyed bastard'll bawl from joy."
Rem said, and everyone, including Enkrid, silently agreed.
Every cave around was filled with such white stones, even within — mingled through the rock, exuding gentle heat.
'A vein formed here?'
It was likely the effect of the Salamander lingering for so long.
Soon after, they headed for the Border Guard. On the way, Rem hefted the drake's carcass and asked, just in case,
"This doesn't count as killing kin or anything, right?"
He was asking Temares, the Dragonkin. The Dragonkin answered naturally,
"Dragonkin are an independently evolved race. We are different from drakes or the dragons of legend."
After a pause, Temares added,
"Though, we did branch from the dragons."
"You sure don't know how to joke."
Rem brushed off the mood with a dull laugh.
"Best to memorize the path."
Ragna said, and Enkrid roughly noted their route. They'd need it later, to mine those stones.
"If a guide's needed, I'll come."
Ragna, usually lazy and disinterested, always took initiative when it came to finding paths — which was, in its own way, a problem.
"No need."
Enkrid lightly declined.
The Dragonkin naturally walked at Enkrid's side, and Enkrid, as though speaking to an old friend, asked about various things.
"You lived here originally?"
"No, I once lived in the north."
"Where in the north?"
"A land of glaciers. I taught those who lived among them."
"Glacier Rangers?"
"They are called that. I led one of them."
"Why?"
"It was my duty. Once — long ago — I met a human while wandering the continent. I promised to care for his child, and so I made raising him my duty."
The Dragonkin's concept of duty was hard for humans to grasp, but Enkrid took it in stride.
There were bastards like Rem in the world — this much wasn't even surprising.
After the one who was his charge grew old and died, the Dragonkin had wandered again, and found the Salamander's traces.
He couldn't merge minds like a fairy, but he could still glimpse fragments of the spirit beast's heart.
Knowing there was no such thing as fate, he simply chose to accept the coincidence as part of his life.
The thing most dreadful to a Dragonkin was boredom. That was why he always needed something to do.
For that same reason, when the one he'd raised died of age, or when he faced the spirit beast's agony, Temares had stayed indifferent. His emotions didn't move under duty's reign.
When the city came into view, Enkrid asked casually,
"Want to finish what we started?"
There was no shyness in it — calm, but with a faint gleam of expectation.
His face was still streaked with scorch marks from the fight with the spirit beast. His hair was burnt and curled at the ends, in need of trimming.
It might have looked funny, yet none of them found him ridiculous.
"You look like one possessed."
The Dragonkin spoke, recalling old memories. How long had he lived? He couldn't count. In all that time, he had never seen a human like this.
Vaguely, he remembered hearing something similar from his father before they parted in childhood.
"Unusual moments, unusual beings — those are joy. When you feel joy, you'll know what I meant."
Temares now understood words he'd never cared about before.
The Dragonkin's life was monotony. Without the anchor of duty, it could be discarded at any time.
A being who could stir that life — to him, nothing could be more precious.
"Refuse?"
The human who shook that monotony asked.
"I accept."
Temares answered immediately.
Enkrid smiled at that reply. It was a smile so irresistibly charming that—
"It's the kind of smile that could make you want to change sexes."
Recreating a world made of fairy energy and placing the Salamander inside it hadn't been easy. And she had climbed all the way to the mountain top after. Shinar was drained, gasping — yet her gaze turned.
"Change what?"
She asked, and the Dragonkin replied matter-of-factly,
"Dragonkin are a transmutable species."
Temares was currently male, but could change to female, and had spent half his life that way.
He could become a "she."
In fact, during his northern days, Temares had cared for people not as a father, but as a mother.
Esther's eyes shifted — not to the Dragonkin, but to Enkrid.
Whether the Dragonkin became a woman or not didn't matter. From this man's perspective, did it even matter whether the Dragonkin had a full bosom or a third leg?
"Tired? Should we rest before we start?"
Enkrid asked again. This human was an oddity — even Temares thought so. They were descending a mountain, fresh from battle, and yet he was already proposing another. Where would you find another madman like that?
And his shining will was so blindingly bright.
"Throwing your body around isn't good either, you lunatic. And this isn't even flat ground."
For once, Rem spoke sense.
"Caring for your body and resting are part of training too — did you forget that, Brother?"
"Isn't it this way? Where are you all going?"
Audin added, and when Ragna tried to take the lead pointlessly, Jaxon silently took the front instead.
"I know. I meant we'll do it after we get down."
Enkrid said with a hint of regret. The Dragonkin joined them naturally — and no one questioned it.
That too was strange, but the Dragonkin had never cared for such dynamics, and these madmen were long used to their commander's madness. So all were unbothered.
The rain Esther had called grew thicker.
The pattering drops struck the leaves with steady taps. There were no signs of monsters nearby.
Partly because Jaxon steered them clear, and partly because the Salamander's appearance had burned everything near to ash.
Rem kept scanning the traces along the path. This stretch was part of his assault squad's patrol route. Burn marks lay everywhere, plain as day. But there were no human corpses.
There was a mix of blood scent and burnt odor, but no sign that anyone had died here.
"Enki, you'll have to carry me."
Shinar spoke between falling rain.
"Walking's hard."
She asked again. Fairies speak truth — distortion is their specialty, but they never lie. Saying it was hard didn't mean it was impossible.
Enkrid's gaze rested squarely on her.
"It can't be that bad."
Esther, walking beside them, said.
Shinar looked at the witch with a blank stare, then merely muttered "Petty" and took another step.
After that, the fairy didn't insist.
A few more words, a few more blackened paths later, they descended. The city came into view, and soldiers on alert spotted them.
Rem tossed the drake's corpse onto the ground.
"Take care of that."
"Yes, sir."
A disciplined soldier hurried toward the carcass. Some gave salutes, and the group passed through. Behind them, soldiers whispered,
"Why does it look like there's one more of them?"
They must have counted by instinct. The Dragonkin had blended in that naturally.
"You're finally back."
Kraiss greeted them. Enkrid handed him one of the white stones, and Esther explained that it was a new magic metal. After hearing everything, Kraiss brushed aside the Dragonkin's arrival and instead delivered a heartfelt confession.
"Shinar, did I ever tell you that I love you?"
"You haven't. And I've never wanted to hear it."
Being a fairy, Shinar pushed him away with truth — but Kraiss didn't seem to hear.
"What was it the fairy city needed again? A fairy-style salon? Whatever you wish, name it."
"That human's eyes have gone strange, fiancé."
"He's always like this."
Not long ago, Kraiss had been filled with dread and worry, imagining only the worst as the price for rejecting a demon's offer.
For a moment, he forgot his fear. Because joy, immense and bright, had found him.