I got up the next morning. Luna Maria was already making breakfast which she had said she would do last night. I started into the meal, she made a fine stir-fried chicken egg and bacon. The bread was hard-baked bread for long trips. It was gorgeous and delicious with the rest of last night’s soup but when I finished eating Luna Maria started changing her clothes without worrying about my wandering eyes.
I turned my back on her in a hurry. “Don’t strip so suddenly.”
“Okay. I will ask permission to take them off next time.”
“Rather, care about a man’s eyes.”
“There is nothing wrong with my skin, let alone this one dedicated to Will. There is no reason to be embarrassed to see it,” she replied with a neat face.
“I have one!” When I said that, I promised to refrain from doing so in the future.
“I understand.”
But how much did she understand?
Since she had been blind since she was a child, she seemed to be indifferent to the eyes of others. Also, it seemed that the place where she lived was with a group of shrine maidens running it.
In a sense, it may be as open as mother Miria.
I thought this, but I didn’t say it aloud. I packed up my luggage and headed for the dragon’s cave.
The dragon’s cave was just around the corner. The dragon’s cave is on the northern slope of Table Mountain but it wasn’t too difficult to get close to the cave.
“The problem is getting inside, right?”
“Are you in the middle?”
“Yup.”
“The cave is on the slope but it seems easy to get in via a rope.”
“No, it’s easy to get in but what kind of guy is inside?”
“Isn’t there a dragon?”
“Basically, that’s right but the dragons here will soon charge their place of residence.”
“Could I ask the reason?”
“Maybe it’s hard to live because there are few large foods,” I stated my expectations, the shrine maiden nodded.
“Then it’s dangerous not to know what kind of dragon lives there.”
“Yeah, it’s also in the Touhou military law book that Vandal taught me. If you know the enemy and you know yourself, you’re in danger of a hundred battles but you don’t know the enemy.”
“I don’t think I have time to take a closer look.” I looked up at the sun. I had to get back by noon.
“Well, it can’t be helped if you’re worried. Let’s get inside quickly,” she said at the same time, stating her opinion to go inside.
I lower the rope and got off first but as a gentleman, I didn’t look up. After me, Luna Maria came down with “yeah, yeah,” but as soon as she got off, she went inside the cave.
The dragon cave was bigger than I had expected. I thought that even an old dragon could have used this as a residence if it was this size. We went into the cave cautiously but fortunately we didn’t come across any monsters along the way.
“It’s empty,” was Luna Maria’s words but I disagreed. It is also possible to speculate that the owner of this hole is dangerous because there are no monsters. Even more fortunately, when I came to the third level we hadn’t come across anything. There was no dragon, the master of the cave to be seen.
“Are you up for a meal?”
“Maybe.”
It’s lucky because our purpose is get some herbs,” when Luna Maria said this, we arrived at the third level. We found a white glowing flower on its edge.
“There it is! That’s the sacred orchid grass!”
We quickly approach it and pick it. The roots of Holy orchid grass were shallow and could be easily picked. This mission was complete. As I sighed with relief, I noticed that the flow of the wind had changed.
“…something is coming!”
At that moment, a dragon with blue skin came out with a roar.
“That’s a blue dragon!” Luna Maria shouted.
Blue dragon is another name for sky dragon and is a general term for dragons that run around in the sky. There are many different sizes but this individual was reasonably large. It was about the same size as the red dragon we defeated the other day. To say it was the same size meant it was just as powerful. When I stood in front of Luna Maria I cast a spell and created a barrier.
My judgement was rewarded correctly. As soon as I made the barrier, the dragon exhaled a powerful flame. The flowers around it quickly turned into ashes. If I hadn’t created a barrier, we would have been like that too.
“Thank you Will, you’ve save my life.”
“Keep your words until we have beaten him or run away.”
“That’s right. However, Will-sama, who defeated the red dragon the other day by a margin. I don’t think you will lose.”
“Even if you expect a matchless every time,” but there was no option but to fight.
I didn’t take my life but I wanted to give him a blow to escape from his nest. When I reached for the dagger on my waist, I pulled it out and approached the dragon. It was unlikely to challenge a giant like a dragon but I usually jumped into peoples blind spots who were many times stronger than dragons. There was nothing scarier than jumping into Ronin’s blind side. With that feeling in mind, I jumped onto the dragon’s bosom, cutting through the scales of the dragon with the silver dagger. The dagger passed through as if it had torn through paper.
As expected, it was made of Mithril. If you confidently slash at it, the dragon will fight back with anger. He swung his huge tail and tried to kill me. But when he fended off the blow, he put magical power into the holy sword and added another slash. The straight sword flash went straight through the tail, eating straight through its flesh. Then the tail was cut off from the dragon’s body. I succeeded in destroying that part.
The tail released from the dragon’s body swells. It was like a lizard’s tail. However, what was different from lizards was the pain when the tail was amputated. The blue dragon made a painful roar. When I took it with my whole body, I screamed with spirit of a fissure.
“Blue Dragon! Leave this cave! Disappear from this mountain! Then I won’t take your life!” I didn’t know if my words were understood but the dragon probably realised the stupidity of fighting me. It turned its back on me and took off toward the entrance. It disappeared to the other side of the sky.
“… Did we win?” I murmured as the dragon disappeared but it was Luna Maria’s next words that convinced me of victory.
She jumped on the spot and approached me. Embracing me powerfully she said “It’s Will-sama. You defeated the blue dragon right after the red dragon. You are a dragon slayer.”
“I just got rid of it.” she shook her head when he told her only the truth.
“It’s great to be humble. Now, brave man, let’s take this herb back to god’s home and bless our departure.”
Luna Maria seemed unbearable because she wanted to travel as soon as possible.
Sure, it would have passed the promised noon if we were too slow so we withdrew quickly but on the way back we were caught up in something more annoying than a dragon. It was a trap prepared by the goddess Miria.
Shizuka Sekai 