Shinar calmly gathered her breath and raised her body.
The Dragonkin, seeing this, asked, "How did you do it?"
His duty was still tied to the fire lizard.
To be precise, it could be said that it lay in fulfilling the phantom beast's wish.
"I have prepared a place for it to rest, intoxicated with tranquility," Shinar said, her face pale.
The Dragonkin pondered for a mont.
Could this be considered his duty fulfilled?
Originally, he had intended to watch over the phantom beast until it returned to its own world.
Why had he set such a goal?
It was to not see the phantom beast suffer.
It had been reasonable to make that a part of his duty.
So, had he achieved his goal?
It was half-achieved and the other half was ambiguously stopped, but the Dragonkin judged that a part of his duty had ended here.
There was nothing more he could do with his own hands.
If the Salamander was in a stable space, it would be impossible for anyone to ss with the phantom beast's mind and pull any tricks.
His duty was not for the phantom beast to return, but for it to find peace.
The Dragonkin was convinced.
"Damn it, but isn't this going to burn down the whole city?"
The traces left by the Salamander were vivid. Several large fires still remained in the vicinity.
"It is fine," Shinar replied.
What happened next was sothing that would have surprised even Esther.
At Shinar's gesture, the flas were extinguished, gathered, scattered, and disappeared.
The blazing flas went out with a poof.
It was as if they had been sucked away and vanished.
Although what had been burned away remained as it was, and the heat in the air did not cool down imdiately, it was a surprising event nonetheless.
A few embers remained, but as Esther recited a spell towards the sky, a light rain began to fall.
The raindrops caught the remaining flas.
The pattering rain seed to say that the end of all this was approaching.
"Let's stop by the upper area before we go. There is a basin," Shinar said, pointing towards the top of the mountain range.
"It will be difficult to guide you if not now. This friend will fall into a deep sleep."
Shinar said and held out her hand.
Above it, the small fire lizard she had seen earlier was faintly visible.
Shinar had seen and felt many things while synchronized with the Salamander.
She spoke because of sothing she had confird then.
And also, as an elf who now clearly distinguished what things held high value after having associated with the human, specifically Krais.
Of course, she had known the usefulness of currency well even before she knew Krais.
Even now, she knows that sothing useful is up there.
That is why she spoke.
"What's there?" Rem asked.
Shinar seed to choose her words for a mont, closing and opening her lips.
"What do humans say at tis like this? Yes, this will do. The goddess of fortune has winked."
Hearing those words, Enkrid's gaze also turned upwards.
Everyone was tired, but not to the point where they couldn't move.
"Let's stop by before we go," Enkrid said.
Ragna seed to have no interest, but he just followed the flow.
"This is exciting. It feels like opening a treasure chest buried under a ruin, elf-sister," Audin added, taking a step.
"We have already obtained the real treasure. What we are going to get now is just a byproduct."
She had made a friend of the phantom beast called the Salamander.
In that mont, Shinar felt a change in the vigor that had settled within her.
She would probably be able to show so impressive skills from now on.
The thought of her fiancé's surprised face when he saw it naturally gave her strength.
They went straight up the mountain path.
On the way, a peculiar monster called a fire-breathing Drake appeared, but compared to the Salamander a little while ago, it was on a cute level.
THWACK!
Rem cleanly split the creature's head with his axe, then threw it down the mountain and gauged its position.
Drakes cannot originally breathe fire.
The fact that it did ant its hide had heat resistance.
Its internal organs as well.
If he tore apart its body and examined its structure, he might find sothing more useful.
"Doesn't it look good for making clothes from its hide?"
Is it only possible for Rem to see such a monster as re fabric?
No, Rem wasn't the only one who saw it that way.
"Plausible, you ignorant brother," Audin even agreed, and the others just let it pass.
Enkrid also felt he had nothing to say.
For them, dismantling monsters and beasts and turning them into equipnt was now a natural thing.
And so, after dispatching a few monsters and beasts, they reached the top of the mountain range.
The basin was wide, enough to hold several hundred people.
Shinar led the way through it.
As they descended into the basin, it felt as if they were surrounded by a circular wall.
The clouds, now closer, enveloped their bodies like a mist and soaked them.
Even though the light rain that Esther had summoned did not reach this far, their entire bodies quickly beca damp.
When he lifted his head, the sky was close.
It seed that if he ca here at night, the movent of the stars that Esther liked would be clearly visible. It was the top of a mountain.
The sky was close, and the ground was far.
Turning his gaze to the walls, he could see natural caves here and there, and in front of one of the cave entrances, Shinar stopped and picked up a few pebbles with her fingers.
"Behold."
On the surface, it looked like a normal stone, but of course it was not.
The Salamander had slept in this basin, and he was a phantom beast made of fire.
This phantom beast had constantly heated and burned the surrounding stones and soil.
How many years had it been?
At least well over a hundred years.
The stone that Shinar had picked up was white, but it held a faint heat.
In other words, it was the discovery of a new magic tal.
"I can see Big-Eyes weeping with joy," Rem said.
Everyone, including Enkrid, agreed.
The surrounding caves were full of such white stones.
The inside of the caves was the sa.
The white stones that emitted heat were mixed in with the other rocks.
'Has a new vein of ore ford?'
It must be the effect of the Salamander having stayed here for a long ti.
***
Everyone headed straight for the Border Guard.
On the way, Rem picked up the Drake's carcass and asked, just in case, "This won't be seen as killing your own kind or sothing, will it?"
He was asking Themares.
The Dragonkin answered naturally.
"Dragonkin are a species that has evolved into a unique form. We are different from Drakes or the dragons of legend."
Themares said this and seed to think for a mont, then added, "Though it is true that we are a species derived from dragons."
"Well, you don't know how to joke," Rem said, smoothing over the atmosphere with a pointless comnt.
"We should morize the path," Ragna said, and Enkrid roughly morized the way there and back.
It would be a necessary task later if they were to mine all the stones up there.
"If you need a guide later, I will go," Ragna said.
He was always lazy and seed bothered, but when it ca to finding a path, he would volunteer himself.
Which was why it was even more of a problem.
"No, it's fine." Enkrid lightly dismissed the request.
The Dragonkin naturally walked beside Enkrid, and Enkrid, as if he had t an old friend, asked various things.
"Did you originally live here?"
"No, I originally lived in the north."
"Where in the north?"
"A place full of glaciers. There, I taught those who lived in the glaciers."
"The Glaciar Rangers?"
"They are still called that I see. I was responsible for one of them."
"Why?"
"It was my duty. Before, that is, when I was wandering the continent, I made a connection with a human, and by promising to look after his child who was there, I made it my duty to raise him."
The Dragonkin's concept of duty was a realm difficult for humans to understand, but Enkrid let it pass unconcerned.
There was a bastard like Rem in the world, so this was nothing to be surprised about.
The Dragonkin, after seeing the subject of his duty grow old and die, had wandered and then discovered the traces of the Salamander.
It wasn't synchronization on the level of an elf, but he too had read a part of the phantom beast's heart.
Knowing that there was no such thing as fate in the world, he simply decided to accept this coincidence as a part of his life.
The most dreadful and scary thing for a Dragonkin is ennui.
That is why he always needed sothing to do.
For the sa reason, Themares had been impassive when the child he had raised like his own had grown old and died, and he was unconcerned when he faced the phantom beast's suffering.
Because of his duty, his emotions did not move.
As they neared the city, Enkrid asked casually, "Don't you want to finish what we started?"
It was not filled with any shyness.
It was a calm question, but one with a hint of expectation.
It was a face full of soot marks from fighting a phantom beast just a little while ago.
His hair was so burnt that he would have to take ti to fix it, with so of his bangs curled up.
In a way, it could have looked funny, but no one thought him so.
"You look like a man possessed by madness," the Dragonkin said, recalling a mory from his past.
How long had he lived?
He couldn't count.
Even looking through all that ti, this was the first ti he had seen such a human.
He vaguely rembered hearing similar words from his father, whom he had parted with in his childhood.
"A peculiar mont, a peculiar being. Such things are enjoyable. When the mont of feeling enjoynt cos, you will know the aning of my words."
Themares now understood the aning of the words he had not been curious about nor interested in until now.
A Dragonkin's life is filled with ennui.
So much so that it would be fine to give up if not for the anchor of duty.
A being that brings stimulation to such a life—to a Dragonkin, there was nothing more precious.
"A refusal?" the human who shakes that ennui asks.
"I accept," Themares answered imdiately.
The human nad Enkrid smiled upon hearing that answer.
That smile was so charming it was impossible to refuse.
"It's a smile that makes one want to change their gender."
It was not an easy task to recreate a world made of vigor and put the Salamander in it.
On top of that, she had climbed up the mountain.
It was Shinar, panting from exhaustion.
And yet, her gaze turned.
"Change what?" she asked, and the Dragonkin answered impassively.
"Dragonkin are a tamorphic species."
Themares was currently in a male form, but it was also possible for him to change into a female form, and he had spent half of his life as a female.
He could beco a she.
In fact, when he was in the north, Themares had looked after people as a mother, not a father.
Esther's gaze was not on the Dragonkin, but on Enkrid.
There would be nothing to worry about whether the Dragonkin beca a woman or not.
From that man's perspective, would it matter if the Dragonkin had a bountiful heart or a third leg?
"Are you tired? Should we rest a bit before we do it?"
Enkrid asked again.
This human was a peculiar individual.
It was so even in Themares's eyes.
They were in the middle of descending a mountain path, and they had just co from a battle, yet how common was a madman who urged to fight again imdiately?
Moreover, the will that shone within him was so brilliant.
"It's not good to push your body recklessly, you madman. And this isn't even a flat ground," Rem, rarely, said the right thing.
"Didn't I say that taking care of your body and resting is also a part of training? Have you forgotten, brother?"
"This way. Where is everyone going?"
Audin also added a word, and Jaxen silently guided the way, ignoring Ragna who was trying to take the lead.
"I know. I an after we go down," Enkrid said, showing his disappointnt.
The Dragonkin naturally joined them, but no one questioned it.
This too was a peculiar event, but Dragonkin were a race that was not interested in such relationships in the first place, and these madn were seasoned to their commander's madness.
So everyone was impassive.
The rain that Esther had summoned beca a little thicker.
The pattering rain began to strike the leaves with a thud-thud sound.
There was no trace of monsters in the vicinity.
It was partly because Jaxen, who was guiding the way, was avoiding them, but it was also because the monsters that had been nearby had all been burned to death by the Salamander's appearance.
Rem occasionally checked the surrounding traces on the way.
This was a part of his charge unit's patrol route.
The burn marks were vivid here and there.
But there were no human bodies.
The sll of blood and burning was mixed, but there probably weren't many dead from this.
"Enki, you'll have to carry ." Shinar said amidst the falling rain.
"It's hard to walk."
She asked again.
Elves speak the truth.
Distortion is their specialty, but they do not speak lies.
It ant that walking was difficult, not impossible.
Enkrid's gaze was fixed on the elf.
"It shouldn't be that bad," Esther said, walking beside him.
Shinar looked at the witch with indifferent eyes for a mont, then just said, "How petty," and took a step.
After that, the elf did not insist.
And so, after a few words and passing through the charred mountain path, they descended.
The city ca into view, and the soldiers who had been on high alert discovered them.
Rem threw the Drake's carcass in a suitable place.
"Take care of this."
"Yes, sir."
A soldier with sharp discipline headed for the monster's carcass.
So soldiers gave a military salute, and the party passed by.
Behind them, a group of soldiers whispered.
"Why does it seem like there's one more person?"
It seed they had reflexively counted their numbers.
The Dragonkin had thus naturally joined them and entered the city.
"You're here," Krais greeted the party.
Then, Enkrid handed him the white stone, and Esther explained that it was a new magic tal.
After hearing the whole story, Krais put aside the matter of the Dragonkin joining them for later and threw a sincere confession of love.
"Shinar, have I ever told you that I love you?"
"You have not. And I have never wished for it."
Shinar, being an elf, pushed him away with the truth, but it was as if Krais couldn't even hear her.
"What did you say you needed in the elven city? An elven-style salon? If there's anything you want, just say the word."
"That human's eyes have gone strange, fiancé."
"He's always like that."
Just a little while ago, Krais had been imagining the worst, filled with anxiety and worry that the price for refusing the demon's proposal would not be small.
He montarily forgot his anxiety.
A joy of that magnitude had co to him.
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