Apparently they need to offer a sacrifice

According to the hooded woman, her homeland was currently under attack by a dragon, and they had to offer up a sacrifice.

"Hmm hmm. In other words… it's none of my business!!"

"Huh, you're not going to help them?"

"Nah, I'm Anego's pet right now, so I can't just run off helping people on my own! Besides, she was going on about how amazing it is to be able to talk to dragons, but if they're demanding sacrifices, that means someone already talked to that dragon, right?"

"Oh? Now that you mention it, that's true."

Which meant someone had negotiated with the dragon.

"U-um, Dragon-sama. Could you please slow down a little…"

"Hah? I'm talking to Dea-kun-chan right now. You're the one who needs to keep up, inferior creature. I'll crush you."

"Eek!?"

The robed woman couldn't keep up with Arthur's word card handling, but when he irritably tapped on the card reading "I'll crush you," she cowered and backed away.

"Hey, Arthur. Don't threaten her too much."

"Yeah, I just can't help myself."

Arthur flashed a mischievous grin. He meant every word, of course, but he wasn't about to admit that.

Naturally, the robed woman had no way of reading a dragon's expressions, having only just met him. From her perspective, it looked like the Priestess Princess had scolded Arthur into backing off with a displeased grimace.

"But the dragon did demand a sacrifice, right? Some ignorant inferior creature probably did something they needed to pay for. The most common thing is stealing eggs."

"Oh right, I heard dragons have limits on how many children they can have. It makes sense they'd be angry if their eggs were stolen…"

"Well, it's probably just an unfertilized egg anyway. They're probably thinking something like, 'Might as well threaten them and make them bring me some food.'"

"Huh? And they demand human sacrifices for that?"

"Honestly, if it were me, humans are a bit… They don't have much meat on them, so orcs or something would be better as sacrifices. If you're after magic power, magic stones are the way to go. Unless there's a human with really high magic power, that is."

So that's how it is, Dea thought. If you put humans side by side with tastier prey, you'd obviously pick the tastier option unless there were special circumstances.

"Um, so. How exactly are they demanding these sacrifices?"

"Ah, yes, Priestess Princess-sama!… Um, what do you mean by 'how'?"

"I mean, how did the negotiations actually go? Depending on the situation, they might actually prefer hearty orcs or magic stones. Did they specifically demand humans?"

When Dea said this, the robed woman's eyes went wide with surprise.

"… I-is that so!? In my village, it's become a tradition to offer a pure virgin to appease the Dragon-sama's anger…"

"Ahh, the tradition type. Those are the troublesome ones. It probably started when a dragon originally demanded something like the head of an egg thief, and after they offered a sacrifice, the score was settled. Then they just kept doing it regardless of what the dragon actually wanted."

From a dragon's perspective, they don't really remember the faces of inferior creatures unless they're particularly distinctive. Apparently it goes something like, "Oh, this one's the thief? Alright, score settled. Good!"

And then every time another egg thief appears and the dragon comes demanding retribution, they repeat what worked before, and "offering a sacrifice" becomes tradition.

"There must be a dragon somewhere who's really bad at keeping eggs warm."

"Do they warm eggs that much?"

"They practice with unfertilized eggs. My mom used to tell me all about it. She said since I'd have to take turns warming eggs with my wife someday, I should practice for the real thing… She kept foisting her eggs on me to practice with… Having my own mother's eggs pushed on me was really something… So if they got stolen, it's like, 'Well, whatever,' you know…?"

"Unfertilized eggs… Oh, so that's why you said 'probably just an unfertilized egg' earlier."

"Yeah. Sometimes they're kept warm alongside real eggs as decoys to protect the real ones, though."

Dea had heard that even if you risked your life stealing an egg from a dragon's nest, it rarely hatched. So that was the deal with dragon eggs. The conversation was veering off on an interesting tangent.

Not that he could help it. Of course he'd be more interested in his friend's stories than the troubles of some robed stranger he'd just met.

"Well, anyway, there are probably a lot of misunderstandings going on."

"Hmm. If we sit down and talk things through properly, the sacrifice might not even be necessary."

"Really!? U-um, Priestess Princess-sama! Oh, please, please save us…!!"

And so Dea found himself being bowed to.

Now then, what to do about this? he thought.

"For now, let me consult with Onee-san."

After all, if the ability to speak with dragons was what made someone a priestess, then the true priestess was Karina. Dea was merely communicating through Arthur, who had been trained by Karina to use word cards on his behalf.