Attack

Today in Golen was peaceful.

The adventurer-cum-farmer villagers were devoting themselves to caring for their fields.

"Man, my field's doing great today too. Grow big, my lovely cucumbers."

"Aah, your leaves are shining so fresh today! Don't be giving anyone sneak peaks of your good stuff, my Radish-chans!"

"Pfft, who'd want to look at your radishes? Follow my elegant potatoes' example!"

They, who'd obtained the knowledge of [Talking to your plants helps them grow] from the book at the Beddhism Gathering, had begun talking to their beloved vegetables as part of their daily routine.

They'd doubted it at first, but their plants were still alive.

There were plants that moved about to eat people like monsters, so they figured it wasn't too weird. Deciding to give pouring their love onto their plants a shot and noticing that there truly was a difference, they abandoned any last traces of doubt they had about it.

And, indeed, they grew even more delicious.

With that, there was no longer a reason for them to not talk to them.

"It's almost harvest time, huh~"

"Kukuku, I'll have Kinue-san cook them and get the Sister-sans to nom on my children… no, my prided children!"

"Hm? What's that?"

One of the villagers noticed something up in the sky.

It started out as a small dot, but steadily grew much larger.

Its body was huge and covered with red scales. It had featherless, bat-like wings and a reptilian head, upon which grew huge horns.

It was a red dragon.

"!? A dragon!? We gotta run!"

"Whaaat!? Are you aiming for my field!? You bastard, I'll drive you away with my holy radishes! Just you see!"

"You want my cucumbers!? Three of them!? You don't!? Do you!?"

"Dammit, so you actually want mine!? —No wait, we gotta run, seriously!"

The fire-attributed red dragon, or rather, its body was clad in a fiery blaze. Was it a flame dragon, even more specialized in the fire-attribute than red dragons?

Once the villager got to the point of realizing that, the dragon flapped its wings and stopped mid-air. Following that, it opened its mouth—and breathed.

"Crap! This is the first time I've seen it but that's definitely its breath attack! It's coming!"

"H-Hey, you want me to leave my radishes!? I can get a few more, just give me a sec."

"You wanna die!? You can grow more radishes! … Wait, uwaaah!?"

Immediately after—flames covered the ground.

 

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"… And that's how a part of the village was burned by a dragon."

"How many were injured?"

"There were none, thankfully. A small mercy."

"That so?"

I nodded after hearing Deputy Village Chief Wozuma's debriefing. Well, I already knew since I saw it on the map.

By the way, I'd started wondering if this dragon was going to be another overpowered thing annoying me like Rin, but it flew up to the summit of Tsuia Mountain.

It was probably a field dragon, so Ontentoo's dungeon should be able to manage… actually, maybe it'll be hard since they both specialize in fire? Let's ask him about it later. Oh, maybe it's Redra's relative?

"What will we do?"

"Hm? Oh yeah, I guess I'll check out the actual damage it did first… As for the dragon, well, I'll think of something."

Although I went to go see the burned fields after that, the ground wasn't particularly vitrified.

It just looked like it was burned normally. It'll be able to be reseeded by the evening if I send out golems to plow it again.

"So it was the improved version of a red dragon, a flame dragon? Seriously, if it can just breath out flames like that, it's like it was just playing around or something."

"Oh? Village Chief Kehma, you were familiar with dragons? It's like you're a top class adventurer."

"… Rokuko knows a bit about them. I just heard it from her."

Let's not say anything about me actually knowing a red dragon.

"By the way, why are you crying like you just watched you just watched your daughter get killed?"

"I'm the owner of this field. This place is where I raised and hand-nurtured my radishes… and they're all gone."

"There aren't too many, but I did manage to get a few of my cucumbers to safety! My potatoes were in the ground and just got roasted, so they're roasted and delicious to eat too!"

Oh, so that's why today turned into an all-you-can-eat potato festival? I ate some of them too.

The radish farmer's friends, two others who were similarly affected by the dragon, clapped the radish farmer's shoulders to cheer him up.

"Hah hah hah! This is the the elegance of potatoes! A huge win for potatoes!"

"By the way, my cucumbers I mixed in with the potato salad tasted great right?"

"Ya bastards!"

Unexpectedly, it looks like they're doing fine, that's all that matters.

"Rather, none of the radishes are still edible? They're root vegetables, right?"

"It spoiled my plan to put knee socks onto the younger white radishes though, dammiiiiiit…!"

"You… alright. So that's why you were heading into the dungeon so aggressively recently, you were getting enough for them, huh? Alright, go ahead, you can cry."

… Unexpectedly, it looks like they're doing fine, that's all that matters.

Well, their primary income is from adventuring, so it's not like they'll go broke from their crops being ruined. They could even borrow equipment from the guild…

Rather, from what I got out of their skit from before the dragon attacked, I can't even tell if they're idiots, hard-headed, confused as heck, idiots, have some secret way to survive, or idiots.

"Err, well, it's great that no one died."

"Agreed, Village Chief Kehma. By the way, they're just idiots. Normal adventurers wouldn't have frozen and would've actually ran away. They were saved by the dragon's whims."

"… That so? Oh, their houses burned down as well. Let's allow them to stay at the inn at a discount while their houses are repaired."

"Ah, you won't allow them to stay for free?"

"They won't work if they don't have to pay."

Wozuma looked at me and sighed.

Yep, what's that about me playing innocent? Huh?

"I'm fine, I don't have to work. I'm just a figurehead, after all."

"… I think you work plenty enough though?"

Hahaha, good joke.

Even if you say I'm working, I'm just signing a few documents a day, it's super easy. I've delegated all of the troublesome stuff to everyone else.

My job basically just amounts to making an appearance every now and then, like how I'm out and about because of this stuff.

Yep, being a figurehead is a great job!

"Well, pick yourselves up. You'll be farmers again soon, Golen will help you."

"Village Chief…! I'll do my best to raise my radishes again! I'll definitely put kneesocks on them this time…!"

"Nice. Right, do you have any seeds left?"

"Oh, come to think of it, those went with my house… will I have to leave my field for a while…?"

"Hm? You'd have to leave your field empty? That's no good, how about trying to raise these?"

Pretending to fish around the bag at my waist, I took out sugarbeet seeds from my [Storage]. They were the things I'd gotten frustrated at after trying to use to earn money way back when.

"Oooh… thank you, Village Chief! What sort of seeds are these?"

"They're sugarbeets, they can be used to make sugar. There should be a book in the church on how to do it, so give it a look."

The recipe for that should be in a part of the book that talked about fertilizer that Ichika translated.

"… Village Chief, where did you get seeds like these?"

"That's a Beddhism secret."

"Seriously? Beddhism is the best… thank you! Good Night!"

"Woah, I'm so jealous… Village Chief, please give me some too!"

"Me too! Me Too!"

"I don't mind, but make sure to return how much you use, okay? It can be as crops."

The cucumber farmer and potato farmer came and asked for some as well, so I gave also gave some to them. They were my leftovers either way, so go for it.

Oh, but now I'll have to call all three of them sugarbeet farmers, so how should I split them up…? Eh, whatever.

"As expected of the Village Chief. When did you manage to prepare those?"

"I've forgotten at this point, it's been a while."

Wozuma just shrugged his shoulders in response.

… Did I say something weird?