Dragon Slayer

 

"There's nobody more suited for this than you."

"You think so?"

I was flattered, and Nina nodded.

"If worst comes to worst, you can always just kill yourself."

 

Ai and Aisha. The names were certainly similar, but…

Her features had been hidden behind a helmet, so I couldn't tell what she looked like. But what about her voice? That calm, gentle tone could have been similar, or it could have been nothing alike.

There was no guarantee that reincarnation preserved one's physical traits to begin with. When I was reincarnated, I'd been transformed beyond recognition, and even in this form, I certainly hadn't had bright red hair in my previous life. There was every chance I wouldn't recognize her even if I saw her face.

"Are you certain about this?"

"Yes. When I checked before we entered the city, the light of her soul was definitely pointing somewhere inside the walls. But now it stretches far outside. The only person it could be is someone we passed on the way in."

In answer to Nina's question, Chryse nodded, her expression grave.

"I see… Let's go ask around."

We turned on our heels and headed for the gate.

"Just to be sure, it isn't one of those two guards, is it?"

"No. The soul's light extends much further away."

I breathed a sigh of relief at Chryse's answer. If I'd been told those guards were Ai's reincarnation, I genuinely wouldn't have known how to process it.

"Excuse me. The woman from earlier… could you tell us who Lady Aisha is?"

"What do you want to know that for?"

The guard fixed me with a hard stare.

"She helped us, and it didn't seem right not to thank her properly."

"… Fine then. I'll tell you. Lady Aisha is a hero. A dragon slayer."

Dragon slayer. The words were so brutally straightforward that I caught my breath.

"She… kills dragons?"

"That's right. You saw the silver armor she was wearing? It's forged from white dragon scales."

My stunned reaction seemed to please him. Looking rather satisfied, the guard went on.

"It's because of her that this city enjoys the prosperity it does."

He had a point. This city was nothing like the villages we'd seen on our travels. Even from a short walk near the entrance, the roads were paved, handsome brick buildings lined the streets, and above all else, the sheer scale was on another level entirely. It was an enormous metropolis that might well rival Scarlet itself.

"Normally, Lady Aisha wouldn't give the likes of you the time of day. She's a kind woman, but don't go getting any ideas."

Duly warned, we decided to head for an inn for the time being.

We traded the beast meat and pelts we'd hunted along the way, along with some goods from Scarlet, for coin, and took a room at an inn near the city entrance. While we were at it, we gathered information about Aisha.

Not that it proved difficult. Everyone in the city knew who she was, and they were happy to talk.

"Oh, you mean the Princess?"

"Princess?"

The bakery woman nodded cheerfully as she bagged the bread I'd ordered.

"That's right. Daughter of King Juda, our sovereign, and the dragon-slaying war maiden. There isn't a soul in Mashiro who doesn't know her."

So Mashiro was a monarchy. A princess who doubled as a dragon-slaying hero, though. Quite the aggressive individual.

… Then again, on reflection, the people who governed our own Scarlet were an entire clan of warriors. Most of them could probably take down a white dragon or two.

"Thank you."

I took the bread and headed back to the inn. Nina and Chryse were supposed to be gathering information separately, but when I returned to the room, they were already there.

"Assuming that really is Ai, she doesn't seem to remember our faces, at the very least."

Nina began, her expression troubled.

"Hard to say. There were people around, and given her position, maybe she just couldn't approach us?"

"As if."

Nina's rebuttal was immediate and absolute. She probably had no particular basis for it, but her intuition about these things was frustratingly reliable…

"Um, when she looked at you and Mom, there was barely any shift in her soul's fluctuations. If she remembered even a little, I'd think there would have been at least some reaction…"

As if to back up what I was starting to think, Chryse added.

"So then… what do we do?"

"Don't tell me you came all this way without a plan?"

I winced at Nina's withering tone.

She was right. Since Ai hadn't come to find us, I should have considered the possibility that she'd forgotten us entirely… Actually, now that I thought it through, that was by far the most likely outcome.

And yet some part of me had believed it would all work out once we met. I'd been hopelessly naive.

"Well, I figured as much… I don't have it all figured out either, but…"

My eyes went wide at Nina's words.

"You have something in mind?"

"No guarantees it'll work, but a thing or two, yes."

That was my partner for you. I was genuinely moved, and by contrast, my own uselessness was becoming painfully embarrassing.

"… Regardless, we need to talk to her somewhere out of the public eye."

"Right. She is a princess, after all…"

The guard had just warned us not to address her so casually. The odds of a group of travelers with no connections getting a private audience with royalty were essentially zero.

"Oh, I know! I found just the thing for that."

Chryse clapped her hands together and beamed.

 

＊　＊　＊

 

"… Hey, are we sure I'm not completely out of my element here?"

"A bit late for second thoughts. Now get going."

Nina gave me a push, and I stepped out of the dark passageway.

The sight that greeted me made me squint.

Not simply because I'd stepped from darkness into light.

It was because a crowd larger than any I'd ever seen surrounded me on all sides, staring down from above.

Before me stretched a circular arena of bare earth, ringed on all sides by high walls. Above the walls, tiered seats rose in a steep bowl. Two entrances were set into the walls. One was the passage I'd just emerged from, the other on the opposite side.

I knew the name for this kind of structure.

An amphitheatrum… more commonly known as a colosseum.

"And now, entering from the Red Gate, a traveler from the distant west… Sensei!"

The moment I was introduced, laughter swept through the venue. Mocking laughter.

Which was fair enough. A lanky man wearing nothing but a coat and carrying a wooden staff had just appeared before a warrior clad head to toe in metal armor, sword in hand.

"Hey, pretty boy! You seriously planning to fight dressed like that?"

My opponent bellowed, banging his shield for emphasis.

"Yes. That's the plan, sorry about that."

I readied my staff and offered my apology. I'd tried to project my voice as best I could, but between his helmet and the roar of the crowd, I doubted he heard me.

A bell rang out, high and clear, and the warrior charged straight at me. He wasn't using his sword. He meant to bowl me over with a body check. His blade wasn't blunted, either; it was the real thing. If he'd actually run me through with it, wearing no armor as I was, death would have been certain.

Killing me wouldn't have been against the rules, apparently, but he'd shown consideration all the same. Whether I could survive being crushed under a mass of iron was another question entirely, but he was surely a kind man at heart.

"I'm sorry about this, but…"

I activated my staff and swung it back. The warrior paid the stick no mind whatsoever and kept barreling toward me.

"I can't afford to lose!"

I swung, and the warrior went flying like a baseball off a bat. He bounced twice, three times across the ground, tumbling end over end before coming to a stop some twenty or thirty meters away.

I'd held back quite a bit, but compared to trolls and the like, a human in armor was still surprisingly light. He'd gone a lot further than I'd intended… He wasn't moving at all, but he was alive, right…?

The arena had gone dead silent. I looked around.

No one had called the match. He clearly wasn't in any shape to fight, but was I supposed to keep going? Come to think of it, I hadn't even been properly told the rules, or what constituted a win.

"Um, do I need to finish him off?"

My voice echoed across the now-silent arena.

"S-Sensei has defeated Gaweus in a single blow!"

Ah, good. It seemed I'd won.

As the crowd erupted into cheers, I raised a hand in half-hearted acknowledgment and turned my gaze toward the center of the stands.

There, beside a king draped in a red mantle, sat a knight in silver armor. Aisha, the dragon-slaying princess.

To join her dragon-hunting expedition, I still had to win five more rounds in this tournament.