It seemed to have come out of nowhere.
At first, the discoverer said I thought it was a rather large bird.
What seemed like a trifle turned out to be a disaster in itself as it approached.
It had a huge body, shimmering pale blue scales, bat-like wings, and a solemn presence.
They were dragons that were supposed to be living in the mountains surrounding our country.
These dragons rarely come out of the mountains where they live, unless something happened to them.
However, a powerful dragon suddenly appeared on the street.
It is said that the place temporarily fell into a state of panic.
The person who discovered the dragon was a soldier of a certain duke's private army.
The soldiers were frightened by the dragon that had landed in front of the carriage of the lord they were supposed to protect, but they were stopped by a butler who was supposedly in the service of the nobleman.
He said, if we weaklings stay here, we will be dragging the Master down.
Instead, he said, we should bring reinforcements.
We, a party of A-level adventurers called "Noshizuku," were staying in a village near the road to return to the city where we were stationed when we heard the news.
... To be honest, I thought it was just some coward who mistook a wyvern for a dragon on the road.
I had assumed that a wyvern would be easy to get rid of.
The last time I went into a wyvern nest, there were several of them, so I had a hard time, but one wyvern was nothing to worry about.
But as we approached the road, I could see from a distance that it was an unmistakable dragon.
"Oh God…"
"Ricardo-san, what on earth are we gonna do, that's a real dragon no matter how you look at it!?"
A dragon roars in front of what looks like a burning carriage, emitting a sound I've never heard before.
The bandit and scout, Alan, shook me with a half-sobbing voice as I stared at him, dumbfounded.
“Dahhhhh! Shut up, you can tell my looking!!"
"Then let's get out of here!? We can’ win against somethin' like that!! Did ya forget we almost got killed by a wyvern!?"
"That's right, Ricardo-san!! It's impossible!!"
Perhaps in sympathy with Alan, even the normally calm sorcerer Raul urges me on in the most impatient voice I've ever heard.
To be honest, I want to run away too.
But we're a party of A-level adventurers, after all.
No matter how many dragons we're up against, there's no way we can just turn tail and run the moment we see one.
Trust is the most important thing for an adventurer.
If they failed, so be it.
It's the result of hard work, you know.
But betrayal is no good.
No one will ask you to do anything in the future.
In other words, it's the end of your adventuring career.
If you're asking me what I think of the wyvern eggs case as an adventurer, well, it's the fault of the one who was deceived.
Normally, you should be suspicious of such requests.
It's a world of the weak and the strong.
Well, with that out of the way, the problem is this.
Adventurers can't run away from the enemy unless they have a good reason, or rather, they are not allowed to.
If we do that, the dragon will be released into the wild.
In other words, if we ran away, we would have left the villages and towns in this area to suffer, and we would have left them to die.
In this situation, someone would have to take the bait and ask the country for help.
As adventurers, that's what we're supposed to do.
It was a choice between sacrificing ourselves or betraying the country and quitting the adventuring business.
What ran through my mind was the image of myself as a small child.
It all started when I saw an adventurer who happened to stop by my village and slayed a magical beast that happened to appear.
It was easy to imagine what the adventurer of that time would have done in such a situation.
Did the adventurer I admired run away in disgrace before a powerful enemy?
That's not possible.
He would have faced it.
It didn't matter if he could defeat a dragon or not, he would do it to protect everyone.
I'm sure I longed to be that kind of adventurer.
"Alan, Raul, you guys stay back."
“Ricardo-san!?"
My best and final trump card, a combination of magic and chi fighting techniques.
I don't have a name for it, and maybe someone else does, but this was the most effective way for me to attack.
I pulled out the sword at my waist and let the magic flow through me.
Then, I layered chi on top of the magic.
This way, even demons with strong resistance to magic can be slashed as they normally would.
I'm sure you'll be able to see that the color of my sword has changed to a faint greenish hue, and then I raised my voice.
"I'll buy you some time, use telegraph magic to contact the guild in capital!!"
"But then Ricardo-san would!"
"Shut up!! Hurry up!!"
"Wait a minute, Ricardo-san, there's someone coming out of the burning carriage!?"
“What!?"
At the sound of Alan's impatient voice, I turned my attention to what had been the carriage.
Sure enough, what seemed to be a doorway that had just opened, and a man was coming out of it.
I couldn't tell what kind of man he was because he was too far away, but I could tell from his clothes that he was a nobleman with light blue hair.
“Tsk!!"
I clicked my tongue as soon as I noticed him.
Why is the nobleman still here? Shouldn't he be the first to escape?
However, something unexpected happened.
The man who came out, not caring that the dragon was close by, turned back to what had been a burning carriage.
Then, with a crack, the flames went out.
Then there was another crackle, and the charred carriage was transformed into a luxurious carriage.
The dragons seemed to be surprised by this and froze with their mouths hanging open.
We froze, too.
We had no idea what we had done, but the fire was out and there was a beautiful carriage there.
It made too much sense to me and I started to get confused.
Suddenly, the man turned to the dragon.
The dragon noticed this and growled.
'Gugaruoooooo!!!'
Raul covered his ears with his hands at the loud and intimidating cry that seemed to echo through one's head.
Alan's eyes were white and he was so scared he looked like he was about to pass out.
I, too, cowered and couldn't move.
I was completely overwhelmed by the situation.
I couldn't even move my hand to hold my sword.
Cold sweat trickled down my back.
All I could do was stare at the nobleman who was facing the dragon on the other side.
Howling over and over again, the dragon spat out flames toward the man.
For some reason, the flames just disappeared when the man made a shaking gesture.
I didn't understand why.
Normally, if you were hit by something like that, you would turn into a black, humanoid wreck.
Despite this, the nobleman was completely unharmed.
However, the dragon, which seemed to have become quite frustrated after having its flames drowned out over and over again, finally moved.
'Gugaruoooooo!!!'
The dragon's tail slammed into the man.
Causing a roar and a cloud of dust to rise from the impact, and the man disappeared from sight.
If fire doesn't work, then physical attack is the way to go.
Judging from the way he was acting earlier, the man must have been a sorcerer or something.
That means he's weak against physical attacks, right?
I realized this, and strained to move my cowering legs.
Move, move, move, move!
I thought I became an adventurer to protect someone from this kind of unreasonable situation.
That sorcerer guy was trying to stop the dragon with his own body.
Then what the hell am I doing standing around here?
I gritted my teeth so hard that I could taste blood in my mouth.
The next moment, I heard a man's voice that was clear even from where I was for some reason, even though it was pretty far away and I shouldn't have been able to hear it.
"... I have to make them understand the difference in our abilities."
A breeze blew through the area, and a cloud of dust blew around the man.
And the man who appeared was, for all intents and purposes, unharmed.
If he's unharmed, that means he's pretty good.
We looked at the dragon and the man in dismay, while the soldiers looked on as if praying.
The butler, however, stood calmly, as if it was natural for him to do so.
You could see how much he believes in his Lord.
"Grrr! Guruu!! Gugaruo!!!'
But with the dragon's cry, flames that were probably stronger than ever shot out of its mouth.
This is the first time I've ever seen such a thing.
The man's figure disappeared again as he was hit by the blue flame.
'Gurugugaroooooooo!'
As if to drown out the dragon's roar, I heard another voice that should have been inaudible.
"... Looks like you need some discipline."
It was an annoyed voice that seemed to be crawling on the ground, cold-hearted and chilling.
The next moment, a man jumped out of the flames.
'Gurh?'
Somehow, I heard such a dumb voice from the dragon, but the man's action was faster than that.
“Down."
He said it coldly, as if he were disciplining a pet, and with a dry poof, the dragon was blown away from in front of him.
'Gurah!?'
The dragon slammed into the ground, and the ground shook from the impact of its weight and other things.
The man landed on the ground as if nothing had happened, and made a gesture of dusting himself off.
In the midst of all this, the dragon gets up with great vigor.
'Gurooooooooooooh!'
When I noticed, the man stomped on the dragon's huge body with his foot and blew it away again.
'Gu!?'
The dragon's momentum knocked it to the ground once again, but the man continued to press forward.
This time, the dragon rolled in the opposite direction.
The sight was so terrifying that I could only stare in amazement.
But as a result, the dragon seemed to have become angry.
'Guru…!! Gurooooooooooh!! Gugaguruoooooh...!!'
I felt the opposite magic power from the dragon that got up while spitting out blood.
I'm not sure if the ambient temperature is dropping or not, but my breath is turning white.
Then, the ground turned white around them.
'Grrrr!!
Gurugaru Gaguru Guruoooooooooooooh!!'
With a roar, the magic power that had built up to the maximum was sprayed from its mouth.
"Oh my god... What the heck…"
It was as if the world had ended, and all I could do was laugh dryly in despair.
A white light froze the entire area.
Except for the nobleman standing in front of the dragon.
'.................. Guru?'
A dumb voice came from the dragon.
“Well, did you just do something, just now?"
The man asks matter-of-factly, his arms folded proudly and gracefully, his head tilted at an angle.
Normally, he would be dead.
Why is that man still alive?
I was so confused that I scratched my head wildly.
And then I could see the dragon, who was just as confused as we were.
'Guoooooooooooo…!? Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!'
The dragon was shaking its head and retreating slowly.
"No, no, no, no, what is this, what the heck is, this"
There are only a few people who are stronger than a dragon.
There are only two options, a hero or a wiseman.
But the wisemen of this country must have been much older.
And I've only heard of heroes in fairy tales.
Moreover, the dragon and the man seemed to be able to communicate with each other.
In fact, even now, they seem to be talking to each other.
Then suddenly the man's mood changed.
'You're really not very bright, are you?'
It wasn't a voice heard by being carried by the wind.
It was clearly a voice filled with magical power.
That's why I cowered.
Even though it was just a single word, I was terrified, as if death was just around the corner.
I couldn't move my body as I wanted to, and the fear hit me several times harder than when I saw the dragon.
I broke out in a cold sweat, and even though I wasn't cold, my body was shaking.
'Why don't you notice that I'm hiding my magic power?'
I felt the kind of despair that a person would feel if the Grim Reaper was pointing a scythe at me, and for that moment I hated the dragon for waking it up.
In addition, the dragon was shaking and trembling, and did not hide his fear, but slumped to the ground as if he were collapsing.
With the sound of the ground shaking, a cloud of dust rose up, and the dragon, which had received the full force of the man's murderous intent, let out a gasp as if its fear had reached its limit.
Not even it’s voice came out anymore.
The next moment, however, things changed.
From somewhere in the distance, a red lump rammed into the dragon.
With a sound like Z-DO-GOO-ON! The ground shook after a beat.
Dust, smoke, clods of dirt and mud flew out and fell close to us.
We must have been a long way away, but the force of the collision must have been enormous.
I was stunned to realize that the red mass was a dragon, which meant that there was another dragon.
But I was already more surprised than scared.
At any rate, the red dragon, mounted on the pale blue dragon, was punching the pale blue dragon in the face, right and left, alternately.
The red dragon was growling and howling, making a continuous thumping sound as it continued to hit the pale blue dragon.
Suddenly, I heard a voice with magical power on it.
'Calm down, I'm unharmed.'
Apparently, the man can communicate with dragons after all.
As soon as the red dragon moved away from the pale blue dragon, it fell flat on its face.
They seemed to be talking to each other for a while, but I couldn't grasp the content.
However, it seemed that someone had stolen the dragon's eggs.
Apparently, the bald man was so worried about us that he had asked other adventurers to help.
Well, it's normal to have some insurance.
If the adventurer is found, I'm sorry for his loss.
I still couldn't move my body well, but my mind was becoming calmer and calmer.
And then, the man's voice with magic power was no longer heard.
Immediately, the butler walked toward the man with his soldiers.
He did so somewhat proudly.
We, who were now able to move our bodies, followed him, thinking that there would be no problem in approaching the dragon if that man, no that person, was there.
The butler, who was closest to the man, shouted as if he was overcome with emotion.
"As expected of you, Master...! You've managed to subdue even a dragon…!"
The next soldier, who seemed to be the most important, spoke up in turn.
“This Gulf Trasse is awe in admiration…!!"
“As expected of the Master…!!"
"I never thought you'd be this strong…!"
In addition to the cheers of the crowd, I froze and looked at the person who looked back at the butlers.
He had bluish-silver hair, cold ice-blue eyes that reminded me of a sharp blade, and an unnecessarily well-rounded face and body.
I don't care if he was a nobleman or not, he was really cool.
I want to say it again.
He was really cool.
If you think I'm a cash cow, think again.
My ideal was to be an adventurer, but even that has become a haze, or rather, has been overshadowed.
Just so there are no misunderstandings, I don't have any such hobbies.
This is a state of pure admiration, where a man falls in love with another man.
I want to call him "Ojiki”, rather then "Aniki”.¹
I think everyone can imagine what I did from there.
“Hey!!"
“Mmm?... Alfred."
The person who noticed me called out to the butler.
"I thought you might need a witness."
"I see. So, what is it?"
In the face of the man who sounded convinced, I tensed up and fell flat on my face, rubbing my forehead against the ground, and shouted.
"Please make me your subordinate!!"
"I refuse."
At the crisp rejection, I collapsed on the spot.
A/n: An unexpected adventurer's point of view.
[1] : アニキ(aniki) is another word for brother that’s also often used to show respect for someone you like in a “boss” kind of way, because the counterpart of aniki that is “onii-san” is used to also refer to young man, I think he used the oji of “ojisan”, which can be used to refer to a middle aged man, here instead.
Even adventurer-san has fallen. Thanks for the chapter!
"Ojiki" hahahaha, I wasn't expecting the POV of an adventurer, thanks for the chapter!!!