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I’ve encountered many large monsters in the past, including Clarissa in wolf form and the Black Roc, but this dragon is on a whole other scale.

On top of that, Fan-Yen said that the bones are the source of the mana permeating this place, and the progenitor of the dragonborn, so quite a lot of time must’ve passed since it died. The fact that its bones are still exuding mana after so long only goes to show how overwhelmingly powerful it was.

“Look at Lord Saiken’s jaws.” Fan-Yen points at the skeleton’s jaws, and I look there too.

The skeleton’s bite looks big enough to chew on mountains, with each tooth being at least as tall as a grown person.

“…Hm?” While all of it is impressive, there’s one broken tooth. Or rather, most of the tooth is missing, except for a small part at its root.

“It’s been almost a year since we had an intruder in this sanctuary.” Fan-Yen explains how the peak of the mountain is considered a sacred location, enshrining the remains of their ancestor, and usually is protected by a barrier. But there was someone who broke in.

“One of the town’s youngsters saw a suspicious person coming down from the mountain. They tried telling them to stop, but after some chase they vanished like smoke, leaving no trace behind.”

After that they investigated what that person was doing there, but couldn’t find anything, so just in case they checked inside the barrier, only to find one of the teeth missing.

Pinning the blame on the suspicious person was obvious at that point, or at least it was clear that they were involved somehow.

“But there’s still many questions left. How did that person breach the barrier? And how did they take the tooth? We can’t figure out how that happened.”

There were no signs that the barrier had been tampered with, and it was fully active at the time the incident happened. It was also strange that they had made such a clean cut on a dragon’s tooth, especially one that still remained so full of mana millenia after his passing.

That sounded impossible from a logical point of view.

“I’m sure you’ve noticed how isolated we dragonborn are. So we have no way of knowing whether the outside world has advanced enough to make such acts possible, and we’re just falling behind with the times.”

“I’m sure there have been advancements and new discoveries, but interfering or dissipating a dragonborn barrier shouldn’t be possible for us yet. Your barriers are still considered the strongest in the world.” Christina just shakes her head as she explains that.

I feel like Ophelia could do it, but there’s no point comparing people to someone who already passed away.

But I know I couldn’t. The spells necessary to meddle with powerful barriers are way too complicated, and I can’t even use basic magic. The same goes for the tooth. Saws or swords would leave frayed edges and an uneven surface, but this just looks like the top of the tooth simply stopped existing.

“Either way, there you have it. That’s the reason we’ve all been on high alert whenever someone from outside steps into our territory, and some are even suspecting the merchants we usually allowed to enter.”

Christina nods, seemingly understanding everything. I don’t know the details, but I guess the neighboring territories already knew something was up. Either way, that’s not something a magic automaton like myself should meddle with, so I’ll remain silent.

I’m mostly interested in the perpetrator’s methods. Or rather, it’s not exactly interest, but more like it makes me uncomfortable.

It’s not just curiosity for an unknown skill. I mean, I am curious, but that’s not what’s bugging me. Something about the clean cut of the teeth just makes me feel weird, and I don’t like it.

But no matter how hard I think about it, I can’t figure out why I feel this way.

The door opened slowly, making no sound, letting someone in who approached Olivia’s bed.

The operation had been a success, and her other injuries were also treated, but due to the severity of them, all her whole body was wrapped in bandages. She probably would be completely defenseless if someone attacked her now.

But the person who entered had no intention of doing so, not to mention that he was just as injured as she was.

“I heard you managed to defeat an actual dragonborn.” Using a cane to prop his body up, Mathias looked at Olivia and muttered to her, fully aware that she would not reply.

“You’re always surpassing my expectations.”

It was common knowledge that dragonborn could only be defeated by other species if many of them ganged up on a single target, and across all of history, only a handful of people had been able to defeat one on their own.

“I’m always…”

He had never stopped trying to improve, even after graduating. Or rather, the knights’ training regime was even harsher than the Academy’s, so he had expected to be stronger than before.

But he had been powerless against Fan-Yen, not to mention that she had been limiting her power to not kill him. It had only been a child’s game for her.

He was frustrated with himself. He had acted all though when graduating, only to end up like this. It would not even be a fair match if he fought Olivia again now. And yet he had acted like they were worthy rivals of each other.

“We shouldn’t intervene, Akane.”

While Mathias grumbled with frustration, he heard a voice from outside the window, which made him raise his head.

“There’s no need to worry, he’s not trying to creep into her bed.”

He started getting a bad feeling about it, so he opened the window, even though he ideally would like to leave it be.

“What are you doing out here?”

Plum was outside the window, carrying Akane, one of Olivia’s Servants. Next to them, the Comet Wolf Clarissa was sitting, and the Cruel Predator Erika was behind them, distracted by the surrounding trees in the garden.

“Akane kept saying that you were trying to creep into Olivia’s bed, and wanted to stop you, so I tried telling her that you weren’t trying to do that.”

It was rather appalling to see Plum, who looked like a ten year old girl, talk about people sneaking into someone else’s bed, even if she was a magic automaton.

“…Do any of you even know what those words mean?” Mathias asked them that, scratching his cheek awkwardly. But he soon regretted it.

“Ruri once explained it to me, it’s something you do while the person you fancy is asleep to create a precedent for a future union.”

Just hearing that name gave Mathias a headache. He had already seen the bad influence Ruri had on other girls back at the Academy, and he had overheard his classmates having salacious conversations in a corner of his classroom many times.

Olivia had been the first one acting that way, followed by most of the girls in the second dormitory.

“Claire knows too. Boss always does it to the Maid, but she gets mad.”

And then Clarissa revealed an even more horrifying truth.

Mathias hung his head in frustration, having to hear so many things he wished he never knew. Natalia would also likely be unhappy if she knew what was happening, making it an expose that made no one happy.

“It might be wise to return to your bed soon, Mathias. Your body needs to heal.” Plum was right. Mathias was still gravely injured, and he should not even be up in the first place.

It had been a mistake to leave the hospital to rush to this place.

“Sadly I can’t help you go there, as Christina’s orders were clear. She said to let you rest in your room and not let you out, but if you got up anyway and your wounds got worse, it would be your own fault and not something we should be responsible for.”

“You really didn’t have to tell me that… Anyway, whatever. I’m going back.”

There was no concrete evidence for it, but it was likely that this was the reason why Mathias’ injuries took a month longer to heal than initially expected.