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The world could easily collapse at times, and a cold wind could blow even into a warm bed.

“Intruders? And when Kafal’s away again.”

That day, Lucella once again discovered adventurers trespassing in his home range.

The party called Blue Flag that he met the other day said that the dragon nest’s vicinity was still off-limits, but the strict border was apparently still vague.

In the first place, it was hard to grasp its accurate terrain as even just investigating this mountain was dangerous as is, so it was hard to say where the off-limits area stretched.

Nevertheless, it was still too careless to start cooking and raising smoke in a place which they could actually see from the dragon’s nest, Lucella thought as he looked at the smoke rising from between the trees.

“Come on now. Strong magic beasts are generally clever, so you’re basically telling them to come and find you…”

Lucella headed to the source of the smoke, pushing his way through the trees as he went down the slope.

But he couldn’t find anyone there.

—What the? This isn’t cooking smoke. Is it a smoke signal?

There was a meager bonfire set up in a somewhat open field and the smoke was rising from it. But it was smoking in a way that was impossible by just burning firewood, it was smoking due to some drug or something which was used for smoke signals. The question still stood— for what?

It was at that moment.

“Are you Lucella?”
“Woah?!”

A pale-bluish humanoid ghost-like figure suddenly appeared next to the bonfire. But it didn’t seem like it was a ghost that mistook when to appear or anything. There was a small box-like thing on the grass with a lens attached to it. The pale-bluish figure of a man was projected through it.

“Illusion magic…? No, is this a magic item?”

The man wore solid armor like a steel mountain range. He was most likely an adventurer.

“I’m sorry for leading you here like this. I had something I had to talk about.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m the leader of an adventurer party called Golden Helmet, Tim. I’m a senior… or rather, a friend, of the adventurers that you saved the other day.”

As the illusion talked, a voice was reaching from somewhere in sync. He seemed to be projecting his form and voice using the magic item.

Most likely, he judged that it would be dangerous if anything other than Lucella came, so instead of waiting under the smoke, he prepared a way to converse from a distance using magic.

“The party I saved… You mean that party called Blue Flag?”
“Yeah, that’s the one. I came to thank you for that. Though, well, I’m not sure if this will serve as repayment… but I came to tell you something important.”

The armored man raised the visor of his helmet. He had quite a stern face.

His stern face grew even sterner and moved his thick brows together.

“A danger is approaching the mountain queen. If you, her foster child, treasure her, then I want you to stay calm and listen.”

Golden Helmet was a party of three.

Their leader was the fighter, Tim. He was a man clad in full-body armor that was as solid as a mountain range which shone in metallic blue, and carried a large sword on his back which looked like a giant cleaver.

The second member was the thief, Wein. He wore a mask over his eyes, a black top hat, and a black cloak—a phantom thief getup which was clearly not suitable for mountain travel. Despite his gloomy getup, he gave off quite a frivolous atmosphere.

And finally, the sole woman, the wizard, Viola. She wore glasses that looked like they were cut off from the bottom of the bottles, a robe that seemed like someone took the word unfashionable and boiled it into a jam with sugar, and a purple coat that was just barely qualified to be called witchy. She had several tools of questionable nature fitted into her belt.

After smothering the signal smoke and calling Lucella to the hiding place behind a rock, he cut the introductions short and got to the point.

“This Mount Kuguse is a mountain on the national border. Do you know about that?”
“Uhh…”

Lucella recalled a map in his head. Mount Kuguse was part of the mountain range zone that stretched east and west. It was also a border separating south and north.

—Yeah, looks like my knowledge itself isn’t gone, unlike those related to the incident.

When he received a name from Kafal, Lucella had lost most of the memories related to the past events and people he had met.

However, the memories that could be classified as ‘knowledge’ separate from personal matters were mostly retained.

“There is the major nation Maltgartz in the north and the water kingdom Setulev in the south.”
“Oh, so you know.”
“It’s not like I was born and raised on the mountain. I know about the outside circumstances.”

Tim nodded and his expression grew increasingly stern.

“Then, do you know that Maltgartz plans to eliminate the red dragon, in other words, who you call “Kafal,” cross the mountain and invade Setulev?”

It took a second for him to process it. And one second to be hit with the shock.

Their strange yet peaceful and happy life which seemed like it would last forever as if time had stopped was no longer stable.

“I didn’t know…”
“This is something very recent.

…Maltgartz has been in a long war with the Gufare Union of the east. The lifeline for that union for receiving aid from friendly southern kingdoms is Setulev. Setulev is merely a third party that acts as a passage for people and things, but it’s because of their existence that the war situation has reached this quagmire.

Maltgartz considers it a thorn in their side, and they can crush them easily considering the difference in war power. Not to mention, they are adjacent geographically. And yet, the demonic region of Mount Kuguse has been preventing them from attacking Setulev.”
“But why so suddenly?”

He asked it purely as a question, but Tim’s already stern expression turned even worse as if he ate a grass dumpling garnished with living bugs.

“We’re the ones wanting to ask that. Just what is going on in this mountain?”
“…Huh?”
“Places where dragons live are rampant with powerful Variants. Monsters that undergo abnormal mutations after eating the scattered scales, fangs, and feces of the dragons…or being exposed to their dragon aura. The reason why they couldn’t enter Mount Kuguse was that those Variants were crawling here. It was one thing to sneak in with a few people, but doing so with an army would’ve certainly ended in a great disaster. But lately, those Variants suddenly decreased.”

Everything connected in Lucella’s head with that.

“Decreased…”

It was as if the gears meshed together.

Or perhaps, as if those meshed gears started collapsing in a chain after a single screw came loose.

Lucella understood everything.

“Kafal… hunted them… to feed them to me…”