| Author: Kisasaki Suzume | Original Source: Syosetu |
| Translator: Mui | English Source: Re:Library |
| Editor(s): Deximus-Maximus | |
“I see! Leader, I’ll take over from here.”
“S-Sure.”
The female wizard Viola with thick glasses bent herself forward while taking out a notebook and writing materials.
“Dragons that live alone narrow down their field of activities during child raising. This is of course to protect their child. This tendency grows more striking the weaker their children are. However, in extremely rare cases when a feeble child is born, dragons have shown a tendency to start a targeted hunt of the variants around their nests.”
She spoke as if she had a literal academic book in her head. She continued speaking fluently without a stop.
“There are mainly three reasons for this! The first reason is that the Variants that received the dragon’s own power are the perfect feed to make their feeble child stronger. The second reason is that the powerful Variants seek further strength and eat even the dragon’s fledglings! In other words, they thin them out to lower the threat to their fledglings. The third reason is simply the fact that they can hunt without separating from their nest. Putting it like this makes it seem quite rational, but normally it’s the last resort. After all, the Variants are convenient bodyguards for dragons.”
There was a reason behind everything. The fact that Lucella grew so strong so suddenly. Even the fact that he could have a happy life. Just how big a price had Kafal paid for that tranquility?
The more he learned, heavy feelings akin to a determination of some kind started to gather in his heart.
“In fact, the red dragon in question didn’t use to hunt on Mount Kuguse and instead went somewhere else to hunt. However, lately, she had been secluding herself on the mountain all the time. The guild apparently holds some information that the dragon was brooding an egg, so I considered the chance that a feeble fledgling was born and she was trying to protect it.”
“…Lately, Kafal suddenly started going on distant trips.”
“Then that means the threat to the hatchling had decreased sufficiently due to the decrease in Variants. Ah, well, in this case, that hatchling would be you.”
To add, Lucella had grown sufficiently strong after eating Variants over and over, so that was one other reason why Kafal went on (or became able to go) on long trips.
Lucella lately started to walk a bit farther away from the nest.
He thought the reason behind not encountering many Variants was that he skillfully avoided them. And even if he met and fought some, they were fortunately weak monsters. But it was different.
“You monster nerd!”
“Ehehe… Thank you.”
“I’m not praising you. Consider how the other party feels for once.”
“Eh?”
Tim nudged Viola to silence her.
“Wait, could the reason behind adventurers being allowed to enter the mountain now be that too?”
“Setulev’s Adventurer’s Guild learned about the decrease in variants and lowered Mount Kuguse’s threat level and lifted the ban. To put it simply, even without special objectives adventurers are allowed to enter the mountain to do investigation and gathering quests. The mountain filled with the dragon aura is full of good medicinal herbs, and if you luckily managed to hunt a Variant, you could make a killing if you butchered and sold it, so it’s a happy outcome from our perspective.”
Tim spoke with a bitter face.
“We actually hunted three of those Variants that showed up at the foot of the mountain. We were happy since we made a big profit, but we couldn’t stay happy. …Because Maltgartz made its move.”
