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The next day, I opened my eyes to a hard banging on my door.

“Wake up, Illya!”
“What’s wrong?” I ask Ria from the other side of the door. At the same time, I quickly change into my status lowering equipment and my day-to-day clothing.
“Some people got injured! It’s pretty bad!”

With those words, I’ve grasped the general gist of the situation. It isn’t rare for there to be injured among people who are reporting the completion or failure of a commission.

Every guild office is therefore required to have someone who is able to use healing magic, but the people who fulfill that role usually can only apply the equivalent of first-aid. In cases where first-aid isn’t enough, we need to ask for help from the church or a government-managed hospital.

However, not even the capital has such a hospital, much less Luneville. And thanks to the now-disbanded thief guild, the construction of the Lathovester church has been delayed indefinitely.

Then, what is the guild supposed to do if people with serious injuries show up?

“They’re in the room on the second floor, like always.”
“Got it!”

Ria doesn’t even bother explaining the rest, and I hear her footsteps quickly growing farther. Shortly after, I finish putting on the Shrine Maiden’s Fetters and my uniform apron dress. That’s right, it’s time to use some of these cheats.

“Illya, this way.”

I follow Ria, quickly arriving at the room closest to the stairs. On the bed were three people, laid side-by-side on the mattress. They were all male, one birdman and two beastmen. Thankfully, none of them were missing any limbs, but the birdman’s leg was starting to undergo necrosis.

However, all of them looked like they could be treated with normal healing magic. It might have been a little reckless, but I was prepared to use revival magic if things came to the worst. It’s a good surprise for a change.

“Ria, please ask people to leave the area.”
“Okay, leave it to me!”

I leave clearing out the crowd that had formed in the hallway and the dining hall to Ria, and begin closing all the curtains so I can focus on the treatment. I dispel God-king’s Barrier, which nullifies the effects of my skills, and begins chanting the words for healing magic.

Skill: Aria, Skill Level: 99
Effect: Magic that usually requires an incantation can be used without one. If the user chooses to complete the incantation, the effects of the spell are increased by a power of 2, and the expended MP is reduced to the square root of its original cost. Chanting a shortened incantation multiplies the effects of a spell by two and reduces the expended MP by half.

Which is why I start chanting the normal incantation for the spell.

“—O light of regeneration, cleanse the darkness of death…”

I cast a fire-attuned form of holy magic, and then layer over it with a higher order healing spell of light—

“Healing Light.”

An orb of white light appears above my head, and resonates with the elements inside the three patients. The light eventually concentrates on the patients’ injuries, even outshining the lamp used to illuminate the room. Eventually, the orb of light above my head disappears, and the light surrounding the patients also fades away.

In cases where the output isn’t enough, half-healed wounds often result. However, as the light disappeared, not a single injury could be seen on their bodies. I didn’t see any abnormal statuses either, so with this, the treatment is complete.

Since healing magic has no effect on exhaustion or mental trauma, we can deal with that later. First, I’d like to know a little bit more about the situation. After recasting my barrier, I head down to the first floor.

I ignored the curious crowd that had gathered in the hall and headed over to the reception counter to look for Ria, but there was something odd on the counter.

“What the heck is that…?” the words leave my mouth before I even have time to think about it.
“Illya, how did it go!?”
“Ah, everything went well.”

Ria, as well as the crowd that had gathered, seemed to let out a sigh of relief. They really are good people, worrying about someone they barely even know.

However, I’m more concerned about something else right now.

“So… where did that come from?”

I nodded to the table at the reception counter, where materials gathered during commissions are usually inspected. There was an egg the size of a bowling ball on it.

“Ah, that egg? Those three were the ones who brought it in. I wonder if they were attacked by its parent while they were transporting it…”
“I… don’t think that’s the case…”

If that party of three were attacked by the egg’s parent, I doubt there would even be ashes left for me to heal. After all, the status window display calls the mystery item an “Egg of the Dragon God”.

The King of Dragons—ruler of the skies, holder of the dragon element and a descendant of the gods. Although it is called a divine beast, it is unlike any other “beasts” as it is on a completely different level than what humans can handle.

“And where are their registration cards?”
“I’ve gone ahead and held onto them. Here.”
“Thank you.”

From their registration cards, the three of them all belong to the mercenary guild. I look on the underside of their cards, and the party seemed to have accepted a monster subjugation commission. They already defeated the required number of monsters.

I honestly don’t think they accepted the commission just to cross the border. The guild registration fee is too high for something like that, and the commission they accepted took too much time to just serve as an excuse. It’s plausible that the three mercenaries just happened to find the egg on the way back to their own guild.

That’s one mystery solved, but… I have no clue how a Dragon God can just drop their egg.

Either way, I feel a little bad for the party that went to such lengths to bring this egg back, but we can’t exactly let them sell it for a profit. Worst case scenario, the entire city might be erased off the planet. Haha. Ha.

“Let’s hold onto this egg for later, Dajeel.”
“Gotcha.”
“Also, would one of you help me investigate from where those three accepted their commission?”
“I can do it!”
“Ria, I’m going to go wake Frank up, so can you keep an eye on the egg for me?”
“Okay!”

I climb the stairs up to the third floor, and knock on Frank’s private quarters.

“Guildmaster, please wake up.”
“…What is it?”
“I have something I want to talk about.”

If worst comes to worst, I might have to return that egg to its owner, and I’d like some paid days off for extra work like that. Paid days off… I could hardly even believe it when I first heard about it. Just when I decided to start explaining the situation to Frank, I heard a voice call out from below.

“Illyaaa!” Ria’s voice echoes through the guild office. I quickly climb back down to the first floor.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, in the calmest voice I can. In response, Ria’s eyes flit in my direction, then flits back to something else. That something was the dragon egg.

However, there was something different about the egg, which had a rainbow shine to it wherever light hit its surface. This time, there was a small fissure running down the side of the egg. And every time it shook, the crack grew wider, chunks of the egg coming off.

“Pi~”
“Eek!”

A small chirp could be heard from the egg, and a panicked Ria pulled me into an embrace. Usually, I would hug her back like the fangirl I am, but this is anything but the usual.

For dragons to hatch from their eggs, they need to absorb enough of the elements. For example, fire dragons need to absorb fire, and lightning dragons require both fire and wind—fire dragons being elemental divine beasts, and lightning dragons being higher order divine beasts. There is also the light dragon, also called the blaze dragon, which mutated from a lightning dragon that received the light element from the world tree. Blaze dragons are considered even higher rank than higher order divine beasts.

The elements fire, water, wind, and earth are emitted from opaque gems called crystal pillars. The Dragon God’s egg is supposed to be housed in the Heavenly Palace, where it absorbs the palace’s own wind pillar, as well as the crystal pillars of the other elements as the palace floats from place to place. This way, the egg is able to absorb every single element.

The cheat-like dragon element has an excellent affinity to almost anything, a symbol of the Dragon God’s power.

In other words, the Dragon God’s egg is hatching because it has finally absorbed enough of each element. However, as far as I know, there shouldn’t be any crystal pillars around Luneville. As for crystal fragments, which are common in cities, they simply contain the elements rather than emitting them like crystal pillars do.

—Which is why I didn’t expect the egg to start hatching.

I wonder where it absorbed the element… After a pause, I think of a single possibility.

“Sorry, Ria, I think I forgot something in the room. I’ll be right back, okay?”
“Don’t go, Illya!”
“It’ll be fine. Dragon’s aren’t monsters, so it’s not like it’ll attack you on sight. Who knows, maybe it’ll even think the first person it sees is its parent.”¹

1. Robinxen: Also I got your message loud and clear last chapter, I will avoid enforcing my terrible naming sense from now on.