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Since no one has come knocking on my door, it seems like the complaints have been dealt with successfully. That, and Frank has gotten himself some points in the eyes of his subordinates.

“Pi?”

The second I think that, the dragon child in my arms raises its head to face the door. A few moments later, a small knock was heard from my door, one without any urgency or extra force.

“Illya, I wanted to let you know that they woke up.”
“I see. Understood. I’ll be there in a moment.”

I stand up with the little dragon in my arms, then stoop over to let it climb back into the bed, but it sticks close, refusing to leave my side. Having no other choice, I head over to the private rooms on the second floor with the dragon in my arms.

The only one awake was a beastman, and the other two remained fast asleep in bed. I walk over to the otter beastman’s bedside, where Frank is sitting in a chair. The guildmaster looks over in my direction, and then back to the beastman. After a pause, Frank opens his mouth to ask a question.

“Does anything hurt?”
“…No… Where am I?”
“This is Luneville.”
“Luneville…?”

The beastman knits his eyebrows at the response.

“Were you not planning on coming here?”
“No, we… R-right! Where’s Gaur and Reuben!?”

The beastman looks as if he’s ready to jump out of the bed, and then notices the two other adventurers lying on the neighboring mattresses immediately after.

“Please rest assured. We’ve already taken the liberty to heal their wounds. They’re only sleeping.”
“I… I see. …I am most grateful.”

The beastman bows his head the deepest it can go, but Frank shakes his head in response.

“It’s nothing. Well, actually, there’s something I would like to ask you about. Where did you find that dragon egg?”
“Dragon…? That was a dragon egg!?” The beastman asks back, his eyes wide in surprise. There was no room for deceit in his expression.
“So you were carrying it without knowing?”
“…Yes… We found it on the way back to Waleville after we had finished our commission. It was an egg like we’ve never seen before, so we thought it might be a rare item that we would be able to sell at a high price.”
“And what was around the egg when you found it?” I ask before Frank could.
“Around…?”

At my question, the beastman closes his mouth, once again knitting his eyebrows in thought. After a moment of silence, I decided to give him a hint in the right direction.

“Like the kind of environment you found the egg in. And maybe the weather when you found it… anything you remember is fine.”
“…The ground was… nothing special, I think. Ah, well, we did think it was weird that something like a nest was in the middle of nowhere. The weather was… clear? Wait, no, it was a bit cloudy…”
“That’s more than enough information. Thank you.”

I look over to Frank, who understands my intentions and nods for me to continue.

“I understand if it’s painful to recall, but… were you attacked after that?”
“Yes…”
“And what were you attacked by?”
“It was… it was a horse with horns. Its fur was also odd… they looked almost like scales.”

I wanted to hold my head in my hands, but couldn’t because of the dragon in my arms. A horse with horns and scales… I can’t think of anything other than a Kirin. What the hell is one of those doing all the way out here?

Regardless of my internal distress, Frank continues the questioning.

“And you guys were taken down by that horse?”
“No, we were chased by the horse, but we barely got away by the skin of our teeth… we got those injuries after that.”
“Were you attacked by a different horse?”
“No… it was a person.”

I could almost see the nervousness rising from Frank’s shoulders. If there was a person aiming to steal the Dragon God’s egg, that wrath might end up being directed at the whole of mankind instead. If that doesn’t make someone nervous, what will?

“Did you see what they looked like?”
“…No, we were taken by surprise, so we couldn’t get a good look at all.”
“…You did well to hold onto the egg during all of that.”
“Well, we managed to figure out that they weren’t willing to hurt the egg, so…”

So that’s how they were able to avoid getting killed. That’s an impressive amount of wit to have in a life-or-death situation. In my last life, in a situation where I was about to get fired, my head tended to go blank instead of thinking of a way out… Well, now that I think of it, that’s not much of a comparison.

“The only thing we were able to do after that was run towards the ramparts up ahead…”
“I see. It must have been tough.”

I don’t know what the assailants were planning, but I feel like these guys definitely protected the egg from some kind of scheme. Perhaps done asking the questions that he had, Frank takes a look in my direction. I nod back, signaling that I have nothing to add.

“Sorry for bothering you when you just woke up. Please take care.”
“Ah, no… I don’t know if I would even be here without your help.”
“No, we should be the ones thanking you. For protecting the Dragon God’s egg, you have my deepest gratitude.”

The beastman’s face turns deathly pale at the name of the egg’s parent. This is the normal reaction. It is normal to shy away from even attempting to get involved in matters so over their head.

If the people who attacked this party of three were really just guarding the egg, they could have just told them their intentions. After all, any sane person would put the Dragon God’s egg down simply out of self-preservation.

It’s impossible to know the full details, but it might be safer to think that attacking these three might have been part of their plan as well.

“Please take care of yourself.”
“Pi!”

The dragon child makes a noise as I bow before leaving. It probably doesn’t understand that it was being protected, but the beastman looks pretty happy about it, so whatever.

After leaving the room, Frank and I head up to the reception room on the third floor to discuss the information we’ve gathered.

“It seems like we’ve dodged a bullet, huh?”
“You may be right,” I say, agreeing with Frank’s muttering.

In the worst-case scenario… the Dragon God might have gone on a rampage, taking out its anger along with countless lives.

“So what do you think?” Frank asks.
“This might take a while. I will prepare some tea.”
“Ah, thank you.”

Rather than getting even more nervous, Frank’s shoulders seem to lose all strength when he says so. Well, it’s not like I’m putting up a front to make him feel better—panicking just doesn’t help us out of this situation.

I pour some black tea into a cup, place it on a saucer, and hand it over to Frank. Seeing Frank calm down after a sip of tea, I start my explanation.