Young Man And Dark Elf?

“This is the place… One of our merchants reported seeing an ogre around that forest. We would like all of you to eliminate the ogre in this forest.”

Guided by an Imperial agent disguised as a merchant, Rudel and the others made their way toward the forest where the Enhanced Ogre awaited them. Within that forest, Mies and the Imperial soldiers who had arrived ahead of them were observing the experiment. The Enhanced Ogre, which obeyed their commands, lay in wait for Rudel’s group… Its strength far surpassed that of an ordinary ogre, boasting superior speed as well as high resistance to magic.

Mies reluctantly watched over an experiment whose outcome had already been decided. Since this was an official Imperial mission, she could not afford to cut corners.

But high above Mies and Rudel’s group, a dragon and an elf were plummeting toward the ground.

Rudel remained alert to his surroundings as he advanced through the forest’s steep and uneven terrain. Despite supposedly being home to a highly aggressive ogre, the forest was far too quiet. On top of that, he could not shake a strange sense that something was wrong. Basil felt the same way. According to the information she had gathered the previous night, there certainly had been rumors of an ogre.

Even so, there was something strange about the merchant who had hired them. Although he claimed to be so afraid of the ogre that he had been stranded here for an extended period, he showed no sense of urgency whatsoever. For a merchant, every additional delay should have meant further losses…

“Rudel-sama, please be careful. Keep in mind that, if the worst happens, we may have to abandon this request.”

Considering retreat was not cowardice. But abandoning a request would damage their reputation. If Basil was willing to risk even that, then they had to be prepared to run. This request must have been extremely suspicious… Just as Rudel reached the top of a steep incline with that thought in mind, something suddenly plunged down from the sky.

“What the hell!”

Unias reacted instantly and readied his greatsword, while Bargas raised his large shield and stepped in front of everyone. Before them stood a dragon with its foot planted on the ogre they had been hired to subjugate, along with a figure dressed as a knight riding upon its back.

Everyone was stunned by the sight. Or rather, there was one person who was simply excited… Rudel.

“A Wind Dragon! And Lilim-sama too… she’s turned black!”

Lilim, seated atop the Wind Dragon, had become black-skinned… a Dark Elf, and her appearance had changed so drastically that no one would have recognized her if Rudel had not said who she was. In fact, everyone there found themselves wondering,

(How did he even recognize her?)

That was how baffled they were.

Still stunned, Rudel and the others turned their attention toward the ogre the Wind Dragon had killed instantly. A Dragoon defeating an ogre… there was nothing particularly strange about that. Lilim’s behavior, however, was obviously abnormal.

“F-Fufufu! I reduced this hideous monster to ashes with my jet-black flames!”

…The ogre lying there had been killed by being crushed beneath the dragon. No jet-black flames had been used whatsoever, and far from being reduced to ashes, its flattened corpse remained plainly visible. For some reason, Lilim was also covering half her face with one arm while striking what she apparently thought was a stylish pose.

“She didn’t use any magic, right?”

When Unias looked around for confirmation, everyone nodded. Rudel tried to defend her as well, but with the evidence clearly showing that magic had not killed the ogre, even he reluctantly nodded.

“More importantly, I’m not even sure that’s really Lilim the Dragoon. If Rudel says it is, then he’s probably right, but I’ve heard Dark Elves are dangerous.”

Luecke said this while becoming even more cautious.

“I have never heard that Lilim the Dragoon was a Dark Elf. We should ask her about that as well…!?”

Just as Basil tried to organize the situation and speak to Lilim, Rudel suddenly slashed at Basil.

No—more precisely, he slashed at Lilim, who had closed in on Basil. Sparks flew as Lilim’s knife collided with Rudel’s sword.

“Wha—! She’s way too fast!”

Bargas reacted a moment later and charged Lilim with his shield, but she easily evaded him. On her back, black wings formed from elven mana fluttered violently in rapid, tiny movements. …That’s a little disgusting, Basil thought as cold sweat ran down her face.

Lilim’s ability to close the distance in an instant was astonishing, but Rudel’s reaction to it was equally impressive. And Rudel had judged that Lilim had genuinely intended to cut Basil down.

“What are you trying to do, Lilim-sama? You were serious just now, weren’t you?”

“Serious? Hmph… If I truly got serious, I could kill every last one of you here in an instant!”

Lilim declared this while striking another pose, prompting Luecke to fire magic at her. Unias followed up by attacking after Luecke’s spell, but Lilim effortlessly dodged that as well. Five people were being toyed with by a single Dragoon.

Rudel knew nothing about Lilim’s fighting style. Or rather, the individual combat styles of Dragoons were treated as classified information. They were hardly incompetent enough to reveal their own weaknesses. Still, because Dragoon was such a popular profession, whenever one distinguished themselves somewhere, word of their fighting style naturally spread.

Even so, Lilim’s combat style remained a mystery. Perhaps she defeated enemies too quickly for anyone to observe her properly, or perhaps she specialized in assassination, judging by how she had just tried to kill Basil… While Rudel considered this as he fought Lilim, the motionless Wind Dragon spoke to him.

‘Human child from before. I ask you to save my contractor… Would you kill her?’

The voice seemed to resonate directly within Rudel’s mind, filling him with awe and intense shock at the same time.

Watching Rudel’s group battle the Dragoon from a distance, Mies and her soldiers had gone beyond panic and were now terrified. To Imperial soldiers, a Dragoon was death incarnate. The presence of even a single Dragoon on a battlefield could cause catastrophic casualties.

The Imperial soldier who had served as their guide had also fled while everyone’s attention was focused on Lilim, eventually regrouping with Mies and the others.

“What is this… Why did a Dragoon show up this quickly!? At this rate, forget the experiment…”

Unable to decide what to do, Mies and her group made yet another mistake. They failed to notice the second Dragoon approaching them.

“An experiment, you say? You’ll explain exactly what you mean by that, won’t you?”

Mies and the others spun around, but no one was there. When they looked upward afterward, they found a red-haired knight and a Red Dragon directly above them. Mies and her soldiers prepared themselves for death.

The Dragoon was Cattleya. Because there were too few available personnel to deal with Lilim’s escape, even Cattleya, who had caused trouble herself, had been pressed into service. The captain of the Dragoons had ordered them to capture Lilim if they found her before anyone else did, but if she had already been discovered and caused an incident, they were to eliminate her.

“W-What are you talking about? By experiment, I only meant… That’s right! An experiment involving the monsters in this forest.”

Mies blurted out a lie, and Cattleya’s sword grazed her cheek. Cattleya’s blade embedded itself in the ground, its shape ominous and sinister. It was a Demon Sword, one of the reasons Cattleya was regarded as a genius. Although it had lightly cut Mies’s cheek, no blood flowed from the wound.

Cattleya then leapt down from the Red Dragon and landed beside the Demon Sword. She retrieved it at once, but by then Mies’s subordinates had finally regained their composure and raised their weapons.

“I’m in a hurry, so let’s finish this quickly… I want this Demon Sword to drink some blood and get properly warmed up before I fight Senpai.”

As the Imperial soldiers around her rushed at Cattleya, Mies felt terror at the sword that had drained her strength merely by grazing her. And when Cattleya cut down her subordinates, they bled no blood… More precisely, the sword must have been drinking it. Mies watched the eerie battle unfold without a single drop of blood being spilled.

And then… with every mouthful of blood it drank, the Demon Sword grew more powerful. Once the last of Mies’s subordinates had been cut down, Cattleya approached her.

“Now then, you’re going to talk. Why are Imperial soldiers here!?”

From the way Mies’s subordinates had fought, Cattleya had already determined that Mies and the others were Imperial soldiers.

Cattleya pressed the Demon Sword against Mies’s throat… She had already called for reinforcements and assumed everything would be fine even if Lilim left the area. Lilim appeared to be fighting someone, but Cattleya had not bothered checking who. No, she had neglected to check because she assumed whoever it was would already be dead.

She had no idea that the ones fighting Lilim were Rudel and the others, much less that they were still alive and continuing to fight… Not until the sound of a violent explosion thundered from the direction of their battle…