The Margrave Breaks

“…………Huh?”

That day, a tremendous shock ran through the [Empire’s Southern Territory], the adventure city “Agatra.”

The first one to notice it was this man, the slightly plump man who was the lord of the Southern Territory and the highest authority of the adventure city Agatra.

It happened when he was in his own room in the lord’s mansion, located on the same grounds as the Adventurers’ Guild, about to enjoy his blissful morning tea time.

“…Eh, ehh—wait, no, no, no, huh, ehh—”

Agatra was a city regarded in the Empire as being just as important as the central Imperial Capital, the city where the Emperor resided.

Starting with “Herel’s Tower,” it was a powder keg where the Dragon Embassy, the Angel Church Cathedral, the noble residential district, the surviving members of the Hero Party, and many other facilities and beings far too important to the Empire all gathered in one place.

It was a troublesome land where striking any part of it would immediately cause a massive explosion, and where it was easy to understand that the scale of that explosion would even affect national administration.

On top of that, the surrounding plains and forests were terrifying places where, influenced by the Tower, monsters had formed an ecosystem and even prospered.

“Ngaaaaaaaaaah!! Whyyyy! Why does this have to happen during my term of officeeeee?! Angel-samaaaaa!! You are alwaaaays giving me nothing but trials, aren’t youuuuuu?!”

The man who had been half-forced into becoming the lord of this Agatra territory and the administrator of the adventure city at the noble territorial conference three years ago—

The name of the man rolling around on the carpet while arching backward like a shrimp—

Was Margrave Sapan von Teach.

“Noooooooo, I don’t waaaaaant this, I wanna go hoooooome. Ah, home is here. Nhohohohohooooo!!”

Just as the man finally began doing side-to-side hops around the chic room, surrounded by expensive furnishings, while still arching backward like a shrimp—

“Excuse me, my lord. You have been a little too noisy for a while now…”

A luxurious door made lavishly with ebony wood opened without a sound.

A tall beauty entered the room, wearing silk tights, a tight skirt, a jacket made from wyvern wing membrane, and glasses that suited her remarkably well.

“Aaaaaah!! Marie-kuuuuuun!! Amazingly good timing! My favorite partne—bghera?!”

The slightly plump lord leapt at the tall beauty while still shrimp-arching. However, the beauty calmly swung down her right fist, smashing Sapan into the ground.

“Ah, excuse me, it slipped out. However, if one demands a physical relationship while shrimp-arching, then surely taking this sort of attitude is unavoidable. In other words, I did nothing wrong.”

A splendid counter. The slightly plump lord was slammed into the carpet and stopped moving.

“Guho, goho, as expected of the Guild Master… That was a good right chopping light. Ah, I can almost see your panties.”

“They are black lace. I will leave that statement in the minutes and submit it to the House of Nobles’ assessment several months from now.”

Adjusting her glasses with a push, the woman whose beauty mark near her mouth shone dazzlingly calmly wrote something down on the binder in her hand.

“Eeeeeeeeeeh!! No, no, no, wait, spare me that one. …Haa, I got so worked up that I actually calmed down instead.”

“What happened? You are someone whose bizarre behavior stands out, so at this point, I am not easily surprised… Huh?”

She too looked at a certain point in the room and then froze.

“Ah, see? Right? That reaction is what you’d have, right? Right?”

“…No way. The ‘Light of Life’… This, Hoarding Dragon-sama, the ‘Dragon Shrine Maiden’s’ life flame…”

“R-right? Hey, Marie-kun, could you count them just in case? See, my eyes might be broken.”

In that room, right beside the fireplace, was a solid wooden chest.

Spread out on top of it were several dozen candles burning with gentle flames.

At the center of those candles arranged in a circle, on top of a cup that shone especially brightly, stood golden candles arranged like a chandelier.

The iron-faced woman called Marie adjusted her glasses, which had slipped down, and slowly began counting them with slender white fingers.

“One, two, three… four, five, six… six… There are only six.”

“R-right… There are only six. There should be seven. It’s bad if there aren’t seven…”

“Y-yes. Dragons have seven lives, after all… Huh, no way. My lord, does this mean what I think it means?”

“Ahh, I feel like I’m about to throw up, yes. Well, the ‘Light of Life,’ a ‘grave good,’ probably wouldn’t lie, you know.”

The lord silently sipped the freshly brewed tea on the table.

He enjoyed the noble fragrance rising from the teacup, imported from the Kingdom, and quietly returned the cup to its saucer—

“She’s deaaaaaaaaaaaaaad?! The Empire’s guardian dragon! A higher lifeform dragon is deaaaaaaaaad?! It’s the Hoarding Dragon, you know?! The Dragon Shrine Maiden, you know?! One of the Empire’s greatest VIPs among VIPs!! One of her seven lives has gone ouuuuuut?! Ongyaaaaa!!”

The margrave broke. He returned to being a baby.

“This is… difficult to believe at first, but one of the Dragon Shrine Maiden-sama’s lights has certainly gone out… Today, I believe she was supposed to have gone hunting in ‘Herel’s Tower.’”

“No, no, no!! Even if it’s that demonic realm of a place, Herel’s Tower, she’s a dragon, you know?! A dragon, dragon, dragon, dragon! A higher species that survived since the Second Civilization!! Since the era that even ruled the stars shining in the heavens?! There’s no way they die that easily!! That selfish glittery gold dragon! Ah, crap, I said selfish.”

“My lord, please calm down. I am currently checking today’s schedule for the Shrine Maiden-sama, which was sent from the Dragon Embassy. …Hmm, a hunt targeting Cyclopses with the second-rank adventurer party [Lycans]… I cannot see anything that could possibly cause the Shrine Maiden-sama to lose a life.”

“Even if only one of these candles announcing the life and death of a Tower-Class Adventurer goes out, I have to report it to the Imperial Capital!! Why is she dead?! Why is she dead?! Why is she dead?!”

The lord, his eyes rolled white, began running around the room while moving both hands like a chugging locomotive—

“Ei.”

“Kyu-pu.”

Halfway through, the Guild Master caught him and squeezed his neck tight.

Since she was far taller than him, it did not look entirely unlike a pig being strangled by a butcher.

“Have you calmed down, my lord?”

“Kaf, ah, keho, u-um. Huh? Just now, my throat? W-well, never mind. Ahh, thank you. I feel somewhat calmer.”

The lord, collapsed on the carpet, blinked his eyes while stroking his own throat.

Huh, am I not a noble? Noblesse, no? A margrave, no? Huh? My neck was… strangled…?

He seriously tried to protest, but the Guild Master’s eyes glaring at him from behind her glasses were frightening, so he said nothing.

“Then first, let us organize the situation and countermeasures. …Today’s schedule will need to be drastically changed. Let us formally issue an exploration request for Hoarding Dragon-sama to a first-rank—no, a ‘Tower-Class Adventurer’ from the Guild.”

“Is there a Tower-Class on standby today? Ahh, His Majesty the Emperor in the Imperial Capital already knows that the candle has gone out, and that money-grubbing Female Pope at the Church probably has it too. Wow, I’ll need to explain things to the Dragon Embassy too… Why is a dragon dead?”

“If we are speaking of recorded dragon deaths, would this be the first in around two hundred years? During the Great War, the ‘Magic Academy’ killed the Flame Dragon once. Well, after that, the resurrected Flame Dragon burned the Academy to the ground.”

“Haa, if only those people had just one life, it might actually be better… But they’re creatures almost impossible to kill. …Marie-kun, let us submit the notices for the ‘Dragon Festival’ to each region and the Imperial Capital already. It would look better if this city announced that it would grandly welcome the dragon before the Dragon Embassy tells us to do so.”

“Oh my, my lord, you are beginning to have a fine expression. As expected, it seems you cannot get serious unless you are cornered.”

“Well, we have no choice but to do it… Nngoooooh?! Crap! If the Dragon Shrine Maiden-sama has died, then we also have to inform that damn br—no, I mean the very wise ‘Lady Niece’…”

“Ahh, His Majesty the Emperor’s. I hear she dismissed another tutor again. She is a talented girl who obtained a degree in ‘Ancient Divine Nihon Language’ at the age of seven. The future of the Empire is very bright.”

“I really wish she would stop flexing her knowledge on me…

I’m tired from all the shouting… Tohohoho. Why does such a troublesome thing have to happen during my term… W-well, surely this will only happen once! Yes, it’s fine now. Nothing worse than this will ever happen! Nothing could be more troublesome than a dragon dying!”

The lord nodded with a full smile, as if encouraging himself.

Ping. Somewhere in the world, the sound of a flag being raised, audible to no one, rang out.

“Just now, I heard the sound of something being raised somewhere… Oh, my lord, I have a small bit of good news.”

The Guild Master muttered while looking into the thousand-year tree binder in her hand.

“Give me more of that kind of thing. So, what is it?”

“Among today’s underground standby adventurers, there is one ‘Tower-Class Adventurer’ present. Hehe, what kind of fate is this? To have her search for a dead dragon.”

“Huh? Who?”

Her glasses flashed with reflected light.

“Former Hero Party Archer.”

At those words, the lord froze.

The heroes who ended the Great War two hundred years ago.

The world’s immune system, which destroyed all human nations other than the Empire and the Kingdom, as well as the ruler of the Unknown Continent called the Demon King.

One of the surviving members of the “Hero Party.” A person whose influence over this Empire—no, even over the Kingdom—was as great as a dragon’s.

“The Tower-Class Adventurer, Wenfilbarna-sama, is currently standing by in the Guild’s underground levels. What shall we do?”

“U-umm, troublesome.”

Squeeeze. The lord’s swollen stomach made a sound.

……

…

Imperial Calendar, Third Era, Year 28, Flowering Month, Day 12.

On this day, shock ran through the entire Empire.

Among messenger hawks, the fastest and most excellent, Condominium, reported the news to the Imperial Capital by that morning.

The symbol of harmony between the Empire and the Dragon Realm.

The Dragon Shrine Maiden, the “Hoarding Dragon,” had lost one of her seven lives.

A proposal was submitted to hold the “Dragon Festival” not only in the adventure city but throughout the entire Empire for the first time in two hundred years, as both mourning for that death and celebration of the promised resurrection.

By the Emperor’s judgment, the holding of the festival was decided without going through a meeting of the House of Nobles.

As a result, the Empire’s economy heated up all at once. Centered on the Imperial Capital, purchases by merchant guilds dealing in foodstuffs and luxury goods intensified.

With the activation of logistics, requests to the Adventurers’ Guild for guards flooded in. Many adventurers’ purses grew fat.

That money flowed into and spread through restaurants and pleasure quarters. Even those who made their living in dark places benefited from the dragon’s death and resurrection.

The Empire.

Excluding the Unknown Continent and the Kingdom on another continent, it was the sole nation of human races that included demi-humans.

In history, the beginning of the Empire’s turbulent eras had always begun from that city, the adventure city.

This time was no exception.

On this day, the Guild issued a designated request to the “Tower-Class Adventurer” who had been standing by underground.

Former Hero Party Archer, Wenfilbarna.

Wenfilbarna readily accepted this. She departed for Herel’s Tower that very day and soon made contact with survivors of the second-rank party [Lycans], which was in a state of devastation.

The commotion had begun when two certain “adventure slaves” escaped. Drawn by that commotion, native monsters of Herel’s Tower attacked, and the party was destroyed.

After sending the survivors back to the Guild, Wenfilbarna began exploring the Tower once again.

Near a newly discovered glowing waterfall basin below the first layer, she discovered the “Hoarding Dragon” immediately after resurrection.

Because a dragon that had completed resurrection became extremely ferocious, there was a danger of battle, but the Hoarding Dragon was said to have been terrifyingly meek.

Wenfilbarna returned to the Guild together with the “Hoarding Dragon.”

And after that, the resurrected dragon—

The words of the Hoarding Dragon, worshipped in the Empire as the “Dragon Shrine Maiden,” would shake the continent greatly.

“Find the slave who killed me.”

“He is a human black-haired slave. If you cannot do it, the Dragon Realm will cut ties with the Empire from now on. But if you find that slave and bring him to me, the alliance between the Dragon Realm and the Empire will become eternal, and I would not even mind giving away all of my collection.”

The shocking truth revealed by the Hoarding Dragon’s own words.

In other words, a slave had killed a dragon.

Due to those words, the margrave’s hair loss increased to one thousand times its normal amount in the adventure city, and in the Imperial Capital, the Emperor reportedly sprayed tea all the way to the ceiling.

By the Hoarding Dragon’s order, the economy around the adventuring world became active.

Not only Tower-Class Adventurers, who were permitted to challenge Herel’s Tower regularly, but also first-rank and second-rank adventurers rushed to submit applications to the Guild to challenge the Tower.

Though the Guild was swamped with processing them, based on the Dragon Accord, it exceptionally permitted almost all adventurers second-rank and above to ascend Herel’s Tower.

Because many adventurers bought weapons and equipment to challenge the Tower, blacksmiths also enjoyed booming business.

If blacksmiths were busy, mine owners were also delighted.

And many adventurers, lacking sufficient ability, challenged the Tower, a demonic realm, and died in great numbers.

With prayers and funerals, the Church also prospered. It was said that laughter did not stop for a while from the inner sanctum of the money-grubbing Female Pope.

It was truly as if, when a dragon died, everyone profited, and the Empire, that one gigantic living creature, began to stir.

However, the most crucial “black-haired slave” still had not been found.

The honorable “Church Knights,” who considered it an honor to challenge a dragon and become a dragon’s mate by defeating one, searched all over the Empire with their full strength but could not find him.

Some young Church Knights, recklessly thinking that if a dragon had been killed by a mere slave, they could do it too, were swept away by impatience.

Of course, none of them were in this world anymore. Whether they became charcoal or severed heads, whether they were cooked medium or rare depended on the Hoarding Dragon’s mood that day.

Also, every adventurer who tried to deceive the dragon by preparing a similar-looking slave was uniformly turned into charcoal, and the half-hearted adventurers who were frightened by this gradually stopped challenging the Tower.

As preparations for the Dragon Festival progressed, only the economy continued to heat up and swell.

In the blink of an eye, one month was about to pass since the Hoarding Dragon’s death and resurrection.

………

……

…

~And time rewound, to immediately after a certain black-haired slave killed the Hoarding Dragon.~

“All right, I killed it. Ahh, that’s a good feeling of satisfaction. Now then, since lizard-san, Lazaar, probably got away too, what should I do from here?”

Tooyama yawned while stretching.

Then he noticed that the arrow was still floating there.

“Hmm?”

The ↓ was pointing at the empty shell of the life that Kiriyaiba had completely killed.

“Oh, that’s a thing too? Nice.”

That armor, which even Kiriyaiba’s power could not pass through. And likely a return method, since it probably had spares.

Ahh, that was right. After an explorer’s victory, a reward was necessary.

Tooyama Naruhito slowly extended his foot toward the “spoils of war” sunk in the pool of blood.