A Reckoning

“My mate――help me slay the White Dragon ‘Lindwyrm’.”

“…!?!”
“…!?!”

At Fafnir’s words, Jonah and Patricia involuntarily widened their eyes.

“W-wait! In the legend of the Paired Dragons, they’re indispensable to each other…!”

“…What Jonah says is correct. However, that was true until five years ago.”

Fafnir began to speak haltingly.

It spoke of what could have possibly transpired between the two dragons that had endured through eternity since the world’s beginning.

Until now, Lindwyrm and I had gone through countless long years peacefully, without involving ourselves with humans.

Our dwelling lies at the northern edge of this world, and Mount Baldia serves as its gateway. I’ve made this place my lair for five years now, but before that I rarely came this far — it’s been about five hundred years.

But… I had no choice but to come here.

To stop Lindwyrm, who had fled the northern reaches and was intent on preying upon humans.

Why would Lindwyrm do such a thing?

The answer is simple: he has tasted humans and remembered their flavor.

The cause of that was five years ago.

Lindwyrm suddenly told me, happily, that he’d “made friends with humans.”

It seems he had visited Mount Baldia without telling me, and met humans there.

Originally, Lindwyrm was born five thousand years later than I, so at two thousand years he is still young.

Besides, that one became fascinated when he first encountered humans after a chance visit to Mount Baldia some five hundred years ago. He held out for five hundred years, but in the end he could no longer restrain himself.

Dragons are, by nature, incompatible with the world of humans. It should never happen that we mingle with them.

Yet I suppose I was too lenient. Though I admonished Lindwyrm, I ultimately tacitly allowed him to meet humans.

As a consequence.

“…!? Lindwyrm, you…“

“Ah… I was a bit hungry, so I had a beast…”

A face mottled with tears, and faint traces of blood left around the mouth.

Lindwyrm had swallowed that.

――The human he had called his “friend.”

For us dragons, consuming humans is taboo. Because… that sweet taste becomes unforgettable.

So much so that one would lose reason.

But that one ate a human.

Why Lindwyrm would do such a thing to the human he called “friend” I do not know.

All I must do is stop that one who has learned the taste of humans.

So I moved to Mount Baldia, the gateway connecting the northern edge to the human world, and have been preventing Lindwyrm from leaving here.

Having lived longer, I am stronger than Lindwyrm. He knows that too, so until now he watched on with folded fingers.

And yet, I let that one escape.

I was defeated in battle by Lindwyrm, who I thought weak… no, who should have been weaker than I.

“No way…”

“It is so. Two weeks ago I was defeated. And… I allowed Lindwyrm to run wild in the human realm.”

Having said that, Fafnir groaned.

The attack and partial destruction of Helsing, the capital of the Kingdom of Karelia, by a White Dragon—the very event that sent Patricia here—was the result of a clash between the legendary Paired Dragons.

“So you want to borrow our strength to defeat that White Dragon… Lindwyrm, is that it?”

“Exactly. I heard that you are capable of such a thing.”

Jonah had defeated a sea-serpent monstrosity comparable to Fafnir himself. Even against a White Dragon, he would surely not be outmatched.

But Jonah pressed his eyes and worried.

Whether that really was the right course.

“Um, um… Fafnir, are you alright with this?”

“…With what?”

“Of course, about killing your mate, Lindwyrm.”

Knowing the legend of the Paired Dragons, Jonah dared to ask.

Of course, one cannot leave Lindwyrm, who poses a threat to humans, unchecked.

Still, Jonah couldn’t help asking.

Even knowing this might happen, the Black Dragon before them had kept watch at Mount Baldia so that he wouldn’t have to kill Lindwyrm.

“That’s a matter for too late to worry over. Everything that has happened I have brought upon myself; thus I must, in turn, bring closure.”

“I see…”

Fafnir’s voice, resonant in Jonah’s head, mixed resolve with torment and sorrow.

Jonah, realizing that a legend was approaching its end, murmured sadly.