The false hero volume 5, p.25
The False Hero, Volume 5, page 25
“Plus,” the commander continues, “the demons were rushing straight toward our defensive line with no coordination, and their numbers were severely lacking. If you had allowed them to charge us, we would have had an enormous advantage. Perhaps we could have ended this war with the victory we would have won today.”
Other nearby elves nod in agreement. They’ve been putting up a desperate struggle for months, repelling the demon invasion while trying to stabilize their defenses, all with the disease rotting the ground beneath their very feet.
With those kinds of conditions, it wouldn’t be surprising if I made an enemy of a lot of the elves here today.
“I doubt they would have charged into our battle line,” Galan says in my defense. “It should be clear to everyone here now that the demons were after this dragon, not us. The reason their coordination was so poor was probably because they were desperate to slay it. I’m also curious to know why.”
Oh, nice support Galan!
I give him a mental thumbs up, but there’s no way he’d know that.
“Exactly,” I say, latching onto Galan’s comment. “Finding out why they wanted to kill this dragon so badly may give us an even greater edge than a single, favorable engagement. If you’ll just wait until it wakes up, I’ll talk to it and see what was going on.”
“Speak to a dragon? Did you hit your head during the battle?”
“When it comes to languages, I know them all,” I say in Elvish.
Well, technically that’s not true, but I know any language as soon as I hear it the first time.
It’s almost like hearing it triggers some kind of update to my memory, similar to how learning a new skill floods my mind with information. Or perhaps the information is always there, and it only unlocks after meeting the requirements.
“You speak elvish?” the commander asks with a hint of surprise. “Even so, there’s no way for you to speak to something like a dragon.”
“About that—you see, I actually already spoke to it during the battle. It passed out right after though, so I didn’t learn anything.”
The commander and most of the elves look extremely skeptical. Even Galan is eyeing me with a raised eyebrow.
They’ll just have to wait and see. Hurry and wake up, you snoring dragon.
The legendary creature’s majesty is somewhat dampened by the loud, nasally sounds coming out of its throat with each breath. It sounds like it’s snoring, but it could simply be due to its rather strange sleeping position. It did pass out during battle, after all.
“You’ve been sent here by the Astral Dryad to put an end to the disease, haven’t you?” the commander asks. “Her request has nothing to do with dragons, so if you want the authority to secure this creature, you’ll have to ask Grand Elder Rena.”
“Oh, right. I forgot about her. She did call for us before the whole dragon thing, so I guess we should go meet her. Just don’t touch the dragon until I can get permission to keep it, okay!?”
“Keep it?” Belle asks. “Don’t tell me you plan on making it into a pet!”
Ah, the truth slipped out…
“Well dragons are cool, aren’t they? Imagine swooping in on our enemies on the back of a dragon! We’ll be Dragon Knights!”
“Wow! I want to try that, Master!”
“I know, right!? And when the dragon lands, we can leap off its back and stand around in an awesome formation! Something that’ll strike terror in the minds of our enemies!”
“If it’s terror,” Tylith says, “then we should do this!”
She shows us the ominous smile we’ve come to know her for, her scarlet red eyes giving off an eerie gleam as her lips curl. Her hand comes up, and she runs the extended nail of her index finger across her tongue.
Tylith swears that smile and gesture are a mark of elegance, but I can only see it as an intense desire to shed blood. Perhaps very fortunately, the girl in question isn’t quite as vicious as she often appears. Though she does have her moments.
“Grand Elder,” Laya says, getting us back on track.
“Ah, sorry. Yes, let’s go meet her while the dragon is still napping.”
“No need,” the commander says. “She’s coming to us.”
“Seriously? That’s convenient.”
I match the direction of the commander’s eyes and notice a particularly well-dressed elf. She’s not wearing anything as luxurious as a royal princess, but her outfit definitely doesn’t fit a battlefield.
Ah, of course she would be terrifyingly powerful, huh?
There’s one elf at this warcamp whose strength stands out, even among experienced warriors like Galan. That elf had been idle even during the battle, and now I know why.
Grand Elder Rena comes to a stop, joining us in our little circle. She has a whole entourage with her, but they’re merely watching from a short distance away.
All five of us [Scry] her at the same time and begin looking over her information.
As expected, her level simply reads as [??] since she’s so much higher level than us. The strength of her mana tells me that she’s far stronger than we are, but it’s still lacking when compared to Ashton.
She also has two Unique Skills. As usual, being the leader of a nation seems to grant a Unique Skill somehow, and Rena is no exception, with her first skill being named [Grand Elder].
I wonder what the leader-type Unique Skills even do. Tylith has a similar one, [Vampire Princess], but its description doesn’t give us any clues as to its functions.
The best I can tell, the leader-type skills don’t have any distinguishable properties, meaning they provide simple buffs to stats and other foundational traits. That would explain Tylith’s exceptionally high stats. Other than me, Tylith has the highest average stat score I’ve seen so far. She even beats Laya by a slim margin, though she’s far more oriented toward physical abilities compared to Laya, who’s simply good at everything other than tanking.
Her other Unique Skill is called [Angel of the Battlefield]. The name immediately sparks my interest, giving just enough of a clue to its function without actually revealing anything, making me extremely curious.
“Later,” Laya’s voice resounds in my mind.
“Ah, you’re right. I’ll hold off for now…”
Of course Laya knows that I want to have Grand Elder Rena join my party to find out what her Unique Skills do. But she’s right, there are more important matters right now.
“So you’re the human that Elder Saevel wrote about,” Rena says with a curious glance.
“Yeah. The letter he sent made it to you, huh?”
“It did. I was quite shocked to learn that two humans, a beastkin, and even a vampire have made themselves home here in my land, despite having ordered our borders closed.”
“My apologies about that. We were in a bit of a difficult position.”
“A ‘bit of a difficult position’? Is that how you would describe being hunted by all of the four races?”
“Well, more like three races since the Vampire Lords seem to think I’m their ally.”
I think back to our meeting with Tylith’s brother, the Vampire Lord Ashton von Phyress. As soon as he learned I’m the False Hero, he stopped his attacks and left.
I have a difficult time believing the Lord of Chaos would tell the Vampire Lords to leave me be, considering I wasn’t actually summoned by Chaos. I’m more inclined to believe that he simply didn’t tell them anything, leading Ashton to mistakenly think that I’m on his side of this war.
“Yes,” Rena says. “I was surprised to learn that the vampires had turned against the Goddess. Though that does explain a few details. But back to the task at hand. Would anyone like to explain to me why there’s an unconscious dragon here?”
“About that, you see…”
I explain to the Grand Elder what happened during the battle. Of course, there are still a lot of unknowns about this whole situation, but I do my best to get her to see my point of view. Though it doesn’t help that the commander keeps piping up, adding his opinion to the discussion which often contradicts my own.
“Speak to the dragon?” Rena asks. “Isn’t that a bit ridiculous?”
“I know how it sounds, but it’s the truth.”
“Mmm. Trust us.”
“Ah,” Rena says. “You must be the little elf Saevel mentioned. You’re even younger than I imagined. It’s hard to believe you bested Galan in combat at your age…”
“I didn’t hold back,” Galan says. “Although I would like to say that if we fought again, the outcome may be different.”
“Mmm. It was thanks to my surprise magic that I was able to end the fight with a victory. But I won’t lose next time, either.”
“Oh, big words for such a little girl,” Rena says with a smile. “In any case, it’s good that you came here. I’ve been wanting to meet you ever since reading Elder Saevel’s letter.”
Laya’s looks at the ruler of her country with a neutral expression. She has a habit of straightening her clothes and hair whenever she’s nervous or anxious, and currently, her hands are on a seek and destroy mission for all the wrinkles in her skirt.
Yeah, I guess meeting your queen would be a pretty nerve-wracking experience for most people. Considering her age and rural upbringing, she’s taking it surprisingly well.
She’s probably preparing to explain herself in case the Grand Elder asks her some tough questions.
During her travels with us, Laya has done a lot of things that go against what she was taught growing up. She conquered a dungeon, befriended a vampire, and even declared that she would abandon the elves in order to keep traveling with me.
The tight-knit elven society even sees their three separate countries as part of a greater whole, their so-called Elven Domain. They work together, maintaining balance in their domain and creating a safe place for themselves.
However, such a society makes it that much more painful when someone decides to betray the others. Even a simple thing like stepping foot inside a dungeon was enough to cause Laya to hesitate. That’s just how deep the elven culture is embedded in her.
Yet despite that, she still decided that abandoning her people would be an easier task than abandoning us.
“It’s good to meet you, Grand Elder Rena,” Laya says with a slightly awkward bow.
“Yes, you and I have many things to discuss, Laya. But I suppose we should take care of this problem first.”
“Yeah,” I say, turning to the dragon. “I’ve got an idea, but I don’t know if you’ll like it.”
“I’ll hear you out, but if you want to bring that dragon into our warcamp, then I can already tell you the answer is no.”
“That’s not exactly what I had in mind. We can keep it right here, out in the wastelands. I doubt the demons will attack again anytime soon, so it should be safe until it wakes up.”
“Are you sure about that? Dragons have been known to sleep for a very long time, you know. Some say older dragons can sleep for years or even decades, so there’s no telling when it will awaken.”
“Seriously? That would be … bad.”
“Yes,” Rena agrees. “If it’s out for too long, it will be caught up in the next battle, and I doubt the demons would be willing to ignore it if they were trying so hard to slay it in the first place.”
“Then what about if we move it closer to the warcamp and away from where most of the fighting will take place in an attack?”
I point toward the northern edge of the warcamp, where the fortifications begin to thin out. From the look of it, that section of the front line seems to have seen less fighting, but it’s still outside camp, so if we set up a small perimeter around it, it should be relatively safe for both the elves and dragon.
“Hmm,” Rena eyes the spot I’m pointing toward. “I suppose we can do as you suggest for now. But we will be discussing this in more detail later, and if I believe the dragon is a greater threat than whatever benefit you think it will provide, I will have it removed.”
“I understand. Thank you for granting me this request.”
The elves begin the process of moving the enormous dragon. It’s far too massive for something like a cart, so they hoist it atop a row of simple logs and pull the gigantic creature along them across the wasteland.
After reaching our destination, they yank it off the logs and it flops back onto the stone ground, still asleep.
“Perfect. Now, I just need to do one more thing and we’ll be good to go.”
I remove a piece of animal skin from my [Inventory]. It’s already been cured into a hide that would be suitable for something like a canvas to paint on. After preparing it properly, I attach it to a piece of wood and stick it into the ground, just in front of the dragon’s face.
My strange actions cause a few of the elves to look at me with confusion, but I ignore them as I step back to the others and look at the dragon surrounded by guards.
“Well, that’s taken care of. Now, you wanted to talk to us about a few things, right?” I ask as I turn to the Grand Elder.
“Yes, quite a few things. Let’s move to my quarters and see about getting all the lingering questions sorted out, shall we?”
“Sounds good. Lead the way, Grand Elder.”
She turns, and her entourage falls in line beside her. The five of us follow as well, and with a steady pace, Rena leads us back into the warcamp.
Chapter 21: The Grand Elder
----- Lutz -----
“Tea?” Grand Elder Rena asks.
“Yeah!” Belle says before anyone else.
Seems she found Belle’s weak point already. How fearsome.
“I’ll take some, as well,” I say casually.
It’s not that tea’s my weak point or anything. I’m just thirsty.
I convince myself of that fact as I watch Rena walk to a nearby cabinet and pull out a pitcher that’s been sitting in a bowl of ice.
A makeshift refrigerator for her tea? Can it be that it’s her weak point, too?
The other girls each request some, so Rena makes her rounds, pouring a cup of tea for everyone here.
The Grand Elder’s residence is far fancier than the commander’s room, with plush seats and a comforting atmosphere. Compared to the minimalistic furnishings of the rest of the military encampment, it might as well be heaven.
“I didn’t mean for you to get it yourself. I figured you had a servant or something who’d bring it in.”
“Oh, it’s quite alright. When it comes to tea, it’s best served by the hand that brewed it, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Sure, I guess. So that means you made this tea yourself, huh?”
“I certainly did. Brewing tea is an artform, and I’ve honed the craft all my life. Go ahead, try it and tell me what you think.”
The cup in my hands is filled with a reddish-brown tea, its bitter-sweet aroma igniting my taste buds. I bring it to my lips and take a small sip, focusing on savoring the taste as it glides over my tongue.
“Truly delicious,” I say as I place the cup back onto the table.
“Thank you. In my humble opinion, iced tea can only be beaten by a cup that’s been freshly brewed.”
“That’s right!” Bell says. “I’m glad you understand.”
Could it be that these two are going to get along really well?
Rena sits at the table across from me and takes a sip from her cup, showing us a satisfied face after gulping it down.
“Now that you’re here, I can finally ask the questions that have been on my mind ever since reading Elder Saevel’s letter.”
“Sure, go ahead. I’m prepared to answer almost anything.”
“Then…”
Once again, I’m bombarded with the usual set of questions, asking me all about my title of False Hero and how I came to acquire it. Of course, I still don’t have a solid reason behind why I was chosen, so I have no choice but to disappoint her by giving a bunch of guesses that I’ve accumulated over the months.
During the questions, I show her my [True Blessing of the Goddess] in order to verify my identity as a summoned hero, but unlike everyone else who saw it for the first time, she barely gives me a reaction. It’s a bit deflating seeing her take it in stride, though it’s probably because Saevel mentioned it in his letter already, so she was prepared for it.
The questioning goes smoothly, mainly because I’ve answered them so many times that I’ve even developed a word-for-word response for some of them.
She asks about my adventures in the human lands, the betrayal of the vampires, and the Lost Magics. As soon as she hears me say that I can teach her the forgotten spells, her eyes light up.
“So!” she says, excited. “About this training method! I’m free tonight, so why don’t you come by after dark, and we’ll spend some time together!”
Belle’s eyes instantly dart to me, which doesn’t surprise me considering the ammunition Rena just gave her to tease me with. What’s surprising is that the other three girls look to me, as well.
What are all of you expecting to happen tonight…?
“Sure, I don’t mind teaching you,” I say, ignoring the girls’ eyes.
“Then I shall inform my guards to allow you to pass after sundown and to ignore any strange noises they may hear afterwards.”
Hey, hey! Don’t just say something like that when I’m already being glared at!
“Interesting,” Belle says. “And what kind of noises do you think you’d be making late at night?”
“Hm? Well, I can’t be blamed if I let out a squeal or two, right? It’ll be my first time, after all.”
No! Stop, please! You’re only making it worse!
“F-first time…?” Tylith says.
“Yes, my first time learning the Lost Magics. That’s to be expected, isn’t it? Nobody else can teach them.”
Finally, a way out…!
“Of course, learning ancient spells is really exciting, so I won’t blame you for … s-squealing.” I somehow ended up stuttering.
It’s not because I’m thinking of that!
I can’t tell if Rena’s innocent smile is genuine or if she’s just really good at playing around. Either way, her interest in magic seems genuine, so I’ll stop by tonight and give her what she wants.
