After I raised myself from the deep hole in the ground, Ember was snickering a little. Well, it is funny to see her master fall into a deep pit after a bout of carelessness, so I just frowned and let it go. I wasn’t injured anyway, since I was still wearing the slime suit. ．
“Congratulations, Master. That’s a total of 1,100,000,000 Credits if we claim their heads.”
Hearing her consoling words, I can’t help but grin. That’s over a billion credits! I wouldn’t be troubled with money for quite some time if I had that much.
Of course, that’s only if we can provide proof of killing them. Unlike the time at the capital, we don’t have the tops witnessing all the killing. We’d need their heads, at least, to prove our feat.
“Ember, can I leave collecting their heads to you?”
I can’t help but feel my stomach churning when I imagine myself beheading dead bodies just to collect some bounty. Ember smiled wryly before taking off the slime suit from me and letting them go around gathering the heads of the Demon Tamers.
As that was going on, we went down the cliff. Based on the plan, Fang and Igni should be somewhere around the bottom of the cliff to hide. As we approached, Fang undid her concealment.
“How did it go?”
I quickly asked Igni, who was busy looking after everyone.
“Everyone else is alright. Only Aira is in a grim state…”
She said this as she gently brushed the unconscious girl’s face. I watched the energy inside her, only to realize that it was in chaos. It was slowly damaging her from the inside and may lead to even death if not attended to properly.
“… She should be fine for the time being.”
I assured Igni, who looked so worried that tears were running down her cheeks. She stared straight at me, Fang, and Ember and muttered in an emotional voice, “Thank you.”
As I was about to reply to her, however, the ground suddenly shook violently. Everyone shouted in fear of the situation, almost panicking.
“An earthquake?!”
We are near a dormant volcano… No, basically, we’re still at its crater, even when we’re this far. An earthquake shouldn’t be rare near one, but the dragons looked scared as if they were experiencing this for the first time.
Then, as if in hindsight, I remember Igni mentioning that the elders went to address something that concerned the life and death of the village.
“Don’t tell me… Is this volcano erupting?!”
When I thought of that, I suddenly felt that we were far from being safe. We’re basically within point-blank range of the volcano. If it erupted, then there’s no way we could run away in time with everyone in tow.
I don’t know what happened to the elders, but since it’s like this, they may have failed to fix the situation. We can’t run away in time, and we are too late to repair the situation. I cradled my head, trying to think of a solution.
“Igni?! What are you guys still doing there?!”
A voice echoed from above. When I craned my head, there were about 50 or so humanoid dragons flying in the air. They all look tired and full of burns.
“We need to escape! The volcano can’t be stopped anymore!”
The blue dragonman shouted as he descended quickly.
“Where are the others?”
He asked in a panic.
Igni shook her head before explaining the situation in a few words. The blue dragon-man couldn’t believe it at first, but after hearing our side of the story, he got angry and punched the cliffside wall. Cracks ran all around as if the wall had been hit by a wrecking ball.
“To think those Demon Tamers would—wait, is the sudden eruption also their doing?!”
Although I think it was their doing too, to lure the elders away, I kept my mouth shut. They’re already dead anyway, so we can’t extract information from them anymore.
The shaking of the ground became stronger, jerking the blue dragon-man back to reality.
“W-We should escape first. Elders! Carry the young ones on your back!”
“””Yes, Chief!”””
The other elders quickly followed his orders and picked up one or two smaller ones as they quickly flew away. Ember, Fang, and I refused their offer, though. Without the burden of the little dragons, we could simply run away at top speed.
We followed the dragons from the ground. As we ran, a pillar of red flames erupted from the mouth of the volcano. Hot magma started streaming down, overflowing from the vent as large burning rocks were sent flying all around. A thick black fume of smoke rose, blocking what little light was coming from the stars in the sky.
As the slope of the volcano was gentle, we were faster than the flowing magma; it could not catch up to us. However, the flying, burning rocks were a different story. After getting ejected from the crater, it shattered into thousands of smaller pieces, each potentially deadly to anyone if it hit. Not only us three, but even the dragons flying in the air were carefully avoiding the rain of fiery rocks.
In just a few minutes, we managed to run about 10 kilometers away from ground zero. Looking back, the scenery was turning into a hellscape, with the magma eating away at the green forest surrounding it.
“Our village…”
One of the elders muttered as they stared at the volcano. Their village, which was situated right on top of the crater, should have already burned to ashes by now.
Looking around, they all had different reactions to the scene. Some sobbed silently, while others looked on with hatred burning in their eyes. Some just sighed and decided to let go; that was the chief of the dragon’s village, the blue dragon-man.
“Everyone, we should be thankful that a lot of us survived. Especially the children. Tamer Will, we thank you for your cooperation. If not for you, who knows what would have happened to our villagers…”
The blue dragonman bowed his head deeply.
“What are you going to do from now on?”
I asked out of curiosity. Now that they’ve lost their village and their land is covered in burning rocks and magma, it’s doubtful if they could even return.
The blue dragonman just shook his head to the side.
“We have no choice but to relocate. Well, it’s not like we don’t have anywhere to go. We can head to the Seimei Clan and ask for help too.”