The next day, Loren woke up feeling a slight heaviness on his chest.
Last night, they had a simple dinner in the nest of Emery, the Ancient Dragon. They didn’t need to keep guard since they were in the dragon’s nest, so they had all gotten into their sleeping bags and slept to recover their strength for the climb to the crater the next day.
When Loren was still a mercenary, sleeping with other members of the company was a common occurrence. Back then, some of the company’s members had bad sleeping habits and tended to cause a lot of trouble for others, and he wondered if the heaviness he was feeling on his chest now had a similar cause. Looking down, he saw that the string tying his sleeping bag’s mouth had somehow loosen, and something a bit more angular than a lizard was clinging to his chest, looking vaguely happy.
Loren blinked. He was confused for a moment, but then he pulled himself out of the sleeping bag and half-raised his body to see a dragon whelp, probably Emery’s child, hanging from his jacket. Looking at the dragon whelp that showed no signs of waking up despite all the swaying, he thought its claws must have hooked quite firmly onto his jacket.
He tried to sort out the situation. Normally, this baby dragon would be sleeping in a crevice in the treasure pile under Emery’s belly, but this time there was a warmer, softer crevice close by. It must have crept near while they were sleeping, loosened the mouth of the sleeping bag somehow, and burrowed in.
“Well, that’s fine with me.”
It was true that he was a little surprised, but he could accept the fact that some lizard-like thing had snuck into his sleeping bag while he was sleeping, considering that he was in a dragon’s nest. Loren looked at Lapis, who was sleeping nearby, and wondered what kind of situation she was in now, as her place was softer and warmer than his.
Since the nest had a roof, they decided to sleep in the open space instead of the small tent they had set up. It made Loren worry that Lapis might be swarmed with baby dragons, but the mouth of her sleeping bag didn’t look loosened, and she was breathing regularly.
Loren thought the dragon whelps had only gone to his place and not Lapis, but he soon realized that he was wrong: Lying around the sleeping Lapis were several cocoons woven with white thread, all about half his height. Judging from the way they were wriggling around, whatever inside the cocoons seemed to be alive. When Loren thought about what were inside them, he could think of nothing but the dragon whelps. And he couldn’t think of anyone else who could have wrapped them up with thread.
“Is it him?”
Sleeping with a thick jacket on was quite uncomfortable, and Loren had taken it off before getting into his sleeping bag. In other words, the spider Nig that was clinging to his jacket’s shoulder was outside the sleeping bag. Loren turned his gaze around to search for Nig’s figure, and after a while, he found it in a place he had never imagined he would.
It was on top of Loren’s luggage. Nig seemed to have left his jacket at some point, crawled over to his luggage, and used its legs to open the mouth of the bag. It dove into the bag and rummaged around. When it emerged, there was a chunk of dried meat hooked to its front leg. It skillfully tore the meat apart with its eight legs.
The dried meat did not look like it could be torn apart with the strength of a spider’s legs, but Nig succeeded in tearing off small pieces from the dried meat, little by little. As expected of a spider that held on to Loren’s jacket and never be shaken off.
With an air of satisfaction, it began to wind the dried meat with its own thread, and when it formed a cocoon of a certain size, it bit into it. Spiders often eat by injecting their digestive juices into their prey, then sipping at the dissolved body. But apparently, Nig was eating by trapping the dried meat in a cocoon and injecting digestive juices into it to dissolve the dried meat.
Loren’s gaze coincidentally met Nig’s eight eyes while it was eating. Being caught stealing food made the spider freeze and stop moving, but Loren nodded to say it was okay, and it resumed eating.
Loren was amazed at Nig’s intelligence, as it had not only opened the package by itself but also taken out what it needed from it. He already knew beforehand that it was not just any spider though, so he accepted the fact that it could do such things.
He also thought that it was Nig who had created the cocoons lying around Lapis, which probably contained dragon whelps. The baby dragons probably tried to instinctively crawl into the Lapis’ warm sleeping bag. But before they could accomplish their goal, they were stopped by Nig, who was clinging to the shoulder of the jacket that Loren took off.
As for the one in Loren’s sleeping bag, either it was overlooked by Nig, or it thought that he would be alright. Either way, that dragon obviously made the right choice, and was able to spend the night in the warmth of his sleeping bag.
“And Gula…”
If Lapis had been targeted, it was not surprising that Gula had also been targeted. But when Loren turned his gaze in the direction of her sleeping bag, he found that, unlike the area around Lapis’, there were none of the white cocoons there. This meant that the baby dragons had not gone to Gula, and Loren wondered why. But the answer came quickly.
“They’ll be eaten.”
It would be meaningless if they approached Gula for warmth and ended up getting eaten instead. Moreover, in that case, if Emery challenged her about eating them, Gula could use the argument that it was their fault for approaching her. Whether out of consideration for such a situation or instinct, it seemed like the baby dragons wouldn’t go near Gula.
“Smart creatures are smart, huh?”
Gently removing the claws of the baby dragon still dangling from his chest and lowering them to the ground so as not to wake them, Loren glanced towards the pile of treasure.
Emery was curled up on top of it, asleep, and showed no signs of waking up.
Thinking that it would be better to release the dragon whelps that Nig had captured now so that there would be no trouble later, Loren slipped out of his sleeping bag and put his hand on one of the cocoons that were lying around Lapis. The fact that the dragons inside weren’t suffocated meant that Nig had left a reasonable amount of space while weaving the cocoons. Still, in order to release the dragons, the cocoons had to be broken.
Loren picked up the cocoon with his fingers and pulled it from side to side to see if he could break it with his hands, but it was made of such a strong material that it did not budge even with effort. It felt like silk to the touch, but was much more durable. Loren had heard that spider thread was strong, but he didn’t think it was this strong, and after a while he gave up.
Loren considered using a knife, but it was difficult because he was worried if he could cut the cocoon without damaging the dragon inside. If he were to injure a dragon and upset Emery, it would be impossible to get out of this nest alive; he brooded over the several white cocoons he had retrieved from around Lapidus.
“GIVE THEM TO ME.”
When he looked up at the sudden voice, he saw that Emery had come up to him before he knew it, and was peeking at him.
As Loren retreated to give her space, Emery placed her claws on the cocoon that was lying on the ground and gently drew on it vertically. Loren was again amazed at the sharpness of the dragon’s claws as he watched the cocoon break open.
Watching the baby dragons being released from their cocoons and hurriedly fleeing toward the mountain of treasure, Loren asked Emery:
“Is it morning already?”
“IF YOU MEAN OUTSIDE THE NEST, YES, IT IS. THE SUN HAS ONLY JUST RISEN.”
When Loren heard from Emery that it was still early in the morning, he immediately wanted to start preparing breakfast. Even though he didn’t know how far it was to the crater, if he didn’t leave the nest as soon as possible and reach the crater, he wouldn’t be able to finish his work.
“YOU’RE IN QUITE A HURRY.”
Emery looked at Loren, who had efficiently started his preparations, and said admiringly.
“I don’t have a thousand years to live.”
Loren answered without stopping his work, and Emery laughed.
“ARE YOU BEING SARCASTIC?”
“If that’s what it sounded like to you, then that’s what it is, isn’t it?”
Of course, Loren did not mean for it to be a sarcastic remark. It was just that for a being like Emery, who had lived for a thousand years and was still living, the act of hurrying would not be well understood.
“WELL, IF YOU’RE IN A HURRY, I WON’T STOP YOU. BUT I DON’T THINK YOU HAVE ANYTHING TO WORRY ABOUT ON YOUR WAY TO THE CRATER.”
“And why is that?”
“THERE IS A SINGLE PATH FROM MY NEST TO THE CRATER, A BIT FAR BUT NOT TOO STEEP. I’VE NEVER TAKEN IT, THOUGH.”
Loren tilted his head at Emery’s incomprehensible statement that she had never taken the path but knew it was there, but her next explanation convinced him.
“YOU’VE HEARD THAT JUDIE, THE DEMON KING, DID A LOT OF BAD THINGS TO THE CRATER, RIGHT?”
“Could it be that she went to the crater through that path?”
“APPARENTLY SO. I’VE ONLY HEARD ABOUT IT, BUT IT’S PROBABLY STILL USABLE. IT’S LIKE GOING THROUGH THE MOUNTAIN, SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THE CONDITION OF THE OUTSIDE. AND SINCE THE DEMON KING MUST HAVE MAINTAINED IT TO SOME EXTENT, IT SHOULD BE EASY TO TRAVEL ON.”
It was a great help, but when Loren heard that the reason such a path was created was some mischief of the Demon King, he wondered if he should be grateful.
“I’LL TELL YOU WHERE IT IS. IF YOU TAKE THAT ROUTE, YOU’LL REACH THE CRATER BEFORE NOON.”
“I really appreciate it.”
Loren thought the matter about whether he should be grateful to Judie the Demon King or not, should be put aside. Instead he expressed his gratitude to Emery for giving him this information.