Proofreader: Xemul
Riding on the back of the Ancient Dragon Emery, Loren and his party set off for the demon territory, but the flight was not that enjoyable.
The ride itself was not too uncomfortable. In fact, it seemed that Emery had really been careful about them, and the flight was not as bad as they had expected. The problem was the speed of the flight and the time involved.
Emery’s flying speed was truly fast; there was no time to enjoy the view from the sky or anything. Loren could barely see the scenery in the distance, and the ones near him and below him were literally flying by, so he quickly gave up sightseeing and just stared blankly ahead in the direction they were going.
As for the time, due to the fast flying speed, the traveling time was greatly shortened.
In general, Loren had a strong feeling that he was being carried to his destination before he knew what was going on, and the sentimentality of flying in the air as a human or riding on the back of an Ancient Dragon remained very vague.
“Do you see it? That is the castle of the Great Demon King.”
Emery called out to Loren and the others, who suddenly noticed that their flying speed was slowing down.
Loren, who had only been staring blankly ahead, turned his gaze from the front to the surroundings a little at her voice. Because Emery had slowed down for some reason, he was able to check out the surrounding scenery a little bit.
As Loren gazed around at the scenery, which was still flying by but had somehow become more visible, he spotted the structure that Emery wanted to show them.
There was a huge lake.
It was already nighttime, and in the center of the lake, which was dimly visible in the pitch black darkness, was a floating island, and there was a huge structure built on it that could have been mistaken for a mountain. Lights, perhaps from bonfires or magic, were lit here and there, and the structure seemed to be floating in the darkness, just barely visible. Looking at it, Loren involuntarily felt a chill run down his spine at the presence that seemed to be enemating from the structure.
“Is that it?”
Gula, who was clinging to Loren’s back, pressed her body against the area where the chill was running down, her voice coming from somewhere close to his ear. The too-close voice made him shiver involuntarily, and the motion made Lapis, who had been lying languidly in Loren’s arms, came back to her senses. She raised his head, which had been resting on Loren’s chest, and began to look around as if she had just woken up from a nap.
“Eh… Ah, that. That is our destination, the castle of the Great Demon King.”
Loren had guessed that it was the being called the Great Demon King who had instructed Lapis to bring him this time, judging from their talk with Emery and the fact that they were going to the center of the continent. However, when he was told once again that that was indeed the Great Demon King’s castle, he could not stop the thought of having to go there from weighing heavily on his mood.
He wanted to go home, but he could not turn back now.
Even if he could somehow get down from Emery, he would be in the middle of the demon territory, and he didn’t think he would be able to make it back to the human territory on his own feet.
“There is no need to be so nervous, Loren.”
Perhaps sensing his feelings through their physical contact, Lapis looked up at Loren from inside his arms and spoke in a reassuring tone.
“This time, His Majesty the Great Demon King has summoned us personally. His Majesty is not so crazy as to harm a guest he himself invited.”
Even so, Loren was not at ease at all because the other party was the Great Demon King. If he displeased him even just a little, he could easily lose his life. If at all possible, Loren didn’t want to see him at all.
But regardless of his thoughts, Emery approached the sky above the castle and began to descend slowly in a spiraling trajectory.
“Now, where should we land?”
“Can’t we just land in front of the main gate?”
“That wouldn’t be any fun.”
Emery responded to Lapis while looking at the three of them, the corners of her mouth curved upwards. But from Loren’s point of view, he could not find anything fun about going to the Great Demon King’s castle. However, there was nothing to do but to leave it to Emery’s judgment as to where to land, and he could only pray that the landing would be as smooth as possible.
“Okay, let’s go over there.”
After flying around the castle for a while, Emery seemed to have decided on a landing spot, and she adjusted his trajectory to head toward the castle.
Loren had no idea where Emery was going to land, but Lapis and Gula immediately knew, and he could see them panicking in his arms and at his back.
“Wait a minute!”
“I don’t think that’s the place for a dragon to land!”
Loren looked around to see why the two of them were panicking, and he vaguely saw where Emery was heading.
It looked like a balcony to Loren’s eyes.
For some reason, there were no lights of any kind in that area, and it blended into the shadows of the castle even under the moonlight, but Loren thought it was likely that this was where Emery was headed, judging from the direction of her gaze.
“Can you even land there?”
Emery was huge. Loren was worried about whether her body, so huge that it was worth the title of ‘Ancient Dragon’, would be able to descend on a balcony, no matter how huge the castle was. But Lapis and Gula were more concerned about something else.
“Regardless of whether you can or cannot, won’t the soldiers come rushing in and treat us as suspicious?”
“I’m also worried about that, but do you understand that if we destroy the balcony, we’ll be in debt?!”
“Don’t worry about the details. Alright, we’re coming down.”
Despite Lapis’ attempts to dissuade her, Emery plunged into one of the balconies of the Great Demon King’s castle at a fairly high speed, despite having slowed down her momentum somewhat.
Loren, while imagining the tremor and loud noise such a landing would make, was caught by a rather out-of-place thought: ‘What in the world is a balcony large enough for an Ancient Dragon the size of Emery to land on used for?’
In the meantime, Emery landed on the balcony she was aiming for with an ease that was unimaginable for such a huge being. The maneuver was so spectacularly done that Loren and his party did not even feel any impact, but for some reason, the dragon suddenly shook them off her back. It happened so suddenly that they couldn’t even brace themselves, and ended up flying through the air in a parabolic arc.
“We’ll hit the wall?!”
“No, even worse than that!”
They were not thrown at the wall of the castle, but at a huge window.
The expensive glass in the window would be too fragile to catch the bodies of Loren and his team, and the impact of the collision, not to mention the danger of the shards of shattered glass, could have resulted in life-threatening injuries if not handled properly. Loren quickly wrapped Lapis, who was still in his arms, and Gula, who was clinging to his back, in his own arms and curled himself up so that he crashed into the window back first.
However, the shock that would have come after just a few moments of floating did not hit Loren’s back. Instead, after a slightly longer than expected floating feeling, his body sank into the warm water with a violent splashing sound.
Loren wondered if they had fallen into some kind of swamp, but it was hard to imagine a swamp in the castle, and besides, it was not very deep. He immediately put his feet on the bottom and stood up. In his arms, Lapis and Gula were coughing violently, as if they had inhaled some hot water when they landed.
“Are you alright?”
Loren asked as he released them from his arms. Gula was coughing so hard that she could not answer, but Lapis, who coughed lightly while wringing water out of her soaking wet priest robe despite knowing it was useless, nodded at him.
Loren watched Lapis rub Gula’s back, who seemed alright despite still coughing, then looked at the place where they had been thrown out.
The huge window they had been worried about crashing into was, for some reason, wide open, and they could see Emery turning around in the distance. It seemed that after throwing them out, the dragon had quickly moved to escape.
Thinking that there should have been a more gentle delivery method, Loren turned his gaze to the space behind the window, where they had been thrown at.
It was unlit and pitch black.
The water under his feet was probably at the right temperature for soaking, and it formed a fairly large watering hole. It rose to about Loren’s knees, and was clear and clean, not murky.
“Is this a bath?”
Loren could think of no other facility in a castle that held such a large amount of hot water. He was impressed by the expensive facilities, but considering that the place they were in is the castle of the Great Demon King, it would not be surprising if there were one or two bathrooms.
“But if the water is this warm, does that mean… someone has already bathed in it, or someone is going to very soon?”
“Don’t you even think that someone might be bathing?”
Gula was still coughing and Lapis was taking care of her.
The moment the answer came, Loren put his hand on the greatsword on his back, turned to the direction of the voice and readied himself.
“That Emery. I told her to bring you here as quickly as possible, but I didn’t tell her to just throw you in here. It spoils my hard-earned time of relax.”
“Who is it?”
There was no light in the room, and the voice came from the far end. The light from outside did not reach the area, and straining his eyes on it, Loren could see, albeit dimly, a figure soaking in the hot water.
“That question is for greeting. I know who you are, so I’m not going to ask you to tell me your name.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
When confronted by Loren, who was ready to draw his greatsword at any moment, the owner of the voice did not seem to put himself on guard, nor did he even make a move to get out of the hot water in which he was soaking.
Just as Loren was thinking that this was not the attitude to have in front of an armed intruder, someone strongly pulled his hand from behind him.
“No, Loren! Please refrain yourself!”
It was Lapis, her face tense and her voice small but firm.
Loren, seeing her expression, immediately let go of the greatsword and kneeled down on the spot, hanging his head. He did this because he could think of only one person who could make such an expression appear on Lapis’ face.
“You don’t need to act so humble. I’m sure this was force majeure, and I did tell Emery to bring you to me right away. I don’t blame you for putting your hand on your weapon, since it would be natural to be wary when being addressed in this darkness.”
A small ball of light appeared in the darkness. Illuminated by the light, which was probably created by magic, was the face of a young man.
His long, pure white hair was flowing in the water, and his dark purple eyes, which were looking at Loren and his party in front of him, showed a hint of interest and curiosity.
The man’s body from the chest down was not visible because he was immersed in the hot water, but from what Loren could see and what showed through the water, he was quite tall and well-trained.
“I know this is not the place for such a thing, but let me introduce myself. I am the one who called you here. I am the leader of the Demon Kings ruling the demon tribe, the Great Demon King. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
The man introduced himself and wiped his face with his palm, smiling at Loren’s party.