Dragonlord

Ep 202. If You Don’t Want It, Then… (3)

Ep 202. If You Don’t Want It, Then… (3)

Three empty plates.

Three elves that were seemingly lost in bliss.

An enforcer and a dragon who really couldn’t care less, and…

One wide-eyed cook (?) who stood in pure shock, parroting what he’d heard for confirmation towards their three captives.

“So, you guys are…’Shadowguards’? Deity Letherien’s personal aides?”

“…Yep.”

“And your group’s task was to kill all survivors in Kavir…? Including Karia’s own knights?”

“…Yep.”

“And you three remained behind to…kill any reinforcements that came?”

“…Yep.”

Despite hearing the exact same reply for a third time, the shock on Patrick’s face refused to disappear.

In all fairness, Patrick himself had worked a fair amount of time as an enforcer: during it he’d encountered countless criminals, some of which were nothing short of utter scum. Indeed, the cruelty of their actions wasn’t the surprising part.

What did shock him was that while the criminals he’d encountered as an enforcer all had clear motives, the three before him did not seem to have anything even remotely close.

“Why would…why would you follow orders like that? Is Letherien that important to all of you?”

“…”

When the shadowguard that had been answering Patrick all along suddenly fell silent, their captain let out a small sigh from her side, interjecting to answer in his subordinate’s stead.

“…All shall be as the Creator wills.”

“Huh? What?”

“…”

Keldrin’s eyes narrowed further when Patrick answered him with his quizzical look. His piercing gaze was ridden with disappointment, but the shadowguard captain began to clarify nonetheless.

“All shall be as the Creator wills – every Karian is taught as such from their moment of birth. Hence, your question’s very premise is nonsense. Just as humans follow their kings, we follow our deity.”

“…I mean, even if it’s some royal…er, divine decree, I wouldn’t expect someone to just go around killing their own people. I mean, why would a ruler give orders like that?”

“We need not grasp its meaning. We need but follow.”

“…”

“Lady Letherien has led Karia to its current prosperity; she is our deity, and our eternal monarch. Hers is the will of Karia itself.”

Instead of a verbal answer, Patick only let out an exasperated sigh towards Keldrin.

‘…There’s just no talking to this guy.’

And, following that conclusion, the mage naturally turned his attention back towards the other two shadowguards, waving his hand dismissively towards their captain.

“Sure, sure. Let’s leave it at that for now. But the other thing, though…you two said that Letherien’s in some floating fortress? I mean, even if that’s true, how can a fortress be floating in the first place?”

Although Patrick’s eyes were still wide with bewilderment, it wasn’t the elves that answered him.

Instead, the answers came from his own sibling and friend.

“It’s a divinity. Let it be, Patrick.”

“Yeah. This isn’t the worst she’s done, really.”

“…”

Serenis – who’d seen the First’s antics first-handed for far too long – showed little concern over a fortress that could apparently fly in the air.

The same went for Iris, who’d seen and heard of Letherien’s deeds for an entire millennium. Considering what she’d seen from her brother, the deity of creation wasn’t so bad in comparison.

But despite their lack of concern for Letherien’s antics…the problem of her sky fortress’ location yet remained.

‘Though, I do suppose learning of its existence is already of significant merit…’

Given the fortress’ tendency to traverse the vast skies, pinpointing its exact location was impossible, even for shadowguards themselves. They’d already admitted several times to not knowing where the fortress may be at this point.

But shortly after, Iris curiously furrowed her brows, darting her gaze towards Keldrin and his squadron again.

“Hold on. How exactly do you three go to and from this fortress, then?”

“…That’s…”

Seeing their captain’s reluctance to answer, one of the shadowguards quickly produced a pure white scroll from her garments, handing it towards the enforcer before her.

“We use return scrolls to go back to the fortress. But Zalde ‘s probably gone back and reported everything to Lady Letherien by now, so…the scroll’s probably…”

“No longer functional?”

“…Yep.”

Sighing, Iris nonetheless snatched the scroll away, undoing its string to examine it – and sure enough, a teleportation rune was inscribed within, designed to send the user to the location of its pair rune.

But no matter how much mana the enforcer channeled to activate it, the scroll refused to respond.

“Ha. I guess that would’ve been too easy…”

As Iris tossed the dysfunctional scroll away, Patrick looked to her with a hint of worry, tapping his friend on their back reassuringly.

“There should be other ways to reach it, yeah? Like, maybe the whole thing will come down to the ground sometime?”

“I don’t know about coming down, but there’s probably a separate path within Letherien’s quarters. One for her personal use, not her minion’s.”

“…So we have to go there anyways?”

“We can search the skies for days on end too. But if it’s fully camouflaged as these guys say, going to her quarters at the capital would be much faster.”

“Pft, fine. But speaking of, what are you gonna do about these guys?”

Soon after, the two mages locked eyes with their three captives – though, having undone all their bindings, they didn’t exactly seem like captives anymore. But considering the lives they’d killed here at Kavir, letting them go was out of the question.

And so, Patrick turned to the sector representative with the first suggestion that came to mind.

“Should we just hand them over to the authorities here?”

“…”

As soon as the suggestion was made, a deep frown crossed all of the shadowguards’ faces: as an elf, to be handed over to authorities in Asuria was no different than being offered as slaves.

But being well aware of the obvious outcome, Iris quickly shook her head.

“No. We captured them, so we’ll take them into custody ourselves. There’s no reason to hand them over to Asuria.”

“Even if you say that…how? Are you going to take them all the way back to Partivine or something?”

“Ideally, but we won’t have to do it ourselves. We already have a few agents operating in Asuria, so we can hand them over there instead. They’ll take care of the rest.”

“…Wow, look at you being a rep. Bossin’ around other people to do your dirty work now, huh?”

“…”

As soon as Patrick made his last remark, Serenis eyed her sibling with a curious gaze.

‘I still don’t understand why he says such things. He should know by now that it’ll only result in another beating…’

Even after several weeks of watching the two fight, the dragonlord still failed to understand her brother incurring more.

…And it was also the reason why she never bothered to protect him during those fights.

“Ow, ow, ow, wait! I’m a civilian, you can’t just resort to violence! And you call yourself an enforcer?!”

“Civilian my ass! Be glad I’m not a deity anymore!”

“…”

Soon, Serenis leisurely turned her eyes away, almost as if nothing was happening at her side.

‘…Perhaps he’s just yet to fully mature.’

Then again, it didn’t matter what the reason was.

A different reason wasn’t going to make her intervene.