Dragon with a cold heart (1)
On the hill of the white desert, knights were gathered together and watching one place.
The bitter cold of the north wind was stinging their eyes, but the knights paid no attention and just stared at the distant horizon.
they were waiting
The torches that will bring cold breath.
“I can see it.”
And the iron knights carrying the torches did their best in their mission.
A huge bundle of cold air approaching at high speed from afar.
And knights with torches running towards them, surrounded by fog-like coldness.
They were knights of the steelsmith Baranov family.
“Get ready.”
“yes.”
Upon receiving an order from a man who looked like a captain, the knights watching from the hill began to mount their horses one by one.
Each of them was holding a magic torch to protect themselves from the cold, and were glaring at the remnants of the fallen dragon that were running toward them with harsh breaths.
“now!”
With the adjutant’s hand signal, the knights began to run down the hill.
“······.”
As the knights rushed forward, the man with ponytail pulled out one of the spears stuck in the ground and quietly closed his left eye.
The knight’s sword is sharp, but it can only cause injury if it touches the opponent.
And the fallen dragon they were trying to deal with was so fast that they couldn’t easily reach it.
Therefore, the steelsmith sent here the engineer he thought was best suited for this job.
Volkov with the javelin.
The spear he was holding began to turn bright blue.
“It’s breath!”
The white dragon, who was roaring as he saw the knights clinging to him, opened his mouth and took a deep breath, as if his judgment had been distorted.
The chest swelled greatly and the white scales stood up, warning of what would happen next.
The knights, sensing destruction, were quickly attempting evasive maneuvers.
“Hmph!”
Volkor hurled his spear at the dragon, which stopped for a moment to catch its breath.
The spear filled with aura began to fly through the wind with elastic movement.
This is enough.
From this distance, you wouldn’t notice a flying javelin.
However, Volkov suddenly encountered blue eyes looking directly at him from a distance.
“what?”
Remnants of a fallen dragon. Lindwurm.
The dragon, who lived with the cold chill in its chest, quickly twisted its body with more agile movements than a wolf.
Quaaaaaaaaaaa!
Ahhh!
It was early but late.
The spear that just passed by was dug deep into the ground.
With fluttering white scales.
“this!”
Volkor let out an angry exclamation without realizing it.
Although it was known to be fast, I never expected it to be as sensitive as it is now.
“I can’t move!”
“Surround yourself!”
The knights who noticed Volkov’s failure rode ceaselessly around Lindwurm and blocked his escape route, but the fallen dragon realized that he had already fallen into a trap set by humans.
Ahhh-!
With an angry roar, Lindwurm quickly removed the knights’ siege and began running into the snow fog.
Because judging time and place was the basic attitude a predator should have.
“Follow me!”
“Block the front!”
As Lindwurm retreated, the knights trained their horses, but catching up with the dragon, which was accelerating at high speed, was a harsh task for the horses.
The horses, exhausted from herding the dragon, foamed at the mouth and began to stop one by one.
“shit!”
Volkov, seeing the siege lifted, shouted a single word and threw down the javelin he was holding, but Lindwurm had already disappeared into the white fog.
There was only the dragon’s angry roar coming from the hazy snowy fog in the distance.
※※※※
A stable set up in Rose’s Smile.
In the place that Madame Marcella paid special attention to, Vlad was looking at Goth with blank eyes.
“Please, just this once. please!”
Goat put his hands together as if he was asking for a favor, but the pitch-black guy just swung at him without the slightest hesitation.
“Let’s kick the saddle just once!”
Heeeeeee-
A pitch-black horse that raises its front paw threateningly towards the goat that keeps clinging to it in an annoying manner.
Goat just took a step back when he saw that.
“You seem to have a shitty personality. really!”
Gott, who was huffing and puffing as if he could no longer bear the pitch-black guy who didn’t seem to listen to his pleas, this time turned his head and looked in Vlad’s direction.
There was one damn guy here too.
“Do something!”
Of the two, Goth vented his anger towards the one he could communicate with the least, but the blonde one was equally disobedient.
“He didn’t really listen to me.”
“Isn’t this what the captain said?”
Seeing Vlad shrug his shoulders as if wondering what to do, Goth raised his head and looked at the sky.
The jet black one, the blonde one.
Well met you guys.
“······I want to hit you.”
I was prepared, but I didn’t expect it to be this difficult.
Even though it was a wild horse, it followed people, so I thought something would work out, but it was a huge mistake.
But it wasn’t just because Goth couldn’t fit his saddle that made him angry.
“Jemina is good. Why can’t you? “Isn’t it just that she’s not good enough?”
“······!”
Goth gritted his teeth as he heard Vlad’s voice whispering next to him.
‘Why do you listen to that girl so carefully…!’
This was the biggest problem.
Although he was a violent guy, the problem was that he looked like an innocent sheep in front of the red-haired girl.
There was clearly someone who had tamed it, so the current situation was bound to raise doubts about the skills of Goat, the stable keeper.
“······It’s because I don’t have a name.”
“What nonsense.”
“It’s because the wildness hasn’t died. “You have to give it a name so you know where you are!”
It was clearly a nonsensical claim, but Vlad unconsciously nodded at the ex-con’s words, which were surprisingly plausible.
That could really be the case.
Seeing Vlad standing still and thinking about what he said, Goth said he should at least have a beer and went in with a rosy smile.
“······name.”
Vlad scratched his chin as he watched the pitch-black guy walking toward the stable on his own feet.
“I see. “I need to build it.”
The guy who was running through the meadow abandoned his duties and followed the boy to this place.
In that case, it would be right to give him at least a new name.
“Is Vlad here?”
Vlad, who was contemplating a name while making eye contact with the pitch-black guy, turned his head when he heard a voice calling him from behind.
“Joseph is calling.”
Vlad nodded while listening to the words of the man who came to see him at city hall.
“Let’s go and see you later.”
The pitch-black guy nodded as if he understood what Vlad said.
Although it wasn’t his name, Vlad took a step forward for the man who gave him a title that allowed him to be confident anywhere.
※※※※
Josef made a subtle expression as he looked at the man who suddenly came to him.
He wasn’t someone who came to a place he couldn’t come to, but he wasn’t someone who necessarily came to visit him either.
“As expected, your mother’s insight is amazing. No matter where I go, I have never tasted tea like this.”
Rutger made a humorous expression as he raised the teacup he was holding towards Josef.
As if his words weren’t empty, Dorothea’s ears perked up as she sipped her teacup.
“Didn’t you ask your mother to give it to you? “I don’t think it would be very expensive.”
“······That’s not easy.”
At Josef’s words, Rutger smiled bitterly and shook his head.
“Is there something that is difficult to explain in words? “You know what I mean?”
Josef nodded as he looked at Rutger, who gave him a subtle expression.
Although Oksana was not the kind of person who wouldn’t listen to Rutger’s small favor, their relationship was bound to be strained in many ways.
Since they had no choice but to compete for the same things, Rutger could not expect Oksana to take on the role of a mother from a young age.
“······.”
Josef let out a small sigh as he watched Rutger confidently talk about sensitive things that he would not have dared to reveal.
The two brothers were truly different and had something that the other did not have.
“What brings you here?”
“Well, brothers don’t necessarily have to have a reason to come to each other.”
Rutger, who was looking at Josef with his arms stretched out on the backrest, saw his younger brother looking at him without moving anything and nodded as if he knew he would do the same.
“Don’t look at it too much. “Because I came here for a reason.”
Josef didn’t even accept the joke he made briefly before getting into the main topic, but Rutger wasn’t embarrassed at all.
Because it was something I had seen my whole life.
“After receiving the report you sent, my father assigned me to investigate the barbarian region. And I discovered an unusual trend there.”
Josef raised his eyebrows and waited for Rutger’s next words.
“The dragon is coming down. “It seems like what the barbarian you brought with you was right.”
“······Lindwurm.”
Josef uttered one word and leaned his forehead against his.
In the end, what Age said was right.
Even in the bitter cold of the north wind, the dragon that lives in the coldest place was coming down.
“It will still be too early to come down… Besides, he’s not the kind of guy who always moves just because it’s winter, right?”
“yes.”
If there were death worms that burrow into the ground in the west, there were Lindwurm that lived in blizzards in the north.
The coldest and fastest dragon.
Deathworms did not attack humans except for the damage caused by their huge size, but the dragon called Lindwurm was different.
The Lindwurm, which came down to human territory every few decades following the cold weather, were vicious creatures that would harpoon two or three villages each time.
The remnants of fallen dragons were like natural disasters to humans.
“Which way are you coming down?”
“I don’t know. “It’s difficult to find traces because it moves so fast.”
After finishing his tea, Rutger spoke to his half-brother with a serious expression rather than his usual relaxed smile.
“So my father ordered me to defend and subdue Lindwurm.”
“As the mayor of Shoara, I will spare no effort in supporting you as much as possible.”
Joseph answered Rutger’s words with a neat posture.
His brother came not with a simple request but with a solemn command from Count Bayezid.
The two brothers were competing for the position of the next head of the family, but they will have to join forces in this crisis situation.
We must not forget the purpose for the sake of the means.
What the two brothers wanted was not just the position of head of the family, but the strong Bayezid himself.
“How can I help you?”
“We request the dispatch of knights along with reliable reconnaissance of Shoara.”
Josef nodded as if he understood what Rutger said.
This is because this level of requirement was not only common sense, but was already expected.
“How many knights…”
“It only takes one person.”
Even Xayar, who was standing next to Rutger’s answer, looked at him with a little surprise.
You will need strong swords to deal with the dragon.
Even if all the knights in Shoara were taken out, there would be nothing left to say, so Rutger was only asking for one knight.
“Can it be just one person?”
“Lindwurm is different from Death Worm. “He’s an opponent with whom the sword can work well.”
Rutger was right.
Lindwurm is not a guy that hides in the ground like a death worm, and it was definitely a guy that he had successfully subdued.
So you can do it this time too.
As long as the sword can reach Lindwurm’s fast movements.
“Who can I give up?”
Rutger answered Josef’s question with a suspicious smile.
“Your favorite blonde brat.”
“······Do you mean Vlad?”
Josef frowned for a moment as he looked at Rutger asking for Squire Vlad rather than Xayar or Gregory.
Although he was a boy with unique strengths, strictly speaking, he had only reached the beginning of the article.
“okay. “That guy.”
Rutger remembered.
The boy who proudly shouted against the death worm in the meadow on a summer day.
“Because he’s the best dragon herder I know.”
The boy that day with the pitch-black horse was shining brightly.
With a presence of that magnitude, even Lindwurm, who has a heart like ice, would not be able to help but pay attention.
Just like the death worm that unknowingly came out of the ground to grab the glowing boy.
