The Dragonslayer

By the time they returned to the village, everything had already ended.

The invasion of Cordova's soldiers. A platoon of soldiers who ordered the village to submit to Cordova and demanded hostages as proof.

The village chief, who naturally refused, had his chest pierced by a soldier's spear.

It was meant to be an example.

Irina, who had been holding herself back until then, snapped.

She blew off the head of the soldier who had done such a terrible thing to the kind old man with her greatsword.

The battle began.

Irina overwhelmed and crushed the enemy with her overwhelming power, while Maal helped the villagers who couldn't fight escape.

The beastkin who could fight also fought.

Before Irina's combat prowess, Cordova's forces scattered and fled. But she couldn't protect all of the villagers.

Those who had sustained severe injuries could still be healed with healing magic. But those whose breath had completely stopped…

Three beastkin corpses lay there.

Among them was the village chief who had talked with Ria that night about the future of the beastkin.

The blood that had clung to their fur had been washed completely clean.

Their families wept before them. Violently. Or perhaps desperately trying to hold back their tears.

Ria watched from a slight distance away.

"I will crush Cordova."

At her cold voice, everyone nearby turned to look at Ria.

To her eyes filled with determination, everyone nodded in response.

They couldn't stop her. They had no intention of stopping her.

War was about to begin.

The Kingdom of Manesha wasn't actually a kingdom.

Because on this continent, there were only five kingdoms recognized by the empire.

Due to the Millennium from one thousand years ago, human society had largely collapsed everywhere except for the areas surrounding the empire.

To rebuild the continent, three princes, one princess, and one younger brother of the emperor at the time were dispatched with armies to various regions.

One of them, Leyte Anaia, founded the Kingdom of Casalia.

In the thousand years since then, humanity had expanded its territory, and new cities were born. Manesha was one of those cities.

The king at the time enfeoffed a lord of Manesha, who was far from Anaia, as a duke, and had him establish the Duchy of Manesha.

So to be precise, Manesha is still a duchy even now, and its king is a duke. However, except in rare cases, even at official occasions Manesha calls itself a kingdom, and the duke calls himself a king.

Since they had intermarried with the Casalian royal family many times, it wouldn't be wrong to call them a quasi-royal family.

Incidentally, Cordova was also Casalian nobility, but they were merely counts.

However, their power had currently expanded, their military had grown, and they were approaching Casalia's level.

Now, as for Ria's position, this was also complicated.

Ria was a princess of Casalia. Though she was an illegitimate child, she was an undeniable princess recorded in the family tree.

And what made things even more complicated was that she had become the queen of the ogre nation without being recognized by Casalia.

Wasn't this a case of usurpation? Ria had quietly worried about it.

She had at least sent word from the ogre village to Anaias, including the circumstances before and after, that she had been recognized as the leader of all the ogre tribes.

She could picture her father the king holding his head in his hands, but he would probably handle it somehow.

After all, Ria had no intention of declaring independence from Casalia and calling herself a sovereign. At most, she just wanted them to create a new nominal ducal house and recognize her as its head.

Ria couldn't have descendants. The ogres wouldn't follow any human other than Ria.

For now, she just needed to stop Cordova's invasion, destroy Cordova, and survive the Millennium.

That would take perhaps ten or twenty years. Ria should still be alive for that long.

Once they survived the Millennium, a new order would be born. Then Ria could hand over power to someone and go traveling again.

After all, Ria couldn't have children. Even if she established a nation, it would only last for Ria's generation.

"Manesha, huh. There's a dragonslayer there, right?"

One night, as they made camp, Serge asked again. The person he was asking was Irina.

"A fairly strong dragon went, but it lost."

Irina held no particular feelings about a dragon being killed by humans.

Just as beasts fought and killed each other, it couldn't be helped that humans and dragons would fight and kill each other. That was how dragons thought.

If an acquaintance was killed before her eyes, she would certainly go on a killing spree like she did the other day, but once she calmed down, she would accept everything.

That was the kind of creature a dragon was.

"But anyway, why did it attack a dragon?"

The birth of a hero who had killed a dragon was known even in the countryside where Serge had lived, but he didn't know the details.

Actually, neither Ria nor Carlos knew either, but surprisingly, Irina did. Well, perhaps it was only natural that she would know.

The underlying cause was, once again, Cordova.

The leaders of Manesha at the time, troubled by Cordova's military pressure, had turned to forbidden magic.

It was a secret art originally passed down only to the empire and, as a precaution, the five royal families.

The magic to summon a hero.

"Since Rufus-sama was enthusiastic about developing and spreading magical knowledge, it probably leaked from there."

Lulu pictured the face of her late teacher.

At any rate, because Dark Dragon Valis didn't want hero summonings to be performed so casually, he gave the order and a dragon attacked Manesha.

As Valis had planned, the hero summoning ceremony was interrupted, and most of the court mages who knew the details of the ritual were killed.

But then something unexpected happened to Valis.

Manesha's remaining leadership carefully selected their elites and sent them to face the dragon.

Elite though they may be called, they were still human. Only five could actually fight the dragon.

The head court mage and the knight commander at the time both lost their lives in the battle.

Of the remaining three, who were called dragonslayers, one of them was no longer in the country, and no one even knew where they had gone.

Gonbei.

Ria and Serge exchanged glances. Clearly a reincarnator. Or someone who knew reincarnators well.

"Hey, isn't this Gonbei person actually an alias for the Great Sage Azelford-sama?"

Serge made that prediction.

The Great Sage Azelford was a survivor of the Millennium from a thousand years ago, and currently resided in the Sacred Mountain Cyrus, monitoring the demon territory to the north.

At the foot of Mt. Cyrus was a magic city where a magic academy had been established, and many mages gathered from across the continent to train there.

Now that the imperial capital had disappeared, it was undoubtedly the place where magical research flourished the most.

If it was the Great Sage Azelford, they could certainly defeat even a dragon. It wouldn't be strange for them to have extensive knowledge about reincarnators.

After all, they had fought alongside the hero against the previous demon king during the last Millennium.

"Also, about the Queen-sama though."

Irina raised a question. It was a natural question for her.

"She's called the Queen of Dragon Eyes, but does she have the Dragon Eyes gift?"

Dragon Eyes. The gift Ria had awakened, which intimidates opponents and sees through all their abilities.

If it was the Manesha royal family, which had intermarried many times with the Casalian royal family that carried dragon blood, it was possible for that gift to manifest.

"Also, having survived a fight against a dragon, doesn't that mean her magical ability is also considerable?"

Shizuna mentioned. Fighting a dragon was something every warrior dreamed of at least once.

Actually fighting one and winning, let alone just surviving, was nearly impossible though.

Incidentally, this Queen Guinevere had apparently been shunned in the royal palace until the dragon attacked.

The fear of being intimidated by her gaze and having one's abilities laid bare. That was certainly something terrifying.

But now that she had become queen, that same quality had become her charisma, and she was brilliantly governing the kingdom.

The fact that Manesha, whose military strength should have been drastically reduced by the dragon, was somehow able to hold its own against Cordova was likely due to this queen's skill.

"From what I've heard, she was quite the tomboy though."

Since Ria was royalty, she had access to information about other countries' royal families.

A princess who rushed about from morning to night, cackled whenever she successfully pulled off a prank, and was exhausted at important moments—quite the troublesome princess, it seemed.

"What I'm most curious about is the woman named Carla."

What interested Ria most was the existence who had directly thrust her holy sword into the dragon and finished off that massive embodiment of life force.

Carla Raparba Uslan. Sixteen years old at the time. Currently, she served as the captain of the queen's personal guard and was also the head of a marquis house.

Originally an orphan who was taken in by a minor noble, her talent was recognized and she was sent to study at the magic academy. She completed all her studies at fourteen and after returning home, served in the royal palace as a knight.

Then she became close friends with Princess Guinevere, fought the dragon together, and defeated it.

Currently nineteen years old. Single, and apparently without a lover.

"A magic warrior, huh. Same as me."

Ria muttered. The desire to fight her by all means was overflowing in her voice.

"Well, if we can successfully form an alliance, I think you could request a match…"

Carlos was exasperated. Come to think of it, she had troubled Reyas with this too.

No matter what approach they took, Carla probably couldn't escape a bout with Ria. He couldn't help but sympathize with the woman called Carla.

"Let's get some sleep. We'll arrive in Manesha territory tomorrow."

Everything would depend on actually meeting them. Ria concluded as such.

Upon returning to Manesha territory, which is to say an area with many humans, Ria made an image change for herself.

She started wearing a mask.

It wasn't that she had suddenly developed chuunibyou. It was out of necessity.

Setting aside ogres and dwarves, in human society, Ria's mature beauty stood out too much.

After entering human settlements and getting involved in various troubles, she created a mask that covered the upper half of her face.

With a hood on top of that, she finally stopped standing out. Though she now stood out in a different way, she no longer suffered strange inconveniences.

Beauty is a sin.

And so, the party safely arrived at Manesha. Ria was stopped at the castle gate for hiding her face, but the dagger bearing the Casalian royal crest proved unexpectedly useful.

They took the most expensive room at Manesha's finest inn.

She sent Carlos off as a messenger to the royal castle, and Ria said:

"Alright, let's go to the public bath."

Despite having taken a room with a bath, Ria said this.

The public bath. In other words, girls' naked bodies, as many as you want.

What a wonderful facility they had built, Manesha.

"Why do you like baths so much…"

Shizuna muttered in exasperation, but Ria whispered in her ear.

"I won't let you sleep tonight, so make sure you wash your body thoroughly."

Yes, since Irina wouldn't let go of Maal, Ria had taken a double room with Shizuna.

Shizuna held her breath and her face turned red. Indeed, she didn't want Ria to see her with a dirty body.

Remembering the intimacy of that night, the core of her hips grew hot.

But Shizuna's expectations would be betrayed.

Carrying their bathing supplies, they left the inn to head to the public bath. Since they might as well use a large tub, everyone came along.

As the party began walking down the main street toward the bathhouse, a commotion could be heard from the distance.

"Carla-sama…" "It's Carla-sama…" "It's Carla-sama…"

The crowd on the main street naturally parted.

A mounted party was heading down the center of the main street toward the royal palace. At its head was her.

Since she was a nineteen-year-old unmarried noble's daughter, Ria had wondered what could possibly be wrong with her.

She understood at a glance. She couldn't help but understand.

Every person walking along the street stopped in their tracks, burning the image of that woman into their eyes. And they murmured her name as if in a daze.

To put it simply, she was far too beautiful.

Ria stared at that woman as if entranced.

No, not as if entranced.

In fact, Ria was entranced.

Those azure eyes, clear like the endless sky.

That silver hair flowing in the wind as if starlight had been melted into it.

Ria activated her Dragon Eyes. To learn about that woman.

Carla Raparba Uslan.

Level 198.

Level 198 was indeed staggering, but that wasn't all.

That wasn't what surprised her.

The issue was her gift.

[Dragon's Bloodline]

Yes, she possessed Dragon's Bloodline.

Moreover, the contents of that gift had been largely unlocked.

Limb Regeneration, Organ Regeneration, Herculean Strength, Roar, Intimidation, Sixth Sense, Dragon Fighting Spirit, High Speed Regeneration, High Speed Recovery, Spatial Awareness, Super Absorption, Magic Perception, Limit Break, Breath Reduction, Robust Health, Immortal Youth, Adamantine Body, Magic Resistance, Enhanced Five Senses, Physical Enhancement, Internal Organ Enhancement, Skeletal Enhancement, Super Recovery, Consumption Reduction, Magic Consumption Reduction, Sleep Reduction, Heat Resistance, Paralysis Resistance, Poison Resistance, Disease Resistance, Impact Resistance, Mental Resistance, Petrification Resistance, Corruption Resistance, Curse Resistance, Absorption Resistance, Illusion Resistance, Confusion Resistance, Acid Resistance, Hypnosis Resistance, Blindness Resistance, Charm Resistance, Brainwashing Resistance, Insight Resistance, Pain Resistance…

But that wasn't all.

It wasn't just Dragon's Bloodline.

Despite having all these gifts, despite being at an unprecedentedly high level, that wasn't all.

Another decisive gift that she possessed.

[God's Bloodline]

I see.

I see, I see.

She was convinced.

If someone possessed the power of both dragon and god, then yes, they could defeat a dragon.

She could now understand why Valis had viewed her as a problem.

"N-Nee-chan…"

Among the people who were simply overwhelmed by her beauty, only Ria and Serge had seen through to that woman's true nature.

And then Ria laughed.

Before the royal guard—to be precise, before Carla—a single girl stepped forward.

"How impudent!" "Clear the way!"

The girl removed her hood and took off her mask.

At her appearance, her beauty, the words of the royal guards trailed off.

More than anything, her facial features.

The royal guards saw a beauty very similar to hers on a daily basis.

Queen Guinevere of the Kingdom of Manesha. Black hair darker than darkness, golden eyes more brilliant than gold.

Though they couldn't call them twins, they were similar enough to be called sisters.

"Dragonslayer Carla-dono."

Ria called out, her voice brimming with excitement from the bottom of her heart.

"I would like to request a match."