A white dragon's claws tore through the air and, with effortless ease, ripped a griffin open. The griffin's pride—its tough hide—gave way like butter under an enchanted knife.
It screamed as it crashed to the ground, blood spraying in sheets, severed limbs flung into the air.
Even after it hit, it still tried to scramble up and flee, but—
Hovering overhead, the green dragon opened its jaws wide. Neat rows of jagged fangs gleamed as a vast surge of magic condensed at a speed visible to the naked eye—thickening, swelling, growing larger and larger.
BOOM!
That monstrous mass of magic slammed into the earth and detonated. Dust billowed outward in an instant, and a mushroom cloud rose slowly into the sky.
When the smoke finally thinned, a crater yawned in the ground—like the scar of a direct meteor strike.
As for the griffin, there was nothing left to see.
A green dragon and a white dragon—each as big as a villa—beat their wings and drifted down beside a young girl.
Then, in a wash of light, they transformed into two girls.
"Nice. Kanna—and Tohru, you did great too."
Kiriko reached out and patted Kanna's head—she wore an Isara-style folk outfit—then patted Tohru's as well, the girl in a full maid uniform.
These two were the white dragon and the green dragon that had hatched earlier.
Like Gabriel, once their levels skyrocketed, they'd gained the ability to take human form.
With their heads being patted, Tohru and Kanna narrowed their eyes, looking thoroughly pleased.
"Mother-in-law-sama!"
A high-pitched shout rang out as Motoyasu Kitamura came running over with Gabriel, Raphtalia, and Lute.
Since Heroes couldn't gain experience when grouped together, Kiriko had been splitting everyone into two teams lately and having them grind separately.
With a soft poof, Gabriel shifted from her Filolial Queen form into a human body in a puff of white mist.
"Hey—you two. Have you been behaving?"
At Gabriel's voice, Tohru and Kanna's expressions shifted, their faces filling with open disdain.
"Of course we've been working hard for Master. What about you—haven't you been making trouble for everyone?"
People said dragons and Filolials were mortal enemies, but Tohru and Kanna didn't show Gabriel any real hostility—aside from that one time right after they'd hatched, when they'd bitten her. (And that had only been because they were hungry.)
Most of the time, their "enmity" didn't go beyond bickering and mutual dislike—
Like this.
Honestly, "mortal enemies" fit them a lot less than "rivals."
Apparently, monsters raised by Heroes were noticeably different from monsters that grew up in the wild.
Maybe that was why.
...
Over the past few days, aside from leveling every day, they'd basically been racing around the country at random—roaming so hard Kiriko almost started to feel like she was playing an immersive VR version of Final Fantasy XIV.
Still, wandering had its perks. She'd never been the ambitious type.
Back when she played Romance of the Three Kingdoms or Nobunaga's Ambition, she'd take a few cities, keep her rearward main base for herself, then toss the rest to her corps commanders—along with the talent roster, money, and supplies—and let them conquer the world for her.
But when they entered one particular town, something unexpected happened.
"Lute… is that you, Lute?"
A middle-aged couple suddenly called out from the roadside.
Their clothes were a cut above the average commoner's. They looked like merchants—or minor nobles.
"You are…?"
Lute looked completely baffled at first, but then recognition flickered across his face.
They were a fallen noble couple who administered a small town nearby—"town" was generous; it was poor enough that "village" would've fit better.
Back when Lute first arrived in this country, they'd helped him out. (He'd been here for a while before he ever ran into the Spear Hero.)
But the couple looked different now—older, more worn-down—so Lute hadn't recognized them at a glance.
"What happened? Why are you here?"
"Th-this… ah…"
They exchanged a look, then sighed heavily.
Not long after they'd helped Lute and he'd left, trouble descended on their little town.
Merchants and travelers passing through were attacked on the road. Every few days, buildings in town would be set on fire. Even the farmland outside kept getting wrecked.
To deal with it, they'd been forced to pour their own money into repairs.
Burned buildings could be rebuilt, sure—but scorched fields meant lost harvests, and that grain wouldn't come back.
And with people terrified of being attacked on the road, merchants stopped coming. Without trade, they couldn't do business at all.
Their town had been desperately poor to begin with. Worse, because they'd repeatedly defied the kingdom's policy—taking in demi-humans and offering them aid—they'd been slapped with huge fines and stripped of authority. That left them without the money to hire soldiers to protect the town.
Then a noble from the neighboring town—this very town—sent them a message.
If they were willing to send their daughter to work at his estate, he'd provide money and soldiers to help them weather the crisis.
Naturally, they refused.
After that, the attacks and sabotage only became more frequent.
With no way to protect their people on their own, they reported the matter to the country.
The result was like tossing a stone into the sea—no reply at all.
They struggled on like that for some time… until one day, someone from the Adventurers' Guild showed up.
The visitor claimed the couple had submitted a request, and that adventurers had already captured the bandits threatening the town.
The problem was, aside from reporting the situation to the state and asking for support, the couple had never filed anything with the Adventurers' Guild.
And strapped for cash as they were, they couldn't possibly have afforded a commission.
That was when the neighboring noble arrived with his men. He claimed he was the one who'd paid to post the request—and that he'd even recruited soldiers for them. From now on, he said, they no longer had to worry about bandits.
Then, as the "price," he forcibly took their daughter away—Rishia.
And yet those so-called soldiers spent all day slacking off instead of doing their jobs. And when bandits appeared again—despite the guild insisting they'd already been captured somehow—they didn't even fight.
They ran.
The couple sold whatever they could, scraping together every last coin—pots and pans included—until they finally managed to gather a little money. With it, they came to the neighboring noble's estate, hoping to buy their daughter back.
"But we couldn't even see the noble himself. The guards said we'd only managed the principal, not the interest… then they snatched our money pouch and threw us out."
"Rishia… I wonder if that child has suffered…"
At that, the dam broke, and both of them started to cry.
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T/N: KANNA AND TOHRU??????