‘W-what the hell....’
Walter was utterly bewildered by the situation.
Just as he had resigned himself to becoming dragon food and prepared for death—
Young Master Kain had suddenly appeared alone.
He seemed to be saying something, but Walter couldn’t understand it because the language echoed directly inside the mind.
Even seeing the dragon flatten its head against the ground in submission was shocking enough.
But what came next was truly unbelievable.
Kain stabbed the dragon through the back of the neck and killed it.
‘Is that even possible?’
A 2-Star Aura Knight killed a seven-hundred-year-old dragon?
It should have been impossible from the start.
A dragon’s hide couldn’t even be pierced without an Aura Blade.
‘C-could he be... a Sword Master?’
Had he been a Sword Master all along and simply hidden his strength?
That would explain how he had fought Walter on equal footing before.
‘N-no way... A twenty-year-old Sword Master? I’ve never even heard of such a thing....’
The youngest Dragon Slayer in history had just been born right before his eyes.
Walter’s pupils trembled.
He no longer had any idea how he was supposed to treat Kain from now on.
But then—
SLASH! SLASH!
As though everything until now had merely been the beginning, another shocking scene unfolded.
‘W-what is he doing?’
Kain suddenly began cutting through the dragon’s hide.
The fact that he sliced through the thick skin with ease seemed to confirm Walter’s theory that Kain had reached the level of Aura Blade.
However, there was no visible manifestation of sword aura, so he couldn’t be certain.
‘More importantly, why is he cutting the hide....’
After cutting open the dragon’s chest, Kain soon pulled out the Dragon Heart.
Still filled with mana and pulsing vividly, the dragon’s heart was as large as a human head.
And then—
CRUNCH!
He tore into it with his teeth.
‘H-he’s insane...!’
Walter froze at the sight of Kain devouring the raw heart.
There was no other way to describe him.
He was completely insane.
***
Blue blood soaked the entire floor.
In the middle of the dragon’s enormous corpse, Kain was eating something.
It was none other than the Dragon Heart.
‘This tastes fucking awful.’
It was nauseating enough to make him gag, but he forced himself to keep eating.
This was the only way to grow stronger in a short period of time.
THUMP—
Mana flowing from the Dragon Heart gathered toward his hearts.
They were masses of highly pure mana that could be used as fuel immediately.
‘The problem is where I send it.’
With two hearts, Kain had to make a choice at this moment.
Should he strengthen his Circles?
Or should he strengthen his Aura?
‘Aura, for now.’
He closed off the pathways leading to his Circles and opened the ones leading toward his Aura.
The dragon’s pure mana surged down the opened paths all at once.
“Ghk.”
A flood of mana poured into him like a tidal wave, and Kain desperately held on to his fading consciousness.
RUMBLE—
The Aura in one of his hearts swelled like a balloon, pulsing as though it were being overloaded.
Cold sweat ran down Kain’s back, but his mouth never stopped devouring the Dragon Heart.
From his experience in his previous life, he knew that completely chewing and swallowing it would allow him to absorb even more mana.
GULP.
He finished the entire heart, which had been as large as a human head.
But it wasn’t over yet.
He still had to endure the waves of mana crashing into his heart.
“G-ghk...!”
Kain dropped to one knee and gritted his teeth.
“Whew....”
A short while later, his breathing returned to normal.
His entire body was drenched in blue blood, but his expression had become noticeably more relaxed.
‘My Aura reached 4-Star.’
His Aura, which had been at 2-Star, had risen all the way to 4-Star after consuming the Dragon Heart.
No one else in the world could consume a Dragon Heart and convert its power into their own mana.
It was a blessing unique to Kain.
‘But it won’t work this well next time.’
He knew that from his previous life.
The larger the vessel became, the less effective each heart was.
A seven-hundred-year-old Dragon Heart had raised him by two levels only because his current vessel was still small.
‘To go from 4-Star to 5-Star, I’ll need one from a dragon at least a thousand years old. Beyond that, I’ll need the hearts of ancient dragons.’
In other words, from now on he would have to hunt larger and more dangerous dragons.
‘Doesn’t matter. I was going to kill them all anyway.’
A faint chuckle escaped him, but only for a moment.
Kain’s expression turned serious as he looked at the witness before him.
“......”
Walter couldn’t speak.
Kain’s lips were covered in dragon blood.
A faint smile lingered beneath them.
The monster who had been tearing into a heart moments ago was now staring directly at him.
‘W-why is he looking at me...? Is he going to silence me?’
A chill ran down Walter’s spine.
Judging by the fact that Kain had killed a dragon, he had to be a Sword Master of at least 7-Star.
Escape was effectively impossible.
Walter could only remain perfectly still and wait for Kain’s next words.
“Walter.”
“Y-yes, sir?”
Walter was so frightened that he even slipped into a level of politeness he normally never used.
“You saw everything, didn’t you? What I did.”
“I-I won’t say anything! I won’t tell anyone! I didn’t see anything!”
“You can’t exactly claim you didn’t see something you already saw.”
“P-please spare me. I won’t say anything! Please....”
The Young Master Kain Walter had once known no longer existed in his mind.
All that remained was the image of a hidden master who had concealed his strength and cut down a dragon.
And it was common for a master whose identity had been exposed to eliminate the witness.
But surprisingly, Kain had no intention of killing Walter.
“I’ll let you live.”
“R-really?”
“But you’re the one who killed the dragon.”
“What?”
Walter even stopped begging in confusion.
“M-me? No one will believe that. A 5-Star can’t pierce a dragon’s hide.”
“Say it was sick.”
“Sick...?”
“Say it had been ill for a long time and its scales had weakened. You got lucky and stabbed it through a vital point. That’s all you need to say.”
Kain’s gaze gleamed coldly.
A silent pressure that made it clear refusal wasn’t an option.
Walter instinctively understood.
This was the price of his life.
That was when—
“Young Master Kain! Walter!”
The knight order finally rushed into the lair.
“Are you unharmed—”
The knight at the front abruptly fell silent.
The dragon was dead.
Its massive corpse filled the floor of the lair, its neck severed.
No one could speak.
Commander Dmitri inspected the corpse before his gaze suddenly stopped.
‘There’s only one wound?’
That meant it had been finished in a single strike.
Dmitri unconsciously looked at the sword in Kain’s hand.
It was drenched in blue blood.
Walter’s sword, on the other hand, was clean.
“What happened here...? No, more importantly, are you all right, Young Master Kain? That blood....”
“Yes. I’m fine. As you can see, it’s dragon blood.”
“Could it be... that you killed the dragon yourself?”
“!!”
Every knight turned toward Kain.
But an unexpected answer came from his mouth.
“No. Walter killed the dragon. I only lent him my sword.”
Every gaze shifted toward Walter.
“Walter. Did you truly kill the dragon?”
Walter hesitated slightly at Dmitri’s question.
But Kain was staring directly at him.
There was no way Walter could defy a madman who had killed a dragon and devoured its heart.
“Y-yes.... The creature was sick. Its scales had deteriorated. Young Master Kain lent me his sword and distracted it, so... I was lucky enough to strike a vital point.”
“A sick dragon....”
Dmitri’s gaze moved between Walter’s clean hands and Kain’s blood-soaked sword.
‘If he lent Walter the sword, why is the Young Master’s sword covered in blood....?’
One could explain it by saying Walter had returned the sword after using it.
The explanation technically worked.
And yet.
‘Everything seems to fit, but something is always slightly off.’
The assassin’s confession.
Kain survived against Walter.
And now this.
There was always half a step missing from every explanation surrounding this Young Master.
“Commander?”
“...It is nothing.”
Dmitri swallowed the question that had risen to his throat.
Kain was royalty.
And judging solely by the result, a vicious dragon was dead and their side had suffered no casualties.
‘I’ll leave it alone for now. But....’
Someday, he would find out.
Who this Young Master truly was.
“Prepare to withdraw! Collect scales and teeth as proof of the dragon hunt!”
The knights immediately began moving.
Kain secretly raised the corner of his mouth.
‘Well done, Walter. A witness is always useful.’
Why had Kain kept Walter alive?
Because he needed bait.
‘If it becomes publicly known that I killed a dragon under the current circumstances, it’ll only put me in danger.’
Now that the prophecy concerning the destruction of dragonkind had spread, dragons were extremely sensitive to the deaths of their own kind.
‘And if a dragon dies at a time like this?’
The dragon worshippers would undoubtedly make a move.
‘Walter is bait meant to draw them out. Though the bastard himself has no idea.’
Kain gave Walter, who was awkwardly straightening his shoulders and attempting to play the role of a Dragon Slayer, a meaningful look.
***
On the way back to the palace.
Kain rode apart from the group while Bernatus floated silently beside him.
Normally, the dragon would have been chattering nonstop, but now he said nothing.
“What? If you have something to say, say it.”
[...Prophet.]
“Speak.”
[Did Aolios... truly have to die?]
Kain kept his eyes forward.
“Yes.”
[He was one of my own kind... I....]
“Bernatus.”
Kain’s voice was low and flat.
“Do you know what we found on the way to his lair?”
[......]
“A single child’s shoe. It belonged to one of the 108 people that the bastard ate.”
[......]
“The fellow dragon you looked at with pity was a calamity to humans.”
Bernatus remained silent for a long time.
[I did not realize... that preventing our destruction would be like this.]
“Salvation always comes at a price.”
Kain said the words aloud while reminding himself inwardly.
Whenever he felt even the slightest sign that he was growing attached, he had to remember.
This creature had also eaten Karen and Martin.
‘Your turn will come someday too.’
***
“Kain! Are you all right?”
When Kain returned to the palace, Serena rushed around him, examining him from every angle.
“You’re not hurt anywhere, are you?”
“Of course not. I only went there to observe.”
“You showed far too much courage for someone who was merely observing, Young Master.”
Dmitri, who had approached at some point, joined the conversation.
“You went after Walter when he was dragged away by the dragon. That was a reckless act that could have cost you your life.”
“What? Kain! Is that true?”
“Hmm....”
Kain scratched his head awkwardly and eventually nodded.
“I couldn’t abandon someone who was in danger because of me.”
“No, Young Master. He was warned that danger lay ahead and still recklessly walked into it. The fault was his.”
“Even so, I wasn’t completely blameless.”
“Young Master, really....”
The corners of Dmitri’s eyes softened.
Someone righteous enough to save even the man who had tried to kill him.
His expression seemed to say he couldn’t decide whether Kain was kindhearted or simply foolish.
‘It’s better that you don’t know. If you knew what I was really like, you’d probably faint.’
‘In this life, I can’t just hunt without caring about anything else. I need to manage my public image too.’
“But Young Master Kain, how did you know where Walter had been taken?”
“Dragons usually eat humans, don’t they? So I figured the Guardian would take him to the lair. I followed the places where the earth had split open, and eventually I found it.”
After calmly lying through his teeth, Kain shamelessly added another question.
“I assumed you’d follow me, Sir Dmitri... What were you doing back there?”
“I suddenly lost consciousness. When I woke up, you had already disappeared somewhere.”
Dmitri narrowed his eyes.
“Do you not find that strange? I am a Sword Master, yet I inexplicably fell asleep. If we assume it was some kind of barrier magic cast by the dragon... then how were you completely unaffected?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t know much about magic.”
“...Of course.”
Dmitri asked no further questions.
Instead, he remembered.
“By the way, what happens to Walter now?”
“As promised, he will return to life as a commoner. He did earn merit for killing the dragon, but since he also committed the crime of attempting to harm royalty, there will be no reward.”
To go from noble to commoner overnight.
Kain couldn’t even imagine how that felt.
Not that he cared.
He only hoped the bait would perform its role properly.
***
News of Aolios’s death spread throughout the kingdom.
The Eight Great Families that worshipped dragons also received the news.
BANG!
“How is this even possible?! A dragon hunt!”
The head of the Antonio Family slammed the table in fury.
“Who is the insolent human who dared hunt down a great being?!”
“According to our informant, it was Walter Ragnar, formerly of the Asel Knight Order.”
“Ragnar? That Ragnar? One of our own?”
“What treacherous bastards!”
“As if Count Ragnar running his mouth was not enough, now his son has even hunted a dragon? We must take action immediately!”
The family heads all turned toward one man.
There was only one person at this gathering with the authority to make the decision.
“A traitor cannot be allowed to live.”
Alton Drake finally spoke.
“We should hire an assassin to kill Walter Ragnar. Unless one of you has someone suitable for the task?”
At those words, one man raised his hand.
“Leave it to me, and I shall make certain it is handled properly.”
It was the head of the Antonio Family.