Chapter 62

I was rolling around on the bed in the room I had rented for the night. The faint sounds of the tavern below drifted up to me.

Honestly, I was bored and wanted to go down to the tavern to pass the time, but I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of those annoying people again. I could handle it, but it would be a waste of the energy I had built up.

When I had given those guys a taste of their own medicine earlier, it had only taken a second, but that alone had used up about a quarter to a third of my energy.

I was so bored.

“Maybe I’ll just go to sleep.”

Just as I thought that, there was a knock on the door.

I sat up on the bed.

I was a bit on guard. For a moment, I wondered if it was those guys from earlier.

“Who is it?”

“Can I come in for a moment?”

“A woman?”

I tilted my head. Why a woman? I thought, but I got up anyway and opened the door. There was a woman standing on the other side.

She looked to be in her mid-twenties to early thirties. She was dressed in revealing clothing, but it wasn’t for sexual appeal; it was for ease of movement.

Most of all—she smelled of dragons. The scent of dragons that clung to dragon knights. She must be a dragon knight who constantly travels with dragons.

“What do you want?”

“Would you like to have a drink with me?”

She held up her hands to show me. In her right hand was a bottle of alcohol, and in her left were two glasses.

“Why the cold shoulder? It’s not like you’ve never been visited in the night before.”

“Well, that makes it hard to say no.”

I smiled wryly and moved aside to let her in. She smiled and entered the room. I glanced around the hallway outside, but there didn’t seem to be anyone lurking.

I closed the door, still a bit puzzled.

She sat on the bed and uncorked the bottle of alcohol. The scent of the alcohol quickly filled the room.

I stood in front of her and looked down.

“What’s your name?”

“Come on, that’s a bit too formal. Don’t you find women more appealing when you don’t know their names?”

“To put it bluntly, yes.”

“Tough crowd. Just call me Riza.”

“Riza, huh.”

Was that her real name or an alias? It didn’t really matter.

I sat on the bed a bit away from her, and she handed me a glass of alcohol.

“Here.”

“Thanks.”

“To a chance encounter.”

“To a chance encounter.”

We clinked glasses and took a sip. Riza, on the other hand, downed her share in one go.

Drinking straight from the bottle while looking up at the ceiling was quite a bold move.

“Phew—. What, you’re not drinking?”

“I’m a bit suspicious, so the alcohol isn’t going down.”

I didn’t want to say I was on guard, so I held back.

“You’re Cyril Arrows, right? The Dragon First?”

“Yeah.”

“And from what I saw earlier, you’re pretty strong.”

“...I guess I’m decent.”

She must have seen me take down those guys.

“Why not be embraced by a strong, rugged man? Is that so strange?”

“Well... I can understand that.”

I nodded ambiguously. If she was talking about that... I could understand.

I knew that many female dragon knights were like that.

Because they are always with dragons, feeling their strength up close, they tend to seek the same kind of strength in human men. I had heard this from a dragon knight I knew in the past. So, I could understand.

Incidentally, according to that dragon knight, history repeats itself. Before dragons could be controlled by humans, “knights” referred to people who rode horses. Dragon knights came later, as “knights” of “dragons.”

The women who raised and rode horses also tended to seek horse-like strength in human men. The phrase “horse-like” came from this.

So, that’s how it was.

I nodded in understanding. I didn’t sense any malice from Riza, and it seemed like that was really her intention. If so, there was no reason to refuse.

After a few drinks, Riza leaned against me.

Just as I thought, “Here we go,”—

“Hm?”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s noisy outside.”

“Outside... You’re right, something must be happening.”

“Let’s check it out.”

I got up and went to the window.

It was a room on the top floor with a window, much higher than the others. I opened the window and looked out.

A carriage had stopped in front of the inn. There were at least ten guards around the carriage, and if you included the onlookers, there were about twenty people.

The carriage itself was magnificent, even more so than the one the princess had ridden in when I saved her.

The passersby and people in the open windows of the surrounding inns were all focused on the carriage, buzzing with excitement.

A man stepped out of the carriage. A young man dressed in noble attire.

He looked up—our eyes met. The man gave me a small bow.

The crowd buzzed again.

“What’s that?”

“That... Could it be?”

Riza, who had come to stand beside me, whispered with a serious expression.

“Do you know him?”

“I know him, or rather, I know of him...”

“???”

Just know of him? What does that mean?

As I wondered, there was another knock on the door.

“Excuse me for the late hour, but is this the room of Cyril Arrows of Dragon First?”

“Ah, yes. Please come in.”

When I said that, the door slowly opened, and a few men stood in the hallway. The man who had knocked, clearly a servant, was in front, and the young nobleman stood behind him.

The servant bowed and stepped aside. The young nobleman entered.

“Excuse me. My name is Charles Severe. Are you Cyril Arrows?”

“Charles Severe!?”

Riza gasped in surprise. The young man, Charles, smiled but didn’t reprimand her or react otherwise.

“Do you know him?”

“He’s the son of a prominent family in Saint Simon.”

“Saint Simon?”

I knew that name. It was my destination, the Dragon City of Saint Simon.

“So, you’re...”

“Yes, I’m the one who commissioned you to escort the mustard dragon egg.”

“So that’s it.”

You were the client for the mustard dragon egg escort mission.

“So, why are you here?”

“I’ve come to fetch you.”

“To fetch me?”

“Yes. It was a mistake on our part to have you stay in such a place, and I apologize for the inconvenience.”

“It’s fine, but...”

I understood what he was trying to say. I understood, but...

“You’re quite a big deal, aren’t you? Why did you come in person?”

“I cannot afford to be disrespectful to a renowned dragon knight like Arrows.”

“Renowned? I just became a one-star dragon knight.”

“Every three-star dragon knight in history was once a one-star.”

“...You’re good at this.”

I was genuinely impressed. Being flattered didn’t feel bad.

At the same time, I realized he was a big deal, not just because of his title. He had called me a “one-star” because I was a “one-star.”

If I had said I was a “rookie,” he would have used a different phrase. He seemed like a capable man who didn’t get caught up in titles.

“I apologize for the late hour, but we have prepared a proper inn for you. Would you be so kind as to come with us?”

“Alright—ah, wait...”

I nodded and then remembered Riza. She had a complex smile on her face.

“It’s fine, it’s fine. I was too hasty. You’re a much bigger man than I thought.”

Riza said this with a wry smile and left the room. It seemed that Charles’s appearance had raised her estimation of me in a strange way.