294 – The Anti-Dragon-God Village, Again

I place Baron on my back, then head towards the anti-dragon-god village.

“GuOOOOOOH!”

I howl to announce my presence.

I don’t know how much time we have.
I can’t exactly go about this carefully.
I need to push forwards, even if I have to be a little rash.

Hearing my cry, Lithovars of the anti-dragon-god village soon appear in front of me.

“It’s here! It’s the dragon-god!”
“H-hey, what should we do? Last time, it defeated the manticore for us…”
“Nagrom-sama said to kill it! Unlike the manticore, it won’t calm down after eating people, so we have no choice but to drive it away! It’s come to kill us for our disobedience!”

There’s three people.
That Nagrom bastard, he’s still trying to have me killed… I’d thought that their misunderstanding would have cleared away, but it looks like the gap between the villages is too deep.
With that old man at the top, getting their cooperation might be hard…

“Dragon-god-sama, please take them down! This Baron shall assist you!”

Baron shouts, and their wariness steps up a notch… N-no, I didn’t come here for that reason.

“D-don’t falter! Batra, return and report this to Nagrom-sama! Novale, with me!”

The man shouts as he charges.
His spear hits the base of my foreleg, but fails to pierce as his spear is deflected, leaving a thin cut.

“Did that do it?!”

My partner silently picks up the man and tosses him a short distance through the air.
He screams as he falls, the spear dropping from his hand.
He hits the ground on his side then rolls about on the spot.

“I’m dying! I’m dying! Avenge me!”

It seems he’s been blinded by fear and can’t tell the state of his injuries.
The remaining two men are panicked, unsure of what to do.

『He won’t die from that much, right?』

Yeah, well done.

At this rate, there’s no stopping them from screaming out.
I had wanted to convey to them that I’m not hostile and have them quickly call for someone with [Telepathy].
Maybe I should stop announcing my presence and go straight to Nagrom.

Ignoring the attacks that come at me from either side and occasionally tossing people to aside, we arrive at the anti-dragon-god village.
The inside of the village is in a panic.
The women and children flee from me.
In their place, the men attack me desperately with spears, but I ignore the unwelcome reception and press on.

From among the crowd fleeing from me, a single girl rushes over.

“H-hey, it’s dangerous!”
“Someone, grab her and fall back!”

The anti-dragon-god men shout, and the girl laughs in response.

“It’s dragon-god onee-san!”

“Dragon-god onee-san?”

Seeing the girl in front of me unharmed, they finally understand that I’m not hostile and stop attacking.
The sounds of conversations cover the surroundings in place of the attacks.

“Y-you know, before… Didn’t it save us from the manticore…?”

As their attitudes soften, a voice comes from my back.

“Dr-dragon-god-sama… Umm… What exactly…”

Baron calls out nervously… I feel sorry for him, but I’ll have to have him hear about what happened from the anti-dragon-god person who has [Telepathy].

I could’ve humanised to explain to him on the way here, but I’ve got no way of knowing how a person of the dragon-god faction would react to me using [Humanisation Technique], and I would like to have recovered the MP spent on [High Rest] by the time we return, so I want to conserve MP as much as possible.
I don’t want to use [Humanisation Technique] unless it’s absolutely necessary.

It uses MP like water, after all.
Plus, when humanised, my toughness and my strength fall, so there’s a risk I could get attacked before I’m able to speak.

“Calm down! Get away from the dragon-god!”

I hear a loud voice.
Looking where it came from, I see an old man with relatively good physique for his age and bulging eyes.
It’s the chief of the anti-dragon-god village, Nagrom.
His face is pale, clearly not having expected the dragon-god to have come this far into the village.

Young men with spears are arranged around him, acting as guards.
Beside him, I see the woman I once met in the forest nearby.

Probably, she’s the one I heard about just recently in the dragon-god village, the one who betrayed the miko family, Bella.
From her appearance and age, she could be Hibi’s younger sister.
Nagrom must’ve brought her here for her telepathy when he realised I have something I want to discuss.

“……”

Baron glares at Nagrom, laying bare his disgust.
Nagrom’s the leader of a hostile faction for him, so he must have various thoughts about him.

“Be careful, Bella.
It is possible that its intention was to call the two of us out in order to kill us.”

Nagrom cautions the girl.
As I thought, she’s Bella.

She gives a small nod in response.

“…I’m sure you know this, but don’t say anything unnecessary to anyone else.
Tell me first.
I will then decide whether or not to pass it on.
We don’t want needless chaos, and this is your first time conversing with the dragon-god, right? You might end up misunderstanding something, so I will lead everyone.
For the sake of the village… It’s important that what you learn goes through me.”

It seems that he’s been repeatedly reminding her.

In any case, it looks like this old man is the bottleneck.
Things would go smoother if I could just appeal to the whole village… From what he said, I need to first persuade Nagrom and Bella.
Bella aside, Nagrom seems to be set in his way of thinking.

…If he finds out that the village is in danger, isn’t there a risk that he’d try and take advantage and attack them? Even when I came last time, the others all had docile faces, but this old man was the only one who laughed as he poisoned me.
From his reminder just now, I’m sure he plans on deceiving the others.
I don’t want to rely on it if I can help it, but… I might have to get his cooperation through force.