The Dragon That Guards The Treasure – Part 1

“Thanks once again for accepting our request, Fianna.”

“No problem, Takashi,” she said after we were up in the skies above Adaville. “You came just at the right time. We were in need of some money, if I’m honest.”

We were, once again, aboard the Airdrake alongside Fianna and her crew. During the two weeks following the elaboration of our grand plan, we worked tirelessly to make sure we could get the rich treasure horde in them hills. We spent all our waking hours earning as much money as possible by completing those Restoration quests outside Adaville. In fact, we took on so many quests that we—or I guess Chloe—earned the unofficial title of “White Death Killer” among the regulars at the Adventurer’s Guild.

Honestly, without the Debuggun, we’d never be able to be that efficient, even if Chloe had gotten <Restoration>. In fact, the only thing in our way was the amount of monsters that attacked us. However, since we knew they were coming, and we never got attacked by very strong monsters like Dire Wolves, we managed to handle them pretty well. I even managed to level up my Profane Mage class to Rank II, which was quite useful, and Yzara got her Holy Mage class up to Rank III. Between all the quest money, we managed to pay off the debt at the Adventurer’s Guild, and still have around thirty Silver to our name.

We used the remaining money to get some more skill upgrades. I learnt Earth Magic and then got the Prospector skill from the Miner’s Guild—which cost an outrageous three Silver. Meanwhile, Yzara went to the local church to get the stronger <Greater Heal> and <Luminous Strike>, although she categorically refused to change to the Cleric class because—and I quote—“no way I’ll follow that bastard Elr any more than I already do”.

After getting those skills, we approached the crew of the Airdrake to see if they could take us to the Hardos Mountains. They agreed—with the conditions that the transport and mercenary work would cost twenty Silver, that they would keep every drop from the Cave Dragon, and that we’d share 10% of the spoils from our first mining expedition. It was a harsh set of conditions, but fair. These guys were the real deal, and we definitely needed them to chaperone us.

During the flight there—which took just over a day—I even chatted with Tanney a little bit about Profane Magic. She was still trying to get her bearings over everything that happened, but she seemed way more acclimatized than before. It was great seeing her finally get into her stride again, and my guilt about what had happened slowly faded.

After I took a break from lounging around to go to the bathroom, I decided to go to the cockpit to check up on our progress. When I was about to open the door, though, the sound of voices cut through the rumble of the airship’s engines.

“...are you going to follow through on that, Fianna?” Keil asked, his tone way more serious than usual.

Wait, he’s calling her “Fianna”, not “boss”?

“No, of course not,” the elf responded. “You think I could do that to someone? Even if I don’t know them particularly well.”

“Ah-ah. No way. You’re way too much of a softy.”

Softy? Fianna? Surely not.

“Perhaps I am. Even if those two are keeping some big secrets… I think I can trust them.” Wait, those two? Are they talking about… Yzara and I? “What do you think of them, Keil?”

“A bit too late to be asking me that when we’re going through with this crazy plan of theirs.”

“True enough. But you know we—no, Tanney—needs the money as soon as possible. It should be enough to get some of her skills back, at least.”

So that’s why they accepted this trip! To get Tanney powered up!

“But what I think… Well, your assessment is right, as usual. They are a bit kooky, but probably trustworthy. And they did save Tanney, so…”

“Right.”

“Still, it’s unusual for Marielle to make such a request,” Keil added. Wait, Marielle…? What did she ask Fianna to do…? “You know why that’s the case?”

“I have no idea. It’s like I don’t even recognize her nowadays…” Fianna said, her tone tinged with apprehension.

They went quiet after that, and I was about to leave to make sure I wouldn’t be caught eavesdropping when Chloe suddenly showed up behind me.

“Takashi? What are you standing there for?”

“I… uhh…”

Then, from behind me, the door suddenly flung open.

“Oh, Takashi and Chloe?” Keil said, his usual bright tone back. “Coming in?”

“Y-yeah, we wanted to check our progress.”

“Well, you’re in luck! We’re just about ready to land.”

I went in past Keil, who apparently had some business elsewhere on the ship.

“Oh, you two. You came in just at the right time,” Fianna said. “You can see the ruins on the mountain side.”

Just ahead of us, the Hardos Mountains towered with incredible prominence, their off-white surface almost looking like dirty snow. Like the elf said, the ruins of an inactive Polis were barely visible, its life long since absorbed by the White Death.

“I’d like to avoid landing the Airdrake in the Wastelands if I can avoid it,” Fianna said. “Plus, the mountains are quite jagged. We don’t have any flat area to land around here.”

Indeed, the elf was right. Although the tiny Polis was built on a kind of plateau in the mountainside, it was way too small for the giant airship to land.

“Can you clear the White Death from the air?”

“Unfortunately, not really. The range on the Debuggun is only twenty meters.”

“I see. I guess the only way is to drop you down with a rope ladder.”

It took me a moment to fully grasp what she was saying.

“…Excuse me? Drop me down?”

“It is a bit dangerous, but it’s the only way. Unless you let one of us borrow your gun.”

“That’s out of the question.”

“Naturally. Either way, one of us will be going with you to secure the landing spot and deal with the Cave Dragon.” Then she turned to the intercom system. “Keil and Tanney, you two go with Takashi. Keil, you defeat the Cave Dragon. And Tanney, you secure an area for the Airdrake to land.”

““Roger!””

“Meanwhile… Chloe, it’s better for you to stay here with me.”

When I finally glanced at her, her face was pale as a sheet.

“Y-yeah. That’s a good idea.”

Huh? Don’t tell me…

“Wait, are you afraid of heights?”

“O-o-of course not!” She screamed. That’s it. She’s definitely afraid of heights. “Actually, I’ll go down too!”

“You don’t have to, you know.”

“No! I’ll go. You’ll need healing support, right?”

“Sure…?”

What’s she trying to prove with this?

Yzara’s outburst prompted Fianna to turn to us. She had a smirk on her face, and I think it was because she was suppressing a laugh.

“You two. Stop bickering and get ready to leave. We’ll be there in no time.”

* * *

The wind was cold and fierce. It shook our entire bodies, with only our bare hands holding onto the ladder keeping us from falling and painting the monochrome ground red. Even I was starting to get the heebie-jeebies.

Maybe, just maybe, this was actually a bad idea.

The girl above me on the ladder, though, was shaking more than the wind would suggest on its own. She was hanging to dear life, descending the ladder at an excruciatingly slow rate.

“Come on! Just a little more!”

“D-d-don’t rush me!”

“You’re the one who wanted to come!”

“Also, don’t you dare look up my skirt!”

“Why are you afraid of that now, of all times?!”

On the rope ladder were, from the ground up, Keil, Tanney, me, and Chloe. Fianna was left behind, doing her best to keep the airship steady, but I was sure she had a hard time too, with these cross winds and whatnot. The bottom of the ladder was attached to a rock that Tanney had conjured in midair with her Earth magic, but that anchor did little to help with the shaking.

Eventually, Keil and Tanney reached the bottom, and with their help, I managed to reach the bottom of the ladder. Using our combined body weight, we stabilized it just enough so that Chloe could make the final descent just a bit more smoothly. When we were both on the ground, I detached the ladder from the rock, which immediately made the airship jerk upwards and away from us.

“Are you alright?” I asked Chloe. She was shaking, and her face was pale and slightly yellow, even.

“Grr… I’m NEVER doing that again.”

“You brought this upon yourself, you know…”

“Yeah…”

“…”

I didn’t know what to say. Her tone completely lacked her usual bite. It was frankly a bit disconcerting.

Is Yzara really that afraid of heights? I don’t think that was part of her lore.

“Did something happen to make you this afraid?”

“I’m not afraid…! Of… heights. Ugh.” She stopped to cover her mouth. “Fine, guess I’m a little, tiny bit afraid. Guess I could tell you what happened.” She leaned in close, and whispered in my ear so that Keil and Tanney wouldn’t hear it. “(It was a few years ago, when I was on the run from the White Death. Monsters cornered me on a cliff, and I had no choice but to jump. I survived, but it hurt a lot. Guess that’s it.)”

“Huh…”

“Don’t ‘huh’ at me! This is embarrassing!”

“Sorry, it’s just—never mind.”

One hundred years is a long time. It would be expected that Yzara would change in that amount of time. It would be expected—but I was just surprised she had deviated this much from her lore and design over that time. But obviously, I couldn’t outright say that to her.

“Why are you two flirting over there for?” Keil asked, although his tone didn’t match his words at all. “Let’s secure the Polis and make a spot for the Airdrake to land.”

The site of this old Polis was a relatively flat plateau, the only structures of the place turned into still, featureless white monoliths covered with that pervasive black mist. After Keil’s comment, I pulled out the Debuggun and began zapping away.

The Polis was roughly the size of Luribel, but it was way more utilitarian. There were a few housing buildings, but most of them probably had the purpose of sorting and refining the gems. There were warehouses here and there, too.

Gotta search them later and see if there isn’t a lost gem there somewhere.

“Oh, I found the Foundation Crystal!” Keil said.

In the center of town was that black crystal, buried in the rough rock. It was completely dull, meaning the Polis was inactive.

“How do you reactivate it?” Chloe asked.

“I just need to offer some coins.”

“We need to spend even more money…? Sigh.”

“Don’t be like that. We need to spend money to make money.”

“Right, just get on with it.”

I pulled out our remaining five Silver, and offered it to the Foundation Crystal. Instantly, that same expanding bubble of light grew out of the stone, covering us and the entire ruined town, before dissipating.

“The Polis has been successfully reactivated!” Tanney said.

Somehow, I managed to become the owner of not one, but two different Polis over the past few days. If this was still a game, people would say I was proceeding through the tech tree way too fast.

“Takashi, you need to give me permission to alter the terrain here so I can create a plateau for the Airdrake to land at.”

“Oh, that’s right.”

To prevent grifting, it was generally impossible to alter the terrain inside a Polis unless you were its owner. The only way around this was for the owner to give express permission to someone else.

The way to do that was fairly simple. Both Tanney and I placed our hands on the Foundation Crystal, one after another. It glowed slightly, but then returned to normal.

“There.”

“Great! Where shall I create the plateau? The entire area is covered in ruins…”

The former town—really more of a mining outpost—was built on the slope of the mountain. Obviously, before the White Death, there had been no airships, and so there was nowhere flat enough for something as massive as the Airdrake to land.

“Anywhere that seems flat,” I said. “No point in giving you more trouble than necessary.”

“Okay. Then I’ll use that area over there,” she said, pointing somewhere that was just on the edge of the Polis. The short fox girl hopped to that area with surprising nimbleness, and shouted. “Earth Shape!”

Her magic worked wonders almost immediately. The side of the hill and a few ruins were excavated out, creating a bunch of loose rocks and sand that she shaped into a plateau that wasn’t all that flat.

“Now to cook this rubble into something solid. Magma!”

A large fireball shot out from her staff, directly hitting the mountain side. The rocks and bricks began melting, first outwards to create a sort of “shell”, and then on the inside of the pile itself. It shrunk before my eyes as the rock turned liquid, but the makeshift shell held all the molten rock in. The lava, being a liquid, naturally settled into a flattish surface that was more than big enough to support the Airdrake.

“Now all we need is a little cooling. Water Bubble!”

From the air itself, a sphere of water started condensing, growing bigger and bigger. When it was a few meters in diameter, Tanney splashed it directly onto the partially molten surface, instantly hardening it into a dark basalt plain. The water didn’t stay around for long, though, rushing downhill, disappearing into the mountains below.

“There! That should do it,” the little fox said proudly. “W-why are you all looking at me like that?”

“You’re incredible! That’s why!”

I couldn’t tell if Chloe was being sarcastic or not—but I had to agree. It was quite impressive.

“Manipulating three types of elemental magic so precisely is not an easy feat.”

“T-thanks. But this is just expected of an Alchemist, hmph!”

In fact, outside of bosses, NPCs generally couldn’t use magic at this high of a level. Tanney really was an exceptional magic user.

“I can only hope to be as good as you with elemental magic in the future,” I added.

The girl’s cheeks began turning red, and she quickly scampered back behind Keil. Guess she’s still not very comfortable around me.

“I’m gonna signal the Airdrake to land,” he said, gesturing with his arms.

The huge airship floating high above us began its slow descent, eventually touching down on the recently-created plateau. When it was secured, out came the boss herself.

“Seems like everything went according to plan,” Fianna said. “Keil, you’re the only one of us who can use offensive Holy Magic, so could you go handle the Cave Dragon?”

“Alright, boss! On it!”

“Takashi, Keil, look. Isn’t that the cave entrance?” Chloe said, pointing uphill.

Indeed, there was a rather prominent and menacing-lookingYerve entrance right outside the Polis’ protective zone.

“Alright, team!” The sniper said, way too enthusiastic about this. “Let’s go beat that sucker!”