“Are you really the chief?
You don’t look much older than myself,” Apollo confronts the apparent chief
“Ok, and you don’t look like you can fight, despite boasting that sword,” she retorts,
“Are we going to fight or not?”
“We’re not,” I step forward,
“I don’t like how that one is watching me,” the chief gives Lyra a challenging glance, which gets returned,
“Why did you attack us last night?” Karina presses,
“I didn’t attack you,
We have more honor in battles here, than that,
I was testing your reaction, people fight the hardest when they are unexpectedly cornered,
Even though you beat the golem to get here, I still wanted to personally see your strength,
And I must say I was disappointed,”
“…….”
“Easy to say after jumping sleepy people” Lyra growls
“Then, let’s go, round two?”
“No round two’s” Apollo tries to mediate the growing tension,
“We are here on serious business, on behalf of Giichi sir,”
“Giichi sir?
What does he—"
“—He’s dead,” I cut her off blankly,
“……
How?” the chief calms down,
“Are you familiar with the dragon king’s requiem?”
The chief accidentally lets out an audible gasp,
“Ok, this is serious,
Follow, me, we have to discuss this with my gra—advisor,”
……
I look around intrigued half expecting a room to appear out of thin air similarly to how she did,
Tap-tap-tap. tap tap-tap tap. tap. tap. tap
{--- .--. . -.}
She knocks the tip of her sword on the wooden floor making a series of sounds
Dhdhdhdhd!
The wooden floor shakes, moving, revealing a flight of stairs downward,
(That explains why the inside of this ‘grand tent’ was just one big room)
“Stop staring and hurry down,
My patience is not infinite,” the chief directs,
………
“Ma’am!” A row of guards straighten themselves as we pass by,
They line the hallways of this underground...
(Hmm, what should I call it?)
They line the halls within this underground ‘grand fortress’
There isn’t much to say about it really,
Walking swiftly through the winding hallways, it is built extremely minimalistic most likely due to this being a place of defense in mind,
The halls pointlessly twist and turn where they shouldn’t and the walls are bare aside from the crystal lights and guards at every turn,
“Do you have to walk through here everyday to leave?” Claude asks tiredly,
“Yes, that is why I don’t accept meetings, if I had to see to people every day, I would just die,
I don’t know why those old guys thought making something like this was a good idea, but I digress, I am the chief so I must….” The chief stops herself realizing she had begun to complain…
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
………….
“Ah here we are,”
We approach two large, quite grandiose wooden doors which the chief slides open,
It must have been sound proofed inside because previously when we stood outside it was quiet, but now as the doors slide open , we engulfed by a barrage of—
“I told you stop using my Sai as utensils Bane!”
“That was payback for you cleaning with my gauntlets Natsu!”
“Eh-hem!” the chief loudly makes our arrival know,
The room is layered by a smooth wooden floor, in which a couple bell like charms tinkle overhead, a moving painting on the wall portrays a scenic view,
(Must be magic)…
We enter to two arguing boys,
They quickly hush upon noticing the chief, another girl is in the bare but elegant room practicing throwing little knives….
“Aki—I mean chief, who are these people?
You don’t normally bring strangers here?” the young man named Bane peers at us inquisitively
“That does not yet concern you, where is Grandad Shiki?”
“Where he normally is,” Bane grumbles upset that he wasn’t given answer,
“Come this way,” the chief, Aki, looks back at us
Brushing past the girl throwing the knives she goes through a door at the side of the room,
The ‘knife girl’ ignores our presence continuing about her practice…….
………..
“This is my advisor and also my grandfather Shiki sir, you will refer to him,” Chief Aki introduces a well-built old man, his head still full of long grey hair, he smiles at us cordially, his old brown eyes look like they’d prefer going back to sleep
(Reminds me of Giichi)
“Greeting Shiki sir, I am Apollo, technical king of Soterra, I don’t know if you have heard of there,”
“Technical king?
I am not sure what that entails”
“Neither do I sir,”
“…….”
“They told me Giichi got killed, grandad,” Aki divulges,
“Snhh!” he snorts,
“That old fool was still alive?
I’m surprised he didn’t kick the bucket sooner!”
“I am afraid that’s not the case sir” Karina puts in,
“He was, consumed…. By a dragon, or at least a transforming one,”
“What are they talking about?” he turns to Aki
“You remember how you said Giichi had the dragon king’s requiem grandad?
I wasn’t alive when dragons still roamed,
But you were, you have experience with this
That is why I brought these people to you,
This is serious”
“……
You are right, this is serious,” the old man says solemnly,
“But it is also your job to deal with Aki,
You are the chief now not me,
I can only give you advice,”
“Yes, I know that
I never asked for your help,”
“Oww!”
Aki kicks the old man’s shin,
“Now tell me if the dragon that is currently growing in…...”
She looks at us for assistance
“Furlheim city,” Amelia answers,
“Now tell me if the dragon currently growing in Furlheim city poses any threat to us?”
……..
“The dragon king’s requiem is one that has a will of it’s own, who ever was dumb enough to sit on it is slowly giving up their will, soon the king himself will revive and continue on his intended path of consumption,
So yes to answer your question it is a threat,”
“Shiki sir, could you tell us just what exactly the dragon king is?” I question,
…….
“The dragon king is just what we refer to it as, the beastmen don’t have kings or rulers, they usually follow the strongest, which used to be the dragons,
You see, a few decades ago, there was some insane old guy, I forgot his name but he called himself god, he went to the beastmen and made a deal with them to help destroy the Asad kingdom, who knows what for, but he also went around to powerful cities and nations and asked them to help kill all the dragons,
We didn’t know back then, but he used the beasts for his purposes then got others to clean it up for him,
No one knows what happened to that man, I assumed he died from betraying the beats”
(You have no idea)
“But this isn’t about him, you see the battle to destroy the dragons was a long hard one, we were making progress taking down the other beastmen even gaining strong requiems from them,
But the dragons,
We might have lost if not for our Buddha’s requiems and the assistance we received from divine beings, soon the tide started to turn and the dragons began to fall one by one,”
…….
The old man pauses taking a deep breath,
“It, started off as a small dragon, but from the corpses of its fallen species, it would get stronger, eating and consuming getting stronger and stronger, till it even began to kill its own kind cannibalize the other dragons,
We called it the dragon king because it became something else, something superior to the regular dragons who were powerful in their own right,
Because dragons’ will are so strong, its personality merged with each dragon consumed, becoming a hive of minds,
Speaking to it would only resort in a pointless back and forth,
It only followed it instinct,
Eat, eat, eat,
Consume, consume,
It took nations of people to finally fell it, but even in death it would not die, leaving back a throne with power to tempt even the purest, to sit…
The story after that is a lot less interesting, it involves boring politics and struggles to own the throne,
Long story short Giichi, the strongest warrior at the time, was entrusted with it,”
……..
The room remains quiet after old man Shiki finishes sharing, we process the information…
……
“Two months then,” Chief Aki breaks the silence,
“Two months that is how long we are going to take to prepare ourselves
That is all I need to kill it, I am confident.”
“Does that mean you will help us?” Claude asks eagerly,
“Well, it is originally our requiem, and I suppose the Bakufu people will be happy to learn they will get a chance to ‘stretch’ their blades’ muscles”
(This doesn’t concern us Kage)
“Ok,” I nod
(Keep going forward)
“What can we do to help?”
ಠ_ಠ