The five of them headed out of the meeting room and towards the lobby. Already, the effect of Giggle’s loud squeak was causing a lot of people to be worried. Before they headed out, Nobina realized that they still had one thing to do.

“Let me let Aunai and them know what’s happening,” said Nobina before heading upstairs. She didn’t need to get too far before she saw Aunai, Lady Immana, Master Helios, and Lila heading down the hall.

“Ah, Nobina,” said Aunai, taking the lead. “I believe that’s… your bunny, right? I’ve heard that squeak once before, so I just wanted to make sure.

“Yes, it is,” Nobina responded back. “I have no idea what’s happening with Giggles, so I was going to check them.”

Aunai gave a nod.

“It’ll likely cause quite a panic, so I’ll try to calm everyone down. In the meantime, you, Lila and Helios should check if it’s anything serious.”

“Will do,” Nobina responded back.

“Oh, how exciting,” smiled Lady Immana. “A new factor to consider.”

Nobina and the rest of them rejoined the other four, who were waiting downstairs. As they got downstairs, Aunai made an announcement.

“Attention all guild staff and adventurers. The squeak has been identified as one of the large animals we have currently under our care. We will be investigating immediately but be assured there’s nothing to panic about.”

The effect was immediate, as it seemed everyone swapped back to being worried about the dragon instead. With that done, Aunai left the group to speak with the supervisors regarding the incident.

“We don’t have a moment to lose,” said Nobina. “Let’s head out.”

The whole group headed out immediately. To Nobina’s surprise, she noticed that Immana was on edge when she was close to Nia. It made Nobina wonder how much Immana knew about Nia and whether there was any sort of bad blood between them. It seemed unlikely, given that being hostile towards a noble was a serious problem, but Nia was a complete mystery to Nobina.

Eventually, the group got outside, where Immana had carriages assembled to bring them to their destination. Once again, the same four entered the first carriage, with Nobina, Helios, Immana, and Nia boarded the second. When everyone was seated, they were off.

The trip outside of the city to the monster holding area was relatively quick, yet there was a lot of tension in the carriage. Helios was merely sitting and reading one of his personal books, with Immana’s gaze never leaving Nia. On Nia’s end, she merely sat there quietly, not muttering a word. Nobina wanted to ask about it, but she remained silent for the time being.

Eventually, the group got out of the city, but the carriages were halted.

“What’s going on,” yelled Immana.

“Lady Immana,” responded one of the escorting guards. “We have a problem. Please exit immediately.”

Everyone filed out of the carriage, with the problem being noticed immediately. The location wasn’t too far away from where they were, but they noticed a flying monster in the air around it.

“Is that… a dragon?” asked Nobina, her face draining.

“Its profile is too different,” responded Helios, trying to get a better look. “It might be a hybrid, though it’s hard to tell from a distance.”

“Well… Do we just press on?” asked Nobina to the group.

Looking at Helios, his gaze turned to Immana, who nodded her head.

“A dragon, even if just a hybrid, cannot be left alone. Retreating will likely cause the monster containment area to be fully breached, and the damage might be far too great. We should press on,” said Immana, her face reflecting the seriousness of the situation.

As she said that, the other four joined them. Nobina relayed the plan, with all of them nodding.

“That seems like the correct course of action to me,” nodded Mimiki. “Let’s go before it can cause any more damage.”

“I’m so excited,” smiled Lila. “This might be the fight I’ve been craving for.”

“Aye,” nodded Marve. “It might be winged, but when it lands, my axe will be there.”

Cain merely nodded, leading Nobina to order the group forward. The carriage would have to be left, as approaching them would have been a terrible decision.

It didn’t take long before they got close enough that the threats were easy to identify.

“Wait a second,” said Mimiki. “Isn’t that… the troll-wolf? And that’s the same wolf-troll as well!”

“Oh my god,” said Lila, her face in awe. “Even better opponents to face.”

Nobina couldn’t believe her eyes. Those two summoned monsters were back again. This time, they were targeting Giggles, as Giggles was keeping their distance away.

“Squeak!”

Giggles looked a bit ruffed up, but otherwise they were holding their own. Nobina’s gaze turned back to the monsters, seeing if she could see any more threats. Above all of them was the circling monster, who had yet to land. Besides that, most of the staff was gone, but there were a few unfortunate souls. It made Nobina furious that she was somehow involved in this yet again.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“Giggles,” called Nobina.

Their attention seemed to turn to Nobina for a moment, but the wolf-troll took advantage of that and attempted to strike at them with a jumping bite. Before it could even get close, Giggles hopped forward, opening its mouth. To Nobina’s surprise, she saw energy gathering in its mouth before it fired a beam toward the wolf-troll.

The wolf-troll was quick enough to dodge, but it backed off immediately. It wasn’t a moment too soon either, since the beam caused burn marks on the ground it hit behind the wolf-troll.

“Wow,” said Helios. “That bunny is quite powerful.”

“Nobina… You really are something,” smiled Immana. “A powerful animal companion with such an attack certainly an asset we should all be aware of.”

“Well…” trailed off Nobina, wondering how to explain that she didn’t know Giggles was capable of firing off a beam of fire. At that point, she wondered if its other name had a hint of its true power.

“Tenfold Gigaton Iron Beast of the Moon…” whispered Nobina to herself. “Are you actually extremely powerful giggles?”

Was that merely a trait of bunnies in this world? Did Spot also have some hidden power?

As she contemplated that, Lila yelled out immediately.

“The dragon hybrid is going to descend?” she smiled. “Get ready!”

The group braced as the dragon-hybrid landed. The moment it did, Helios identified it immediately.

“My god that’s a dragon-wolf,” he responded back. “A rare breed of dragons that specialize in pack hunting. With wolf traits, it’s a quite dangerous dragon to face. However, due to it being a hybrid, we should be able to manage it with this group along.”

“Of course,” laughed Lila. “Let me show you the power of the superior wolf!”

Immediately, Lila entered her first form. Her outer clothes burned off to reveal her high-quality adventuring outfit. She was oozing in lightning, ready to strike at the dragon-wolf.

Nobina turned towards the dragon-wolf, whose attention was currently on Giggles. However, its eyes met Nobina immediately, and it gave a howl.

“Damn it,” came a voice on top of the dragon.

On the very top of it was a blue demon who was looking at the dragon-wolf.

“Are you really sensing that much danger? Fine. Retreat.”

Immediately, the dragon-wolf kicked off the ground, avoiding Lila as she barely missed her own claw attack.

“Get back here,” she yelled.

“No chance of that,” yelled the demon as their voice faded away. Before they knew it, the dragon-wolf and demon were flying away, moving around the town before heading towards the direction of the dragon mountains.

“What is even going on?” asked Immana, confused by the sight.

“This is… quite a serious situation,” remarked Helios, entering deep thought. “If a demon has a dragon-wolf summon, which it seems likely as dragon-wolves are historically summons, then we have to report this.”

Nobina could only wonder how serious this situation was. Knowing a dragon was serving under a demon was one thing, but was this the demon that they were looking for? It made everything much more complicated, as they still had their plans to head out and deal with the other dragon. It seemed unlikely they were the same dragon, but she couldn’t be certain.

“First things first,” said Helios. “Let us deal with the two remaining threats.”

Helios held out his hand, summoning three elemental spells. Without much effort, powerful arcs of lightning, a large fireball, and a blade of wind fired off toward the troll-wolf. Immediately, the three attacks merged in the air to form a powerful blade of fire and lightning that immediately destroyed the troll-wolf.

The wolf-troll, seeing this, began to retreat. However, Nia was on top of it in an instant, cutting off their head and causing it to disintegrate as well.

“That was rather quick,” laughed Marve. “The power of two S-ranks for you.”

“They are indeed in a league of their own,” nodded Cain. “Master Helios never ceases to amaze me.”

Nobina began wondering more about Helios and his spells. How exactly did their merging work? Was it one of his abilities? Did he really have just one hundred spells, or did he have a set of base spells he merged to form combined ones? There were a lot of interesting aspects she’d love to know, but they didn’t have much time for that.

“Squeak!”

Giggles immediately headed over to Nobina, causing the rest of them to give her space as she saw Giggles lying in front of them.

“Ah Giggles. Are you alright?” asked Nobina.

“Squeak,” it responded back with a nod.

Once the scene seemed to have calmed down, Nobina saw adventurers approaching from the city. Many of them stopped immediately at the sight of Giggles, unsure if it was a threat.

“Everyone,” yelled Helios. “The threat is subdued. Inform all fellow adventurers and guardsman of this as well.”

All the adventurers who had approached merely nodded and headed back. Nobina recognized immediately how influential Helios was, able to convince large groups of adventurers with his words alone.

“Thank you, Helios,” said Nobina.

“You’re welcome. I’m doing what I can to assist,” he nodded. “Now then. Shall we do a quick review before heading back?”

The group gathered to discuss what exactly they saw. Out of everything though, the main topic involved the dragon-wolf.

“From what I can see, it seems a demon had ordered three of its summons, including a dragon-wolf to attack your bunny Giggles. Luckily, they were able to hold out before we arrived. Next, the demon forced a retreat after sighting you Nobina, so I must ask… why did the dragon-wolf sense danger from you? Are you really just a D-rank adventurer?”

“Well…” said Nobina, trying to find the right words. “Previously, a dragon had spotted me as I was heading towards the City of Navira with Aunai and her group. It recognized I had a divine entity watching me, so it questioned us about it before leaving.”

“Divine entity…” said Immana, entering thought. “Is that linked with your special bag and all the assets you have at your disposal?”

Nobina gave a nod. She knew it’d be too difficult to try to hide all of this, and they lacked the time to beat around the bush.

“Fascinating,” nodded Helios. “It does explain a lot about you Nobina. I’m curious if you have other aspects of note, but we shouldn’t dwell on this too long. Let’s continue our discussion.”

Helios went on to discuss the rest of the situation. The wolf-troll and troll-wolf were certainly serious threats, but nothing compared to the presence of a demon and dragon-wolf. Not only that, but Giggles was also a topic of discussion.

“We have so much to discuss honestly,” said Mimiki. “We’ll have to wait though. A report to Aunai about how we should proceed would be best.”

“What about Giggles?” asked Helios. “We can’t bring them into town, and that demon might try again to take them out.”

“I will watch,” said Nia, speaking out for the first time.

Nobina found herself unable to close her mouth and was in shock at Nia finally speaking.

“Thanks Nia,” nodded Mimiki. “I believe Nia should be able to watch them alone, but…”

“We got her back,” said Marve. “Right Cain?”

“Indeed,” he nodded. “The three of us form a solid defensive core. Do not worry Nobina.”

With that settled, Nobina ordered the group to head out.

…

“Damn it,” said the demon, who was still riding the dragon-wolf. “If I was told to kill her, I could do that and get out of them without issue. However, it seems that interest in her was justified. I will need to retreat before they send actual hunters against me.”

“Wolf,” responded the dragon-wolf.

“Harten,” sighed the demon. “We aren’t attacking her again. We were merely trying to do another test, but… those bunnies are really strong. Even you dragons seem to have it rough, right?”

“Wolf,” nodded Harten.

The two of them continued their fight towards the direction of the dragon mountains, fading into the distance.