CH 39

“Anyway, the dragon is dead. Or rather, there was a dragon that died, an empire, and a human known as the hero. That’s all we know, we don’t know what happened after that.”

“That’s vague.”

“Well, we were told by our parents and grandparents who had gotten it from our ancestors…but it’s true, we don’t really know what’s true or not.”

Even if there is a difference in the issue of life expectancy, the result is the same.

“Anyway, about the dragon’s graveyard…”

“I’m not sure where to start explaining…”

I had gathered some information myself, so I knew that something was happening there, and it was as Gihren had said.

“It has always been recognized as a dangerous land filled with miasma. It was a location that even S-rank parties wouldn’t visit due to the danger and depletion of stamina caused by the heavy miasma present.”

“Well, I guess we won’t know what it’s really like until we go there.”

“That’s right.”

As we walked towards the dragon’s graveyard, we chatted and had fun along the way. We also tried various things such as practicing flying and seeing if we could use Rei as a mode of transportation. We didn’t travel at full speed, but with the help of Rei, we were able to cover a considerable distance in a short amount of time, making the journey seem to pass by quickly.

****

“Here it is.”

“Wow… it’s worse than I thought.”

“Is that so? Well, I have seen it from a distance once before, but it wasn’t this bad back then.”

The last time he had come, there was a faint purple aura enveloping the area and the scenery could be seen all the way to the other side. Now, the area was covered in such dense miasma that it could only be described as pitch black, and the dragon’s remains could not even be seen from here.

“Is there a reason why the miasma is increasing?”

“Hmm? Well… when you leave the corpse of a creature with magical powers like this in this state, it usually becomes an undead, but in this case, it was forcibly restrained.”

“… That’s how it is?”

She had never considered the idea of it being restrained before. In that case, it meant that whatever had been holding it down had weakened and it was overflowing… and she was starting to understand why the guild had put out an investigation request.

“I think it’s because it originally had too much magical power, but it’s still overflowing.”

“I can’t just leave it like this…”

The denser the miasma became, the more powerful the undead that would be born from it. If a lich were to be born, it could potentially become a demon king-class threat.

“Let’s brace ourselves.”