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He watched me silently as I waited for my answer, my heart beating against my chest.

“Go on…”

That seemed to have gotten his attention, at least.

“You know the rulers of this city are dragons, right?”

“No…”

“Oh…”

Had he not even been to the city on his chase after me?

“Well, it’s pretty common knowledge that they’re dragons, I guess. You can even see them fly overhead from time to time, and I saw one in humanoid form back when we escaped from the dungeon.”

He leaned forward, eyes glinting in interest as whatever ideas he had were going through his head.

“So you’re saying you want to kill the city leaders? Bold. I didn’t have you down as the type to kill someone just for their race, do you have something against dragons?

He misunderstood my intent. It wasn’t that I wanted to kill them just because they were dragons. I was sure he had heard of the demon attack on Karfana, at least. I didn’t really want to explain to him about Krylla or what she was protecting under the surface of the mountains, so I elected to just explain using what had happened back in the city.

“You remember Karfana, right?”

“The monster attack? Yeah, what about it.”

“Well, they weren’t monsters.”

“Then what were they?”

“Demons.”

“Pfft.” He let out a low chuckle at my declaration like he found the mention of demons funny.

“Elves, dwarves, humans, demons, monsters, all the same, really, we just kill what we call monsters because it’s what we’re told and it’s convenient to us. Is not a dragon also a monster?”

‘Is he philosophizing to me right now?’

I guess he had a point of sorts, and it briefly caused the question of why the Second System only seemed to reward XP for killing demons to my mind and how the primary System actually had also awarded me for killing other humans.

“Anyway… These demons seem to be wider spread than initially thought and are actively trying to bring this city to ruin.”

“So you’re saying that the dragons are working with them, then? Where’s your proof?”

Would he believe Lein’s words as evidence enough? I doubted it. Maybe he would be able to sense a strange energy if he encountered a dragon, but had he ever encountered one before? Would he be able to recognize that their aura was off at a glance?

After all, if one had never encountered something before, how would they be able to recognize that something was strange when they did encounter that thing?

“This.”

I pulled back my sleeve and held out my arm that had the tattoo on it. When I encountered the dragon in humanoid form back at the dungeon, feeling the strong presence of demonic energy made me recognize what the familiar energy coming from the tattoo was…

Demonic energy.

Besides figuring out a way to kill the city leaders, who were either colluding with demons, possessed by demons—which I didn’t even know if that was possible—or actually demons, figuring out a way to remove the tattoo was also on my priority list.

“The mark that they put on newcomers to the city?” He glanced at the shredded skin on his arm as if to check if there was a tattoo there.

“They were too busy to bother,” I said, answering his question before he could ask.

He leaned closer to my extended wrist, taking a close look at the tattoo.

“Hmm… I’m going to use a skill, stay still.”

Koise held his hand over the tattoo, concentrating for a few moments before a steady green glow emerged from his hand and covered the tattoo.

I saw his eyes flitting over a System message that only he could see, the results of whatever skill he had just used.

“Demonic energy… Hmm… It doesn’t really prove anything, but it’s enough to justify a closer look, at least. Do you already have a plan?”

“No, I was just getting to that part.”

“Well, what’s the smartest thing you’ve hunted?”

‘Smartest? Why does that matter?’

I thought for a few moments. The smartest thing I had fought had probably been the city lord of Karfana when he was trying to create the expanding dungeon.

“The dungeon boss of Karfana.”

He shook his head and clicked his tongue at my answer.

“No, that wasn’t a hunt, that was just a fight. I asked what the smartest thing you’ve hunted was, not killed.”

When he put it like that, I hadn’t really hunted much of anything. I had only actually gotten my abilities not long before that, after all.

The answer must have been plain on my face.

“And you were planning to take down a dragon? If my goal was for you to die, I guess I could just leave with that already accomplished. Do you even know anything about dragons?”

Of course I knew things about dragons, I had hung around in an Association building for years hearing nothing save for tales from Awakeners about their hunts and the hunts of others. Dragons, of course, had been a huge topic.

“They’re weak in human form, their fire can be countered with a good dousing of water, silver weapons cut through their scales like a hot knife through butter, they love to talk about themselves, they never go back on their word, and they love to prolong their battles.”

Everyone knew that the best party for taking down a dragon consisted of a mage with water spells, a hunter with silver arrows, a fast talker to goad and distract the dragon and maybe even trick it into agreeing to stay in human form so the party could kill it while it was weak, and the classic hero with a sword to land the final blow if the talker failed.

“Hahahahah!”

He actually laughed at me, a hearty laugh that told me he found something that I had said hilarious.

“Yeah, you’d be dead in moments. You were seriously going to base your plan on tall tales you heard in a tavern or something from people who had heard them from other people—who had heard them from other people and so on? How have you lived this long? Are you just good at fighting or something? I bet your plan was just to ambush it in human form or try to appeal to its honor for a human-form duel or something equally stupid.”

My plans actually had been somewhere along those lines. It made sense to fight it when it was in its weakest form, after all.

I was a bit put out and even offended by his words, and my silence must have said everything.

“Look, first of all, get all that bullshit out of your head. Dragons aren’t weak in human form at all. In fact, they’re just as strong, if not stronger. You don’t think their human skin is just as tough as their scales? Also, they’re just as strong in any form they take, forget about whether they actually look less intimidating or not.”

He was looking at me seriously, ticking off the points on his fingers as he spoke.

“Second, their fire cannot be countered with a good dousing of water. A dragon’s breath cannot be put out by normal water of any sort—you could dive to the bottom of a lake and be boiled in seconds from a concentrated blast of it.”

He lifted the third finger.

“Third, you would just be wasting good silver if you used a silver weapon on one. What the hell do you think dragons are, werewolves or something? Granted, it’s not a bad guess, silver usually works well against beast-like beings—but no. A dragon is as weak to silver as they are any other metal—which is not very.”

His fourth finger ticked up. He was getting heated as he spoke, and I could see the fire in his eyes igniting. Even while he was telling me everything I had said wrong, he was thinking of what would work.

“Fourth, dragons like talking about themselves about as much as they like talking about anything else, which is not very, especially not to beings they deem lower than themselves. A dragon isn’t going to care about honoring their word or anything stupid like that against things it views as no more than we might view a chicken.”

“Finally, your last point may have a point in that they like to enjoy the excitement of a fight as much as anyone else, especially against an opponent they already know they have thoroughly beaten.”

Holding his hand up with all five fingers extended, he lowered them one by one as he began countering with what actually would work against dragons.

“One, it’s actually probably best to fight a dragon in its biggest or most natural form. They make a bigger target and are easier to wound that way—it’s much easier to dig at the soft flesh underneath a scale than it is to pierce human flesh that’s as tough as scales.”

“Two, the biggest problem you face when fighting a dragon in its natural and weakest form is their dragon breath, which you just have to avoid or redirect somehow. Any attempt to take it head-on is a death wish.”

“Three, while they may not be weak against silver, they are weak against scarlet steel. Unfortunately, everything seems to be weak to scarlet steel, which means everyone wants it when it’s already near-impossible to find and is usually only found in the highest-tier equipment.”

“Four, a dragon might acknowledge us if it views us on the same field or threat level as it, which isn’t likely unless we do something to impress it. Even then, an ‘honorable’ duel is dubious at best.”

His last finger slowly curled downward again while he made his last point.

“And five, if a dragon tries to prolong the fight, you’ve already lost.”

It was all quite informative, and I had no doubt that his sources were more trustworthy than mine. However, all of that left me with a question…

“Have you ever hunted a dragon before?”

His eyes brimming with the fire of determination, he spoke.

“No, but I’ve always wanted to.”