Half-Dragon Slave Life Ch. 49

Author: Kaburagi Haruka

Translator: ShiroiKaze/Soyokaze Translations

Chapter 49: Listening

Translated by Soyokaze Translations: soyokazetranslation . Com

That night, together with the newly powered up Amy and Kevin, we discussed our new plans for coordinating together.

Honestly we would have liked to watch the gates until the morning, but with their sudden increase in strength, there was uneasiness around continuing without any discussion.

Instead the number of guards at the north and south gates, plus the west and east fences were increased, with messengers placed at the ready to contact us if we’re needed.

Pretty sure there won’t be a second attack in one night, but just in case. The bone wolves doubled in numbers, but there’s still a possibility they’re increasing more than just double. A second round could be incoming.

 

Fortunately a second attack didn’t come, and the night passed.

With all the adults taking on guard duties, there’s an excess in personnel. Some of the people on watch switch out with us and let us take a break.

Since we’ve been getting naps, we can still push ourselves a bit more, so we take that time to talk with the villager who said he saw a giant figure.

 

“Did I mention he used to be a slave?”

“Yeah, something about serving an adventurer.”

 

Coelho volunteered to guide us himself. He suggested so by concluding it would make the discussion go more smoothly with an authoritative figure in the village along.

Master expresses his appreciation in extremely polite fashion. Like how he was with the elf chieftain, he goes into negotiation mode from the very start.

 

“Yes. He hasn’t had much chance at learning, so he might forget his manners sometimes, but…”

“Ah, well that’s fine. Kevin is quite lenient in that regard.”

“That’s good then. Well he actually got injured protecting the village in the first attack; he’s a hero so to speak. Of course he’s not as great as Kevin, but—”

“Forget about me. A former slave protecting his home town, now ain’t that a story?”

“Haha, I’m sure he would be overjoyed to hear you say that.”

“Actually if you had told us he was injured, we would have rushed over to heal him.”

 

Master seems to be upset about that. Sheesh, he’s practically a workaholic at this point.

Coelho notices his displeasure and hurriedly tries to patch things over.

 

“Well I didn’t exactly feel right saying, “do some healing for us,” the moment you got here. It’s not a life threatening injury, just one that’ll take about a week to heal up.”

“It might actually be better for his health to let it heal naturally then. But maintaining our fighting power in the middle of that attack yesterday…”

“No, no, you’re exactly correct. I let myself read too much into it, and made that mistake. I’d ask you to overlook it.”

“I think you were fulfilling your duties quite well actually. But I think you should be more brazen and use our power as much as you can. If you don’t mind me saying, you’re too nice.”

“You’re really hitting where it hurts. The villagers tell me that too.”

 

A dry smile comes to Coelho’s lips as he wipes the sweat from his brow.

In contrast to his bright laughter, the village streets are deserted after the raid the day before.

Residents can be seen at the edges of the roads, but they only look our way uneasily, acknowledge us with a nod, and don’t say anything.

Noticing that I was directing my gaze at the residents, Coelho covers for them.

 

“The villagers are anxious too. Though we repelled the attack yesterday, our enemies are undead.”

“Has word spread that their numbers are increasing?”

“I told them not to spread it around, but… Goodness, can’t exactly stop the rumor mill.”

“In other words, it has spread.”

“My apologies.”

“No, it’s not a problem. That kind of information is going to spread, plus we don’t want everyone carelessly dropping their guard until we’re done investigating the cause of this.”

 

As the conversation continued, we soon reached a one-story house. This seems to be his place.

It’s built from a mixture of stone blocks and wood boards for a rather humble abode. Compared to how the village head praised him as a hero, it’s… worn-out.

 

“Well, it’s one of those things. If you’re gonna build a house, then you better be paying properly for it. Oh, I did give him a right cash reward y’know?”

“Y-you’re surprisingly strict on some things.”

“I am the head of the village, after all.”

 

Answering as such, he lightly knocks on the door.

The door rattled so much that it seemed like it would break just from that light rap.

 

“Cohen, you awake? Some adventurers here want to talk to you a bit.”

“Coelho? Door’s open. Heck, not like there’s a lock anyway, just come on in. My foot’s not doing so good.”

“Cohen?”

 

Those careless words came from inside.

The casual tone gave the impression that, rather than a sloppy interaction, he was in the middle of cracking jokes.

Hearing the name, Kevin gets a quizzical look.

 

“Hoo boy. The “Disaster Beast Killer” hero came all the way over to visit, couldn’t you at least come to the door?”

“Wha-, disaster beast killer?! You don’t mean lord Kevin?!”

“You! What are you doin’ out here?!”

 

Cohen, from inside the house, and Kevin raise their voices in surprise.

He was sitting on his bed, his leg in a cast.

With a solid figure, he was the very image of one who engages in tough physical labor.

Inside the house, the floor is entirely dirt, with some tree branches strewn out only around the bed. There’s only the bare minimum of household items, making it clear that he was not living particularly affluent life.

But he has a pot and kitchen knife, and hung on the wall is a well-maintained sword. He has some steadiness to his personality.

 

“Kevin, you know him?”

“Oh come on, you’ve met him too.”

“Huh?”

“He’s a slave I brought along. And released…”

“Oh, from then. I see, so this is his home town.”

“First I’m hearing about it too.”

 

Right, back against the grand hedgehog, he’s one of the ones who put himself in front of Kevin to try and stop him.

He couldn’t make a move after Kevin ordered him though.

 

“Coelho, did you know?”

“Yeah, since you were going to talk to him I figured I’d surprise you. Looks like it worked.”

“Surprisingly, mischievous.”

 

Despite my position as Master’s attendant, he speaks candidly with me.

With this personality, even a former slave like him can probably live normally.

 

“Hey, hey, why did this guy become a slave?”

“Oh, he left the village in high spirits, saying he would make a name for himself. Then some nasty woman latched on to him and stripped him of his possessions, and he fell into slavery.”

“Cut it out, that ain’t a story for kids to hear!”

“Whoops, my mistake.”

 

Yig listens to the story with (feigned) innocence, only for it to play out in an unthinkable way.

Seems Coelho is actually quite the playful type with his people.

 

“Putting the backstory aside… We came here today to ask about the giant figure you saw.”

“About that? Lord Kevin, you’re taking on the request?”

“Wouldn’t have come to this place otherwise.”

“G-guess you got a point. Well then—”

 

~*~

Translated by Soyokaze Translations: soyokazetranslation . Com

Cohen came back to his village after Kevin released him from his slave status.

He originally desired to be an adventurer, and thought he lost everything to a woman, his desire to improve his standing still didn’t disappear.

He would be released one day and bloom into success. Thinking so, he willingly passed the days following Kevin’s orders.

 

But the attack by the grand hedgehog that day crushed everything.

Even the standard soldiers were knocked around like so much debris by its violence.

Neither swords, spears, nor bows passed its solid hide.

Truly a beast of disaster that nothing could be done about.

With a monster like that in front of his eyes, his Master, Kevin, didn’t even take a step back.

In contrast, his own legs had stiffened, and he was scared enough that he felt he would wet himself.

 

It ended with him not being able to do anything against the disaster either, but even so he was looking for adventurer work like normal the next day.

Seeing that, Cohen’s thought’s changed. He’d had enough of this.

And at that moment of awareness his desires to climb in the world crumbled and scattered like dust.

His goals changed. He wanted to be freed, and live peacefully with no connection to adventure.

And then that desire quickly came to be. Because Kevin also realized his own powerlessness.

 

Even after facing such a horror, he continued to move forward unceasingly.

And he realized that is the very quality which makes him a hero.

That’s why he returned to his hometown without a peep about the truth. He kept quiet that the disaster beast killer wasn’t Kevin.

 

After that, the days continued peacefully for a while.

His home village welcomed him, an absconder and former slave, with open arms.

Lacking young men, especially ones with experience or knowledge of fighting, he was a welcome addition to their fighting strength.

At normal times he would hunt in the forest, and in emergencies he would command the villagers as a soldier.

Those days continued. Simple but fulfilling, he spent his days.

 

Then one day, when heading to the west forest to check on a trap, he noticed something odd.

In the west forest there is a deep ravine, and a suspension bridge was built across it to reach the other side.

Of course the only thing on the other side of the bridge is more forest, so hardly anyone uses it.

If there’s any reason to cross, it would be hunters seeking game might be trying to reach the hunting lodge across the valley.

That single-purpose suspension bridge had fallen.

 

The bottom of the valley was covered in fog, and he couldn’t see through it.

Since the valley has a large source of water in the form of a stream at its bottom, fog and haze are a common occurrence.

So that didn’t weigh on his mind. But not having the bridge there was a bit troubling.

Thinking to repair the bridge, he searched the area for a point where the gap in the valley was narrower to cross by way of a tree.

Here his knowledge from adventuring came in handy, and just as he had found such a place and crossed over, it happened.

 

Suddenly the ground rumbled, and the sun darkened.

Turning around, he looked toward where the bridge used to be, and there he saw a titanic figure around ten meters tall.

The figure was clearly rising up from the valley. The valley is about twenty meters deep, so all together he figured it must be around thirty meters?

Eventually the figure sank back into the valley, vanishing from sight, and the surroundings returned to stillness.

 

~*~

Translated by Soyokaze Translations: soyokazetranslation . Com

“And that’s what happened.”

“Thirty meters all together… that’s bigger than Yig.”

“B-bigger doesn’t mean stronger!”

 

The village chief told us it was about twenty meters, but according to the story he says thirty.

Yig, losing out on size, is trying to put up a brave act, but comparing something to Fafnir, the greatest beast of disaster, itself is kinda strange.

 

“Coelho, the size isn’t what you said?”

“Y-yeah. He mentioned seeing the figure from the bottom of the valley, so I figured it was about as tall as the valley is deep… A hasty assumption it seems.”

“No, it’s fine as long as we know beforehand. So the bottom of the valley then.”

 

Master brings a hand to his chin and ponders.

There’s a lot to prepare if we’re going to search a twenty meter deep valley.

Plus if it’s foggy and we won’t be able to see, it’s no wonder he would think twice about it.

 

“Our rope probably isn’t long enough.”

“We’ve got one too, so it should reach fine if we tie them together. And if it comes down to it, we’ve got fall control magic.”

 

Fall control is exactly as the name suggests; it’s magic that controls how fast you fall. It’s built on the principles of flight magic, and is mid-level difficulty.

Amy could just barely use it.

 

“In the worst case, we’ve got Yig and Eir, so we’ll manage. We’ll also need a change of clothes in case it comes down to getting in the river. Something like water-repellent work clothes would be nice too.”

“In that case I’ve got some leather work clothes. Put ’em on and get going. They’re the kind that wrap you up all the way from your armpits down to your toes. Won’t have to worry about water leaking in with these.”

 

Cohen pulls leather clothes out of a dresser. Four of them. They’re pretty large, like the perfect size for Kevin.

Having four of them is likely a sign of how frequently he goes hunting.

 

“Well, the little ladies will probably have to make some adjustments here an’ there.”

“We’ll take care of that, thanks. We’d like to leave before evening if possible, so could we borrow them now?”

“‘course.”

Translated by Soyokaze Translations: soyokazetranslation . Com

And so we were going to explore the valley’s bottom.

We still don’t know what the enormous figure is though.

---

 

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