The Enemy Came After All

But don’t get close to the volcano itself! If you encounter a Fire Dragon, it might evaporate you!’

‘Okay!’

‘It’s scary, so I won’t go near it!’

It would be too late if the Blue Moon of Salvation were already inside. But that wasn’t likely.

After all, not much time had elapsed since the appearance of the Fire Dragon.

Unless they were the ones who had summoned the Fire Dragon, then they wouldn’t have started to move until after it appeared.

And if we started moving at the same time, then we would be faster, since the Proud Wolf was faster than any horse.

‘We finished surrounding it!’

‘Good job! …Then, keep it up for a while! You can decide for yourselves if it’s too dangerous to stick around.’

‘Okay!’

And then I returned to the inn.

As it was possible we would be thrown into a state of emergency, the best thing to do was to reserve my energy.

After all, what the slimes needed for support was magic.

And so I would avoid leaving the inn.

That way, I wouldn’t be forced to fight and have my MP depleted.

‘Do you sense the Fire Dragon’s presence?’

‘I do!’

‘If the Fire Dragon comes close to you, you should all retreat! Safety first.’

‘Okay!’

I said as I watched them.

Apparently, it took three days for the Fire Dragon to leave once it has appeared.

If I was to keep the security net up the whole time, then the slimes would have to take shifts.

…As I pondered this, one of the slimes started shouting.

‘Someone’s coming!’

‘Is it a guild investigator?’

‘Hmm…I don’t think so! He’s carrying a strange barrel! What a creep!’

A barrel…

A human that wanted to antagonize the Fire Dragon would probably use water.

So there was probably water in the barrel.

‘Continue hiding over there. Wait until they come closer.’

‘Okay!’

After a while, the figures approached the slimes.

They were talking as they walked.

“Tsk… Why do we have to go and provoke the Fire Dragon.”

“It’s an order from our client.”

“Still, we should have rejected the order. I don’t care how much they are paying us. It won’t mean anything if we’re dead. I’d rather rob or abduct people.”

“…We would be killed for sure if we went against the Blue Moon of Salvation. We’d have a better chance of survival provoking the Fire Dragon.”

Apparently, the people carrying the barrels were just hired by the Blue Moon of Salvation.

Still, they were clearly criminals already.

…That was fortunate.

I could take them down without worrying.

“But these barrels are damn heavy. Why can’t we just use water from some river?”

“It’s special water. But they didn’t tell me why it was special.”

“…We’re carrying it without knowing anything about it?”

The man said as he slapped the barrel in irritation.

The barrel had the words ‘Bijia Wine’ painted on them—but it definitely wasn’t filled with wine.

It was likely filled with some dangerous liquid that the Blue Moon of Salvation had created.

Their goal was probably to make the Fire Dragon attack the town before it went away.

Or perhaps they just wanted it to go on a destructive rampage in the area.

It wasn’t perfectly clear, but the Blue Moon of Salvation always wanted to do things that caused a lot of death.

So sending an A-Rank monster into the town seemed like the kind of thing they would do.

Well, these guys were like disposable thugs. So they were mostly just following orders instead of having any plan.

“We kill people we don’t know and smuggle secret things. …Isn’t that what we always do?”

“That’s true. Let’s just hope we survive this one.”

“Aye. …Hey, why don’t we practice throwing these heavy barrels while we can?”

They said as they continued on their way to the volcanic mountain.

They would likely die if I left them alone. But they might just succeed at throwing the barrels at the Fire Dragon.

…I better stop them then.