Chapter 80: Do you take me as a fool
The Royal Knights marched through the forest at a steady pace. They led the way while the adventurers and guards followed behind.
"Why the hell are we doing this?" a young adventurer asked the leader of his party, who had agreed to do this. He gripped his sword tightly, like it would fall if he did not.
"Tch, shut up. We were paid well to follow them. They are here to hunt a monster, that’s all we know," the leader, who was an older man, said. He kept his eyes focused on the front.
"They did not even tell us what monster it is. If that monster turns out to be something that we cannot handle, what are we going to do?" the adventurer asked.
"Shut your mouth already, kid. Do you want to die? You are questioning royal knights here. If they hear you, they’ll cut off your head for sure."
"Silence," the leader of the royal knights thundered. He raised his hand and stopped everyone from moving. His gaze pierced into the distance. He scanned from left to right at a steady pace, as if he had sensed something and now wanted to be sure about what he had seen.
A few seconds later, the first figure showed up in the distance. It was Ren first, followed by the group: Ragna, Remu, Silas, Ryker, and Ezra, the full squad.
The leader of the knights stepped forward when he saw them, as if trying to separate himself from the rest and show that he was the leader.
Ren looked him right in the eye as they walked toward him. He had a subtle smile tugging at his lips.
They stopped, leaving a few meters between them, and in an instant, the air became tense, almost like a massive weight had fallen from the sky above.
Ren stared at the leader, their gazes locked for a solid minute before the leader of the knights spoke.
"I have an inkling that you are no normal monster. Do you perhaps know the reason that I am here?" the knight asked.
"Well, that’s the shittiest way to start a discussion. Let me teach you how to start one.
I am Ren Crimson, Dragon and Forest Lord over this region of the forest," Ren said clearly. He did not have the time to start playing games with anyone. He wanted this over as fast as possible.
Everyone standing there was stunned when they heard what Ren said.
The leader of the knights frowned, his hands clenched.
"Are you really a dragon, or are you trying to annoy me? I’ll kill you," he said, and his hand moved to his sword.
"If you pull that weapon, be ready to die," Ren stated in a calm voice.
The leader paused. He could tell that Ren was not playing around.
"I see, so this is no joke. I am Ken, a royal knight, and I was sent here to find the dragon that has shown up in this forest and ascertain what it wants and if it’s a threat."
"Do I look like a threat to you?" Ren asked.
Ken looked at him for a long moment, his eyes moving across Ren, across Ragna standing behind him, across Remu, Silas, Ryker, and Ezra arranged around them, and then back to Ren.
"That is what I am here to determine," Ken said.
"Is it?" Ren said.
He let the two words sit there and do their work, and then he looked at the formation behind Ken, at the royal knights with their hands near their weapons, at the adventurers behind them gripping their swords with the particular tension of people who had been paid to be here and were starting to question the wisdom of having accepted the payment.
"You brought a full army," Ren said. "To check."
Ken said nothing.
"You think I’m a fool," Ren said, not as a question. "You came here to ascertain what I want. That is what you said. But you brought this many bodies into my forest to do it." He tilted his head slightly. "There is no version of that where you were only planning to have a conversation."
Ken’s jaw tightened.
"You want the truth," he said after a moment.
"I’d find that refreshing, yes."
Ken’s posture shifted, something dropping away from it, the formal presentation of a knight on a diplomatic mission replaced by something more direct.
"The mission as stated was to investigate and assess," he said. "But everyone who received that mission understood what it actually meant. A dragon near a human settlement is not something that gets assessed and left alone." He kept his eyes on Ren. "Dragons are considered the peak of what this world produces. A single one in proximity to a populated area represents a level of potential destruction that no kingdom can afford to ignore. The scale of damage one dragon can cause goes beyond anything a normal threat would bring."
He paused.
"You needed to be contained before anything got out of hand. That was the real mission from the moment Lady Ezra gave it."
Ren looked at him for a moment.
Then he smirked.
Ezra stepped forward from behind him, her expression sharp and immediate.
"You want to contain my master?" she said, her voice carrying the particular edge of someone who had moved past irritation and arrived at something colder.
Ren raised his hand.
She stopped, jaw tight, eyes still locked on Ken.
Ren lowered his hand and looked back at Ken.
The aura that had been sitting quietly under the surface of the exchange rose on both sides simultaneously, the pressure of it pressing outward into the air between them, changing the quality of the silence, making the trees around them feel closer and the sky feel lower.
Behind Ken, the younger adventurer had gone completely still, his grip on his sword no longer a nervous habit but a genuine reflex, the kind that happened when a body understood something the mind was still catching up to.
Nobody moved.