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Volume 3 Chapter 103

 

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Translator: ranzan

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Chapter 103 – Great Dragon Zombie Corpse

The next morning we headed to the capital.

Vi-Vi didn’t come out of my room.

Moofy came out of Vi-Vi’s room with the food Vi-Vi ate alone last night.

Vi-Vi, Cruz, and Moofy would stay in the town.

Only I would need to wear a mask.

It would be a bit embarrassing as Vi-Vi usually was always masked alongside of me.

When we arrived at Cruz’ mansion, Luka looked at my knee with a worried look and said,

「You want to ride Femm?」

「No, that would be a bit too noticeable in the city. I’ll walk to the gate.」

「Okay.」

Whenever we were in town, Femm was its smaller size. This way it only looked like a large dog.

However, if it went back to its horse size, people would know that it was a powerful magical beast.

And believe me…everyone would be scared.

「Should we talk to the injured adventurers from yesterday?」

「Good idea.」

We didn’t get a chance to ask much as they were very injured.

We might get to know something if we ask them again.

「Okay, let’s go!」

「Hey, wait a sec!」

Luka picked me up in one arm and started running.

I could feel her boob against my back…but I guess she wasn’t embarrassed by that.

She sped away from Yureena, running. Femm ran alongside us, happily.

In an instant, we were at the church.

「We’re all going to the same place…so why didn’t you wait for Yureena?」

「You know…you’re right.」

But Yureena caught us after a moment.

As a member of the party, Yureena had pretty fast legs as well.

「Wheeze wheeze…why did you leave me behind like that!?」

「You should get some exercise sometimes…you’ve gotten plump.」

「I AM NOT PLUMP! AND I DO EXERCISE!」

Yureena was pretty pissed at that comment.

And all this talk why Luka was still holding me.

「Hey, Luka…why not let me down?」

「Oh, sorry…I forgot.」

She dropped me and said,

「Pretty fast, right?」

「Yeah, but…」

I gave up trying to complain.

My leg did hurt enough to keep me from running. Since Luka knew that, she probably thought it would be fast to just carry me.

I then turned and spoke to Yureena.

「We want to talk to the adventurers from yesterday, so we may need you.」

「No problem, follow me.」

Yureena was already a holy maiden of the church. With her around, we basically had full access to the church.

We were quickly taken to the adventurers from yesterday.

「Luka, and wolf…thanks for yesterday.」

「As I said, we adventurers are supposed to look after each other.」

I guess they meant me when they said wolf. It was funny to see Femm jump a bit as it thought they were talking to it at first.

I couldn’t allow my presence to be known by my voice, so I just stood beside Luka.

I let her take care of all the conversation.

「I wanted to ask some more about how you encountered that great dragon…」

「Yes, well just as…」

The adventurer looked at me with a serious face, and began to recall the story.

They were late in completing their quest, and since the gates of the capital had closed, they decided to camp out next to the river.

After a while, a great dragon appeared.

「Did you see anyone else?」

「No one at all.」

「Not even a devil?」

「No, nothing.」

「Okay, thanks.」

We finished asking the questions we needed and left the church.

Luka had a ponderous face while she said,

「No one saw a devil….」

「If the devil was using concealment magic, it wouldn’t be strange if they saw nothing.」

「Well, let’s start by checking out the riverside now.」

After we left the church, we went to the place where we had fought the great dragons by the riverside.

Luka carried me right up to the city gates…how embarrassing.

She let me down as we walked outside the city.

「Femm.」

『I guess I have to…』

Femm got larger.

It wagged its tail back and forth.

「Wuff wuff」

「ryaa ryaa」

Femm ran along happily, while Shiggy stuck its head out into the breeze.

I guess it really did like to feel it.

We quickly made it to where the dragons were defeated.

「We checked around here yesterday…but we need to look again.」

「Yeah, we might find something now that we have light.」

But…there was no new discovery.

After looking around some more, we crossed the river and looked around.

Femm sniffed the heck out of the ground looking for clues.

After about 30 minutes of Femm sniffing the earth, its tail stuck straight up.

『I’ve found the smell of the forest hermit.』

「Oh! Good job, Femm!」

「Wow!」

「Wuff wuff」

Femm happily wagged its tail at all the compliments.

I got back on Femm, and Femm took off running.

After about 20 minutes running, Femm said,

『A smell.』

「What kind?」

『Something rotten.』

「Like zombies?」

『More rotten than zombies. It’s hurting my ability to sniff out the forest hermit’s smell.』

Something that smelled worse than zombies? Quite a stench…

After running a bit more, the smell became so strong even I could smell it.

「Oh crap…it reeks!」

「It does stink!」

「ryaa」

Luka’s face looked sour. Shiggy didn’t look happy at the smell either.

After a little more, we found the source of the stench.

「Is this, another group of great dragons?」

「Yeah, and how many?」

「It looks to be about 20, as far as I can see.」

「…what the hell happened here?」

Luka and I searched around the many corpses of great dragons.

Shiggy’s head was out for a bit, but then plunged back into my pocket. It must have smelled all it could take.

Femm was trying to cover its nose too. It smelled that badly.

「20 great dragon corpses, and this close to the capital. This is going to be trouble for the guild, that’s for sure.」

「…I don’t like the feel of this.」

Luka said with a face of pure dissatisfaction.

The corpses of the great dragon had all been killed quite a while ago.

「These all have been dead for quite some time.」

「The newest dead of all of them was killed at least a week ago.」

「It was zombified?」

「It’s to rotted, I can’t tell. I’d have to take it back for research.」

A lot of zombies would rot as well. However, they would rot in a slightly different way than a normal dead corpse.

And with them being this rotten…you can’t really tell the difference.

Femm covered its nose and said,

『It’s a zombie.』

「You can tell?」

『Yes, their stench has a special scummy smell.』

「…scum?」

I wondered what Femm meant by ‘scum.’ I had no idea.

It probably was just an expression that comes with having strong smelling ability like Femm’s.

「If Femm says it’s a zombie, than it probably is one.」

「Yeah, Femm’s right.」

Luka took a sample of the dragon’s flesh with her to be studied.

Either way, we could trust the nose of a heavenly wolf king.

After seeing the magical wolves eat that almost-zombied hydra, I bet Femm wanted to forget how much the wolves were in agony afterwards.

「Luka, tell me when you’re done with your sample. We’ll burn these things.」

「Sure…they stink.」

『Yes, they do. Foul creatures.』

「ryaa ryaaa」

The bodies of the great dragons were huge…and there were 20 of them.

With this much dead flesh…there’s no doubt it would become a hotbed of disease.

There was also the threat of magic mice eating the flesh and reproducing like crazy.

This might have also been the reason why so many small beasts attacked us as we chased the forest hermit.

『We don’t need to take battle spoils right? We can just burn it?』

「Well, all this…really stinks. I don’t want anything.」

「All the stuff we could use like scales and the liver are all rotted. And they STINK!」

『Right.』

Femm agreed with us.

And it still had its paw over its nose.

「ryaaa!」

Shiggy cried from inside the pocket. It was an unnatural sound. It was probably trying to hide from the smell.

I began summoning my magic power in order to burn away the bodies with fire.

I wanted to burn it all away with the hottest fire, but I instead used a lighter fire so it wouldn’t spread out of control.

「I guess I should also surround the fire in a magic barrier…」

I said to myself as I did so, then,

「Fools! I’ve finally found you! Now you shall pay!!」

A large lion appeared before us.

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