I’m a humiliated, incompetent person, but I alone can talk to dragons, so I can choose all the SSS skills and loophole items I want to. I’m going to become famous and respected, so, to the people who humiliated me – Go die in a ditch - Chapter 14

Translator: Jasper Kadowaki | Editor: NovelMultiverse

People around us were audibly buzzing.

They saw a dragon tackle me in the street, and we had caused a stir. 

This was bad – too many people were watching. 

“Just come with me, for now,” I said. 

“…Uhhh! Okay!” said the dragon. 

“Louise, you too!”

“Wuh?” 

With a half asleep Louise and this new dragon asking for my help by my side, I headed back home. 

I hadn’t finished our job report, but there were more pressing matters at hand. 

As we got back to our property, we went straight to the dragon shed. 

Louise, swaying, slumped into her slime bed, which basically left the two of us alone. 

“So you’re… Emma, right?” I asked. 

“You remembered my name?!” she asked. 

“Yeah, of course.”

I’d left Lindworm a while ago, but I still remembered all the dragons I had conversations with, there. I remembered their names, too. 

Emma. 

She was a small-sized, Zmei-type dragon. 

Zmei-type dragons were especially small, even among small-sized dragons, but they were renowned for their abilities in combat, and most guilds had at least one of them. 

I faced Emma and asked her, “Why did you run away?”

“I can’t stand that place, anymore,” she said. 

“Why?”

“The other day, I felt under the weather,” she said. 

“Mmm,” I said, slightly nodding. 

This wasn’t a well-known fact, but dragons had “good days” and “bad days” when it came to how they felt physically. 

On bad days, dragons had trouble doing any kind of work, but on good days, they seemed to be able to work better than usual. 

Dragons were living things, after all, and this was a shared trait in all living things. For some reason, though, this wasn’t common knowledge. 

“I was having a particularly bad day, and I was trying to let my master know that I wanted to rest,” said Emma. 

“But your master wouldn’t accept it, huh?”

“Right,” Emma said in a small voice, nodding. 

There was a hint of rage in her eyes. 

“My master forced me to work, and I almost injured myself, badly,” she said. 

“That’s terrible,” I said. 

“Not only that, I messed up at my job, and I heard the GM talking about me.”

“The GM? What’d he say?”

“A dragon that makes mistakes is no good. If it makes one more mistake, work it to death or dispose of it.” 

“Despicable, as usual,” I said, furrowing my brow. Lindworm always viewed their dragons as tools to be used by humans and nothing else. 

I had stood up to that way of thinking, got into a fight, and was kicked out of their guild. 

I guess this meant that they had not changed their ways since I had left… Well, I didn’t expect them to change, anyways. It really was thoughtless of them, though. Humans couldn’t understand dragons’ speech, but dragons could understand human language. That was a well-known fact among humans, proven through everyday events and scientific experiments. 

Despite that, the GM of Lindworm still used terms like “work it to death” or “getting rid of it” while in earshot of dragons. 

Put plainly… There was only so much one could attribute to incompetence. 

“So that’s why you ran away,” I said. 

“Yes, it’s just… I can’t stay there any longer. I had heard that you visit City Hall every day, so I was waiting for you here, Cyril-san,” said Emma. 

“Mmm.”

“Please, Cyril-san! Let me stay with you!”

“Here?”

“Please! I’ll do anything!”

“Hmm.”

I folded my arms over my chest and a pensive look came over me. 

Let Emma stay here.

That would mean a dragon transfer. It would be a transfer from one guild to another. 

It wasn’t unheard of. Dragon markets existed, and dragons that had previously belonged to guilds were often sold there. Even if a dragon belonged to a guild, there were many times when, depending on the situation, they could be transferred to a different owner. 

It was possible, but…

It was a simple matter in some ways, but a very complicated one, in other ways. First of all, there were no established rules or regulations on dragon transfers. It was basically just an agreement between the two parties involved, and it came down to whether they could come up with a contract involving money or some other kind of payment. 

In that way, it was a very simple matter. However, in practice, it often ended up quite complicated. 

It would be complicated in this case, considering my relationship with Lindworm. I had been kicked out of their guild, and now, I was harboring an escaped dragon of theirs. These facts by themselves made the situation difficult to navigate. 

I wondered if Lindworm would even hear me out if I came to them with a proposed negotiation…

As I was thinking these things over, suddenly, I heard something at the door. 

It was a loud banging at the door, coming from the house. It sounded violent, and whoever was doing it made no efforts to hide the fact that they were hostile. 

“Ah,” I said. 

“Th-they’re here?” said Emma, slightly shaken. 

“Yeah, that’s what it seems like.”

“Cyril-san…” said Emma, now scared, and looking at me with imploring eyes. 

I pat Emma on the head to calm her down. 

“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it,” I said. 

As I said so, Emma’s eyes brightened. Her eyes were lit up with hope.

“Really?!” she asked. 

“Yeah,” I said, nodding confidently. 

“I promise you that I’ll somehow get you transferred over to me. Trust me,” I said. 

“Thank you so much!” 

“Wait here, okay?”

“All right!”

I left Emma and exited the dragon shed, walked around the house, and headed to the entrance. 

Standing there was someone I recognized. 

It was Rui. 

When I met his gaze, I saw that he had an aggravated look of contempt in his eye. 

“What do you want?” I asked him. 

“Don’t act dumb. There were plenty of witnesses. I know that one of my dragons is here.”

“I’m not acting dumb. If you mean Emma, I’ve given her a safe place to lay low.”

“Bring her out, then. I’ll take her home.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“The hell do you mean?” said Rui, glaring at me. 

“I want Emma transferred over to me.”

“Would you stop with the funny shit?”

“I’m not trying to be funny.”

“…You’re serious.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll ask you one more time. You seriously… You really want to stir up trouble with Lindworm?”

“I don’t intend to throw an escapee into the dragon’s maw.”

Rui’s eyebrows shot up. His eyes were wide and bloodshot. 

I had basically given him a declaration of war. The phrase “into the dragon’s maw” was a common way of saying “into the clutches of evil”. Before the establishment of the custom of breeding dragons, dragons were fearsome beasts to humans. 

Countless humans had died at the gnashing jaws of dragons, and so this phrase of being thrown “into the dragon’s maw” came about.

I glared at Rui.[Read this novel and other amazing translated novels from the original source at the “Novel Multiverse dot com” website @ novelmultiverse.com]

“I heard what happened. Don’t you feel sorry for her at all?” I asked. 

“Feel sorry for her?”

“I heard the GM was saying things like ‘work it to death’.”

“The hell? Who told you that?”

If I said that I heard it from Emma herself, Rui wouldn’t believe me, and he would just ridicule me further. It wouldn’t help the situation, so I stopped myself from answering honestly. 

“Where there’s smoke there’s fire. That’s how the saying goes, right?” I said. 

“So what?”

“I can’t give Emma up to a GM like that,” I said, with a firm expression. “Go and tell them what I’ve said. I’ll have Emma transferred over to me. We’ll negotiate a contract.”

“Are you… Are you fucking serious?”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding resolutely. 

“You’re talking crazy. I don’t need to listen to this bullshit.”

“I said, go back and tell them what I’ve said.”

“Hell no. Move!” said Rui, pushing past me to get inside the dragon shed. 

He opened the door and stepped in. 

“EEEE!” screamed Emma, terrified. 

It was… quite a reaction. 

“Master?” Louise, on the other hand, just sleepily raised her head.  She glanced over at the menacing intruder and said, “Who’s this guy?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. 

“Is he your enemy, master?” asked Louise. 

“I suppose he is,” I said, nodding a bit. 

“What the hell are you doing?” asked Rui. 

“Master’s enemy… Die,” said Louise. With her eyes still drooping, she opened her mouth, and in an instant, a javelin of light came blasting out. 

The javelin headed straight at Rui. 

He dodged it in a panic. 

“What the fuck are you doing?!” Rui screamed at me. 

I looked back at Rui coolly and said, “…Nothing. You illegally broke into my dragon shed, and my dragon fired at you in self-defense.”

“You son of a…” Rui looked even more enraged than he had been, but he couldn’t do anything. 

Firing at an illegal intruder was a common occurrence at any dragon shed. Dragons were, by far, much more powerful than humans. On top of that, most guilds considered dragons expensive property. Almost all guilds had some sort of automatic defenses set up to protect their property. 

No human would listen to any complaints against a system that defended their property against illegal intrusion. Rui, therefore, couldn’t say anything in response.

“Go and tell them what I said,” I said. 

“…You just wait. You’ll be in tears, soon enough,” said Rui, turning around and striding out of the dragon shed. 

  ☆

An hour hadn’t even gone by before the GM of Lindworm came over. 

Dicky Raj. 

He was a middle-aged man, turning forty this year. He presented himself as a great hero. 

Dicky came into the house, and I sat down with him at my living room table. 

“I’ve heard the situation. So, you want Emma transferred over to you?” asked Dicky. 

“Yeah,” I said, nodding confidently. 

“For what?” he asked. 

“I can’t bear to see her ‘worked to death’,” I said. 

“Where’d you hear that?”

“It doesn’t matter. Is that important, right now?” I said, staring back at Dicky. 

He glared at me a little and said, “Hmm… You’re right.” He let that point go, immediately. 

“At the end of the day, you’re just a difficult person, aren’t you?” asked Dicky. 

“Call me whatever you like. What are we going to do about Emma, though?” I asked. 

“Hmm, I have no need for something that useless. Once a dragon has been poisoned with incompetence, it becomes completely useless.”

“Then I’ll have her transferred over to me.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Dicky said, trying to make it clear that he had the upper hand. “That dragon is Lindworm’s property. If we just let you have it for nothing, it would be bad for our reputation.”

“How much do you want me to pay?” I asked, bluntly. 

“It’s not about money.”

“What?”

“When you’re asking someone for a favor, you should do it with the proper attitude.”

I didn’t respond. I got up without saying a word, and bowed to Dicky. 

“Please,” I said, being careful with my words, “hand Emma over to me.” I bowed even lower in a serious plea. 

I thought that this was what he wanted from me. I was about half correct. 

“That’s not enough,” said Dicky. 

“What?”

“You can do better than that, can’t you?” said Dicky, in a cocky voice. 

I had guessed correctly at what Dicky had wanted, but I hadn’t taken it far enough. 

Not enough… More than what I’ve just done… That must mean…

I barely had to think about it. I threw myself to the ground and got on my hands and knees, touching my forehead to the floor. 

“Please, hand Emma over to me,” I said. 

“Wow. You’re really going to lower yourself that far just for some tool?”

I stayed silent and didn’t talk back. 

I could have easily retorted that these dragons weren’t tools at all… But this wasn’t the time or place for that. 

I kept my mouth shut and my head to the ground, and that seemed to have worked. 

“You like things too much. Fine, have it your way,” said Dicky, contemptuously. He made sure he had the last word, as he got up quickly, and left the house. 

I stood up. 

All right, well that’s over with, I thought as I left the house and went around to the dragon shed. 

When I got back to the dragon shed, I saw Emma looking like she was sorry for causing trouble. Louise seemed to be enraged, and at some point, Colette had come back to join them. 

“You’re back,” I said to Colette. 

“Who’s this kid?” she said, seemingly annoyed.

“Master, why would you bow down to that man?” asked Louise. 

“If that’s what it takes to get Emma, it’s no big deal,” I said. 

“No big deal? Isn’t getting on your hands and knees a huge deal for humans? I think I heard something like that, once,” said Louise. 

“Not really,” I said, casually. “I mean, I wouldn’t do it for no reason, but if that’s what I need to do to help Emma, then I’ll do it, again, gladly.”

“Cyril-san…” said Emma, looking as though she was deeply moved. 

I smiled at her and said, “You’re free now, Emma!”

“Thank you so much!” she said. 

“What’ll you do, now?” I asked. 

“What?” she said. 

“What?” I asked. 

Why was she so surprised?

“Um… Cyril-san. Would it be too much of me to ask to stay here with you?” she asked. 

“Oh, that’s what you mean,” I said. “No, well, I thought there might be some other place you want to go.”

“I don’t have anywhere else to go!” she stated strongly. She almost tipped forward, she was so adamant. “I want to stay here with you, Cyril-san!”

“All right. Well, welcome, then,” I said. 

Emma nodded, happily. 

And thus, our house… no, our guild, “Dragons First”, ushered in our third member. 

“But that guy really pissed me off,” said Louise. 

“Maybe one day we’ll get a chance to take him out,” said Colette. 

As usual, Louise and Colette were having a disturbing conversation… I’d have to warn them to take that down a notch, later. This whole ordeal was over, now. There was no reason to hold any grudges. 

As I was thinking that, suddenly, light started pouring out of the three dragons’ bodies. 

The light shined so bright within the dragon shed that it was hard to keep one’s eyes open. 

“What’s going on?!” I yelled. 

When the light died down, there appeared an egg, sat between the three dragons. 

It was ball-sized, and it seemed too small to be a dragon egg. 

“What is this?” I said, in wonder at how strange the situation was. When I picked the egg up, it started shining, too. 

The egg’s shell glowed brightly, and then it melted. The egg disappeared, and when the light died down, a ring remained in my hand.

“What’s this ring?” I said. 

“That’s – I think that might be an artifact!” said Louise. 

“An artifact?” I said. 

We all looked down at the ring I held, and we stood there, in shock and awe. [Read this novel and other amazing translated novels from the original source at the “Novel Multiverse dot com” website @ novelmultiverse.com]