73-Episode 68: The Strongest Onmyoji Examine





 Protoasta was a bustling but historic city.
 Unlike Rodnea, which is relatively new in its development, and the Imperial City, which was burned to the ground by a large fire in the past, there are many old buildings that remain.

 I wanted to do some sightseeing or something, but as expected, I was too tired that day to have the energy to do so.
 There was no such thing as a dinner. The prince also said he would take a break soon, without dealing with the political affairs that had piled up.
 Well, that's not surprising.


****


 And the next day.
 Me and Yifa came to the library built in the old castle.

 The purpose, of course, was to look up the records of the dragons.

 We expected to find more documents in this city than we could find in Rodnea, but we were surprised to find an even more impressive library than we had expected. It seems that most of the books in Astiria have been made into manuscripts and gathered here.

 Thanks to this, searching for literature is a challenge.
 That said, I was able to find more material than I expected.

 Now we're in the middle of examining the contents.
 Yifa is also helping me with this. But she can't read our ancient language, so it's not as fast as I expected.

''Well rather, Seika-kun, where did you learn that stuff?
In the stacks at the house.

 It's one of the different languages I learned as a child.
 I can't speak or hear it, but I can read and write it without any problems.
 The official language of the empire is used in Astiria now, but when it was recorded more than a hundred years ago, there was a lot of archaic material.

 And the older the book, the more information it contained that he didn't know.
 Some of them seemed important.

Seika-kun my share is done. Did you find out anything about that one?

 Yifa walks over, looking tired.
 There was quite a bit of literature in the official language alone. But I didn't get anything out of it," he says.

 I nod.

I nod and say, "Yes. "Yes," I said, "it looks like something like this happened about a hundred and fifty years ago.

 The dragons of Astiria are said to have been born hundreds of years ago, although there is no clear record of their birth.
 It is said to have been hatched from an egg by the queen, but it is not certain. What is certain is that for hundreds of years after it became an adult, it lived with the city's inhabitants, establishing its territory around the mountains.

 That changed a little over two hundred years ago.

 At one point, another dragon arrived in the territory.
 At first, the Astyrian dragon chased the unwanted intruder away, but eventually came to live with him in the mountains where he lived.
 The male Astylia's dragon was the male and the female the new one was the female.

 Once the female dragons became watchdogs, they no longer showed interest in the people of the city.
 The inhabitants, who had been afraid of the dragon at first, gradually began to accept it, and life returned to normal.

 But after fifty years or so, the dragons changed again.
 Both of them became more cautious, attacking stray livestock and threatening people from the outside.
 Just like now.

 That was a hundred and fifty years ago.
 At the time, it wasn't long before I found out why.
 One day, about a year or so after he had been acting strangely, I began to see a baby dragon in the mountains where he lived.

'Oh, so you're saying it was to raise a baby?'
I suppose that's what it means.

 It's not unusual for creatures to become fussy before spawning or while raising their young.
 It may have been attacking the livestock, and the magic of the land wasn't enough to build up their strength.

 The child dragons grew well.
 Spawning seemed to have taken place at several different times, and some of the children born first were seen taking care of those born later.

 As they grew older, the child dragons left the nest.
 There is no record of where they went. But it is certain that they went to a distant land anyway.

 After all the baby dragons had left the nest, and nearly fifty more years had passed - the female dragon died.

 The records say she died of natural causes.
 I don't know if monsters have a life span. The only thing is that even demons, such as pipe foxes, eventually die when they give birth to their young. Maybe it was something close to that.

 Since then, the dragons of Astiria have become much more docile.
 Their territory was much smaller than before, and their aggression towards the enemies and monsters of the city had died down completely.
 This was about a hundred years ago now.

 This was also the reason why Astiria became a vassal state of the Empire in the first place.
 At that time, it was a time when the demon race was showing signs of invasion.
 With several of their forts dropped and unable to rely on the dragons, who were the absolute guardians of the royal city, Astiria entered under their patronage by forming an analogous relationship with the imperial royalty and inviting their armies into the country.
 It was a form of substantial domination, but it was probably not a substitute for a backbone.
 It seems that the demon tribe's army was worth it, and gave up on further invasion and withdrew.

 Shortly after that, the city was moved to a new location for administrative reasons, and this city became the old royal capital.
 Even today, the land is still owned by the king, and it is customary for a chieftain elected by the royal family to rule it. Right now, Prince Cecilio is it.

 For a long time, the dragons of Astiria must have simply watched the various changes in the city in silence.
 Until recently.

''That's right... but that doesn't really have much to do with what happened this time, does it?

 Yifa says.

'That's the only dragon you have right now, isn't it?
Yeah. And the one we have now is a male. I don't think he's raising a child. It's just, hey...

 I don't see how it's not relevant.
 Just a hunch, as usual.

 In times like these you have to take action.

"I'm going to climb the mountain.
'What! Ya, mountains........you don't think dragons live there?
Yeah.

 It's best to visit the site and see the dragons up close in person.
 It's all about observation, whether it's biology or the study of ghosts,

 Yifa says, stunned.

''Oh, it's dangerous. No matter how many Seika-kuns you have, they're no match for a dragon...''
I'm not going to fight them. If they see you, just run. You may not win, but it's not that hard.

 The truth is, though, if I wanted to, I could take it down.

Really? Well then, I'm going to have to....
'No, Yifa will have to wait. Maybe it won't take more than a day, and it's not safe indeed.

 He might have to use a technique or a demon that he didn't want to show too much.
 The situation was indeed different from when he entered the mountains to search for demonic stones in the territory.

''Ah, haha, that's right.......''

 I laugh and say to Yifa, who looks a little depressed, as if she's worried about me getting angry, "Don't worry about it.

Don't worry about it," he says. "Don't worry about it, I wasn't planning to take you to the mountains in the first place. It's your summer vacation, so just take it easy.
Yes.

 Yifa nodded in a daze.

 Hmmm ..................I think I went a little overboard yesterday.