Lily stared with her huge sheep eyes at everything happening in front of her.
The demon dragon spat out a ball of fire and burned the knight who had just tried to buy her into ash.
Now the demon dragon was pressing Leif down, doing who-knew-what to her.
Lily was a refined little ewe. Aside from her slightly inelegant hobby of kicking people’s butts, she was usually calm and composed, never flustered. This time, though, she was truly terrified. She bolted toward the woods not far away, tumbling and scrambling, bleating shrilly as she ran—terrified that if the demon dragon noticed her, she’d end up as roast lamb on a spit.
The flax-haired girl carefully licked every cut on Leif’s hands and cheeks. Dragon saliva had a mild numbing effect, and after a few moments of tense fear, Leif was forced to relax.
The wounds began to itch, then quickly closed and healed.
After drifting through a few brief dreams—Leif had to admit she’d just dreamed of lemon tea, because the dragon carried a fresh, fruity scent—she opened her eyes and found herself staring into a pair of amber-gold eyes, luminous and shifting with light.
For a moment, time seemed to stop.
Leif’s heartbeat, which had only just slowed as if sinking back into sleep, surged into a gallop again.
Calm down.
This is a demon dragon.
Exhale.
Find every possible chance to kill her.
Her fingers stealthily stretched toward the machete lying in the grass.
A light breeze rippled across the meadow. On this bright spring day, everything was brimming with life.
The dragon girl drowsily narrowed her eyes and gently pressed down the fingers that had just managed to hook the machete. She was utterly exhausted. Her head tilted into the hollow of Leif’s neck, and she actually fell asleep like that. Soft, shallow breaths brushed against Leif’s nape.
A bleat sounded in the distance.
The brown-haired shepherd girl shook off her dizziness and jolted upright. The dragon still had a firm grip on the hem of her clothes, so Leif had no choice but to cut off a piece of fabric. She snatched up her machete, gripping it tightly, stared at the deceptively innocent sleeping face of the dragon girl, and took several deep breaths.
This was an evil dragon.
Even if she had an innocent face.
Leif still ought to kill her.
Saving her had been a mistake, and now it was Leif’s job to end that mistake.
And while she was at it, she could settle the regrets of her previous life—that was the real reason.
Leif watched her own arm rise, blade in hand, and to her annoyance, she hesitated for a full second like a coward.
She gritted her teeth and brought the machete down on the dragon several times, each swing harder than the last.
The demon dragon remained completely unharmed. Instead, the blows bounced back and knocked the machete aside.
In the dragon’s hand, she still tightly clutched a scrap of cloth—coarse homespun, common in the countryside, light gray, all wrinkled like a tiny rag.
Leif sighed, picked the machete up with a frustrated scowl, slid it back into its sheath, then turned toward the direction Lily had fled and ran after her.
By the time Leif led Lily back—Lily still shaking all over from fright—the dragon that had been sleeping peacefully in the grass was already gone.
She looked down at the scorched traces the dragonfire had Leift on the ground: the charred grass was still brown-black, not yet recovered even now. It didn’t match the scene she’d imagined.
It hinted that from this moment on, the entire world would be different.
–
Ede Village had no idea what had just happened ten miles away. It remained as peaceful and quiet as ever.
Today, this nameless little village felt a bit more festive thanks to the arrival of the old priest, Riley Bilbom.
The old priest wore a red clerical robe and sported a white goatee. On his chest gleamed the insignia granted by the Holy Temple. Two young, taciturn assistant priests in black robes followed at his back.
His parish included three villages, Ede among them. Aside from presiding over weddings and funerals and collecting taxes, Riley and his two assistants had one more duty.
Every parish had to send one trainee knight each year, but their parish’s quota had been empty for several years in a row. That had the old priest rather anxious.
In the past few days he had already gone to speak with the other two villages. Now he had arrived at Ede—whose residents were the most honest and also the most timid of the three. In the thirty years he’d overseen this parish, no knight had ever come out of Ede Village.
The villagers were clearly more interested in his old stories than in becoming knights, but the old priest cleared his throat, opened his proclamation booklet—he still decided to give it a try.
–
Leif remembered that today was the day the old priest visited the villagers, and decided to go ask his advice.
If the Temple’s story collections contained legends of demon dragons, then the old priest might know how to deal with one.
She had barely stepped into the village when a young man blocked her path.
This was Gary, Leif’s neighbor. His parents and older siblings had always taken good care of her. Not long after Grandma Samantha passed away—during last year’s harvest festival, in fact—they had brought a huge bucket of boiled potatoes with eggs to the hungry Leif.
Like all the men in Ede Village, Gary had a head of stiff, coarse hair, a sturdy build, and a simple, honest temperament. A few cute freckles dotted his face.
Normally, whenever he heard the priest was coming, Gary was always the first to run over. Today, though, he was hiding alone near the village entrance, all furtive and suspicious. Very unlike him.
When he saw Leif, his round face flushed red. Shuffling awkwardly toward her, he pulled a flower wreath from behind his back.
“Leif.”
Before Leif could dodge, Gary suddenly dropped to one knee.
“Marry me! Girls always refuse the first time they’re proposed to. But I know you like me.”
“Gary, don’t joke around.” Leif’s heart had already gone through intensive training today, but she still hadn’t expected so many things to crash down on her all in one day.
She had just watched a noble who wanted her dead burn to ash right before her eyes, then had been taken advantage of by a demon dragon—and she couldn’t tell anyone about any of that. And now, on top of everything else, she had to deal with a proposal.
Leif said, “You know I’ve never thought about getting married.”
Gary didn’t care what Leif said. He just rattled off the lines he’d prepared.
“We’ll be together, and then we’ll raise lots of cattle and sheep, and have lots of children…”
“Please move,” Leif struggled to control Lily, who was pawing the ground, itching to kick, “I’m serious—just step aside first, all right?”
“Leif,” Gary grabbed Lily, trying to use her to make Leif stop, “you don’t have any family Leift. You need a man to take care of you. You’re sixteen, already an adult. I think it’s time I confessed my feelings—say yes, Leif, I won’t look down on you for not being reserved enough. But if you don’t marry soon, you’ll end up an old maid.”
Lily was already badly shaken, and now Gary’s grip hurt. She immediately lifted a hoof and kicked him square in the butt, snorting through her nose.
Gary was kicked sprawling. He scrambled back up and grabbed Leif’s wrist, still unwilling to give up.
“Leif, have you fallen for Lied? Or Luke…”
He almost ran through the list of every unmarried young man in the village.
“But which of them is better than me, Leif?”
Leif had to admit, Gary had a point.
Local custom said girls should marry at fifteen or sixteen, and boys a bit later, at seventeen or eighteen. There were only a handful of unmarried youths in the whole village to begin with, and among them, Gary was the most outstanding in both character and looks.
For the first few months after Grandma Samantha died, no one mentioned marriage to Leif. But after that, when the playmates she’d grown up with started getting married and having children one by one—even the slowest of them had at least gotten engaged—Leif suddenly became the only one in the village “not yet spoken for.”
Whenever she stepped outside, she could feel the older generation’s furtive, flickering stares. Wherever she passed, people would start whispering and pointing.
She knew that as soon as she walked away, there would be a long, “concerned” discussion.
Leif was thick-skinned and hadn’t paid much attention. But then the young men began showing interest more and more often. Their parents had told them she was pitiful, alone after losing her grandmother, and that she was diligent and hardworking, willing to endure hardship—if staying up at night because she couldn’t sleep and passing the time by sharpening her machete counted as diligence—so she certainly had the makings of a good wife.
The boys quickly realized that what she sharpened was a man-splitting machete, not a weed-cutting sickle, and were frightened off—everyone except Gary.
Leif thought that if today hadn’t happened, if she’d just stayed in Ede Village, eventually public pressure would have forced her to marry. And when that time came, her best choice might indeed have been Gary.
Gary was excellent in every way, but she had absolutely no desire to marry him. Especially after he said he wanted to “have lots of children” with her.
In Leif’s memory, Gary’s mother always had a nursing child in her arms. Her chest was forever damp with spilled milk and baby drool. Her belly would swell up again before she’d even finished nursing the last one. She always pointed at the child in her arms and cursed them as “little bloodsuckers,” yet within a year she’d be pregnant with another.
Gary’s mother already had more than ten children; Gary was her fifth son. As far as Leif could remember, she had nearly died in childbirth several times. Though she was only in her early forties, she looked well past sixty.
So when Gary said, “we’ll have lots of children,” to Leif it sounded like a horror story.
She had no intention of becoming another Gary’s mother. Which meant she needed another path besides marriage.
“Leif, don’t tell me you want to marry Old Felian?” Gary’s suspicions had even reached the nearly seventy-year-old widower. He knew Leif would never go after a married man, so that only Leift Old Felian.
“No, dear Gary.” Leif’s tone was firm. “To be honest, I prefer big breasts.”
Gary planted his two thick fists on his own chest and stared, baffled, at Leif’s retreating back.
“…”
–
The old priest had just about worn out his tongue. He’d talked about the honor and glory of knighthood, a knight’s loyalty to the king and queen, the thrilling battles against evil creatures. In the end there was always a beautiful lady—what girl didn’t want to marry a hero—who would be captivated by the knight’s charm and build a happy family with him.
After that, the knight and his new bride would enjoy the service of their retainers and live happily ever after on his fief.
Seeing the villagers’ utterly indifferent faces, the old priest said,
“If I hadn’t been called to the Temple when I was young to serve as a cleric, I definitely would have buckled on a sword, mounted a fine steed, learned the art of dragon-slaying, and gone to save my princess—and in the end, the knight would bring glory and his new bride…”
“Baa… baa…”
A few bleats suddenly sounded from the back of the crowd craning their necks to listen.
“Father!”
Leif raised both hands high. She’d run over in such a hurry that she was slightly out of breath; a faint blush warmed her face, and a fine sheen of sweat covered her brow.
Everyone, including the old priest, turned to look at her. Their eyes were wide with astonishment.
The brown-haired, black-eyed shepherd girl said,
“Please allow me to take a bit of your time. I’d like to apply to become a trainee knight!”
The old priest adjusted his glasses and looked at Leif, then haltingly repeated the last line he’d just said.
“And in the end, the knight would bring glory and… uh… his new bride…”
