Conquest

Chapter 15 Bro is going to take you on a dragon hunt ~

Translator: Yi-chan

Editor: Tchu

Shaar was getting annoyed.

With his backhand, he forcefully slapped Bidaldo’s face. Two teeth instantly flew out and that poor magician screeched in a pitifully tone.”Do you think I can be easily deceived? Hidden treasure? Who do you think I am? A three-year-old boy? There are thousands, if not millions of legends about hidden treasures in Primal Wildfire that I had heard of over the decade. Only kids would believe these stories. With a silver coin, you could buy eighteen different treasure maps in the taverns of Primal Wildfire! Besides, I heard everything you said on the tree just now. You are just here to hunt some Ferocious Lions! Or am I wrong?!” Shaar was enraged.

Bidaldo covered his bloody mouth and cursed Shaar’s ancestors in his heart, yet did not dare to show a trace of anger on his face and started begging:” Everything I said is true…..Master Bandit, your Excellency, well……We just arrived here from the Royal Capital and my companions are all scions of noble families. They hardly have any experience in the real world and consider themselves experts among other young aristocrats, but actually do not possess any real abilities……”

“Huh? At the very least you are someone who understood things and know that your companions are all idiots.”Shaar got a little bit curious.

Still covering his face, Bidaldo bitterly smiled: “Certainly I know. They are nobles and other people easily accept it when they are ignorant of the world. By randomly practicing some martial arts, they would get flattered by their family servants who are competing with each other to make their master favour them. When time went by, they automatically started to consider themselves as masters. However, I am a certified magician of the church. Although I merely reached the first level, I understand my limits.”

When he paused, he immediately discovered that Shaar was getting impatient. Bidaldo did not dare to make more idle talk and quickly continued:” I incited them to go out this time and convinced them that since we are four masters, we should start travelling around the world and spreading our fame to every corner of the continent. I told them that it was the way to become known in the world and these fellows were easily fooled and got tempted to leave their homes in search of adventures……” The magician’s face reddened and he said with a bitter smile: “Of course there was a reason for me to do this. Since I am a low level magician, nobody would hire me when there are numerous high-level master magicians in Royal Capital. The only way for me to earn a living is to cheat those young nobles. However, a few days ago, I got information from the magician guild and I can vouch that the source is absolutely reliable!”

“Despite my humble strength, my teacher is a real intermediate- level magician and quiet famous in the empire. On that day I heard from my senior that our teacher would leave us for some time. He told me that our teacher would go on a long journey together with several well-renown master magicians from the Royal Capital. After my continuous nagging, my senior finally gave in and told me the truth when we were drinking in the tavern. The truth was, my teacher and other magicians are coming to Primal Wildfire.”

Bidaldo’s eyes suddenly sparkled with excitement:”I learnt that they made an important discovery in the Primal Wildfire! My teacher and the empire’s master magicians are coming here to examine it!”

Reaching the end of his patience, Shaar asked: “After all that talking, what the hell does it have to do with a secret of treasure?!”

Seeing Shaar raising his palm again, Bidaldo immediately covered his face: “No! No! Please don’t slap me! Please, I’m about to come to the point……”

His heart began to fill itself with a huge sense of grievance. Did he not understand that even a low-level magician was considered a magician……

Swallowing his complain, he quickly continued:“ The treasure certainly exists……that important discovery found in Primal Wildfire is……”

Stopping mid sentence, he could not help but stop for a second, gave Shaar a proud look and then slowly uttered the answer:

“It is a dragon!”

Dragon?

Hearing the answer, a solemn expression was shown across Shaar’s face!

Dragon? A real dragon?

Even though he had not seen a dragon before ……Of course, most people would hardly see a real dragon in their life and those who had mostly won’t survive to tell the tale.

On the continent, dragon counted as almost an untouchable existence. Shaar had heard of various kinds of legends in taverns of Primal Wildfire Town. At the heart of every story, there was a legendary hero who would alter the course of the world and of course it always had a clichéd plot where he would fight against an evil dragon at the end. Dragons were always depicted as the final boss in each story.

Nonetheless, legends were just legends.

The reality was, the dragon clan did exist on the continent, but it inhabited remote unknown regions in the far north end of the continent. It was even further than the northern border of the Odin Empire…… Anyway, there was absolutely no such thing as a dragon in the Byzantine Empire.

Thinking about this, Shaar became suspicious. He had enough common sense to know that neither Byzantine Empire nor Primal Wildfire had any dragons and supposedly, Odin Empire did not have any either……

“I am telling the truth!” Bidaldo lowered his voice:”Master Bandit, you see, I know very clearly that my strength is very humble. I’m different from those bragging noble brats. Why would I come to such a dangerous place as Primal Wildfire without a particular reason?”

This argument finally convinced Shaar.

Indeed, with those guys’ abilities, coming to the Primal Wildfire was nothing short of a chicken running into the weasel’s nest.

They did not get treated as fat sheep ready to slaughter in Primal Wildfire town probably because their equipments played a big role in scaring the others away.

“Believe me, there is adragon in Primal Wildfire! I got this information from my teacher! That’s why my teacher teamed up with several other outstanding magicians and was travelling to Primal Wildfire. Their purpose is……to kill this dragon!”

Kill the dragon?

Getting excited, Shaar’s curiosity got the better of him. He felt like a young boy again and remembered hearing those stories in the tavern.

“It goes without saying that dragons are very powerful. Under the normal circumstances, fighting against a dragon alone would make you a laughing stock, despite the fact that my teacher is an intermediate-level magician and quite well-known in city palace. Therefore, he teamed up with several strong magicians and decided to hunt it together. The deciding factor…… it is said that the dragon which is hiding in the Primal Wildfire was for some reason in a very weak condition. Therefore it’s the perfect time to kill the dragon!” The more the magician talked about it, the more excited he became:“You know, for magicians, a dragon is a perfect treasure! Its skin, scale, bones, teeth, even the saliva are the highest magic materials to have! What’s more, if you can dig out the dragon crystal, you could obtain the soul power of a dragon….. Using it would increase a magician’s strength and gain a substantial leap by several levels.”

Hearing that, Shaar looked at Bidaldo and sneered: “So you got tempted to come here and hunt the dragon? With your small trick of rabbit magic?”

Bidaldo blushed: “I ……surely I would not be stupid enough to hunt the dragon. Even if I was crazy, I wouldn’t believe it would be possible for me, not even in another 100 years. I came here just for the money.”

Money?

“Dragons were creatures which love sparkling thing by nature. They would collect all kinds of valuables treasures and hide it in their lairs. The treasure inside would be piled up with various gems, crystal, and gold that the dragon would gather…… It would pile up like a mountain!”

Bidaldo sighed loudly: “For ordinary people, the treasure was definitely a great temptation. However for magicians, they are nothing more than worldly things. An extremely powerful magician will not be tempted by all the gold. That’s why I think my teacher and the other dragon-hunting magicians will not be tempted by it either. Their goal was to kill the dragon and as for the hidden treasure, well, probably after their victory, they would just randomly leave it there…….”

Shaar finally understood and smirked: “So, you want to sneakily follow them, after your teacher and his companions killed that dragon and left, you could get all the hidden treasures they did not need?”

“…… Yes.”Bidaldo nodded:”I am a small ungifted magician and do not expect to become an outstanding magician in my life. That’s why money means a lot to me. Otherwise I would not be involved with these useless aristocrat brats……I am very poor and don’t even have the money to cover the travel expense from Royal Capital to Primal Wildfire, therefore, I can only…..”

“So you cooked up this bullshit story, deceived these useless aristocrat brats to come with you and pretended that you were travelling around the continent?”Shaar shook his head while staring at this guy:”Cut the crap, tell me where those magicians are going to kill that dragon? Since you came here, you must know the place!”

Bidaldo sighed while helplessly pulling out a parchment along with a stick of charcoal and drew a map on it.

“Travel from here all the way to the west, across these two mountains and the wetlands. There it is.”

Shaar glanced at this map and smiled: “How could I believe what you just drew was true or not?”

Bidaldo immediately responded: “I dare not! My life is now in your hands ……Although money is attractive, I still need my life to enjoy it. I’m a coward and would not risk of my life for this.”

Shaar glanced at him and smiled. Pulling him up, he pointed at the other three and said: “Alright, I will believe you this time. Now go and get the hell out of here with your buddies.”

Finally getting his amnesty, Bidaldo crawled up and limped to the other three. He whispered something to them which Shaar could not hear, but he did not care how this magician would deceive these three idiots.

Sure enough hearing this, the other three masters of Royal Capital looked horrified at Shaar and quickly got up and grabbed each other and fleed like the wind.

Standing under the tree, Shaar watched these four until they were far away and then looked up while shouting to the tree:”Hey, pitiful creature, time to jump off!”

Still sitting tensely on the tree, the pitiful creature already could not feel her legs after such a long time anymore, but still did not dare to jump. Shaar glared at her and shouted:”Jump, I will catch you! If you don’t jump, I will cut down the tree!”

Terrified by this, the pitiful creature knew how much brute strength this horrible person had. He could effortlessly rip out a big tree and was vulgar and malicious. If she had the guts, she would have already complained.

Left without an option, the pitiful creature could only close her eyes and jump.

Keeping his word, Shaar held out his hand and caught the pitiful creature comfortably, but instantly threw her to the ground.

“Did you hear everything that was said from the tree?” Shaar scratched his chin while looking at the pitiful creature.

“…… yes, I heard.”Pitiful creature obediently nodded, but suddenly realized something and screamed while looking at Shaar with panic-stricken eyes: Are you about to silence me!! I, I do not have the slight interest in a dragon’s hidden treasure!!”

“I don’t have a slight interest in murder.” Shaar comforted her while shaking his head:” Do you think the magician’s told the truth?”

The Pitiful creature hesitated: “I think……part of it is believable, but ……”

She sat on the ground and looked at Shaar: “Are you planning to look for that dragon’s hidden treasure?”

“Of course, who wouldn’t like the gold and silver?”Shaar groaned.

“Then, what about me?”

“You have two choices, either you go back to Primal Wildfire Town from here on your own, or……you can go with me, once I found the treasure, you can help me carry the gold.”Shaar grinned.

Go back to Primal Wildfire Town by myself?

With her navigation skills, she already got lost once in the wilderness…. Without this hillbilly’s guidance, she might actually walk straight into a dwarf’s cave!

“Do I really have a choice?!” The pitiful creatures replied angrily.

“Great. Once I found the treasure, I will share one-third with you.”Shaar was very happy:”I will not hurt you since you do not represent any threat to me.”

“Why…… why do I’ve the feeling that you just said that with a hidden agenda? Will you just simply allow me to go with you?” The pitiful creature looked at Shaar warily.

“Alright, I will tell you the truth.”Shaar looked calm and candid:“A good person does not hide things! If we got there and find that those magicians were not able to kill the dragon, but instead were killed by the dragon ……Then our only option is to run.” He paused and explained:“when I was a little boy, each time I would carry a living rabbit when I went woodcutting in mountains. Usually I would break its legs beforehand. In case I encounter a wolf, I would throw the rabbit to divert wolf’s attention in order to help me escape. I will use the same principle with you now while taking you with me.”

The pitiful creature:”……%% ……* %× *”