"A reward?"
Shien could not help but stop walking.
It could not be helped.
"Don't tell me you're offering yourself to me?"
His mutter was especially clear on this quiet little path.
"Huh?" Merika froze for a moment before hurriedly saying, "N-No, that's not it!"
It seemed this Elves girl understood perfectly well what offering herself meant.
"Then what are you planning to do?"
Shien turned back around, looking intrigued.
"Um..." Under Shien's gaze, Merika seemed extremely uncomfortable. After hesitating for a while, she pointed toward the woods beside them and quietly said, "Could you come over there with me first?"
Upon hearing that, Shien overreacted.
"The woods?"
In that instant, several hundred gigabytes' worth of images flashed through Shien's mind at light speed.
Unaware that Shien's thoughts had nearly run wild, Merika began heading toward the woods, though her eyes kept drifting toward where Magray was.
"Is it really okay to leave him here?"
Merika still seemed a little worried.
"It's fine." Shien rolled his eyes. "Stop worrying about him. He wanted to hurt you before, and he still wants to hurt you now. Why worry about someone like that?"
Rather, if this were some novel starring a dragon-protagonist, someone like him would usually be a standard supporting character who got ground to dust by the protagonist, used for outrageous showing off and earning the favor of beautiful girls, and generally would not survive past ten chapters. Shien had only taught him a small lesson. Compared to protagonists throughout history, that was practically merciful.
Of course, that was also because Shien and Merika were not that close. They could not even be called friends, at most temporary teammates. Unlike Vivian and Ryley, she had not taken especially good care of Shien, so he could simply act on his dislike