"-Treasure your life, Flop. Sacrificing yourself is something only fools do."
The person who gave Flop that advice was Miles, the benefactor who had taken him away from his terrible surroundings. The orphanage where Flop and Medium had lived as children was an even worse institution than one might imagine. It gathered children who had lost their families or had nowhere to go and no one to rely on, providing them shelter from the elements-the adults there had a favorite saying.
"There are more people without food or work than anyone can handle. You lot are lucky."
In fact, he had thought so too. Abandoned by their family along with his younger sister Medium, life drinking muddy water had been unbearably hard. Grass and bugs were the only things they could call food. On the rare occasions they caught a rabbit, they shouted for joy, and when there truly was nothing to eat, they had even gnawed on dirt and moss to fill their stomachs.
Compared to that, life at the orphanage could be called fortunate. However thin and tattered they were, at least they had blankets.
They also got tasteless thin soup and a little bread. They were assigned vast amounts of simple work, and the adults did not beat them every single day when they were in a bad mood-so they were very fortunate.
Even so, Flop could not bear to see Medium and the other children exposed to the adults' violence, so he learned to act as cheerful as possible to draw the adults' attention to himself.
Standing out-that alone was enough to serve as a weapon. Speaking loudly, exaggerating his expressions and movements. Fortunately, making those things a habit was not difficult. He seemed to have a natural gift for attracting attention.
-On a night when diverting the adults' anger away from the children had left him half dead, and Medium had stroked his wounds all night, Flop became certain of one thing.
This was the mission he had to fulfill in this place. Throughout the pain that nearly made him pass out, he kept telling himself that-
"What the hell? That's bullshit."
"Huh..."
"I come back to take a look after years away, and this place is still just as infuriating. And now there's a stupid brat doing stupid things. That Balleroy brat was enough of a headache. Why's there another crazy brat now?"
Having recognized his task, Flop had steeled himself to shoulder the orphanage's dark side alone. But one night, that plan was suddenly shattered.
The man who appeared riding a flying dragon was someone whose appearance could hardly be called tidy, even as a compliment.
Making no effort to hide his lack of manners as he irritably scratched his gray hair, he was a man who wanted nothing to do with children.
For some reason, his ratlike, sleazy features only strengthened that impression. Surely he normally kept his head down when dealing with people to avoid being hit.
That man-Miles-seemed to destroy Flop's rude impression of him with great reluctance.
"I used to live in this place, same as you. Well, the way they ran it was awful back then too, so I ran off ages ago and survived on muddy water."
At night, the children's room was locked to keep them from escaping under cover of darkness. After roughly breaking the crude lock and looking inside, Miles clicked his tongue loudly at the sight of nearly twenty children crammed into the tiny room.
The children were startled and frightened by the unfamiliar adult. Next, he brought them out of the room, left them with a "Wait here," and headed for the adults' room.
Then-
"I spent every day wondering whether I'd die that day, and finally caught a lucky break. Then I thought, after all these years, I wondered what had become of that old home I hated, so I came back to look... and this is what I found."
The bound adults rolled on the floor of the room, cursing him for his ingratitude. Miles kicked their faces, flashed a nasty smile, and spat on them. "Serves you right."
He must have suffered terribly at the adults' hands.
Even so, was there any need to go this far? Flop could not help thinking so.
Miles turned to Flop and raised an eyebrow. "What, you want a turn too? Then get your revenge. Pay them back a hundredfold."
"Huh? I couldn't..."
"-Get them!!"
Flop hesitated in answering Miles's devilish whisper. But Medium charged out from behind him and mercilessly beat the bound adults with a wooden stick she had picked up.
-No, it was not just Medium. Apart from the stunned Flop, every child had become an angry rebel.
"It hurt every time you hit us!"
"I hate you!"
"I'm getting revenge for my brother!"
Unable to resist, the adults wailed and begged them to stop, but their cries were swallowed by the children's angry shouts. They scratched the adults' faces, slapped their cheeks, and even urinated on them, pouring out all the resentment they had built up.
"Pwahahahahaha! Look at their faces! Priceless!"
Flop stared blankly at the other children rebelling, his sister among them, while Miles roared with crude laughter beside him.
But Flop was in no mood to laugh along. Thinking of what tomorrow would bring after doing this to the adults made his head spin.
"All right, do whatever you like from here... is what I'd like to say, but if I just leave you here, who knows what Earl Serena will do to me."
Once their outpouring of emotion had ended, he surveyed the children who had come outside the institution and told them:
"So I'll take you to the Earl first. After that, you can decide your own futures freely. You don't have to follow me then. That'd be more helpful. In fact, do that."
The children exchanged glances at Miles's casual invitation. They could follow him or not, as they pleased. His words offered the first "choice" the children had ever had, after always obeying adults' instructions.
They did not know what to do with it.
Miles shrugged.
"Hey, hey, you're only getting stuck now? Poor things.-You already got your revenge on those bastards, didn't you? You can choose whatever you want."
Only when he said that did the children realize it for the first time. Just as Miles said, they had all chosen to rebel.
-In the end, not a single child chose not to leave the orphanage.
Naturally, that included Flop. Though he had not taken part, he could hardly say he wanted to stay at an orphanage that had done so many terrible things to children.
Besides, Medium had been the first to accept Miles's invitation, and she had urged her brother to come too.
Failing to fulfill Medium's wish, or choosing a path that would separate him from his sister-neither was something Flop could do.
And so he left the institution for more passive reasons than the other children.
Still, the regret that he had done something terrible, or rather, had become caught up in something terrible, kept circling through his mind and tormenting him.
But-
"Good night, big brother."
On their way to meet Miles's master, as he slept somewhere without a roof, wrapped with his sister in a blanket taken from the institution, his attention shifted away from his regrets for the first time.
There was his sister, leaning against him without a care, and the scenery outside, which was not a prison masquerading as shelter.
He realized that he no longer had to worry about being beaten, or about making his sister cry.
"-Hah."
Once he realized that, Flop began to cry. First tears fell, and then he sobbed aloud, savoring the bittersweet taste of freedom.
In the distance, the flying dragons beat their wings, gradually leaving the gray-clouded sky behind.
Was this preparation for their next attack? Decker maintained that vigilance until their silhouettes were mere specks in the distance, and only relaxed once he confirmed they truly were leaving.
For reasons unknown, the flying dragons had withdrawn. Since the city hall had not fallen completely, there were two possible explanations-their objective had been achieved, or it had become difficult to achieve. Two opposite extremes.
Even reviewing everything that had happened made it difficult to judge which way the scales tipped.
"The sudden drop in temperature, and the complete destruction of the southern city..."
Stroking his luxuriant hair, Decker mentioned the two inexplicable abnormalities.
During the fierce battle, the temperature in the fortress city had plunged. Eventually, white snow had begun to fall, making him doubt his own eyes.
He had seen snow on towering mountains before, but to see it in Vollachia, one could only hope for some upheaval of heaven and earth.
In other words, snow during the battle could only be classified as such an upheaval. Still, that had been fortunate for their defenders. The drastic change in temperature, particularly since flying dragons were vulnerable to cold, had visibly impaired their troublesome ability to fly.
Without the snowfall, the damage would likely have been greater and more severe.
"But what on earth was that white light...?"
Its uncontrollable, despair-inducing destructive power had swept through and demolished the entire southern city. Even calling it an upheaval of heaven and earth was insufficient. It was a scene from some kind of apocalypse.
Even without further disasters, that single strike had dealt the city a devastating blow. The chain of command had fallen into confusion, and assessment of the battle had stalled.
Had the flying dragons continued pressing their attack, the city's crumbling defenses would have fallen sooner or later. That was why their withdrawal just as they gained the upper hand was not merely fortunate, but strange.
That was why Decker suspected something had happened to the attacking enemy.
Had someone struck a heavy blow against the enemy in place of Decker and the others, who were wholly occupied with defending the city?
In that case, the likeliest candidates were Mizelda, who led the Shudraq, or Priscilla, who had once repelled a general.
Whichever of them had done it-
"Women truly are wonderful. Still, I have no intention of taking the shame of being protected by women for granted."
Women being exceptional was no excuse for his own weakness.
Women's virtues deserved respect and admiration, while also serving as a warning against his own mistakes.
In any case-
"We used every preparation we made for fear of an assault this fierce."
"...If they were going to attack a fortress city, they were bound to use flying dragons. Even so, we should have anticipated they would send not a flying dragon unit, but the 'Flying Dragon General.'"
Decker shook his head at the words of the staff officer whose wounded head was bleeding.
He had underestimated the situation. Since they had expected the assault to come from the imperial capital, most of the anti-dragon weapons meant to counter flying dragons had been positioned on the western wall, but the dragons had attacked from every direction.
After the general Arakiya withdrew, they had expected some time before the next general arrived, but they had been wrong about that too.
-Given the circumstances, that was hardly surprising. After all, this was not merely one city rebelling, but the precursor to a far greater coup.
From the perspective of the treacherous retainers in the imperial capital who understood that, naturally they would want to extinguish the flames of rebellion with all their strength while the spark was still small.
He should have anticipated the possibility that they would dispatch generals one after another.
"No, reflection can wait. With the walls collapsed, the city can be easily taken even without flying dragons. Assess the damage, and whether the walls can be repaired..."
"-Excuse me, is the person representing this city here?"
It was after the strained tension inside city hall had eased.
A voice interrupted then, as though it had chosen that exact moment. It sounded calm and gentle, capable of soothing anyone who heard it.
Even so, it was an unfamiliar voice.
Decker therefore turned, furrowing his rounded eyebrows.
The speaker stood on the staircase connecting the top floor, now serving as a command post, to the floor below.
He was a gray-haired young man, holding up both hands to show he meant no harm.
"Would the gentleman over there be General Decker O'Connell?"
Without hesitation, he had singled Decker out as the "general" from the crowd all wearing the same red uniforms.
Of course, with Decker wearing a cloak and rank insignia on his shoulder, recognizing him as the highest-ranking person present was easy.
-The issue was having the nerve to say it aloud.
It took a certain amount of courage to enter a command post that had been engaged in battle until moments earlier and identify an unfamiliar commander.
What surprised Decker was the question of whose side this courteous yet unafraid man belonged to. He did not look like a resident of the city. Apparently, he had slipped in during the chaos of battle.
In that case, the most likely possibility was-
"An envoy from the imperial capital... Have you come to deliver orders to us?"
"Huh? Oh, no, no, nothing of the sort! Explaining our position would be rather complicated, but we have no connection to the imperial capital."
The young man hastily denied Decker's suspicions, waving his raised hands from side to side.
If Decker took him at his word, the young man's position became even less clear.
"Of course, I don't think this is the time for a proper discussion. So all I'd like is your permission."
"Permission~? Permission for what?"
"Treating the wounded, and repairing the city afterward... To put it another way, permission to help with the aftermath of the battle. My companions and I should be able to help somewhat. Although..."
Looking both tired and anxious, he gave a faint, exhausted-looking smile.
"We've already started working, so some of this is asking for approval after the fact."
"-. I'm glad to have volunteers, but..."
"It's nothing complicated, Decker. This man isn't lying."
Before Decker could ask, a dignified, beautiful voice that captivated the ear interrupted him. Then came the tapping of a cane against the floor, and a figure climbed the stairs to stand beside the young man.
It was Mizelda, whose fierce beauty stood out all the more after her bloody battle. Apparently, all the blood staining her beautiful body was spattered blood, and apart from the leg she had already lost, she had no conspicuous injuries.
Decker felt relieved to see her return safely. Having returned, she gave the young man a friendly pat on the shoulder.
"This man's companions have already started working. I can vouch for him too."
"Miss Mizelda, what matters most is that you're safe. Who is he?"
"No idea. He isn't our enemy, and he's a good-looking man, so I let him through."
"Miss Mizelda..."
Mizelda's way of judging people differed somewhat from Decker's, but as her taste suggested, the young man did look refined and handsome.
He had a somewhat androgynous air, but his eyes revealed an inexplicably resilient core.
He was not a bad person. Decker thought so too. But he was likely someone with secrets.
"Under the circumstances, I don't believe outside assistance comes without a price. Who are you?"
"As I said earlier, explaining our position is somewhat complicated. But we have no intention of being your enemies.-We're simply looking for someone."
"Looking for someone..."
"Yes."
The young man nodded as Decker repeated his words. Then he removed his green hat, held it against his chest, and bowed.
It was not an imperial courtesy, but it expressed respect for the other person.
"My name is Otto Suwen.-I've come to find a friend, and my friend's younger sister."
He stated his purpose with a wary gaze like that of a lone wolf.
Miles's master, Earl Serena, was a formidable woman who treated others sternly.
Competing in the upper ranks of the imperial nobility despite her youth, she followed the iron law that embodied imperial ideology, placing emphasis on merit and promoting capable people wherever possible.
On the other hand, she also possessed a noble character and did not believe the strong could abuse the weak at will, so she did not allow the children Miles brought back to be mistreated.
"I've heard the report. For Miles, who hates trouble, to bring you back must mean he thought your circumstances truly pitiful. Live as you please in my domain."
Welcoming Flop and the other children with that promise, Serena smiled generously.
Faced with a towering presence so much greater than himself, a sense of pressure that made the children's hearts want to submit, and then his first sight of the lavish, spacious mansion's furnishings and decorations, Flop was deeply shaken.
"Someone as well-off as the Earl has no reason to go out of her way to bully those beneath her. In the end, the adults who hit children are all people who were hit themselves as kids."
After they had taken hot baths, wolfed down food until their bellies bulged, and changed into clean, fragrant clothes, Miles answered them in his usual rough manner.
Unlike Medium and the others, who were dazzled because everything they saw and heard belonged to a new world, Flop had many feelings about this world and these ideas he had never known.
In particular, the philosophy Miles had casually shared had a profound effect on him.
There were perspectives and understandings in this world he had never even imagined, and he could never have learned of them had Miles not brought him into the outside world.
Most importantly-
"Oh, you're my age, right? You there, did Big Brother Miles pick you up too?"
Granted his freedom, Flop had been following his sister and the others as they ran around the estate when he stopped in a beautiful garden on the vast grounds.
As the beautiful sight of so many flowers in bloom captivated him, a gentle voice came from behind.
Startled, he hurriedly searched for the source of the voice, but saw no one in the garden. Just as he tilted his head in confusion-
"Over here. Sorry to bother you."
"Uwaaah!"
"Oh, you fell over."
Flop had leaned against the fence to look into the garden, never expecting a head to pop out from behind it, and he couldn't help recoiling. As a result, he landed squarely on his backside. The other person laughed, and Flop blinked.
The one laughing at his fall was a boy a few years older than him, though he still had a childish look. He was probably twelve or thirteen, with a likable face and grayish-brown hair. Momentarily taken aback by that easygoing smile, Flop then pursed his lips.
"...Isn't laughing at someone for falling a bit mean?"
"Oh, sorry, sorry. That was such a classic fall, I couldn't help laughing. I'd like to give you a hand, but I can't move right now."
"You can't move... ah."
He stood up, dusted off his backside, and went around the fence to stand before the boy. There he saw that the boy was sitting on the ground, with a round object resting on his crossed legs.
When he took a closer look, Flop couldn't help widening his eyes.
"Could this be an egg?"
"That's right, that's right. It's a big egg, isn't it? Actually, it's a flying dragon's egg."
"A flying dragon's egg! Then what are you doing?"
"Hatching it, of course."
The boy smiled at Flop, holding the white dragon egg close against his body. It was so large that it took both arms to wrap around it.
-This was how Flop met Balleroy, who would later become sworn brothers with the merchant siblings.
(Balleroy was the former "Ninth" of the Nine Divine Generals and the fiancé of the flying dragon girl, Madelyn. Miles saved the merchant siblings and was also something of a benefactor to Balleroy, as well as his sworn elder brother.
Later, Miles was killed by Reinhard while carrying out a spy mission. To avenge him, Balleroy launched a rebellion and attempted to frame Reinhard, who was then a member of the Kingdom's delegation, but Julius discovered this and killed him. The book he read in the Sage's Tower was Balleroy's Book of the Dead. The flying dragon inside the egg was Kariyu, who also died later in the rebellion. The flying dragon girl regarded Emperor Vincent as the root cause of all this, so she joined the chancellor's rebellion and came to Guaral to massacre the city.)
Simply put, Flop had to call the flying dragon girl his "sister-in-law."