Beast Taming? Nah, Dragon Herding is Way Better! - Chapter 43

Chapter 43: Long Ears
” I-I’m sorry for using you young hero, you see I have no choice as well, they are brutal!!!” pointing towards the guards he hired in hopes that he can make this young man believe that he has no choice but to drag him to the conflict, the fat merchant said as he continues scuttling away from this avatar of slaughter he encountered, fearing for dear life as the young man approaches closer and closer to him.

“Stop pointing and explaining all shits fatty, I did not even ask you anything, you look even more guilty that way…” Diluc, seeing how the fat merchant act, pointed out causing the fat man on the ground to keep himself silent, just now realizing just how much point the young man is making with his words.

“… although I highly doubt that you are not guilty with all the things that happened” the emperor-like young man then continues as he squat to come into closer contact to the fat owner of the caravan, pulling out a dagger from his spatial pouch and placing it right on the merchant’s face as he starts asking him.

“Out of the fact that your malicious intent doesn’t really amount to too much, and you’re just trying to save yourself as well, I’ll spare your life, but leave behind everything and just walk to the capital yourself” he then offered towards the fat man who immediately accepts his offer, all while his eyes shine with hope while praising and bootlicking the young man with all sorts of sugar coated and flowery words, causing Diluc to just get more and more annoyed at his character.

‘Hehehe… I heard that you’re trying to enter the academy brat, so you need to go to the capital as well, the moment that you reach the gates, I will make the guards there arrest you for stealing my things!!’ the fat merchant thought to himself, thinking that he got way too lucky that this young man is still someone so naïve despite him being able to kill without even blinking an eye, almost causing him to hum a jolly tune as he walks away from this place and eventually even reclaim his treasures once this young man arrives at the gates of the capital city.

Already thinking of plans not only to convict the young man, but also to make him a life time servant that will be under him for his given how much he covets the young man’s talent, the fat merchant feels like something is wrong with what is happening but couldn’t quite put the finger on what is happening, that is until he looks down and saw the hands boring a hole on his chest, holding his still freshly beating heart on its palm.

“W-why??” he thought as he tries his best to look behind him, something that he couldn’t do given the fats preventing his neck from turning around too much, but despite not seeing the one who did this to him, he just knows who is it all too well.

“You reek of a traitorous and fox-like smell, fat bastard, you think I don’t sense anything wrong when you’re looking at me in all sorts of malicious ways?” Diluc replied as he pulls his hands out of the merchant’s chest, before crushing the heart on the palm of his hands without even feeling so much as disgust and nausea to the blood spreading around him, the blood that somehow doesn’t really reach his being given that there is a thin veil of mana covering his entire body.

Falling into the ground, the fat owner of the caravan still manages to make a final effort of strength, turning himself around to take a proper look at this young man whom wits he underestimated, his face revealing a look of terror as he realizes that while he can be compared to a cunning fox that can easily deceive most business competitor to his own favor, this young man is like some deity that seems to see everything in the palm of his hands.

‘Monster…’ is the word that last appears on his mind as his entire being gradually get surrounded by the blinding and terrifying darkness, making him wonder if such is the sensation of death itself.

‘There’s a lot of cleanup to do’ seeing all the corpses on the ground, both members of the group of bandits as well as the travelling caravan, Diluc couldn’t help but shake his head a bit as cleaning up this mess now falls under his hands, a job that while he doesn’t really want to do, he still needs to given how dead human bodies can attract powerful beasts in nearby area given that a large part of them finds human flesh as something of a delicacy, but not so much compared to the Soaring Steel Eagle that is even willing to sacrifice their own life to get a taste of human flesh.

Thinking of something that he can use efficiently to hasten this cleanup though, the emperor-like young man starts using his wind elemental mana to carry the corpses faster towards one specific place, piling them up in a hole that he created using the metal elemental mana to push the ground and create said hole, the hole eventually filling up after he finished cleaning the entire area up.

“There should be no one living among this pile anymore, right?” despite already checking every single one of them once, Diluc still decided to perform one final check on these corpses, now using the wood elemental mana method that Yggdrasil taught him in order to detect any life signature, finding no one in the corpse filled hole but finding one surviving creature hiding beneath one of the caravan’s trailer, a life signature that is different from all the ones he had encountered so far.

Creating a massive fireball from the fire elemental mana in the air, Diluc proceeds to burn all these dead bodies without any hesitation on his face, throwing the ball of fire that immediately ignites the entirety of the hole, this technique being one that Diluc finds the most useful when dealing with this sort of things as the flame created from fire elemental mana uses mana from the solid things it hit to fuel itself, becoming inextinguishable so long as it does not get in any contact with water.

“That thing is barely alive…” once again using the wood elemental mana to detect the life signature of the creature hiding on one of the caravan’s trailers, the young man saw that this figure’s life force is barely holding on their body, as if they are about to die any second now should their problems are not dealt with.

After getting a feel of this creature’s strength, the Ruler of the Draconic Realm proceeds to take steady steps towards this particular trailer, still a bit wary despite the fact that whoever it is inside this trailer, is someone who a mage of the Light Red Core level at best.

Standing in front of the trailer completely covered with a thick cloth, Diluc then take a gulp before holding on one corner of the thick, heavy cloth, exerting some of his strength just to pull it out of the trailer that it is covering, revealing something that is a feast to the eyes for him.

Should the previous bandit leader who is really fond of high-quality beauties were to see what is inside this trailer, he will more likely than not just run off to the middle of nowhere with this supposed package in tow, perhaps even starting a life with her and changing his ways completely.

Now that this bandit leader is out of the equation though, the one who saw this blonde-haired beauty is the Ruler of the Draconic Realm, someone who is bound to reach far higher than any heights that the bandit leader can even imagine, and said ruler is now also looking at this beauty with a stupefied expression similar to what could possibly be that bandit group leader’s reactions.

The beauty’s appearance doesn’t necessarily enthralled Diluc to a point like that though, given how he thought that Yggdrasil and Argenta are both a level higher than this beauty in terms of their appearance alone, not to mention their entire figures that will make people doubt whether they are truly dragons instead of goddesses of beauty themselves.

No, what stupefies this usually composed young man are the features of this beauty looking at him helplessly and scared, her blond hair, her emerald green eyes, as well as her long, pointy ears that each of them seems to extend even longer than the width of her face, an appearance unique to a particular race that rarely appears in this kingdom he lives in, and whenever they appear, they usually starts a huge wave of events on the noble and royalty, beings that has enough influence to set some waves on their kingdom with just their beauty alone.