Dar's words chilled both Xia Ya and the wretch; the coldness that seeped so naturally into his tone made their hearts crawl.
Xia Ya, though, was thinking a step further: this Dar was definitely a cold-faced villain who'd eat a man alive and never spit out the bones.
The wretch looked at Xia Ya, working out how to talk him out of going after that dragon. She had never liked this whole adventure from the start; if she'd had any choice at all, she would never have followed this bumpkin all the way out here.
And now, from the sound of this mysterious Dar's tone, pushing on meant certain death, no matter how you heard it.
"Well?" On Dar's absurdly gorgeous face, the corner of his mouth carried a cold smile, thick with mockery. "You want to go find that dragon too? Need me to lead the way?"
"Xia Ya!" the wretch called out quickly, fixing him with a serious stare. "Don't go!!"
Xia Ya said nothing.
"Don't go!" Her tone softened a little, until there was almost a pleading note in it. "If even several mages are no match for it, then we stand even less of a chance. We've got no chance at all — treasure's tempting, sure, but you need a life left to spend it. I promise you, if it's money you need, once we get back I can pay you a very generous reward!"
"..." Xia Ya was silent for a moment; then the last trace of hesitation in his eyes dispersed, replaced by resolve. "Let's go take a look!"
"You!?" The wretch nearly lost her mind. "Have you gone crazy?"
"Of course not." Xia Ya curled his lip. "I know perfectly well a life comes first. But we've come all this way — turning back now would leave a bad taste in my mouth. We'll go look. We don't have to get close; we'll see how things stand first. Besides... maybe those mages already pulled it off. None of us actually saw them die."
Dar studied Xia Ya, confirmed he wasn't just putting up a front, and a satisfied smile tugged at his lips. "Good, I'll take you there... But first, we're clear on one thing: I have a condition."
"What?" Xia Ya eyed the fellow suspiciously.
"You're here for the dragon's treasure, I take it," Dar said mildly. "If there really is a chance... all of the dragon's treasure goes to you, and as payment for guiding you, I want just one thing from the dragon's cave."
Xia Ya sneered in displeasure. "Hey, Dar, don't forget you're my prisoner now! You eat my grain, you wear my wolf pelt, and I'm the one who saved your life! What right do you have to bargain with me?"
Dar, oddly enough, didn't argue. He glanced at Xia Ya, then suddenly heaved a sigh and shook his head. "A pity. Such a pity..."
With that, he simply ignored Xia Ya, walked slowly over to the pit beside them, and briskly yanked the dog skin off his waist — a motion that made the wretch shriek and whip her head away, eyes squeezed shut.
Dar hopped down into the pit with a plop, his head just clearing the rim, and looked up at Xia Ya, speaking calmly. "Go on, then."
"Uh?" Xia Ya's jaw dropped.
"Since you won't agree, then bury me. Pretend you never saved me."
Dar's tone was cool, and rather disdainful.
"Look at you three — nothing but the clothes on your backs, your gear so shabby that getting this far must have cost you no end of suffering and hardship. Heh... Without my guidance, by all means, go look on your own. This range isn't all that big; the three of you can work your way peak by peak, and in a mere three to five years, with good luck, you might have a twenty or thirty percent chance of finding it."
Xia Ya stared at him without a word. Their eyes locked for a long time; there was fury in Xia Ya's gaze, while Dar's stayed calm and clear throughout. At last Xia Ya gave in and shook his head in annoyance. "Fine, fine! You win, I give up. I can't believe there's actually a man in this world who volunteers to be buried alive... whatever. My goal is the treasure anyway; I've no interest in anything else."
Only then did Dar climb back out of the pit and put the dog skin on — while Xia Ya muttered to himself, secretly rather pleased: Sure, this fellow's a tiny bit better looking than yours truly, but that thing of his is a tiny bit smaller than mine. Heh! The old geezer always said a man just needs a big one — one big covers a hundred flaws!
(And the old geezer goes on smiling in his grave...)
With their new companion Dar along, the group pushed on into the mountains.
"Hey, we're companions now, so share a bit more information. For instance, what does that dragon actually look like?"
Dar had been walking ahead of Xia Ya the whole way, clearly familiar with the terrain, leading them deeper in. At this he slowed a step, turned his head, and frowned at Xia Ya. "You came looking for treasure with not the first idea about this dragon?"
"...I don't know." Xia Ya answered honestly.
"Ah." Dar sighed, and there was a measure of pity in the look he gave Xia Ya. "Now I actually feel sorry for you. Is money really that attractive? You don't even know how strong that dragon is, and you dared to come?"
"So what if I did know?" Xia Ya was unbothered, grinning carelessly. "I know dragons come strong and weak. But I know better how much I'm worth — even the weakest, puniest dragon is still miles beyond me. So what the hell does it matter to me whether it's strong or weak? My plan is to fish in troubled waters when the chance comes; I never really meant to play the dragon-slaying hero."
"Dragon-slaying hero." A faint mockery flickered through Dar's eyes at the phrase. "You're a bit short of that. From what I know, the humans who can slay dragons are all the continent's top powerhouses. And you? A rookie little warrior?"
Xia Ya's temper seemed immune to that sort of mockery. He hitched up his belt and snorted. "Rookie or not — were you born with a full crop of hair down there?"
Dar's face went through something spectacular. He gave Xia Ya a strange look, then simply turned his head away and ignored this coarse brute.
But after they'd walked a while, he still tossed a few sentences back over his shoulder without turning around.
"It's an earth-attribute green dragon, an adult female, skilled in earth magic, and her physical attack and defense rank at the very top even by human standards. If I have to put it into words: an earth dragon's defense is a little weaker when facing water magic. And not one of the mages I met was a water mage. That's why I said they're dead for certain."
Xia Ya instantly perked up. "Then... I heard that dragon seems to be in a weakened state. What's that about?"
Dar's even voice drifted back. "So you're not entirely ignorant, after all. That dragon — her eyes are blind."
Along the way, Dar seemed to have no patience for wasting words on Xia Ya; the fellow's temperament was very strange. His tone in conversation wasn't especially harsh, and now and then he would even smile. And yet both Xia Ya and the wretch felt that even when Dar smiled, the light from those eyes was so sharp it seemed to see clean through a person!
What's more, they kept feeling that there was in Dar's bearing a kind of nobility and pride that came as naturally as breathing.
And this nobility and pride was not put on for show; it leaked out instinctively, unguarded, in his every word and gesture. He never behaved arrogantly, but the more composed and unhurried he was, the more it made people feel he was utterly indifferent to everything.
Is he truly indifferent? Or... is everything simply within his grasp?
Setting all that aside, there was at least one thing Dar hadn't lied about.
He really did know this place inside out!
He led Xia Ya and the others weaving through the mountains: across mountain streams, through dense woods, over rugged slopes, and up one steep cliff face after another.
The whole way took a full six days.
Over those six days, Dar displayed one strange behavior:
Now and then he would even talk with Xia Ya, and even toward the lowly goblins his manner was mild and pleasant.
But! Toward the wretch alone, this Mr. Dar never once showed a decent face. Thinking it over, he was even downright nasty at times — cold-eyed, and openly carrying a hint of disgust.
This left the wretch deeply, thoroughly depressed.
The bumpkin merely took her for an ugly freak. But this impossibly beautiful Dar acted as though she were carrying some virus, as if one more look at her would dirty his eyes! An attitude like that...
It was absolutely outrageous!!
As Adeline, she had never expected that the two human men she met on Wildfire Plain would both turn out to be defective in the head!
By the sixth day, Dar's disgust toward the wretch was blatant enough that even Xia Ya couldn't stand by and watch.
"Actually... you shouldn't be so hard on the wretch." Xia Ya meant to offer a bit of advice; after all, whatever else, they were all traveling companions now.
"I hate ugly-looking people." Dar's answer was ice-cold.
That answer nearly made the wretch spit blood.
There was no justice in this world!
The bumpkin, fine! But was this Dar also blind and a pervert?!
And in that instant, even the wretch herself could not help feeling on the verge of going mad; she even began to doubt her own looks: Am I really that ugly? Were all those men before just flattering me with lies because of my status?
"Uh... actually, he's rather pitiful too." Xia Ya stayed quite decent about it. "Looks come from your parents; you can't blame a man for being ugly."
"I loathe everything in this world that isn't beautiful," Dar declared, cutting off all argument, his tone almost devout. "If it weren't for that streak of wild manliness in you, I wouldn't be speaking to you at all."
Xia Ya brightened at once, forgetting the wretch's grievance entirely, and clapped Dar on the shoulder. "Hahaha! Naturally — we're both handsome men!!"
But then his brow furrowed. "Huh... I can understand you hating the wretch, but why be so kind to Oakes? Oakes's looks..."
Dar shook his head. "By goblin cultural standards, Oakes genuinely does count as a handsome goblin."
Fine, then!
The wretch was quietly devastated: this bumpkin still thought she was a notch above a goblin, but Dar actually thought she was worse than an ugly goblin?!
(Oakes, tears streaming down his face: urk-urk~ yours truly, a goblin pretty boy)
Toward evening that day, led by Dar, the group arrived at a broad stretch of marshland.
The terrain here was bizarre. This swamp was nearly a hundred meters across, and on either side of it lay vast mud bogs stretching past the edge of sight.
"This is the only way in to the dragon's lair." Dar pointed at the far side of the swamp — about two hundred meters off stood a stand of trees. "Cross the swamp, go through those trees, and the mountain behind them is the lair."
Xia Ya looked at the swamp in front of them, and a flicker of alarm rose in his heart: the air here was filled with a scorching dryness, hot enough to make a man sweat!
He glanced at the mud bogs on either side. "This place..."
"You noticed? The mud to either side can't be crossed — step on it and you sink deep; underneath is a bottomless pit. A mud flat this size, there's no way around it. Only this narrow hundred-meter strip is swamp, and it has a thin crust of hard earth on top. We need to run across it fast. If you run too slowly, that crust will collapse... and if you fall in, I guarantee you're a dead man."
Dar smiled. "But that hard crust isn't so easy to cross either."
So saying, he casually pulled a pheasant out of one of the leather bags in Xia Ya's hand — a pheasant Xia Ya had caught only that evening and was saving for a midnight snack.
They watched as Dar held up the gaudily feathered pheasant and tossed it forward. The bird clucked happily a couple of times and went tearing along the hard crust of the swamp... it had gone barely ten meters when the ground ahead suddenly caved in, and then—
Boom! A pillar of fire erupted from underground, blasting four or five meters into the air!!
When the flames cleared, the gaudily feathered pheasant had become charcoal-grilled chicken nuggets! Then the column of fire subsided, the hard crust on the ground sealed back over, bubbled a few times, and returned to how it had looked before. But from far off, Xia Ya caught the reek of sulfur, thick and choking, and a wave of heat struck his face and stopped his breath.
"Damn it! What the hell is this thing?!" Xia Ya's face changed and he cried out in alarm.
"See it clearly?" Dar turned and smiled at the ashen Xia Ya. "This is a dangerous passage. Beneath the hard crust lies underground fire; those flames can burst out at any moment. As you run across, a ball of fire may suddenly erupt from under your feet and roast you straight to charcoal."
"Damn it!" Xia Ya was furious. "And you call this a safe passage?"
Dar kept his face blank and his voice cold. "I guarantee it's the only safe passage... The other routes are even more dangerous — unless you don't believe me and want to go try somewhere else!"
"But... how is this place safe in any way?" Xia Ya swallowed hard. "Charge in there and we're roast meat!"
"Finding a dragon's lair was never going to be easy." Dar narrowed his eyes, his smile cool. "This is a magic formation. There was already underground fire beneath this mountain to begin with; as I told you, that dragon is earth-attribute, and this formation made particular alterations to the terrain and soil here, leaving the hard crust underneath utterly fragile. That's how it came to be like this."
Xia Ya looked at the cold light in Dar's eyes and coughed once. The bumpkin's eyeballs rolled, and then he suddenly turned his head and glared at the shivering Mr. Consort, stroking his chin and grinning wickedly:
"You! Oakes! You go first!"
"Ah??"
Mr. Consort's legs turned to jelly, his face went ashen, and he plopped right down on the ground.