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“H-hey, that guy’s attacking Commander Gard…!”\n
“Is that a human? Heroes are dangerous, and you’re supposed to make path for them through the throne when they come marching in, right?”\n
“I heard that the benevolent Demon Lord had already defeated him about two months ago and is keeping him as food.”\n
“Why’s the Demon Lord’s livestock fighting Commander Gard?”\n
“Dunno, but for the time being, let’s back him up!”\n
“Right!”\n
I had been trying to resist Gard for a while, who hurriedly began to avoid my series of punches while I was saying “What are you going to do if I get groggy again?!”\n
Then suddenly, shadows appeared around me.\n
As I reflexively avoided it in surprise, three large claw marks had formed at the place where I was.\n
The ones who clawed cracks in the ground were three of the human dragons who had been watching the training with Gard earlier.\n
Similar to Gard when he was dismantling the buffadon, they only had one of their arms turned like a dragon’s, but they reverted it back again.\n
By the time I managed to figure out the situation, one of them rapidly got blown off to the side and plunged into the trunk of a large tree nearby.\n
“GYAAAAH!”\n
THUUUD!\n
“Ariooo?!”\n
“Ario got caved in—!”\n
The remaining two ran in a hurry to retrieve the dragon with a crimson-colored tail and stretched out horns that were smaller and thinner than Gard’s whom they called Ario.\n
…What is this? I have no idea what’s happening.\n
At any rate, I somehow figured it out from what they were saying that they had come to stop me from attacking Gard.\n
But why was the one attacking got blown away?\n
“Who said you could attack Shal, huh?!”\n
The one who blew off Ario, laughing scornfully and shouting, ‘Hah?!’ and stomped his long leg down, patting off dust and adjusting his military uniform, was Gard.\n
The culprit was their boss. Why did that happen?\n
Then, Gard stood right in front of me at once and started touching my whole body to check if I had any injury.\n
I wasn’t particularly uncomfortable with it, so I just let him do what he wanted, but he almost placed his hands inside my clothes, so I stopped him in a hurry.\n
“Aah~! Ario! Live! Don’t diee!”\n
“Gard, Gard. Rather than me, your men are all crowded in the tree, swooning around, so let’s go help them.”\n
“Hm? It’s fine. Even if we’re turned into a human dragon, we still have defense power close to our scales, so he should still be intact. And there aren’t any poisonous mists on the surface.”\n
“Uwaah, commander’s kick is out of the ordinary, you know…! Hey, Olga! Heal him up!”\n
“Geez, I’m already doing it, Kireau! Ario! Hey, get up! You still haven’t drunk the special honey berry tea you’ve been saving for afternoon teatime!”\n
It didn’t look fine at all.\n
I looked at the three noisy military demons, and worried about the well-being of the one who got blown away.\n
The military demon who called out to the fainted Ario and whined about Gard’s remarks.\n
The somewhat panicky human dragon with an amber-colored tail and rolled up horns like a sheep’s was—Kireau.\n
The military demon who was trying to call him back with a delicious cup of tea while wrapping a floating lump of water around Ario’s wounds.\n
The dragon with jade-colored tail and horns like a stag’s was—Olga.\n
They were both wearing grey military uniforms, so it seemed to be the normal attire of the Demon Lord’s army. Gard’s black military uniform probably belonged to commanders.\n
“Uuu~nnh… Hah! I suddenly found myself passionately hugging the trunk of a tree, just what in hell happened to me?!”\n
““Ah, Ario~~~!””\n
“See, he’s still intact, right?”\n
“I’ve seen some terrible arguments.”\n
After receiving treatment for a while, it seemed that Ario had returned safely from the banks of the Sanzu River.\n
His two colleagues hugged each other with tears in their eyes, saying, ‘We did it! We did it!’ and were delighted to see Ario back alive.\n
“He’s intact, so I’m not guilty. I’m a wonderful Air Force Commander, aren’t I? Shaal?”\n
And he had a thumbs up with it. I was greatly perplexed deep inside and thought that I had to do something quickly about the smug look on Gard’s face.\n
Meanwhile, the victim, Ario, had made a complete recovery.\n
He came trotting over here with his two rather delightful friends.\n
By the looks of it, his wounds had completely healed, but I wonder if they will complain?\n
And the silver dragon next to me. Stop with that smug look.\n
“Commander Gard! Weren’t you being attacked by the Hero?”\n
“We were trying to help you…!”\n
“Nah? I was just enjoying the centrifugal force of joy and Shal’s resistance, y’know. It’s our usual play.”\n
“Mm. It won’t be a laughing matter if I was spun around more than that, but that’s how it is. I wasn’t trying to hurt Gard, so you can rest assured.”\n
“I-I see…! So, the Hero was Commander Gard’s playmate, huh.”\n
“We have been so careless.”\n
“Yeah, we almost ripped him to pieces by accident.”\n
That’s why demons are so extreme…!\n
The three dragons, who carelessly sentenced me to be ripped into pieces, just stuck their tongue out while scratching their heads, while Gard just cackled.\n
I lost my chance for trying to do something about it quickly, so I changed my mind and stared quietly into the distance.\n
<hr class="wp-block-separator">\nNotes:\nCharacter notes and illustration for the trio and Maruo can be found here.