One day after another, the party ventured further and further away from the capital.

We passed villages, crossed rivers, climbed mountain trails, and at last, a mere week after our departure, we arrived to a settlement that needed help.

“What a wonderful sight.” Erbrun chuckled and wiped off the sweat from his forehead.

“A sight for sore eyes.” Placid continued after him.

Valerian gazed at the village, and a few silent second after he laughed out loud.

“HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!” His loud laughter made me stare at him in confusion. But as was many times before, nobody minded eccentric behavior. I glanced at the others, still confused. A few suppressed chuckles and wry smiles were my only answers, so I pulled the blond man’s cloak and asked.

“Why are you laughing?” Valerian turned around and looked at me, confused no less than was I.

“Ah, this…” He scratched the back of his head in embarrassment.

“It is a bit of a tradition, you see. Dad always said ‘You are’… ‘The Purest Light of the kingdom, so you should take care of yourself and avoid risking for no reason’, or something among those lines. And I’m… not exactly following his will. He said something, I said something…” (V)

“So you’ve quarreled.” I summarized.

“Quarreled, ha?” He chuckled bitterly and avoided my eyes.

“That’s quite an understatement.” Jeanne interrupted us, and started poking Valerian with her staff.

“Guess who barged into the girls’ dormitory to ask me to let himself sleep in my house. Or who asked me to loan him some silver while his pocket money is cut.” Jeanne continued poking him, but this time she got close and started poking with her shoulder, or rather it looked like she was rubbing against him.

The others didn’t hesitate to barge into our conversation, but before they could uncover more and more of Valerian’s dark past, the handsome young master shrieked: “Enough is enough, guys!” He coughed, and continued.

“So in the end I won. Dad had to agree to me adventuring, on the condition that I will stay close to the city.” I nodded, now understanding how well he listened to his parents.

“That is how this defiant laughter became my custom.” He tried to say with a straight face, but reddened cheeks and awkward smile clearly showed to me that the mister Defiant was somewhat embarrassed of the weird custom he created.

“Great.”

“At least say that with a more convincing expression…” Valerian’s smile turned even more forced.

With this weird incident out of the way, I glanced at the village.

It was a common fantasy village: a bunch of wooden houses, a few fields, and a fence that won’t hold back even a crippled legless goblin child.

“Alrit, explain what we are doing here?”

“Ah~.” Jeanne clapped. In return, I stared at her questioningly.

“Guys, you see, this bad-bad little girl didn’t even bother listening even for a second~, since whoo knofs beffer~? Whofe feeks are fo fwuffy~?” She started pinching and pulling my cheeks.

“Well, now that Amy is at least listening, thanks to Jeanne’s ear-opening exercise, we can explain.” Placid smiled, and patted my head. I glared at him, sincerely wishing to punch his mocking grin. But if I were to jerk a wrong way, I’m worried our squad’s mage’s fingers would be broken.

“We are hunting an infant dragon.” Valerian said with a calm expression.

Meanwhile, I froze again. Even Jeanne’s desperate cheek-pulling couldn’t return me back to reality. Of course not until I screamed at the top of my lungs.

“YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME?!”

Dragons. The mightiest magic creatures out there. The monsters from legends, that are said to have god-like properties, in some cases are even considered to be gods.

And their infants. A mere baby dragon, sometimes the size of a dog, or a little house. And always protected by a pair of very angry parents.

While I unleashed hysteric screaming and swearing, Valerian tried to reason me. Something like ‘it’s fine’, ‘the intel’s good’, ‘the payment is handsome’, no better than his face, ‘we know what we’re doing’.

“Yeah. Like f**k you know what you’re doing. Uch?” Jeanne’s cheek-pinching fingers suddenly turned into two pairs of tongs.

“Words~.” Her cheerful tone sounded so menacing that I gulped, and carefully nodded.

“Just when did you learn this…?” (J)

“The guy who taught me that said it means ‘You don’t even know what you are doing’…” I squeaked through the lump in my throat.

“Alright~, let me explain to you what we are going to do, since we know it very well~.” Jeanne led me away from the men, still holding my cheeks hostage.