Kathe’s Testimony

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  I had been an Adventurer for a decently long time.

  And even I had never encountered such a thing as these machines.

  They were clearly incredibly rare.

  “Kathe. Were there many of these, uh, magic machines?”


  “Yes, there were.”


  “How many?”


  “There were at least thirty that I could see. But I’m sure there are more.”


  “Thirty……”


  I wasn’t sure if that was a lot or not.

  It would depend on how strong an individual machine was.

  Were they equal to a goblin or a vampire?

  “Do you know how strong they are?”


  “I was surrounded by all thirty of them, and I destroyed twenty.”


  “Oh? Very impressive, Kathe. And yet you still retreated?”


  Kathe did not look particularly wounded.

  If she could destroy twenty, it seemed like she should be able to destroy the last ten.

  I asked her this, and she began to fidget uncomfortably.

  “.……”


  “What is it?”


  “.……I am sorry. I lied. I only destroyed one of them.”


  “Why would you lie about that?”


  “.……To keep up appearances. I am sorry.”


  “.……I see. I understand.”


  I couldn’t blame her harshly, seeing as how sad she looked after this confession.

  Everyone wanted to look better than they actually were.

  However, saying you had defeated twenty when the reality was just one? That seemed a little extreme.

  I would have liked it if she had at least destroyed fifteen if she was going to tell such a lie.

  Kathe did not seem to understand restraint.

  “So, if Kathe could only defeat one…… They must be very strong.”


  “We might need a whole party of A-ranking Adventurers to defeat a single machine.”


  Shia and Serulis muttered gravely.

  Shia, Serulis, Nia and Grulf had seen me and Kathe fight.

  And so they knew how strong she was.

  “Yes. They were very dangerous.”


  “How? Specifically?”


  “They are very hard. My fire breath did not seem to be very effective. They were moving just fine after being hit by it.”


  We had experienced Kathe’s breath ourselves. It was very powerful.

  Most monsters would not survive it.

  Even a Vampire Lord would be hurt.

  “.……They were moving just fine?”


  “Yes. They looked completely unhurt.”


  They would have to have incredible resistance to fire in order to come out of such an attack unscathed.

  I would have to avoid using fire magic if I ever fought them.

  “Kathe. What about your claws and fangs?”


  “I could not kill them with one hit. I had to strike numerous times.”


  “.……That’s incredible.”


  Obviously, Kathe was very strong. Her claws and fangs were sharp.

  Most monsters would die from a single hit.

  “Alright, I understand that they are terribly tough. What about their attacks?”


  “Hmm. They make a loud sound and unleash something very small.”


  “Small?”


  “A small something made of metal. They are so fast that I cannot even see them.”


  “Huh……”


  “It really, really hurt.”


  And with that, Kathe pulled up her sleeve and showed me her left wrist.

  “Look here.”


  “Hmm? It’s a little red.”


  “It has swollen up…… This is the result of the ferocious attack of the magic machine.”


  “.……Uh, how shocking.”


  To call it a little scratch would be an exaggeration. It wasn’t even a mosquito bite.

  She looked nothing but completely unharmed.

  Perhaps Kathe was just very weak to pain.

  As a dragon, you were generally the strongest creature around, and so it would be very rare to feel any pain.

  “These machines were so vicious in their attacks. And hard on top of that. And so I decided to run away, once the Vampire High Lords started attacking me too.”


  “I see. Vampire High Lords have Charm, which is very troublesome.”


  If Kathe was controlled by them, the damages could be enormous.

  “Hmm. Well, it is not as if I couldn’t resist the Charm of a mere High Lord!”


  “I see.”


  Kathe said confidently.

  But there was a possibility she was doing it for appearances again. It was probably best to take it with a grain of salt.

  “Still, I’m surprised you were able to enter the city. What did you tell the guards?”


  “Guards?”


  “At the gate?”


  “Ah, I went over the wall. I didn’t pass through any gate.”


  The walls around the royal capital were very high. They were about five times the height of the average man.

  It would require much physical strength to scale it.

  “And then you started stealing food right after that?”


  “No, not at all. Locke. You must listen to my excuse.”


  “I’ll listen.”


  “I was following your presence and on my way here. But then I noticed a delicious smell.”


  “And?”


  “Wouldn’t you be curious? And so I followed the smell to its source and stared at it.”


  It was probably some street stall.

  “As I watched, the man said, ‘What do you think, miss? Want to try it? It is the best.’ And as he was very kind, I readily agreed to eat as much as I could.”


  “I see. Kathe. There’s something I should tell you.”


  “What?”


  “I’m sure you understand it now, but what he really meant was that he wanted you to eat it after paying him money.”


  “Humans do like to shorten things, don’t they? It is quite horrible. He did not say a word about money.”


  “.……Yes, what a misfortune for you……”


  It seemed that I would have to explain to her about how humans lived.