Westminster Bank

Baron gazed at the charred dragon corpse, his eyes lingering on the marks left by the flames.

’Fire... A special flame that even a Sixth-Generation-Species Dragon Descendant would fear.’ Burning the corpse with fire seemed to be part of some special Alchemy Ceremony, and placing the human body inside the Dragon Descendant’s stomach looked like a necessary step to complete it.

’Or was this just to make it look like the Trial Taker had been killed and devoured by the Dragon Descendant?’

’No, the Trial Taker was killed by the Dragon Descendant in the first place. Faking that step would be redundant. If anything, it’s as if they didn’t want to kill the Trial Taker with their own hands, so they relied on the Dragon Descendant to do it.’

’Thinking about it that way, the Dragon Guide’s actions made sense. They needed to kill the Trial Taker but were afraid of being afflicted by some ritualistic tracking mark afterward. So they lured a Dragon Descendant to kill the Trial Taker to achieve their goal.’

’But if they were trying to evade the consequences, why use this particular fire to burn the corpse?’

Baron crouched down, carefully examining the marks on the scorched wound.

He could sense an incredibly faint fluctuation of Spiritual Power. There was also a sense of familiarity, as if... he had encountered it somewhere before.

’Fire... fire...’

A sudden shiver ran down Baron’s spine. ’Could it be...?’

Suddenly, he received a warning from the Little Flame Demon: someone was heading this way. He immediately ducked into hiding.

Several Dragon Guides approached the dragon corpse. Among them was the very one Baron had told the Little Flame Demon to follow.

One of the Dragon Guides carefully examined the charred dragon corpse and the Trial Taker’s body within it. "The Immortal Fire burned perfectly," he said. "We can take this back to the altar to complete the rest of the Dragon Feast."

’Dragon Feast...’ From behind the bushes, Baron’s expression changed. ’Could this group of mysterious people disguised as Dragon Guides all be Dragon Devourer Cultists?’

Before Baron could speculate further, the group of suspected Dragon Devourer Cultists used some kind of containment-type Alchemy Object to store away the enormous dragon corpse. Then, as a group, they vanished in a certain direction.

Baron glanced at the scorch marks remaining on the ground and focused his thoughts. To verify his suspicion, and to avoid drawing attention to himself, he sent the Little Flame Demon to follow them.

He himself trailed them from a great distance.

The group of Dragon Guides didn’t seem to be returning to their altar. Instead, they moved between other locations where Trial Takers were Dragon Hunting, apparently casing out new targets.

’Dragon Devourer Cultists disguised as a gang of Dragon Guides... not only have they infiltrated the Dracul Mountain Range, but they even have their own altar... This Dragon Hunting Ceremony is clearly not as simple as it seems. I just wonder if the organizers, the Beowulf Family, are even aware.’

Baron recalled the recent rumors circulating in the inner circle about rampaging Dragon Descendants and disappearing Trial Takers. It seemed this group was responsible.

But he didn’t care about any of that. The only thing he cared about was the corpse-burning "lighter" in the Dragon Devourer Cultists’ hands. That was the main reason he was following them.

As for the Trial Takers killed by the Dragon Devourer Cultists, to be honest, while Baron couldn’t stand the cultists’ vile practices, it wasn’t worth exposing his own identity for a bunch of noble kids he didn’t even know.

’After all, when it was his turn to run, he’d be on his own. They weren’t going to help him.’

The plot unfolded just as Baron had predicted. The Dragon Guides would deliberately lure a nearby Dragon Descendant to a heavily wounded Trial Taker. After the Dragon Descendant killed the Trial Taker, they would use that strange fire to scare the beast away. Then they would burn the Trial Taker’s corpse along with the Dragon Descendant it had hunted, stitch the two bodies together, and promptly move on to find another victim.

The Little Flame Demon was nearly discovered during the pursuit, but fortunately, it could transform into elemental fire in a crisis.

When they saw the blazing eucalyptus tree, they assumed it was a fire caused by a lightning strike on a stump from the night before.

And so, under Baron’s command, the Little Flame Demon continued its pursuit.

But after following for only a short while, though the Little Flame Demon remained undetected, Baron himself was stopped.

He hadn’t been discovered by the band of Dragon Guides. No, he was stopped by a Trial Taker who was just about to fire her own Dragon Guide—a Trial Taker who also happened to be his former fiancée, Freyja Lancelot (the rich, noble lady version).

......

After Freyja dismissed that unruly Bronze Dragon Guide that night, she had hired a new one.

It was a choice born of necessity. She had already activated the guidance of the Dragon Spear; now, all she had to do was collect more Dragon Scales to secure a spot for the Dragon Spear Baptism.

Unfortunately, as it turned out, there could be a huge gap between those of the same Tier, and this gap was not small.

This Bronze Dragon Guide was far inferior to the previous one, both in his dragon-guiding techniques and Dragon Hunting skills. To make matters worse, while she was hunting with the other Trial Takers she’d hired, he repeatedly lured other High Tier Dragon Descendants to their location.

Before long, several of the Trial Takers she was working with had been severely injured. In the treacherous inner circle, this was a fatal blow; they had no choice but to be led away by their own Dragon Guides and withdraw from the Trial.

If Freyja hadn’t possessed a Taboo Item that allowed her to teleport to safety, she probably wouldn’t still be alive.

Freyja was so angry she wanted to fire this Bronze Dragon Guide on the spot, but she gave up the idea. She didn’t know her way around the inner circle, and there were no replacement Dragon Guides available at this time.