When Ragner appears, the Dullahan hides.
Not just because he’s strong, but because even after becoming a monster, memories of once being childhood friends remained.
Perhaps that was why. Even though I deliberately guided the two to the Dullahan’s patrol route that Brownie and I had mapped out during dawn, we couldn’t find him.
“He should be visible around here….”
“He must have hidden. What can we do? We can’t search the entire forest.”
In the end, we headed to Sabira’s grave.
“Um… according to what the earth fairy I know told me….”
“That noisy, chattering dirt potato?”
Dirt potato—that fits well.
“Yes, Brownie said Dullahans have a habit of wandering in search of their lost head….”
I glanced at the two, but fortunately, there was no sign of them blaming me.
“Then the head that one desperately seeks must be in the grave.”
“…….”
“Ragner, how did Sabira meet his end? I only heard he died—I don’t know the details. I didn’t even know his grave was here. If you had told me beforehand, I would have visited from time to time.”
It seemed Ragner hadn’t told even his master, Ruadis, the details of his friend’s death.
But I ended up hearing it. Was that really all right?
“As you may have guessed… his head was cut off. The Dullahan’s head must be inside the grave.”
Ragner reached toward the pendant necklace hanging from the pole. Ruadis’s eyes wavered slightly at the sight of the pendant. It seemed she recognized it.
“Then shall we do this by the book?”
“…If my dead friend’s remains are being toyed with, and I can give him rest, then I should.”
He stared blankly at the faded photo inside the pendant and muttered in a low voice.
“Um… by the book…?”
“Burning the remaining remains after exhuming them.”
“Huh!”
“Keeping a Dullahan near its head is not a good approach. A Dullahan that obtains its head becomes even stronger. So we burn it to weaken it.”
So its head was its weakness?
“Even if it keeps avoiding Ragner like this, once the head is gone, it will gradually lose power. Then, over a long time, it will eventually be purified by the holy stone’s power and vanish. Of course, that would take at least several more years.”
If that happened, the Dullahan scouting plan would be completely dead in the water.
Of course! When I first confessed the Dullahan’s secret to Ragner, I had planned to just give up on recruiting it as an employee.
But his calm reaction, different from what I had expected, made me a little bolder.
I hadn’t been scolded enough yet. I felt a slight pang of regret.
‘If I give up like this, Brownie won’t let me hear the end of it…. Should I at least bring it up once? But Ragner described the Dullahan as his dead friend’s remains being toyed with…’
If I went further and said I wanted to make it work at the dungeon…?
This time, I really would be dragged away as a heretic.
My head throbbed as the internal conflict began again.
‘Just testing the waters a little….’
Might as well try, Gong Choi!
“Um… couldn’t we use the head to lure the Dullahan out?”
“That depends on which desire is stronger in the thoughts that rule the monster—the desire to reclaim its head, or the desire to avoid Ragner.”
Ruadis gestured with her chin between the grave and Ragner.
“Both of you know I’m a bit special, right? I can even talk with monsters.”
Both looked at me as if telling me to continue.
“How about I use the head to summon the Dullahan?”
“Suppose you can. What do you want to do once you summon it?”
“Share… memories, and that sort of thing….”
“You mean share memories with a monster?”
I was startled by Ragner’s reaction.
Because I had thought he would feel some degree of pity, given that the monster had once been his friend—but his reaction was colder than I expected.
To Ragner, Sabira the friend and the current Dullahan seemed to be completely separate beings.
No matter how it was born from his friend’s body, a monster was ultimately a monster.
“Ah, that’s not what I meant. You said remnants of thoughts remembering your friend remain. So I thought we might draw out old memories…. And it might be good to exchange final farewells.”
I was trying to prevent the remains from being burned right now, so my words came out jumbled.
“I’m curious about that too.”
I received unexpected support.
“Just how much of a living person’s memories remains in an undead.”
Actually, I already knew the answer to that to some extent. The four skeletons who were employees of our dungeon had given me the answer.
The answer was: case by case.
The higher the rank of the monster, the more likely it is to retain memories from life, but even low-ranking monsters occasionally vividly recall their time as people.
Of course, our employees, being the lowest-ranking monsters, had no memories of before they died.
“For me, my last farewell with Sabira was when we left the training ground. I want to truly say a final goodbye to the child who was to become a star forever.”
“I’m… not sure. Can we really call that the real him?”
“You’re right. That isn’t the real Sabira. If you think about it, it’s no different from a jar containing Sabira’s memories.”
“…….”
“Even so, I want to tell that child I’m sorry, even if it’s late. Sorry for sending you two, who weren’t ready, out into a dangerous world. It’s nothing more than self-consolation, but still.”
“Master….”
Ruadis looked at Sabira’s grave with a bitter expression.
“He was a child who would have become an excellent blade if I had trained him more properly.”
“The adventure was no one’s compulsion—it was entirely our own choice. The one who wasn’t ready then… was me, Master. Sabira was excellent.”
Soon the master and student silently exchanged glances.
I blankly looked up at the pink sky as the sun began to set, giving them time to compose their emotions.
My heart ached for no reason too.
If someone close to me died and became a monster, how would I feel?
Perhaps because I had never considered it, it was hard to imagine.
To begin with, I had never experienced the death of someone close to me.
My grandparents were elderly but all in good health, and my parents and friends were all fine.
Ah, there was one relative who had passed, but we had barely interacted to begin with, so I hadn’t felt any deep emotion.
Would it feel bad? Would it be sad? Or would I be happy to see them again?
There are quite a lot of people who wish the dead would come back in some form.
‘As expected… I don’t really know. Either way, I think it would be sad. Or maybe… just scary.’
Then I suddenly recalled Ragner as he had been during our conversation at the restaurant.
‘He wasn’t surprised at all to hear his friend had become a monster. Could it be… that Ragner has already experienced something similar?’
It seemed cases of corpses being possessed by demonic energy and becoming undead monsters were more common than I thought.
Ragner said he had adventured for a long time, so he must have been through all sorts of things.
Perhaps… even a comrade becoming a monster.
“Choi.”
“Huh! Yes, yes!”
I snapped out of my thoughts at Ragner’s voice calling me.
“Please. Help me meet Sabira again.”
“Oh, of course! I’ll do my best to help with everything I can!”
Things worked out well! At any rate, I had stopped the remains from being burned for now!
Once the course of action was decided, the next steps followed quickly.
Ragner first knelt before his friend’s grave and recited a prayer. It was a prayer directed at Leta, the god who stood on the opposite side from our Demon King’s team.
Ruadis stood behind Ragner and quietly bowed her head, and after gauging the mood, I subtly followed suit.
Since I was affiliated with the Demon King’s side, I had been a little worried that hearing the prayer might make me feel like a demon being exorcised, convulsing and all….
But I felt nothing in particular.
That was a relief.
Once the prayer ended, the two carefully began digging the grave’s soil.
For propriety’s sake, I should have helped too, but… I honestly confessed that I was scared and just watched from a distance.
I didn’t yet have the confidence to look at human remains with a clear mind. And it was obvious there would be nothing but a severed head.
What if it appeared in my dreams? Our dungeon was already gloomy enough—it wasn’t good for my mental health.
“You stay there, young lady. What would those slender arms even do to help?”
“I’m actually pretty good at lifting heavy things!”
I’m the type with a surprisingly solid core.
“So you’re going to help?”
“No. I’m sorry. I won’t overstep.”
Fortunately, both of them understood.
