Welcome to the Monsters' Guild ~ The Strongest Group Who Did Everything, for a Price ~ Chapter 9

Staff announcement: this week both d.i.c.k Guild Master and Furry New Game won’t be released due to various things occurring to us. Nothing serious, only approaching exams and deadlines. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Enjoy the chapter! See you next week!

Dragon’s anguish

Dragon sighed deeply.
He had yet to receive his first job, but as the strongest monster, he couldn’t express his distress over something so trivial.
Dragons were prideful beasts, after all.

"Hey, Dragon!"

Then, someone called him.

"Master. How can I help you?"

Hiding his anxiety, he firmly faced Raiz.

"Lately you don’t look good. Is there something wrong?"

But the tamer saw through his facade, and the shock made Dragon’s mouth fall open and breathe some flames.

"Woah! Watch where you breathe!"

After Raiz dodged the flames, Dragon shut his mouth with his foreleg.

"My apologies, Master. But what makes you think that something is bothering me?"

Although his tamer already found out, a strong being’s forte is bluffing out of pride.
He couldn’t let anyone know about his feelings, especially Raiz.

"Well, you sigh quite a lot. It’s pretty obvious."

"…"

Raiz guessed that the beast was blus.h.i.+ng, even though its face wasn’t showing it.

d.a.m.n! How could I forget about my body size!

Given how big Dragon was compared to the other monsters, everyone must have seen him sigh often from the guild’s ranch.

"Everyone is worried about you. If there’s something wrong, let’s talk about it together. I’m your master, after all."

It would have been easy for Dragon to dodge the topic, but he knew how Raiz was.
Although he was a prideful dragon, the stubborn man who tamed him would never give up after a few rejections. He would keep asking over and over again until the situation was resolved.
Rather than letting everyone watch such a scene, Dragon thought that speaking his mind honestly would be better.

"It’s nothing serious…"

He started explaining.

◆

"I see. So you want to be useful like the others?"

"Exactly."

"But you’re thinning the number of big monsters out in the forest, and both the meat and materials we gather from them are essential to our guild’s management. Don’t you think you’re doing more than enough?"

Dragon shook his head.

"Crus.h.i.+ng flies for humans can’t be considered work at all."

Raiz guessed that it wasn’t enough for him.

"So you want to do something that even a dragon can do?"

"No, I want to do something only I can do."

Raiz tilted his head thinking about that.
Dragon’s problem was quite complex.

His look was frightfully for weak and strong monsters, and his mighty dimensions not only made everyone notice his discomfort, but were also fearfully enormous.
Being afraid of big monsters was normal for commoners, but Dragon was on a totally different plain. He had huge claws and fangs, he would have closed the distance between someone in the blink of an eye, and he would have squashed anyone with the lightest of touches.

That’s how people saw him.

When Raiz first came to Dekuch with him, the guards thought they were done for the moment they saw the flying beast.
Still, he wanted to take his racial mightiness aside.

Essentially, this is a matter of trust. Asking the other monsters for help made them gain trust, and townspeople understood how harmless they are. Still, people are judging Dragon only by its appearance…

Both the tamer and the beast sighed thinking over the problem.

Despite dragons frightening appearance, each of them has a personality just like humans.
In fact, he was actually quite loyal.

"I’ll figure something out. But in the meantime, I need you to keep doing what you can to make people accept and trust us."

Dragon was stroke by the bitterness of those words, but he understood what his master was saying.
Although grasping a different race's emotions should be impossible, they both guessed each other’s feelings thanks to their bond.

"Forgive me for being so selfish. I shall go back to the forest and see how things are going."

"Sure, do your best."

Wished him Raiz, and Dragon got up.

"I’ll deal with some more monsters."

He departed once more to help the Master he chose to serve, not the citizens.
As he soared the sky, dark clouds were looming over the forest.

"Will a storm come?"

The forest's monsters were returning to their nests as to escape the oncoming tempest.

It was like the dark sky itself was a bad omen.