"What, slaying a dragon?"

Joey closed the parchment, momentarily unable to believe his eyes.

(That must have been a hallucination. How could my father-in-law assign me such a death trap? Slaying a dragon? It's not like killing chickens or ducks. I'm no dragon-slaying hero!)

After regaining his composure, he opened it again.

"Fuck! This really is dragon slaying!"

Joey couldn't help but curse. What did he do to deserve such a time-killing task? Asking him to slay a dragon was simply a joke.

It seems that his future father-in-law knows about his relationship with Catherine and deliberately set up this mission so that he would never return. Catherine, his sweet little girl, will be able to be close to him again.

"Um... that... Archmage Meld, did you take the wrong quest?"

Joey mustered up her courage and asked a question.

"That's right, this is it. I already confirmed it on my way here!"

"But... this red dragon is still a dragon, even if it's a minor. It's not something a human like me can just kill casually, is it?"

"Could it be some kind of secret weapon that can kill with a single blow?"

"By the way, does the dragon race have any laws protecting minors? Would killing it like this be a crime?"

Joey's barrage of questions completely baffled Meld. He hadn't expected the person he had his eye on to show such reluctance. After all, he had personally chosen Joey for him. It would be too embarrassing for a future mage to be unable to handle even an immature red dragon.

"Isn't the red dragon easy to kill? Just cast a fireball on it, and it'll be done."

Meld didn't think an ordinary red dragon was that difficult to deal with.

"Wow, Archmage Meld, you're so powerful! Could you please come with me? Let's work together to rid the residents outside the city of this threat!"

Joey wore a fawning expression.

This compliment should still be given to Meld; if he were to come along, all I need to do is applaud him from the sidelines.

"..."

Meld didn't reply, but turned and walked away.

He felt that if he stayed any longer, he would be swayed by Joey's flattery.

"Hey, hey, don't go! You really don't have time, could you lend me some kind of magical artifact or something?"

Joey watched Meld's retreating figure and spoke urgently, but Meld simply walked away without looking back.

(Oh no, this is really the end!)

Joey felt especially cold from his wet body.

"Captain Joey, can't you talk to the city lord again and ask him to send us more people? Are the three of us really going to complete the dragon-slaying mission?"

Sergeant Medes looked at Joey and the bearded man at the city gate, but he didn't have much confidence.

"What do you mean 'the three of us'? Aren't there also WaWa and XiaoHei?"

Joey was a little unconvinced, so he pushed the kobold next to him forward and patted the little black guy on his shoulder.

"Uh... Captain, it's not that I look down on them, it's just that we're facing a red dragon this time, it's not an ordinary mission!"

Medes was not a reckless man; he was already preparing to leave, and he didn't want to actually be going to his death.

"Hey, do you think I don't want to? I've been there several times already, and I haven't even seen the city lord. I haven't seen Catherine for days either. I'm starting to suspect that the city lord deliberately set a trap for me!"

"That shouldn't be the case, after all, he's the city lord of Grayfurnace City, he wouldn't do something like that!"

"Do you know him well? Then why did he give me this task?"

"..."

"Let's go check the situation first. If it's really bad, we'll just take a look and run. Let's not do anything rash!"

When Medes heard what Joey said, he could only nod obediently.

After Captain Zoro arranged for him to accompany Joey to escort Catherine to Ash City, he had nothing to do and was now just Joey's personal bodyguard. It was unclear whether Captain Zoro had anticipated this situation.

The bearded man led out three horses and gave them to the two men. These three horses were the final supplies the city lord had provided to support them.

Joey wanted Wawa to share a horse with Big Beard, but Wawa glanced at Big Beard and immediately ran ahead of the group.

"Hey, what's with that look? It's kind of making me angry."

The bearded man spurred his horse to catch up with Dig Dig, shouting at him with great displeasure.

Joey saw this but didn't say much. He simply squeezed his legs against the horse's flanks and followed.

...

The place where the red dragon dwells is not hard to find; a map was included in the parchment scroll given to me by Archmage Meld.

Joey and his group arrived at their destination before noon.

"Let's tie the horse here and walk the rest of the way!"

Joey didn't want to take the three horses to test the waters; horses are naturally timid and would easily be startled if they got close to the red dragon.

The bearded man and Sergeant Medes had no objections; they were used to following Joey's orders. Although Joey didn't want to take on this mission again, his attitude had changed drastically after the mission began, and he had returned to being the wise temporary captain.

"Dig! Dig!"

WaWa, who had arrived here before them, suddenly became very excited. Before Joey could even give him any instructions, he had already started shouting and running off.

"return!"

Joey shouted, but then, fearing he might disturb the red dragon, he didn't dare shout any louder.

My dear reader, there's more to this chapter! Please click the next page to continue reading—even more exciting content awaits!