"Roar—"
The cavern, expanded by the Capacious Extremis, trembled suddenly. In the nearby distance, the faint sounds of cheering and roaring also paused at this moment. The underground passage, fairly wide, was almost completely blocked by Norbert, who was close to the size of a full-grown elephant.
The guards who had just passed by quickly reacted, but before they could pull out their magic wands, Norbert swung them against the wall with a single turn. Amidst the rising dust, Lupin felt something being stuffed into his arms—
"What's this..."
The man looked down to find the box, from which Norbert had just emerged, now being held in his arms.
"You better hurry, this place won't hold for long..."
William looked up at the ceiling, now shaking precariously under Norbert's movements. Even Lupin could tell he wasn't lying.
"Then you—"
Lupin instinctively glanced up, immediately understanding what William meant by taking advantage of the confusion... but wasn't this a bit too chaotic?
"Don't worry about it—"
William suddenly bent down, picked something up from the ground, and then pinned a name plate to Lupin's chest. "Remember to be quick, and if there are cages, don't bother breaking them open; just put them into the box as they are. Also, never take this off, and don't look down randomly."
As he spoke, William placed a pair of already-prepared sunglasses on Lupin's face.
Without waiting for a response, William then leaped onto Norbert's neck, letting his dark robe conceal him entirely with a sweep of his hand.
"Wait—"
But there was no waiting. An eager Norbert raised his head, only to be punched hard.
"Hiss—lower your head, are you not aware of how tall you are when holding your head up?"
Having intimately contacted the ceiling, William complained irritably.
"Snort—"
Feeling a bit wronged, Norbert sneezed and then charged toward the end of the passage, roaring as it went. Soon, it disappeared around the fiery corner, having knocked over every oil lamp along the way. Who knew if it was for nostalgia or truly inconvenient to install an electrical grid, but the lighting here still used the oldest methods.
"..."
Watching the solitary figure and dragon quickly disappear from view, Lupin stood silent for a moment, holding the box, before heeding the sporadic noises in his ears and hastily running in the direction William had pointed out earlier.
...
Today was a beautiful day.
At least, Tarik-Ibn-Zeyad thought so, until a fire dragon roared and rushed into the venue.
But just as he did at the end of every month, enjoying the battle results performance of his tribe over the month, a roar filled with rage suddenly interrupted everything happening. At first, Tarik thought it was just his men making a mistake during preparations and failing to watch those red-haired creatures—
But seeing the surrounding walls starting to crack, he immediately realized something was wrong.
Those little things couldn't possibly cause such a commotion.
However, before Tarik could send his men to investigate outside, the roaring drew nearer, as if just a wall away, then suddenly, he felt an upsurge of vibrations beneath him, and the source of all the chaos smashed through the wall right in front of him.
But...
Isn't there a door right there? Why must you break through the wall?
"Snort—"
Having roared with an open mouth all the way, Norbert finally couldn't help but snort after eating a belly full of dust.
...Maybe we should have this dumb dragon's brain checked in Romania?
This was the only thought that crossed William's mind as he dismounted from Norbert's head.
But it was just a thought. Standing at the edge of the ruins created by Norbert's collision, William looked up. He was now in the well-lit edge of a circular arena, surrounded by sparse circles of spectators—clearly, the attendance rate here wasn't high.
William's gaze swept aimlessly... wait, no way?
The sudden appearance of the black dragon didn't even cause that much panic among the spectators. Some who instinctively wanted to leave due to the cracked walls and the recent roar even sat back down—they seemed to believe William's entrance marked a new performance, as the previous anomalies now all had a reasonable explanation.
But as the leader of this Poacher Tribe, Tarik could guarantee, without a doubt, they had no such arrangement.
Because they hadn't caught a dragon at all!
"Where the heck did this come from?"
By now, Tarik had found the glass in front of his box, staring intently at the black figure for a long moment, yet unable to recall any relevant memory.
The flowing black robe behind him partly concealed his face with the hood draped over his eyes, a deep red Redwood Wand jutting out from under the robe, slanting toward the ground—he just stood there quietly, seemingly waiting for something.
"Boss, that's a Norwegian Ridgeback—"
The subordinate behind Tarik seemed to remember something, hastily running to the back office desk, quickly pulling open the lowest drawer, rummaging through a pile of accumulated newspapers. Finally, he raised a newspaper from the United Kingdom six months ago, "That was Emeric's target too, a Norwegian Ridgeback—"
"!"
Tarik quickly turned around to see the photo in the man's hand, showing a blurry dragon silhouette spewing flames and roasting heaps of wizards on the ground. This news from the southern part of Scotland six months ago was why he had set his sights on the Starry Sky Circus—
A fire dragon could absolutely revitalize his tribe's nearly bankrupt poacher circus.
He didn't even need a fire dragon; a pack of werewolves could do. Anyway, they only had one performance at the end of each month, sometimes not even that. Just change the time to a full moon night and it would be fine.
Thus, upon learning the other party planned to perform at sea, he sent people fully prepared for anything—
Now it seemed those clowns had botched the job anyway.
But now the opponents seemed daring enough to come to him? With just one person and one dragon?
For a moment, Tarik couldn't quite grasp the opponent's intentions... Revenge? Suppression?
...Surely they weren't trying to defect?
But this was his turf. If they really only sent one wizard and one dragon... then weren't they just coming to get caught?
"Boss, the people in the arena are asking what to do now?"
The door to Tarik's box burst open, a panting man hurriedly rushing inside. At the intrusion of the fire dragon and the mysterious person, the originally planned performance was still ongoing. In the arena, over a dozen Abraxsan-riding wizards hesitated on the spot.
"Arrest that lunatic and the fire dragon—"
"Okay..."
"Right, tell them—do it gently, preferably in a way that makes onlookers think it's still part of the performance."