It happened while Mikhail and Adrian were seated in the tavern’s dining hall, eating dinner.
“Um… excuse me…”
A girl dressed in a grimy, worn-out dress shyly lifted the cloth covering the basket she held and spoke hesitantly.
“Adventurers… I just harvested these carrots today… Would you, maybe, be interested in buying some?”
Inside the basket, dirt-covered carrots gleamed with a vibrant orange hue, neatly arranged.
Her face bore an expression of doubt, as if she’d already accepted the likelihood that these handsome customers wouldn’t be the least bit interested in what she had to offer. One of them had a massive sword slung at his side, and the other’s hands were unblemished—clearly the hands of a nobleman’s son.
Realistically, mercenaries wandering the continent—who weren’t even cooks—would have no reason to buy ingredients. But she had to sell all the carrots today and return home.
Clamping her mouth shut, the girl looked at the men eating their meal with hopeful desperation.
The silver-haired man was good-looking, but his sharp eyes made him too intimidating to approach. So instead, she focused on the blond man whose lips still held a gentle smile.
“Sorry. We’re traveling right now, and the carrots would just be extra baggage.”
Despite her hope, Adrian declined without hesitation. The faint smile on his lips didn’t disappear—he sounded apologetic, but the outcome didn’t change.
Hearing that, the girl nodded with a downcast face, as if she’d expected the rejection, and began to turn toward another table.
“Will one silver coin do?”
Mikhail’s voice made the girl freeze in her tracks. She looked as though she wasn’t sure if she’d heard him correctly.
“H-Huh?”
“I’m asking if one silver per carrot is enough.”
At those words, Adrian’s gaze shifted to Mikhail’s face. One silver per carrot? He’d already suspected Mikhail lacked any real sense of money, but now it seemed that, if this were a test, he’d have failed spectacularly.
Adrian let out a resigned sigh and finally spoke.
“What he means is—he’s buying all your carrots… at one silver apiece.”
Who knows what he’s going to use them for.
Adrian let out a dry chuckle. Mikhail, despite his cold appearance, always acted like a prince of the kingdom should—showing concern for commoners in desperate situations. Well, if that was what it meant to have the heart of a hero, Adrian had no intention of arguing. It’s not like either of them was in a position to fret over a handful of silver coins.
Just moments ago, the girl’s face had been full of disappointment, but now her eyes sparkled as she repeatedly bowed her head.
“Ah! Yes…! Yes! Thank you so much!”
At once, she carefully spread the white cloth from the basket over the table, then began pulling out the carrots one by one and stacking them in neat little piles.
Mikhail, who’d only intended to buy a single carrot, glanced up as he watched the growing mountain of orange.
What the hell… am I going to do with all that?
He stared into the basket in disbelief, only to realize it was still far from empty.
“…That’s enough. We don’t need that many.”
“What are you talking about? For one silver each, this amount isn’t even enough—I ought to bring more!”
With a resolute expression, the girl emptied the basket completely. A towering wall of carrots now stood between Mikhail and Adrian.
After receiving the silver coin, she flashed a wide, radiant smile and bowed deeply.
“Thank you! Have a wonderful day!”
Adrian returned her smile just as warmly.
He kept the pleasant expression on his face as he watched the girl practically skip out of the tavern, then muttered under his breath.
“Best bet is to just wrap them up in the cloth and drop them off in the kitchen.”
Mikhail, still staring at the pile of carrots with a deadpan expression, crossed his arms and replied with bold confidence. A short snort followed.
“There’s no need. The moment I saw those carrots, an idea came to mind.”
“Good for you.”
Adrian, having finished his meal, dabbed his mouth with a cloth and muttered back.
Given how confident Mikhail sounded, it seemed like he actually had something in mind.
At least, that’s what Adrian thought at the time.
***
“So.”
Adrian rubbed his forehead as if a headache was coming on, eyes cast downward toward the floor.
There, the Darphung was tugging at the hem of Adrian’s pants with his front paws, his tail wagging desperately as if pleading to be saved. His soft whining made it clear—he hadn’t eaten dinner yet and was starving.
In front of him sat a sad little bowl with a single orange carrot lying inside, completely ignored.
“…You were seriously planning to feed the Darphung raw carrots?”
“…”
“For real?”
Mikhail finally answered under the growing pressure of their stares.
“…I thought maybe the kitchen could cook them for him?”
“The carrots themselves are the problem.”
Woof!
As if to back Adrian up, the Darphung barked loudly. With his adorable little body and tiny teeth, it was easy to mistake him for some harmless pup—but a Darphung was, by nature, strictly carnivorous.
“Ah, ah.”
Mikhail finally seemed to get it and nodded.
“You always bring him meat, so I figured… if he’s going to eat anyway, might as well make it healthier with some vegetables… What’s with that look?”
Adrian couldn’t help but gape in disbelief at Mikhail’s proud response.
So that’s why he bought the carrots.
Adrian picked up the Darphung’s food bowl and dumped the raw carrots from it onto the table with a resigned sigh.
“The thought was nice… but he can’t eat this. Just take them down to the kitchen or something.”
“Got it.”
Woof! Woof woof!
Unaware of the conversation, Darphung barked impatiently, demanding his food. When Adrian saw him start to bite down hard on the hem of his pants, he finally gave in and pulled out the portioned meat for the day.
He piled the dish high with thick slices of raw red meat, and the moment he set the plate down with a thunk, the Darphung lunged at it like a missile.
“Hey, eat slowly, will you?”
As Adrian reached out and stroked Darphung’s back while the creature buried his face into the bowl, devouring meat with wild enthusiasm—
It was right then.
“…You look like you’re used to this.”
At Mikhail’s comment, Adrian, who had been watching the Darphung, lifted his head.
Used to this?
Did he? The slight upward curve of Adrian’s lips faded back to their usual straight line.
“Not really.”
“Have you raised a Darphung before?”
“…I guess…”
Adrian wiped his hands on the white cloth laid across the table, his gaze drifting to the dim village outside. A few lampposts lit the streets with a warm glow against the encroaching darkness.
Wait… What did Mikhail ask again?
Oh—had he ever raised a Darphung?
That simple question had stirred something buried deep in his mind, a memory long sunken beneath the surface. In a quiet murmur, Adrian replied.
“Of course I have.”
It was a Darphung that belonged to a human he’d met during one of his travels. That one had been larger and older than the one now crunching down noisily on a pile of meat.
Adrian had taken that Darphung in after an unexpected accident.
A sailboat they’d tried to use to cross between islands had been swallowed by a sudden storm and wrecked in an instant. The Darphung’s owner had been a frail human, unable to survive the crossing. While Adrian—a dragon—had swum through the storm with ease, the Darphung had barely managed to stay afloat beside him.
He had only exchanged a few short words with the human on the boat, and yet, surprisingly, the Darphung had followed him without resistance.
Once they arrived at the uninhabited island—no other humans in sight—Adrian had intended to take the opportunity to rest in peace. But the Darphung followed him around the island quietly.
Still, every so often, it would sit by the ocean’s edge and stare out at the horizon for hours, as if waiting.
“Are you waiting for your master out here?”
You won’t even touch the food I worked so hard to find for you.
Whenever that happened, Adrian would plop down next to the creature and gaze at the horizon with it.
He never once told the Darphung that the master it was waiting for would never return. He thought it better not to explain the meaning of death. It felt kinder to simply sit beside him in silence.
Whether it had been waiting for its master or simply fading on its own, the Darphung had grown weaker over time, and within a few months, it died. Adrian buried it himself.
It was then that the dragon made a vow.
He could be around those who could live just fine on their own. But those who could only live for one person—those like the Darphung—he would never… never be around again.
“So that’s why you didn’t want to raise him?”
Mikhail’s cautious question pulled Adrian out of his memories. That hesitant look didn’t suit Mikhail at all.
Adrian turned his gaze from the window back to him and let the corner of his mouth lift in a faint smile.
“Who knows.”
By then, the Darphung had already finished eating and came trotting over, gently nuzzling his soft fur against Adrian’s bare foot. Panting with his mouth open, he looked positively delighted.
All that happiness from a single meal?
At this rate, the resolve Adrian had made back on that deserted island was starting to feel meaningless. Were those few months spent with the old Darphung on the island miserable?
Not at all.
Suddenly, the dragon found himself wondering—
“…Did he feel the same way?”
Mikhail furrowed his brows with a confused what? kind of look, clearly not understanding what Adrian meant.
But Adrian just shook his head with a soft laugh. The night was far too short to tell the whole story.
