Bella’s eyes remain closed, and she speaks to me in my mind.

【“Ryujin, about what happened earlier……”】

Before you say anything, let me speak first.
It might turn out long, and you may not know what I’m talking about.
But, I want you to hear me out until I finish.

【”…………”】

Bella looks confused and she’s wavering.

“Bella, what’s wrong?”

Nargom asks Bella but she remains hesitant.
I continue to speak, regardless.

Bella, the truth is…… I’m not the Dragon God you all know.
I just happened to stumble upon this forest and just happened to shoulder all the burdens of the Lithuvar Tribe, that’s all.
I also found out what happened to your real Dragon God.
Hibi…… your miko-senpai, probably didn’t know about it until she became a shrine maiden herself. [T.N: miko = shrine maiden]

Listen carefully, your previous Dragon God isn’t a smart enough dragon to think about helping you fight against the Manticore.
And, he’s also not that cold-hearted as you say he is.
He was just a dumb, kindhearted dragon who got full of himself after you gave him praise when he saved your village from an Abyss. He eats Abyss after all.

Bella looked shocked to hear that.
I knew it. So Bella, who has never interacted with their Dragon God before, never knew the truth.
I heard them talking about a place only shrine maidens can enter back in the other village…… and bingo, I was right. That place is probably where they explain the truth about their Dragon God as they pass the role to the next generation shrine maiden.

Your Dragon God isn’t the one who promised you that the Manticore will spare your lives if you feed it sacrifices.
The one who made that promise was most likely, the previous shrine maiden from nine years ago.
Hibi was still young back then, and she would be the next in line. And, then you, after her.
They believed that making that promise was the best way to reduce any more casualties and doing so would stop the Manticore from attacking the village for a while until they could find a way to truly drive it away for good. But years passed, and they couldn’t find anything. By then, you’d have already tricked many lost travelers and sacrificed them to the Manticore.

It may just have been to stall time until they find a way to fix the problem…… but, from the looks of it, not everyone believed the words of the shrine maiden.
More and more people of your tribe left the village because their faith in the Dragon God was wavering due to the despair and suffering the Manticore has caused you over the years, and in the end, you all split apart.
So, it’s understandable why someone like Nagrom is really pissed off about us monsters.

Which is also why you shouldn’t put all the blame to your Dragon God because he wasn’t the one who made the promise in the first place.
No, actually, since your shrine maidens can read the Dragon God’s mind…… they would’ve already found out that the Dragon God was actually just a nice two-headed who isn’t all that smart, so that means…… every order given under the Dragon God’s name never came from the Dragon God himself. It was the shrine maidens all along.
Since I don’t think your Dragon God, Amphis, was smart enough to do politics and run a village, that’s the only explanation.

Okay, so…… I told her everything, and I could somehow feel that she really focused all her energy to maintaining〖Telepathy〗despite not being used to it.

“T-That…… can’t be, true…… there’s no way……”

Bella was too shocked to speak properly, her eyes are opened wide.
…… I’m kinda scared that maybe she couldn’t keep up with my little story and got lost in the middle of it.
But, I told her everything. It’s up to her what she’ll do with the information I gave her. If she even listened to me till the very end, of course.

“…… Bella?”

When Nagrom called her out, Bella fell on her knees.

“Bella-sama, what happened?!”

“Bella-sama, pull yourself together! Bella-sama!”

“I’ll be…… fine…… just fetch me…… some water…… please……”

“Y-Yes, of course!”

She’s really overwhelmed by the shocking info I just gave her.
Being told that the Dragon God they were worshiping all these years was just a tool for the shrine maidens to run the village themselves is…… it’s actually a pretty messed up system, now that I think about it.

In addition, this shows that the whole conflict between the two villages is just a farce.
But, the anti-Ryujin village only decided to follow the promise not because they’re following what the shrine maiden said, but because they know for a fact that the Manticore becomes tame when fed with sacrifices.
The main problem here is that their Dragon God, who was the subject of worship in their village, never promised them anything, which will make it hard to regain trust.
Now knowing that their Dragon God was never the one giving them orders, there’s no reason for us to continue arguing like this.

“Na-, Nagrom-sama, there’s…… there’s something important I have to tell you……”

Bella says while drinking water.

“J-Just don’t say it directly! Everyone will be confused!”

Bella falls silent, closes her eyes, and mutters her chant.
Then, she uses〖Telepathy〗to explain everything I said to Nagrom again.

“T-That’s…… that’s impossible! They’re all lies! Don’t be fooled by it!”

Rather not believing it, it sounds like Nagrom doesn’t even want to say it.

“…… Everyone, please listen to me”

“S-Stop! You’ll only cause more confusion! Leave the explanation to me! I’ll say it myself! So, you just be quiet

and……”

“I’ve discovered the truth about what the Dragon God’s shrine maidens have been hiding from us. Even I didn’t know about it until now, and I feel like everyone should know about this……”

“S-Stop, I say!”

Nagrom grabs Bella and shuts her up.
His hand tramples her hair and his other hand grips her neck.

“G-, guh……”

The two guards near Bella tries to hold Nagrom and separates them apart.
Nagrom releases his hold on Bella and she drops down.

“Please, calm yourself down, Nagrom-sama!”

“A-As if I can stay calm! Everything the Dragon God says are lies! To think that Bella would even believe all of that…… nothing good ever comes out of listening to monsters! That Evil Dragon has done nothing but bring misfortune to us!”

As Nagrom continues to shout complaints and excuses, Bella stands up.

“…… T-This is still something everyone should hear about……”

“I said stop!”

Nagrom shakes off the two guards holding him and kicks Bella away.
Then, he raises his arm, ready to punch Bella.

I stretched my tail and I was going to whip Nagrom away with it, but when he saw me move, he made a grim smile.
Don’t tell me…… is he planning on getting hit by my tail on purpose so he could shout more silly comments like I’m out to kill them all or some other lame excuse again?
The thought made me falter for a second and my tail stopped for a moment.

But, just before Nagrom’s fist hits Bella, a Lithuvar spear impales him from the back.

Nagrom drops on his knees, his hands touching the ground.
Although he was only pierced on the sides, it still went through his body.
Blood spills the area and it spreads on the soil.

The Lithuvar man who stabbed Nagrom turns pale.

“Aaa, a aaa aaa argh!”

Nagrom digs his fingers on the ground as he screams in pain.
That’s quite a powerful grip he’s got there in his fingers, the soil is leaving deep fingermarks behind.
Nagrom knows not to make any unnecessary movements, and tries his best to turn around without moving the spear.

“L-Look what you’ve done! Be careful! It’s stuck deep!”
“I-I was just trying to stop him……”
“You idiot! Don’t just carelessly take it off of him!”

P-Partner…… this may be asking much, but use〖High Rest〗on them, please……
Though, a part of me kinda just wants to leave Nagrom be.

“Gra~a”

Partner growls and a gentle warm light wraps around Bella.
The pain from being strangled and kicked away by Nagrom soothes down as the light from〖High Rest〗heals her and slowly disappears.

“T-Thank you……”

Bella says to us with slight embarrassment.
…… Uh, Partner, what about Nagrom?