Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid Side Story: Ilulu's Dilemma
A flame dragon's heart wavers between duty and doubt...
Ilulu was raised on one truth: humans are lesser beings, meant to be ruled. As a soldier of the Pure-Blood Flame, the Chaos Faction's most radical faction, she's never questioned the code—until the day she's ordered to deliver judgment on Tohru, the senior who once taught her how to fight, now living among humans as a maid.
Descending into a world of convenience stores, morning commutes, and gentle smiles, Ilulu watches Tohru serve a huma
Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid Side Story: Ilulu's Dilemma - The Girl from the Scorched Valley — The Foreign Object Known as the Human World —
That's wrong, she thought.
She understood it in her head. Humans were a lesser species, meant to be ruled. The first article of the Chaos Faction's code. She'd heard it so many times since the moment she was born a flame dragon that her ears should have grown calluses. And yet—why did her chest ache like this?
Ilulu stood on the rocky ground of the scorched valley, looking down over a river of molten lava. Red light flickered and swayed from the cracks in the black rock face. Hot wind brushed her cheeks, and the tips of her hair swayed like flames. This was among the harshest lands in the Chaos Realm—the stronghold of the Pure-Blood Flame, the faction of radicals who cried loudest for the extermination of humanity. There was nothing else around. Only lava, black stone, and the hot wind that occasionally swept through the valley.
(Training again today, then.)
Ilulu held both hands out in front of her. Her golden eyes, with their vertical slit pupils, narrowed slowly. The sensation of fire being born inside her body. Deep in her chest it grew hot; the back of her throat burned. An instant later, chaotic flame burst from her palms. Red and black mingled together—fire unlike any ordinary flame. It warped the air as it flew in a straight line toward the lava river.
With a heavy thud, the lava leapt up. Black rock shattered, fragments scattering around her. Ilulu caught her breath and readied herself to unleash another burst.
"Good flame, same as ever."
A low voice came from behind her.
Ilulu didn't turn around. There was no way she wouldn't know that voice. Gardo. A warrior of the Pure-Blood Flame—a man who was something like an older brother to her. His short black hair swept back, his red eyes sharp and glinting. He stood close to a hundred and ninety centimeters tall, and even in human form his sheer presence was unchanged. Dressed in combat gear shaped from black scales, he stood with his arms crossed, watching her.
"Gardo."
Ilulu spoke his name curtly. Her voice was low, hard to read. Her fiery red long hair swayed in the wind, the ends leaping like flames. Her small frame—barely five feet—was delicate, but an old scar from her days in the Chaos Faction stood out pale white on her left arm. The two small horns on top of her head and the tail with a flame-shaped tip marked her as something other than human.
"What do you want?"
Gardo watched her in silence for a while. There was a sharp, appraising quality to his gaze. At last he spoke.
"I want you to look into Tohru for me."
Ilulu's heart skipped, just for an instant. Tohru. A senior of the same flame dragon clan—a dragon who had once fought at the core of the Chaos Faction. But she'd infiltrated the human world years ago and never come back.
"Tohru?"
"She went down to the human world and hasn't sent word once since. Odds are high she's broken the code. Go and confirm it. If she's living alongside humans, deliver the Flame's judgment."
The Flame's judgment. The weight of those words sank into the hot wind. Ilulu bit her lip. She understood what Gardo was saying. The code was absolute. Anyone tainted by humans had to be purified by fire. But Tohru was—
(Tohru was the first one who ever taught me how to fight.)
When she was small, back when she still couldn't control her flames. Whenever Ilulu failed again and again and was on the verge of tears, Tohru would always laugh and teach her. *It's all right. You can do it, Ilulu.* That gentle voice—Ilulu still remembered it even now.
"...Understood."
Ilulu answered shortly. Gardo nodded, satisfied.
"The rift at the boundary is in the back alley behind East End Town Station. It opens before dawn. Descend to the human world from there. And whatever you do, don't let the humans see what you are."
"You don't have to tell me that."
Ilulu turned her back. She didn't want to look at Gardo's face any longer. Something was stirring deep in her chest. Deliver judgment on Tohru. For some reason, her heart was rejecting that order outright.
(No. This is a mission. Don't let feelings get in the way.)
She told herself that, and started walking.
——
Passing through the boundary rift always felt awful.
It was as if her body twisted and warped, shoved out somewhere else. Ilulu closed her eyes—and the next moment, cold air wrapped around her.
(So this is... the human world.)
Ilulu opened her eyes slowly.
The back alley behind East End Town Station. Ilulu stood at the dead end of a narrow path barely two meters wide. The sky was still dark. The faint gloom before dawn wrapped around the town. But to Ilulu's eyes, the scene looked utterly alien.
Buildings. Streetlights. Asphalt roads. The sound of cars in the distance. Everything here was something the Chaos Realm didn't have. The Chaos Realm had no buildings this orderly. No lights this bright. No nights this quiet.
(Humans live in a place like this?)
Ilulu stepped out of the alley. As she walked toward the station, the foot traffic gradually increased. Early-rising office workers, a young newspaper delivery boy, a woman carrying a convenience store bag. All of them walking with ordinary faces. No one noticed Ilulu's horns or tail. No—they couldn't notice. Ilulu hadn't released her human-mimicry magic. Her horns and tail were hidden from human sight.
(Humans are a lesser species, meant to be ruled.)
The first article of the Chaos Faction's code repeated in her head. Never betray your comrades. Deliver judgment on those tainted by humans. The three articles coiled around Ilulu like a curse.
And yet the scene before her didn't look like the "lesser species meant to be ruled" she'd been taught about.
In the shopping street by the station, a fishmonger had opened shop, and the smell of fresh-baked bread drifted from a bakery. A man in a suit hurried past, eyes on his phone. A girl who looked like a high schooler pedaled her bicycle, laughing with friends.
(Why are they smiling?)
Humans were weak. They couldn't even use magic. Their lifespans were a mere eighty years.
So why could they smile with faces that calm?
Ilulu stopped walking and gazed at the town for a while. In the scorched valley of the Chaos Realm, no one smiled like that. There was no room to smile. If you weren't strong, you didn't survive. The weak were simply culled.
(This place is different.)
A feeling she couldn't put into words spread through Ilulu's chest.
——
Tohru's apartment, Maison East End, was in a residential neighborhood about fifteen minutes on foot from the station. A two-story building, fifteen years old, eight units total. Following the address she'd looked up beforehand, Ilulu stood in front of it.
(Tohru is here.)
Room 201, on the second floor. Orange light spilled from the window. It was already morning, and yet the light was still on.
Ilulu circled around to the back of the building without making a sound. She kicked lightly off the wall and leapt up to just below the second-floor window. Moving her small body nimbly, she peered inside from the edge of the window.
And she caught her breath.
(Tohru...?)
The one there was a woman with blonde twin-tails swaying, wearing a white apron. Two flat-tipped, forked horns poked up from the top of her head. Her golden eyes were narrowed gently. No mistake. It was Tohru.
But something was different from the Tohru Ilulu knew.
"Miss Kobayashi, breakfast is ready."
Tohru was setting steaming plates on the living-room table. Fried eggs and sausages, salad and miso soup. All of it carefully made—human cooking.
"Mmm... five more minutes..."
The woman sprawled on the sofa reluctantly raised herself. Black short hair, sleepy sanpaku eyes. She wore a worn-out T-shirt and track pants. Her chest was on the modest side, and overall she had very little feminine about her. This was apparently the human called Miss Kobayashi.
"It's your day off, so there's no rush. But the miso soup will get cold."
Tohru smiled happily. That smile stabbed into Ilulu's chest.
(Why can you smile like that?)
Tohru had defied the Chaos Faction's code and was living with a human. And that wasn't all. She was carrying food to a human woman with such obvious joy—as if to say this was happiness, plain and simple.
"Miss Kobayashi is everything to me as a maid."
Tohru said it suddenly, in a serious voice.
"Yeah, yeah, you soft-hearted dragon."
Miss Kobayashi waved a hand as if it were a bother and sat down at the table. Tohru settled beside her and stared fixedly at her face.
(Soft-hearted dragon...?)
Ilulu didn't understand what it meant. But she could tell from Tohru's expression that she didn't mind being called that. If anything, she looked happy.
Her chest hurt.
Ilulu pressed a hand to her chest. Her heart was pounding fast. Was this anger? Or sadness? Even she didn't know. It was just that the sight of Tohru laughing together with a human shook her heart violently.
(About five thousand of the Chaos Faction have infiltrated the human world.)
The number Gardo had told her surfaced in her mind. Among them, there might be others like Tohru, living alongside humans. A dragon's lifespan was eight hundred to a thousand years. A human's was a mere eighty. And Tohru was giving her all to a human with a life that short.
(I don't understand it.)
Ilulu gripped the window frame. Her fingertips went white.
Just then, Miss Kobayashi glanced toward the window.
"I feel like someone was just there."
Ilulu instinctively hid herself. She pressed her back against the wall below the window and held her breath. Her heart was pounding far faster than before.
(Did she see me? No—it must be her imagination.)
"It's just your imagination. Now, eat before it gets cold."
Tohru's cheerful voice came from beyond the window. Ilulu bit down on her lip.
(Why do I have to hide?)
If this were a mission, she could just face Tohru openly. If she was going to deliver judgment, she could do it right now. But her body wouldn't move. She'd hidden herself. Even she didn't know why she'd hidden. And that made her furious beyond reason.
Ilulu quietly left the spot.
——
About thirty years ago, a boundary fissure incident had occurred near East End Town. A large-scale rift to the Chaos Realm had opened, and chaos beasts had poured into the human world. Around twenty humans had been killed. That incident was what had set the Chaos Faction's infiltration of the human world into full swing.
Ilulu had heard about it from Gardo.
"The humans remember that incident. That's why they fear the Chaos Faction. You hide what you are, too."
Gardo's words repeated in her head. Ilulu sat on a bench in a small park on the edge of town, looking up at the sky. The sky was already fully bright, a wide expanse of blue. In the Chaos Realm, she'd never seen a blue sky that beautiful.
(Humans are smiling under that sky.)
Ilulu closed her eyes. Behind her eyelids rose Tohru's smile. That gentle smile, turned toward Miss Kobayashi. A soft expression Ilulu had never once had directed at her.
(Tohru has been tainted by humans.)
She'd broken the code. She had to be judged. But.
But there was a part of Ilulu that didn't want to erase that smile.
Ilulu shook her head hard.
"No. I'm just going to carry out my mission."
She tried saying it out loud. But the words were hollow, and they sank into the gravel beneath the bench.
——
Night came.
Ilulu met Gardo in the alley behind the station. Gardo stood as if melting into the darkness, only his red eyes glowing eerily.
"How was Tohru?"
Ilulu's words caught for a moment.
(Tohru was with a human. She was smiling. She was cooking.)
If she told the truth, the mission would end there. Gardo would deliver judgment on Tohru. That was all there was to it.
But what came out of Ilulu's mouth was something else.
"Nothing yet. I confirmed where the apartment is. But I haven't seen Tohru."
She'd lied. So naturally it startled even her.
Gardo studied Ilulu's face for a while. Under that gaze,
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