Dragon Blood
The first things I felt upon opening my eyes were the gentle warmth streaming through the window and a headache sharp enough to split my skull. My stomach churned with unmistakable nausea—a textbook hangover.
“Ugh…”
I let out a faint groan and pushed myself upright. I remembered staggering around dead drunk, yet somehow I had managed to make it back to the inn. Even while I slept, the circle in my heart had never stopped turning; the dragon form still clung to me unchanged.
The sun hung high outside the window—midday, by the look of it. Clutching my queasy stomach, I headed downstairs.
“Mm…”
The inn felt completely different from the night before. The bustling crowd was gone without a trace. The empty first floor held only a single occupant.
A bamboo hat was pulled low over his face, hiding his features, but the line of his jaw and the set of his shoulders made it clear he was a man.
“Are you the Dragon Blood?”
The voice belonged to the man in the bamboo hat. With no one else around, the question was aimed squarely at me. I kept my mouth shut and frowned. Among these beastmen, “Dragon Blood” must mean a beastman whose draconic form had manifested outwardly.
“Not even worth answering, is that it?”
“I think there’s been some kind of misunderstand—”
Before I could finish, the man rose and swept off his hat. His face came into full view.
A sharp scar cut across the skin beneath one eye. White hair grew wild and unkempt, and above it rose a pair of horns—uneven in size, as though someone had once sheared them short.
A white-deer beastman.
He touched the horn my gaze had settled on, almost carefully, and spoke.
“Jongdo of the Segmented Sword of Mount Taebaek. I challenge the authority of the Dragon Blood.”
The man who had named himself Jongdo rested a hand on the hilt at his waist. The moment I was ready, he looked prepared to draw and charge.
“I’m not a Dragon Blood…”
My words only sharpened the killing intent rolling off him. The long red tassel at the tip of his sword danced in the pressure he released.
Talking him down clearly wasn’t going to work. I had taken beastman form to avoid trouble, and now a far greater nuisance had found me. This Jongdo seemed tangled in some complicated history with the so-called Dragon Blood of the past.
How was I supposed to clear up the misunderstanding? While I was still turning the problem over, Jongdo suddenly drew his blade. That was the signal. The instant his foot slammed against the floorboards, a razor-edged slash came screaming toward me.
It was a clean, disciplined sword style—like the techniques knights used. This was swordsmanship refined for fighting other people, not monsters.
Fast, but not so fast I couldn’t react. I drew at once and knocked his blade aside.
Clang!
Sparks leapt where steel met steel. Beyond the flash, Jongdo’s brow twitched hard. In that same breath his sword, still hanging in the air, twisted through an unnatural curve and whipped toward my throat.
Shrrrk—!
The edge skimmed past my neck, yet left not a single mark on the smooth skin. The transparent mana barrier coating my entire body had protected me.
Jongdo sprang back at once and leveled his sword at me. The slight twist of his expression told me he was already in trouble.
He adjusted his grip and muttered under his breath.
“As expected… this much isn’t enough to pierce the Dragon-Scale Heavenly Armor…?”
“Dragon-Scale… what?”
“Haaah…!”
He gave no answer. Once more he kicked off the floor and came at me, blade flashing. His swordplay was endlessly changeable—speeding up, slowing down, sometimes freezing mid-strike as if to bait me into dropping my guard.
It might have worked on someone else. It didn’t work on me.
I parried and frowned. The style was genuinely tricky. The gap in physical ability let me handle him easily enough, but against an opponent of equal strength this kind of swordsmanship would have been a real headache.
I had never intended to drag the fight out. The difference in skill was obvious; there was nothing left for me to learn from him. Yet after only a few exchanges I began to see the way he moved his mana.
Efficient. He didn’t flood his whole body the way adventurers from the far continent did. Instead he fired tiny bursts of mana with every motion, using them for instantaneous reinforcement.
That was all, though. Ready to end it, I slammed his blade upward with full force.
Kaaang—!
“Kh…!”
The impact sent his sword spinning into the air; it buried itself in the inn’s ceiling. His empty torso filled my vision. Without hesitation I extended my free left hand in a light gesture.
The motion itself was casual. What followed was anything but. The moment the mana I had driven into his body rebounded, a shockwave erupted and hurled him clean through the wall and out into the street.
I followed him outside. The thoroughfare that had been packed with townsfolk was now deserted. Everyone had gone into hiding to watch the fight.
Too many eyes. I grabbed the twitching Jongdo by the collar, dragged him back inside, and dumped him in a convenient corner. Then I pulled over a chair and sat.
“Hey. Mister.”
“…”
“What exactly is a Dragon Blood?”
“You want a Dragon Blood to explain Dragon Blood? Planning to humiliate me further…? Still, that too is a victor’s right… the price I must bear…”
“Skip the nonsense and just tell me what you know.”
With a low groan, Jongdo began to explain. The descendants of the dragons who appeared in myth were the ones called Dragon Blood. Born with power far beyond ordinary beastmen, they had ruled this land for ages.
“So you’re saying I look like one of those Dragon Blood lineages?”
“The arrogance of preaching the greatness of one’s own bloodline to a defeated foe… that alone is worthy of the name true Dragon Blood…”
“I keep telling you I’m not a Dragon Blood.”
“You insist on shaming me to the end…!”
Still writhing on the floor, Jongdo suddenly surged upright, dropped to his knees in front of me, and bowed his head.
“Cut it off…!”
“Cut what off?”
“My neck or my horn—one of the two. A victor has every right to take an opponent’s pride and life…”
Sobaek had once told me that a beastman’s tail, ears, or horns were precious beyond measure. Some valued those parts more than their own lives.
I looked at Jongdo’s horns with a strange feeling. The cut marks showed they had once been far larger.
Did this man once challenge a Dragon Blood and lose a horn for it?
Then why hadn’t the Dragon Blood simply taken both?
The question still nagged at me. Frowning, I asked,
“Why weren’t those horns cut off completely the first time?”
“Dragon Blood arrogance. Even in victory they refuse to take a life or strip away every last scrap of pride. They gift you crushing defeat and despair… then savor the ones who come seeking revenge…”
“That’s a nasty hobby.”
I sighed and sheathed my sword. Cutting horns or taking lives was beastman custom. I had no obligation to follow it.
Of course, that didn’t mean I forgave the man who had drawn on me without warning. His method was wrong. If he wanted revenge, he should have gone after the one who actually cut his horn—not me.
“Aren’t you even a little ashamed?”
“Ashamed…? What do you mean?”
“I’m not a Dragon Blood, and I never cut your horn. So why come after me?”
“That’s…”
“You didn’t think you could win just because I’m a little girl, did you?”
Jongdo lowered his head in silence. Looks like I hit the mark. I turned away and said,
“You told me to take your pride. There’s nothing left worth taking.”
I left those words behind and started for the stairs. That was when a faint groan and a sickening crack sounded at my back.
Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Jongdo sitting on the floor, snapping off his own remaining horn.
I packed my things at once, mounted Nightmare, and rode out of the inn. After walking these streets in Dragon Blood form, even returning to human shape would only drag me into more trouble.
Once I had withdrawn my mana and resumed my human appearance, Nightmare and I left the city behind. If I had known it would come to this, I never would have shown the dragon form at all…
They say regret is always too late, no matter how early it arrives. That saying was true.
From the day I left the city, ambushes came without pause. Even in human form the attackers swung their blades at me without the slightest hesitation.
Most of them had horns or tails that had been bluntly severed; a few were missing one animal ear entirely.
These were people, not monsters. They never approached in daylight. They waited for the dead of night, when I tried to sleep.
“It’s the Dragon Blood!”
“She’s alone! The rumors were true!”
There was never just one. Always two or more, blinded by vengeance, apparently unable to see how deranged their own actions had become.
At first I drew my sword and met them head-on. But day after day of relentless attacks wore my body down fast.
They never waited for flesh or mana to recover. So I set aside sword and magic and reached for another weapon.
“Three this time.”
Clop-clop—clop-clop—!
Astride the galloping Nightmare, I stroked his mane and whispered. Crystal spines rose along his back.
I plucked the three newly grown crystals, nocked them to a short bow, and drew the string to its limit. When the tension peaked, I released.
Thwip—!
The crystals streaked away in unnatural arcs and punched clean through the beastmen hiding in the trees.
“Guh…!”
“Kh…!”
“I-irgh…”
Nightmare and I left the faint groans behind and raced on. When we burst from the crimson maple forest, a broad, deep river blocked the way—impassable by ordinary means. For Nightmare and me it was nothing.
Nightmare ran across the sky and leapt the river in a single bound.
On the third day after leaving the city, the beastmen’s ambushes finally stopped.
Only then did I allow myself a proper night’s sleep.