Crystal Earth
[Kyaaaaaah!]
The Crystal Dragon that had collapsed surged back to its feet at once. The crystal plating that had clung to its body no longer regenerated; instead it crumbled and spilled outward in a glittering cascade. Balgyeong had clearly struck true.
I had been calling it a dragon because it wore a dragon’s shape, yet its strength fell far short of a true one. The dragons that lived in the memories mana had carried to me were absolute sovereigns who stood above every living thing. Had I used Balgyeong against a real dragon, the one sent flying would have been me, not this crystal-clad beast.
“Ceris…? Just now, that was…”
Celion stared at me, face frozen in shock. She was not alone; everyone watching the battle wore the same stunned expression.
Still, I had stopped its most dangerous weapon—the regeneration of its crystal armor. The weight of so many eyes unsettled me, but the right move was clear: finish the creature before it recovered.
I let Storm Bringer hang long in my grip and charged the Crystal Dragon as it writhed and groaned. Celion, who had been watching me, broke into a run at my side. That became the signal. The hesitant adventurers drew their weapons and poured forward as one.
Coordinating with dozens of people was new to me, yet senses that had already transcended human limits made it possible. Scores of slashes carved through the air, shearing away the pure-white crystal. As powdery crystal snow began to scatter, the Crystal Dragon screamed and thrashed its massive body.
It could no longer use mana, so regeneration and long-range crystal barrages were impossible—but its enormous mass remained. Sparing nothing of itself, it flailed wildly at the adventurers. Long forelegs overturned the earth; crystal-sheathed wings swept like blades. When the fighters leapt clear, a whip-like tail cracked after them.
Its resistance was savage, yet the people gathered here had made monster hunting their life’s work. Once they regained their footing they began deploying every tool meant for capture, and the Crystal Dragon’s thrashing gradually weakened.
After a long, furious struggle the beast seemed to sense the end. It tried to take to the sky and flee, but chains shot in from every direction and slammed it back into the dirt.
[Kyaaaaaah!]
The fight was drawing to a close. Everyone present felt it; the adventurers’ movements quickened.
“H-hey! We need it alive!”
“Don’t kill it!”
In the middle of the frantic battle the scholars who had been hiding burst out, shouting at the fighters. As a never-before-seen monster it should have been captured, yet the demand was nearly impossible. Binding it would have required far more heavy chains than we possessed. Even now the links wrapped around its body were snapping one after another.
At that moment Celion leapt high into the air, then plummeted, driving her sword straight into the Crystal Dragon’s eye. The faint mana riding the strike pierced the hard orb and must have shaken the organs beyond. That was the end. Light drained from the white crystal, and the enormous body began to tip.
Thud—!
No victory cheer rose. Too much had been lost in the battle for anyone to celebrate a fallen monster. A strange silence settled. The adventurers simply set about their tasks in grim quiet while the groans of the wounded and the thick scent of blood drifted through the air.
Harvesting the Crystal Dragon’s materials took a full day. Even with dozens of adventurers working, progress crawled because of the rock-hard crystal that formed its body.
During the dismantling the scholars finally confirmed its true species. It was not a dragon at all, but a wyvern—a subspecies. They added, though without certainty, that the peculiar mana of this land had forced the wyvern to evolve into something that merely resembled a dragon. In the end the monster was named the Crystal Sub-Dragon.
The adventurers cared nothing for scholarly labels. They were interested only in the materials. From the Crystal Sub-Dragon’s corpse came blood, hide, bones as white and translucent as crystal itself, and countless crystal shards that had broken free. All of it was valuable, yet what seized my gaze was the heart—nearly the size of my own torso.
At first I did not even realize it was a heart. It was completely sheathed in pure-white crystal. The other organs looked ordinary enough, but the heart alone was strange. I was given first pick of the materials, and of course I claimed that peculiar heart. Faint mana still stirred inside it.
None of the fighters who had shared the battle objected, though the scholars watched with open regret as I carried it away.
Late that night I received a long line of visitors—Gold-rank team leaders, adventurers whose lives I had saved, and more. When the last of them finally left, Celion appeared. She looked at me with a complicated expression.
“Welcome, Celion. Have you eaten?”
“Ah, yeah… I already ate. But…”
She stared down at me, lips working as if searching for words, then let out a soft sigh and sat beside me. The campfire between us flared with a bright crackle.
“Have you been hiding your real strength all this time?”
I hesitated. During the Silver promotion exam I had swung my sword with everything I had. The only thing I had kept from her was magic.
“A little…?”
“That’s a little? You looked completely different from the exam.”
“Well… a lot’s happened since then.”
Celion gave a short, incredulous laugh—not an angry one. I answered her smile with a small one of my own and added,
“Kids grow up fast, you know?”
“I don’t know… From where I’m sitting…”
She frowned and looked me up and down. Under that gaze I straightened my back and lifted my chin, trying to look as tall as possible.
“Anyway… you weren’t offended?”
“Offended?”
“Yeah. People weaker than you have been giving you orders this whole time.”
“Ah—no, I never thought of it that way. Not at all.”
I waved both hands, denying it firmly. Celion exhaled in visible relief.
“Good. I was worried you might have.”
“Absolutely not…”
We talked for a long while across the little fire, mostly her asking and me answering.
“Don’t tell me that greatsword is your main weapon?”
“No. I haven’t been using Storm Bringer for long.”
“You said an orc warlord gave it to you as a reward…?”
“Yes.”
“So that was actually true.”
“You didn’t believe me?”
Celion looked away without a word. A strange silence stretched until she glanced at me again and asked carefully,
“Earlier. How did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“You know—when you put your hand on the Crystal Sub-Dragon and it suddenly went flying.”
“Ah…”
I gave her a thoughtful look. All the conversation until now had probably been leading to this. She was curious about the technique I had used—Balgyeong.
“Want me to teach you?”
“Huh…? Really? You’re okay with that?”
She brightened with surprise and leaned forward.
“You’ve taught me so much already, Celion.”
Everything she had shown me would be invaluable on future adventures. I felt no reluctance about sharing the technique in return.
“You can use mana, right?”
“Ah, yeah.”
“How do you usually use it?”
“Well… I don’t really think about it. I just let it spread through my whole body naturally. It doesn’t move the way I want it to, either.”
“Then let’s start by practicing free control of that mana.”
Celion nodded and began straining on her own, trying to force the mana inside her to move. It clearly was not easy.
“Isn’t there some kind of trick?”
I frowned at the question. Ever since awakening to mana I had used it as instinctively as breathing. There was no “trick.”
“Um… push the energy inside your body outward?”
“How do you even do that…?”
“Just…”
“Just?”
“Yeah. You just do it…”
In the dead of night, while everyone slept, a black shadow slipped silently through the deep dark. The shadow was Ceris’s horse, Nightmare.
Limping on its hind legs, Nightmare thrust its head into Ceris’s bag. Far more intelligent than an ordinary horse, it found exactly what it sought among its master’s belongings: a hard, translucent lump of crystal. That was its goal.
Crunch—!
Nightmare clamped the object in its teeth and looked down at its master. The small, adorable girl slept on, oblivious to the world.
Nightmare had always regarded the little girl as someone it must protect, and it intended to keep doing so. Yet today, for the first time, it had felt its own inadequacy. If only it had been a little faster, a little tougher, it could have fought that enormous dragon at her side.
Nightmare knew how to fill that lack. The knowledge was instinctive—an essential desire answering the lure of mana.
It moved behind the tent and began to crunch the crystal lump between its teeth. Sharp shards tore its mouth; red blood poured out. Nightmare did not stop. Mouth, throat, and guts shredded, yet it felt no pain. For the first time in its life it was tasting pure rapture.
Crack— Crunch—
The next morning I woke to a shock. An unfamiliar horse was looking down at me.
Its long mane glittered as though crystal had crystallized along every strand, and a single great horn rose high from its forehead. That was not all. When my eyes dropped I saw its legs: from the hooves all the way to the knees, sharp crystal had sprouted like white crystal boots.
Prrrrh—
A familiar snort washed across my face. My eyebrows twitched as I stared up at the enormous horse.
“You… Nightmare?”
Nightmare answered by sticking out its tongue and licking my cheek.