Death Flag
Ten years ago. Eu, the dungeon city in the Dark Red Land.
The city, named after the Eidabuyu dungeon, was overflowing with travelers, explorers who had settled into the dungeon for good, pilgrims, and merchants, just as any frontier hub did. If anything, the traffic had only grown heavier now that the dungeon seemed on the verge of finally finishing its long, long reconstruction.
Perhaps because every ordinary inn was full, even the upscale inn known for its impossible standards, the Breath of the White Dragon, had guests coming and going until the threshold itself seemed worn thin.
In a private dining room, the Kihara family was gathered for breakfast.
“Shrakhim, I hear the Minotaur Centaurs are guarding the deeper levels of this dungeon. Once we bring them down, I’ll give you their weapons.”
“Wow, really?”
“Yes. And while we’re at it, I’ll bring back some Minotaur Centaur meat too. If you simmer soup from their marrow, they say your bones get as sturdy as a Minotaur Centaur’s.”
Ten-year-old Shrakhim listened with shining eyes as his father, Galakhim, praised the virtues of eating one’s own kind.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, brother-in-law. Are you trying to bury the Kihara family in a row of funerals? I’d rather give up my vicount’s hat than go hunt Minotaur Centaurs.”
At the time, Baron Kihara was still a viscount, and he shook his head.
“Then your sister becomes the heir, which suits me just fine. Being a baron by virtue of my wife wouldn’t be so bad either.”
“So that talk about becoming an Upper Knight and receiving a castle to pass down to the Shrakhim brothers was all empty promise, then?”
Their words might have sounded like the opening of a power struggle, but the way they laughed together made the relationship between brother-in-law and brother-in-law seem downright warm.
“Whatever happens to that Minotaur Centaur bone broth, at least drink this soup first. It’s a special dish I had the chef make with a sea turtle from Ireland, and it’s going to get cold.”
Olia Kihara urged them to eat.
“And if you really do boil soup from Minotaur Centaurs, you should give the first bowl to your father and Tomikan before Shrakhim, shouldn’t you? My boys may be sturdy like you, but the men in my family are all rather frail. As if any of us had been born mages or something.”
It was, in truth, a blissfully harmonious scene.
“Dad, is that maybe a Minotaur Centaur? There’s a cow and a horse together. Wow, it’s really fast!”
Shrakhim, looking out the window, pointed cheerfully at the main street.
“What? Ha-ha, now listen to the boy. Minotaur Centaurs are supposed to be in the dungeon.”
“I see. Perhaps he mistook a carriage for an ox cart?”
“No, really, it’s a cow body with a horse stuck on the-”
Before Shrakhim could finish, the entire inn began to shake.
- Minooo!
Minotaur Centaurs burst straight through the wall beside the private room where the Kihara family had been eating.
“No, they really are Minotaur Centaurs?!”
“What on earth is going on?”
When they rushed outside, impossible things were unfolding all along the main street. Not only Minotaur Centaurs, but every manner of monster that had spilled out of the dungeon was rampaging through the city.
The people ran about in terror, and so did the monsters. The beasts, too, were seized by fear and fleeing through the maze of streets.
“Minotaur Centaurs ran out of the dungeon and fled? And they even abandoned their weapons? Those are the ones who’d rather throw away their lives than their arms...”
Lord Galakhim was aghast.
“What on earth frightened them into this...?”
“Brother-in-law, look over there!”
The tower of the Eidabuyu dungeon was collapsing.
“A, a dragon!”
What had burst out while smashing the tower to pieces was a black dragon.
“Aaaaagh!”
Fragments of the shattered tower flew across the city.
Where black flames swept through, only blackened ash was left swirling in the air.
“This way, quickly!”
The Kihara family gathered atop a bed that had crashed through the ceiling, then took to the air.
“Hurry, cast the spatial transfer!”
In an alley that had fortunately escaped the flames, the Kihara siblings hastily prepared a magic circle. Meanwhile, Galakhim was gathering rubble and stacking it into a barricade to keep any panicked monsters from charging in.
Amid the chaos, Shrakhim clung to his mother’s robe and trembled.
“Brother-in-law, come this way at once! The magic circle is almost complete!”
“Understood.”
When everyone had climbed onto the narrow magic circle.
“Just about twenty seconds left... what is it? Why has the sky suddenly gone dark?”
Tomikan looked up at the shadow spreading overhead.
- Krooooo.
The black dragon was looking down at them.
“It’s about to breathe!”
As the dragon opened its jaws wide, Galakhim shouted and Tomikan urgently began to chant a defensive spell.
“Sister, focus on the magic circle! Flame Barrier!Wind Spiral!”
Tomikan, specialized in linked incantation, conjured walls of fire and wind.
Against the flames of a black dragon, one of the most overwhelmingly powerful of all dragons, trying to block it crudely with ice might only leave you shredded by a wave of frozen force or boiled alive by the heat flash into vapor. So he used fire and a whirlwind of the same attribute to bend the breath aside.
“Well done, little brother! At this rate we should be able to hold off one, maybe two breaths.”
Just as Olia, relieved, redoubled her effort to finish the circle,
- Khu.
The black dragon yawned as if bored, then lifted one front claw. The wall of flame and the gale did not leave so much as soot on its talons.
“It, it’s going to stomp us instead of using breath! Mana Hardening!”
Panicking, Olia desperately hardened the surrounding mana and spread a shield.
- Kwang!
Having poured in every last thread of power, she managed to repel the dragon’s stomp.
The black dragon looked at them with obvious curiosity, then lifted its foot again. This time it was not the lazy, insect-crushing motion from before, but a blow drawn up high.
- Kwaak.
Cracks began to spread across the shield, and Galakhim drew his sword.
The black dragon tilted its head at the sight, but only for a moment. Then it brought its foot down again and again.
- Kwajijijik.
The fractures spread across the shield like someone grinding a boiled egg under heel.
“I’m not waiting around to be stomped to death or burned alive. I’ll buy us time.”
Galakhim stepped forward.
“My wife, thank you for accepting the proposal of a penniless sword-rattler like me.”
“Husband! What are you planning to do?”
He hugged his terrified wife.
“No, brother-in-law? Why are you doing this! Don’t tell me...!”
“Take good care of my wife and children, little brother. And Shrakhim. When you grow up, make sure you look after your uncle in my place.”
He shook his brother-in-law’s hand.
“Shrakhim. I wanted to make you a proper Upper Knight and pass down a fine castle to you, but it seems that won’t be possible. Still, you will become a better knight than your old man ever was.”
“Dad? What are you talking about?!”
After ruffling his son’s hair one last time, he broke into a run.
“Hraaah!”
Galakhim threw himself through the wall of flame and into the whirlwind.
While even the dragon reeled in surprise at the unexpected turn, he landed on its head, slid down along its neck, and slashed with his blade. With the screech of scraping scales, the karoum plating on the sword was stripped away.
“Dad!” “Husband!”
Tomikan hurled aside his staff, then seized his sister and nephew before they could rush out.
“Daddy!”
As if taking Shrakhim’s cry as a signal, the magic circle flashed.
The dragon’s eyes gleamed at the broken blade pointed toward its heart.
That was the last thing Lord Galakhim, a Regular Knight, ever saw.
* * *
The nightmare from ten years ago surged back through all five senses.
That feeling is almost exactly the same as the black dragon back then. But why?!
The thing hovering in the air was, however one looked at it, nothing but an elf.
Is this some kind of polymorph? But that dragon back then was the last black dragon left on the continent, and the former king personally eradicated it...! Calm down, Shrakhim. Whether it is or isn’t doesn’t matter now. I probably can’t get out of this alive anyway.
Shrakhim barely managed to swallow the saliva that had dried up in his mouth.
If the bastard from back then really has come back to life, then all the better. I’ll avenge Father with my own hands.
The fear that had filled his entire body turned into fury.
Win or lose, I need one last desperate strike. I don’t know whether that big-eared bastard is really a dragon, but he’s definitely the one in charge. I’ll crush him while he’s careless like this!
Gathering the aura surging up like a dying flame, he wrapped it around his sword.
Just as he drew his shoulder back like a taut bowstring,
“Haa... ah?!”
He made eye contact with the cult leader.
“Hup!”
Shrakhim froze in the very motion of hurling the sword. Sharp stalactites had driven into his shoulder and the top of his foot, leaving him unable to move.
W-what kind of magic is that?! Those stone spikes were hanging overhead just a moment ago. When did they fall? No, it’s not that they fell. It feels like they suddenly sprouted on my body.
The cult leader turned away from the helpless Shrakhim and looked instead at his followers.
“O you of purification.”
A high, piercing boyish voice.
“What is that? A wild boar caught in a trap?”
“That human is named Shrakhim. He came all the way from the Kihara Barony following Joren Tamer...”
“Hmm, is that so?”
After hearing the explanation, the cult leader stroked his chin with the knuckle of his right index finger.
“The Kihara Barony, then. So that makes him the messenger the king ordered to be sent, does it?”
“It would seem so, most enlightened Archangel.”
“In any case, this one is no longer useful. It may be better not to let him meet the king.”
Shrakhim was stunned.
How did those pointy-eared bastards know about the messenger?
“Since the king has come up, let me tell you something. That woman, Daisyares Kain, just locked up the royal mage.”
A violent wave passed through the elf’s brow.
“You mean Guzel has been imprisoned?”
“How did this happen all of a sudden...?”
Shrakhim was equally horrified. Of course, he had no idea who the royal mage was. What shocked him was the cult leader’s ability to know, in real time, everything happening deep inside the royal palace.
Th-those pointy-eared bastards planted spies in the royal palace?!
The next words were even more astonishing.
“Joren Tamer walked into the royal palace of his own accord. He took Ashk Iolid and Demis Ezef with him. An audience was convened immediately afterward, but it seems to have ended without much gain. Instead, that idiot Guzel got hauled off.”
When he heard the name of the Border Count, Shrakhim nearly fainted on the spot.
The royal palace? He was here not long ago, so how did he get there? More than that, why did he go?
Bound Curtis and Axel were just as shocked.
“The Border Count went to the capital?!”
“He, he abandoned us and left?!”
Lucy Perhela, seeing those humans, offered her counsel.
“Archangel, the bugs are twitching their tiny ears, drawn by your sacred voice, you know?”
It was a polite way of saying that the humans could hear everything and perhaps speaking so carelessly was unwise.
The cult leader answered her with a cold smile.
“Guide of the Twilight. It is rather striking, hearing such advice from you in particular.”
“Pardon? By that, do you mean—”
“I ordered you to obtain intelligence on Joren Tamer’s capabilities and strategy. And what happened?”
At those black eyes staring straight into her, Lucy’s face went ashen.
“Instead of learning anything about Joren Tamer, he ended up learning about us, didn’t he? Apparently some angel kindly told him a thing or two. On top of that, she even handed him a little gift.”
He was referring to the Anxious Evil Eye Lucy Perhela had transferred to Ho-yeong.
“I-I’m sorry! I committed an inexcusable failure.”
Lucy Perhela immediately dropped to her knees.
“Because of it, our identity was laid bare in that audience. It wasn’t Joren Tamer who did the talking, but Demis Ezef, though that hardly matters. The cause of this situation is self-evident.”
At once, the words Joren Tamer had once spoken surfaced in her mind, and Lucy’s heart hammered against her ribs.
Well, of course. If I were the boss, I’d do the same. You sent someone out to carry out some supposedly important mission, and instead of doing the job, they’re just shooting the breeze and spilling everything? How the hell are you supposed to let that slide?
She was afraid that she might be “purified” by the archangel she served.
“That fool Guzel being imprisoned can be overlooked. He can still be used in that state. But... the sight of Joren Tamer acting as if he were some kind of savior is disgusting. Guide of the Twilight, wasn’t your plan for Joren Tamer to become a traitor? And yet you turned him into a hero of salvation, so what exactly are you planning to do now?”
“I-I have no excuse.”
“Before long, the entire Kain Kingdom, no, perhaps the whole Western Continent, may gather around him as a rallying point. Against us, no less. All because someone here tore off our hoods and exposed our faces to the world!”
The cult leader dropped his smile and let his anger show.
“The whole world now knows about the Cliad Sect. From here on, all the elves on this land will be forced by those humanitarians who love division to choose one side or the other. Whether to stand with humanity, or against it. For us, it is hardly a pleasant situation. Those who might have been won over as allies will instead stand with the enemy.”
“...All of it is my sin.”
Lucy bowed low and begged forgiveness.
The young elf woman beside her, Vailin, lowered her head as well and stole a glance at the cult leader.
How can the cult leader know the state of affairs in the Kain royal palace, no, across the entire continent, so completely? Is he truly an angel?!
Then the cult leader’s black pupils shifted to Vailin.
“Priestess. Do you doubt my authority?”