18. The Red Dragon and the Dragon Rider — The Pregnancy Pouch
Sylvia was troubled.
She had made up her mind: there was a dragon in this mountain range, and she would find it to rescue Anna. The problem was how, exactly, one went about locating a single dragon inside the vast, sprawling expanse of the Red Fang Mountains.
Perhaps she noticed Sylvia's distress, because Seraphina spoke up.
"Just trust me. I have a way to find the bastard — a very simple one."
Seraphina cast a spell, laying protective magic over the campsite. A translucent barrier wrapped itself around the camp in a smooth dome, and after sternly warning everyone never to step outside it, she launched herself into the sky.
A colossal shadow fell across the Red Fang Mountains. The moment crimson wings unfurled between the jagged rock spires, it was as if the entire range had come alive and begun to move.
Seraphina had revealed her true form — a Red Dragon.
The knights had witnessed her true shape any number of times before, but something different radiated from her now — something that felt like raw killing intent.
Her scales glowed like molten lava, and a single beat of her wings sent the dust and gravel piled between the sharp cliff walls swirling up into the air in spiraling clouds.
"KRAAAAAGH!!!"
Seraphina threw her jaws wide in a tremendous roar, and a dark crimson heat welled up from deep within her throat. The next instant, a torrential column of fire cascaded down along the jagged ridgeline like a waterfall.
Wherever the flames touched, solid rock glowed scarlet and crumbled away; the trees rooted in the crevices of the cliffs turned to ash in the blink of an eye and scattered on the wind. The fire pouring down through the valley spread as though it would swallow the whole mountain.
Before the flames had even died down, a dark red light flickered in her eyes. A glowing magic circle bloomed around her.
⟨ INFERNO ⟩
Compressed mana erupted from the tips of her claws like an explosion, and with a sound like the very air being torn apart, flame and detonation spread in every direction. Whole rock spires were ripped from their foundations, hurled into the sky, and came crashing down into the valley with a thunderous roar. Wherever the residue of the spell grazed, hard surfaces split open, and scarlet light bled through the cracks.
The knights watching from the foot of the mountain froze where they stood.
"Is that... is that really the her we know?"
One of the knights, who had often traded friendly banter with her, muttered in a cracking voice. They had believed in Seraphina's power — but they had never imagined it was of this magnitude, this overwhelming and terrifying.
Before the flames filling the sky, the thunder of the collapsing mountain, and the great red body soaring serenely at the center of it all, the knights could only stare, soul-struck.
How could such a sight even be described? Yes — a calamity. That was a scarlet calamity.
And the knights felt relief that she was on their side. If not for the Bahamut Knights' purpose of gaining expedition experience, Seraphina alone could have leveled the entire mountain range.
Having blasted the range to pieces, Seraphina glided through the air, surveying her surroundings. And those long, vertically slit eyes of hers landed on a single spot: the only peak left standing amid the scorched wasteland of the mountains.
"Found it."
She had reasoned that a Dragon's Lair could easily withstand an attack of this scale — and her reasoning had been exactly right.
Shifting back into her human form, Seraphina returned to the ground and relayed the news to Sylvia.
"I didn't think you'd resort to something so crude."
"Crude, sure — but it works. I found the bastard."
At Seraphina's words, Sylvia nodded and picked up her rapier.
"Commander. We're coming with you."
Several knights, Vargan at their head, stepped forward. They were the ones who had grown close to Anna over the course of the expedition — and the ones carrying the guilt of having failed to protect her.
"Where we're going from here is extremely dangerous. I can't guarantee your safety. To put it bluntly — you'd be in the way. So you will wait here."
At Seraphina's brutal honesty, Vargan and the knights bit their lips. But none of them could argue with her.
The power she had just displayed. Who among them could defy the word of a being that possessed such strength?
"...We'll be waiting. I'll be back soon."
Sylvia clapped Vargan on the shoulder, climbed onto Seraphina's back, and soared into the sky. As Vargan clenched his fist in helpless frustration watching the two figures shrink into the distance, a scream rang out from behind him.
"Kyaa! Cathy! Ruby?!"
"Someone help her!!"
Cathy and Ruby had collapsed without warning. At the commotion, Vargan rushed over and checked the two of them. Neither was breathing. There wasn't a single sign of life. He tried potions. Nothing worked.
"Damn it. Why now, all of a sudden? Don't tell me it's poison?"
"Check everyone else for signs of poisoning, now!"
Seeing the two suddenly limp and lifeless, the prostitutes and knights assumed Cathy and Ruby had been taken down by the Bone Gnawer. But Vargan alone realized the truth: the two of them were not human. They were golems.
This is a golem. But when she was having sex with me, she was definitely human... Sylvia... Don't tell me—
In the same instant, a scene flashed through his mind — the image of Sylvia bearing the same spot, the same mark, as Cathy.
Vargan's head began to ache with the implications.
At that very moment, Sylvia's mind was so consumed with worry for Anna that she had entirely forgotten she needed to channel mana into the Cathy and Ruby golems. Seraphina glanced back and forth between her and Vargan, and smiled.
At the summit of the only peak to have survived Seraphina's assault, a cave gaped open. Both of them understood at once that this cave was the entrance leading to the dragon.
A red glow faded at the mouth of the cave. Massive wings and scales folded away into the light, and in the next moment Seraphina and Sylvia touched down naturally on the stone.
"It's in here?"
Sylvia asked as she drew her rapier, and Seraphina nodded.
"This close, I can feel it clearly. This passage leads straight to the Dragon's Lair."
"We have to save Anna as soon as possible. Let's hurry."
The two plunged into the cave as though throwing themselves in. Between the sound of water droplets trickling down the damp walls, a strange noise crept in — a hard, clattering rattle, like teeth striking against each other.
Deep in the cave, something writhed out of the darkness and barred their way. It was the Bone Gnawer — the thing that had terrorized the rock orcs.
Dozens of beasts stitched together into a single torso, arms jutting out from it in every direction, and a killing intent flickering in eyes that were split long and wide, left and right.
"What a nuisance."
Sylvia clicked her tongue.
"I'm guessing you have no intention of moving?"
"GRAAAAHH!!!"
The Bone Gnawer shrieked a scream-like howl and lunged. Its arms lashed out like whips, and Sylvia dropped low, slipping straight through the gap. With Anna in enemy hands, there was no time to waste, and her rapier sought only the shortest possible lines.
The moment the blade skated precisely across its joints, three arms went limp and slack in an instant. Even so, the thing refused to fall, propping itself up on its remaining arms and legs to lunge again.
"That thing was made with magic. You'll have to target the core hearts to bring it down. It's got two — left side and right side of the chest."
Seraphina shouted, compressing a ball of fire at her fingertips.
"You could've mentioned that sooner. I'll take the right."
"Then I've got the left."
Sylvia replied, forcing her way between the remaining arms. Seraphina's fireball bored into the left chest and skewered the tangled core of flesh dead center. The Bone Gnawer swayed violently with a hideous shriek of friction.
Sylvia didn't miss the opening. She kicked off the ground and leapt, and with a spinning slash her rapier pierced the last remaining heart on the right. The Bone Gnawer's strength drained away and it crumpled, the massive stitched-together bulk crashing to the floor with a tremendous clamor.
"Let's move."
Leaving the corpse behind, the two pressed onward. The deeper they went, the narrower Sylvia's eyes grew.
The walls and floor — which had looked like an ordinary cave at first — were threaded through with all manner of magical circuits. It was like walking through a laboratory devoted entirely to magic.
Past that long, long corridor, they arrived at an enormous chamber. All around it, glass tubes of every shape and size stood in rows, and between them living creatures floated suspended in unidentifiable fluids.
It was a scene that brought Varghut's words flooding back.
"Sightseeing later — find Anna first!"
Just as the grotesque spectacle threatened to scramble Sylvia's focus, Seraphina tapped her shoulder. Shaken back to their senses, the two combed the chamber this way and that in search of Anna — and before long, they found something.
At the very center of the chamber, where countless illegible magical circuits converged into a dense knot, two figures stood.
The moment she saw them, Sylvia's voice trembled.
"Anna?"
The Anna they had finally found was beyond anything she had imagined. Soft golden fur covered Anna's face; a pair of drooping dog ears sat atop her head, and a fluffy, downy tail hung limp and listless behind her back.
She had the form of a beastkin — one that looked strikingly like a golden retriever.
And standing before her, a black-haired man in a white lab coat — the Black Dragon — threw both arms wide and bellowed:
"FURRIES ARE THE BEST!!!"