The Dragon's Language
"...What am I looking at right now?"
"I... I honestly don't know."
"Is... is that boy really facing it alone? Against that?"
A handful of wounded knights swept their eyes across surroundings that had long since become a slaughterhouse. The thick reek of blood and the grotesque corpses strewn everywhere were a poor match for the beautiful moonlight and the night sky above. Survivors writhed and clawed, struggling to tear themselves free of the black plants of unknown origin.
And there, at the very heart of that vicious battlefield, came a sound that shook the forest to its roots. The sound of combat. Of battle itself.
"Senior?! All that big talk, and you're falling well short of my expectations, no?!"
"Don't worry yourself. I can kill something on your level..!"
A shape black and viscous, sickening at a single glance — a monster straight out of a storybook. And in utter contrast to it, a boy whose black was as deep and beautiful as obsidian. Nowhere in sight was there a single soul who could watch those two fight without astonishment.
Flashes burst and clashed, and the ring of impacts spread crisp and clear through the air. A host of small blades carved through the night, and massive tentacles came surging hard on their heels. Cutting, cleaving, thrusting, striking down. Throws, feints, chained blows and more besides — every manner of combat technique surfaced freely through their bodies, and every last one of them was a killing blow.
By all rights, a fight like this should already have left one of them dead. It hadn't. Their attacks never stopped, either. Against the endless slashes parting the air, blood flew only rarely — almost touching, never quite landing, and even when it did, something was always in the way. It was a duel, a battle, a war — one fit to drain the souls of everyone watching.
"...All forces. Draw your swords."
"I'm sorry? What do you mean, all of a sudden—"
"Are we knights, or are we common thugs?"
And that battle had inspired far too many people for its own good. Its fervor reached even the knights who had lost the will to stand the moment they laid eyes on the monster.
"Were you a man so foolish, so without conscience, that you would leave your comrades' revenge to someone else?"
"Even so — this many men, against a single one..!"
"Is that truly your reason? That we stand idle right now?"
"...."
"How about some honesty, then? Admit that you're shaken. Admit that you're afraid."
"...."
"There is no shame in fear. If anything, it is that boy who is remarkable — in a situation where one wrong step costs his life, he shows no fear whatsoever."
Saying this, the Knight Commander removed his steel helm and smiled, and in his eyes glimmered a resolve — a grim determination that had no business living in the eyes of a man so old.
"But we cannot allow it. We have lost our comrades — and we are knights."
"...."
"If only to stand tall before those who died before us, now is no time for fear."
"...."
"It is time to conquer that fear and hurl ourselves at that creature."
The Knight Commander strode forward, dragging behind him a sword that looked heavy enough at a mere glance. Laboring under armor draped across his aged frame, he walked toward that battlefield.
"And tell me — is it not laughable as well? That a man called Knight Commander should know fear, too."
"C-Commander!!"
"Now, wait just a momen—"
"You are under no obligation to follow. This is a duty I owe my rank — and it is my own stubbornness as well."
At last, he advanced. Even as his blade trembled in his hands.
And he brought it down, hesitation and all.
The sword everyone watched that night must have been beautiful, to its very last moment.
Right — no, left. That was where the tentacle was flying in from. So certain was I as I brought my blade around to meet it, and there was no way in hell it would connect. The moment I committed to a direction, the thing would bend its trajectory with those insane reflexes of its — and another attack would already be following from somewhere else.
But standing still wasn't an option either. Drag this out, and it was plain as day who would end up dead. The proof was that unmarked body of its: even the spots where my blades had been buried only moments before showed no wound at all. Its regeneration simply had to be far faster than anything else alive.
Unlike me, it used no mana at all — and until I learned the limits of that ability, I had to force an end to this as quickly as I could. Somehow, I had to seize an opening in this exchange of blows. And that moment found me sooner than I had expected.
The instant a few tentacles with thrown-off trajectories drifted into view on my right, I hurled a throwing dagger straight at them — and the thing twisted itself barely out of the way. And then the tentacles whose paths had already crossed began to tangle up even further.
"Huh?"
Further and further, like a spiderweb.
"My, my, this has become quite the knot.. It will take some time to untangle—"
"You don't actually think I'm going to give you that time, do you?"
"Haha, of course not, of course.."
With its fingers grazing me by mere hairbreadths, I shut out the tentacles entirely and began carving into the thing. I paid the flying fingers no mind and fixed everything I had on the vitals before my eyes. Eyes. Carotid artery. Chest. Liver. Ribs. I ran them through one after another, and Number 8 did not so much as flinch. It simply ignored all of it and kept coming for me alone — like a zombie, pressing in without end.
"Haha, Senior, you've grown so very weak. This life of yours must have been a rather comfortable one, hmm?"
"...."
Then the creature pawed at its wound and spoke again in a voice that was, genuinely, bright and guileless — a voice like innocence made flesh. A voice that fit not at all with the tentacles still hurling themselves at me without pause.
"When I saw you had been born into the ducal house this time around, I truly pondered and pondered over how I was to interfere, y'know."
"...."
"But one cannot simply enter a ducal house, can one? Not even as a servant. So I went so far as to attempt erasing the house outright — but thankfully, the Duke took care of that all on his own, didn't he?"
"...."
"After that, everything was simple! I only had to remove your spiritual pillar, and I was certain you would crumble all on your own!"
"...What?"
In that instant, my mind — spinning at full tilt only a breath before — froze solid, and my body, which had answered my every call, stopped for a single moment. The price was certain: my unresponsive body was flung far away and smashed into the rubble.
"Kh—kghk..!"
"Well, I never much cared for that method, mind. It wasn't about tormenting you, after all!"
"...."
"But what was I to do? It was a majority vote — that is the only reason I did it!"
I heard the crack of bone breaking. Bone deep inside my body. From the pain alone, I couldn't tell what exactly had broken. Every part of me was already screaming under the weight of accumulated fatigue and agony.
In any other situation, I would never have moved so rashly. I would have kept my head — talked, stalled, done anything to buy time and hunt down its weak point. That way, I could have kept fighting on far steadier footing.
And yet I rose to my feet on pure reflex. The way words leap from a mouth of their own accord.
"...What did you say."
"Honestly, I had assumed the Duke's wife would be difficult to approach, given her station?"
"I asked you... what you said."
"She was so much easier to reach than I expected, so the plan simply moved along a little ahead of schedule!"
The words out of its mouth were no answer to the question I had asked with everything in me. It simply said whatever it pleased. From its opposite shoulder, yet another tentacle sprouted — another tentacle made of what had once been a human being.
"Rest assured, Senior. I intend to take only your arms and legs, nothing more!"
"What... did you say..!"
They came flying — the whole writhing bundle of its tentacles. I tried to evade, but my body would not answer, and my arm had no strength left to turn aside that overwhelming mass. The tentacles were upon me before I knew it. Even as my eyes shut on instinct, it never answered my question.
I felt no fear of dying. Limbs, after all, could simply be made again.
I was just irritated. At this body that would not move. At a mind more tangled than it had ever been in any of my lives.
So I screamed — pouring that nameless, heaving feeling into the shout.
"WHAT DID YOU SAY!!!!"
"Quiet."
And then, before my eyes, two colors appeared once more.
Cold and warmth, blue and red — two energies so utterly opposed, fused as one before me, seized the tentacles fast in their grip.
"If you are in the middle of a battle, then focus on nothing but the battle."
"...Your Highness?"
And the woman who had appeared before me wore hair the color of pale jade — as if made to embrace every one of those contradictions.
"Your Highness, why are you in a place like this..?"
"And am I not allowed to be here?"
"No — that is not what I meant, but.."
I was not the only one thrown off balance by her sudden appearance; I could feel more than a few stares settling on us from the knights around us as well.
"...This is a rather dangerous place for Your Highness to be."
"It is fine. That is not yours to worry about."
"...What I meant was not that—"
"You."
My words were cut off by her — and in the same breath, her own words stopped as well.
"You are to focus on your recovery. Until you have, I can buy you the time."
"...."
"I doubt I am the only one thinking it, right now."
With that, she stretched out a finger and pointed. In that direction, the tentacles of the black mass of flesh that had been surging at me until moments ago danced with a silver swordmaster and his gleaming blade, beautiful even beneath the moonlight — and desperately, at that.
"Haha, I have no interest in old men, y'know?"
"Shut your mouth, you monster..!"
"Senior? I shall come for you shortly, so be a dear and wait right there, hmm?"
The Knight Commander, unleashing swordplay far too splendid for his years — and the creature receiving every stroke of it as though it were nothing, all while looking this way. On that grinning face, the smile still had not faded. Enough to stir envy.
"...Ha. Envy, is it?"
"...Have I gone mad?"
Paying no mind to the woman now watching me as though I had lost my mind, I drove my thoughts faster. This body that would not so much as twitch a finger. These muscles still shrieking out in pain. These bones shattered and splintered beyond all shape. How was I to make them move again?
And then I remembered. A way to resolve every last bit of it.
There might be side effects. But what did that matter? It was a way for me to walk out of this place alive — and to kill that thing.
Quietly, I spoke the word.
"Move (Mouvior)."
"...Huh?"
A dumbstruck voice drifted over from somewhere nearby, but every nerve I had had narrowed to my right hand alone. My right hand — moving, perfectly whole.
"Wh... how? Your injuries from moments ago were without question... And that language — what is it?"
"Move (Mouvior)."
Once more — my legs, which had been smashed into the mound of stone, drove high up toward the sky.
"W-wait, Jenison..!"
"Move (Mouvior)."
"Move (Mouvior).."
"Move (Mouvior)..."
⟨ The Dragon's Language ⟩
Even with her pleas reaching my ears, I did not stop. No — I could not have stopped. These were not words so cheap that something like that could halt them.
The dragon's language — bearing truth, bearing mana, bearing the very phenomenon itself — echoed through the Great Forest.