The Rumored Black Dragon (3)
"Going pretty smooth, huh? Looks like we might not even have to lift a finger."
The man walking slowly at the head of the carriage muttered to himself.
Dense foliage filtered the warm sunlight, and the crisp forest air tickled the tip of his nose. The horses matched the party's unhurried pace, advancing with steady certainty; nothing stood in their way. A gentle breeze brushed their cheeks, and for a moment it felt as if they were simply out for a leisurely stroll.
"Don't get too comfortable, Kan. We're Silver Rank now."
"Tch… do you always have to kill the mood like that?"
The red-haired woman pressed close beside him and gave him a light scolding. When their eyes met, the man called Kan clicked his tongue and turned his head away. The silver plate hanging around his neck caught the light and glittered.
That plate was the mark of a mercenary, ranked in ascending order: Wood, Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Wood Rankers were brand-new rookies—literally people who had never swung a blade at another human being. Most of them had turned to mercenary work because life had grown too harsh and they wanted one desperate shot at turning things around. Even after becoming mercenaries, their lives remained just as grinding. Jobs that meant risking their necks against monsters ordinary people found terrifying were almost never offered to them. Instead they ran errands for local lords, gathered herbs, and the like. Men who had come to the capital dreaming of flashing sharp steel and winning fortune and glory still spent their days on menial chores, too broke even to rent a room at an inn, sleeping in stables and scraping by one day at a time.
Paradoxically, their survival rate was higher than that of Gold or Platinum Rankers. The work was simple and safe, and once they completed a set number of contracts they were promoted straight to Bronze. Only then, after pinching every copper on food, clothes, and even baths, after scraping together a few coins to buy a bargain short sword from a smithy and a leather jerkin that barely counted as armor, did they finally understand: they would never become heroes.
The survival rate that had been so high at the previous rank plummeted the moment they reached Bronze, crashing straight into the abyss. Beast hunts. Monster subjugations. Rookies who had never properly swung a sword swaggered off toward villages overrun by goblins and came back—if they came back at all—leaving nothing behind but an uneaten Bronze plate, not even a single neck or finger to show for it. Such stories had grown so common that no one even felt pity anymore. And even if they did manage to kill a few goblins, once they subtracted the repair costs for ruined gear, the price of healing salves, and every other expense, they somehow always ended up right back where they started. Only those who could turn that meager income into actual profit finally became true mercenaries—Silver Rank.
This was Kan's first contract since making Silver, and it was so straightforward he had been whistling. Simply escorting a traveling merchant to another territory would earn them four silver coins (each roughly worth a million won).
"B-by the way… is that rumor really true…?"
The brown-haired man who had squeezed in between the easygoing Kan and the scolding woman, Hanna, muttered the question.
"Genki, you actually believe that? Even a dragon would take one look at that nasty mace of yours and run screaming."
Kan already knew from the rumors why a simple escort paid so well, but he still smirked and answered the worried man. A dragon had appeared. The rumor had spread from the Evergarden Territory, yet no one believed it. A dragon? That was ridiculous!
"I'd rather it did show up. Even if I die, as long as I get to see the magic of a great dragon—the very origin of all magic…!"
The moment the word "dragon" left someone's lips, Hinsel came stomping up from behind the carriage, thumping his staff against the ground, eyes blazing with fervor as he clenched his fists.
"They say every mage has a screw loose somewhere, and looking at this old coot, I finally believe it."
"Quiet, you. This is why people who know nothing of the arcane arts… tch."
Hinsel clicked his tongue and muttered under his breath at Kan's jibe. He had been the first to approach Kan when the man was recruiting temporary party members for this job. He had looked like a mad old man whose eyes had rolled back at the mere rumor of a dragon, but the moment he claimed he had studied magic at the Academy, Kan had snapped him up. Only later did Kan learn that Hinsel had dropped out midway; when the old man retorted, "But I did study magic at the Academy, didn't I?" Kan had found himself with nothing left to say.
"You lot! Aren't you getting a bit too relaxed?!"
While the four party members walked ahead of the carriage bantering, their employer—the merchant riding in the driver's seat—shouted at their behavior.
"Don't worry about it. This friend of mine here may not look like much, but her detection sense is top-notch. From here all the way to that tree way over there, she's got everything covered."
"So I'm the only one working hard, huh! Of course I'm not letting my guard down. I'm constantly scanning the surroundings, so relax."
"Well, if you say so… I'll trust you to handle it."
Kan clapped Hanna on the shoulder and gave the merchant his word. The rogue who had been keeping watch the whole time barked back, but she added a reassuring line for their employer's sake, and the merchant finally nodded.
"Still, Merchant-nim, is a dragon really going to show up? It's completely fake, right?"
Kan drifted naturally closer to the merchant, scratching the back of his head as he asked.
"Hmm. The rumor that a dragon appeared is almost certainly pure nonsense. But every single merchant who fled claiming to be a victim came back completely out of their minds, muttering nothing but 'dragon,' so people figure something must be going on."
"Maybe… mind-control magic or something? Old man?"
"Don't talk rubbish, boy. There's no way a mage capable of that level of magic is hanging around a backwater like this. And even if there were, they wouldn't do something so pointless as revealing their own location."
"That so?"
Kan nodded at Hinsel, who had butted in again the moment magic was mentioned.
"That's what they say. Especially interesting is that not a single one of the so-called victims actually died. The only ones who got hurt were the fools who panicked and tripped while running away."
"What the hell? Some weirdo using strange magic or sorcery who doesn't even hurt people? Then why do it?"
"The only real peculiarity… is that they abandoned their carriages completely when they fled. And according to the ones who came to their senses the next day and crawled back for their carriages—which were basically their entire fortune—both the carriages and the horses still tied to them were perfectly fine. The only odd part… was that all the food supplies had vanished."
"What is that? Just bandits, right?"
"Bandits would have stripped everything. Why go to all that trouble just to take the food?"
"Yeah, what the hell is it, then? What's the real identity?"
"Ah… or maybe… m-maybe a dragon who's just playing around for fun is doing it out of boredom… r-right…?"
"If that's true, then it's a dragon with way too much free time."
"Anyway, whatever shows up, I'll just go snicker-snack with this sword and that'll be the end of it!"
Merchants who claimed to have seen a dragon. The only "damage" was the food inside their carriages. It was a thoroughly baffling, hard-to-understand problem. Kan turned it over in his head for a while, then gave up, tapped the scabbard of the bastard sword at his hip with a grin, and left it at that.
Their peaceful, uneventful escort continued—until that moment.
"Anyway, just because we made Silver Rank doesn't mean you should get arrogant and—"
"…Hanna?"
"Shh."
Hanna, who had been chattering away with her usual stream of nagging, suddenly stopped dead and raised a hand.
"What? Why'd you stop all of a sudden?"
"…Merchant-nim. I think we just hit the jackpot."
"Hoo… hoo…"
"……"
While the merchant tilted his head and kept talking at Hanna's abrupt signal, Kan and the rest of the party had already slipped into combat readiness with practiced ease.
"We're stopping for a bit."
Kan halted the merchant, then drew the long bastard sword from the scabbard at his hip with a soft shring. In front of him, Genki took a deep breath and steadied the heavy shield and vicious mace he held in both hands. At the very rear of the line, the mage Hinsel raised his staff and began drawing up mana.
It was Hanna's signal. Unlike Hinsel, whom he had only just met on this job, and Genki, whom he had recruited because he needed a solid tank, Kan had been teaming with Hanna since their Bronze days. And on this one point he was absolutely certain: Hanna's signals were always to be trusted. Back in Bronze Rank her detection had saved his life more than once; by now his body moved on pure instinct the instant she gave the word, without a single doubt.
"Hanna, where is it?"
"………"
"Hanna?"
After establishing a defensive perimeter, Kan carefully addressed her—and immediately sensed that something was very wrong.
"I-I don't know…! S-something… something huge, overflowing with presence is definitely nearby… but I-I can't get a fix on the location…!"
"What? What the hell does that mean?!"
Hanna, who had never once lost track of anything that entered her domain, now had cold sweat pouring down her forehead as she shouted in panic—something Kan had never seen in all their contracts together.
"I-it's like… the entire area is blanketed in fog… T-this can't be…! We have to run… we have to run away!!!"
"C-calm down! Hanna!"
Even Hanna—who always kept her cool and finished every job cleanly—was now stumbling backward. Kan shouted, but the tip of the bastard sword in his own hand was visibly trembling.
"H-Hanna! Kan! Old man Hinsel is acting weird!!!"
"What?"
Still reeling from the sudden turn, the two of them spun around at Genki's shout and looked back toward Hinsel.
And then—
"Ah. It's all over. That One is coming…."
Clack, clatter…
Hinsel dropped the staff he was holding—the same staff he always insisted a mage could never be parted from—and stared blankly up at the sky, murmuring.
"Old man! What are you talking about?! What's over? What's coming?!"
"Do not resist. Accept it. Mere humans cannot hope to defend against this. Before That One, we are nothing but insignificant insects…… The black flame that brings ruin is coming."
"Ruin… black flame… N-no way, right? Gramps, you gone senile? Snap out of it… Fuck, snap the fuck out of it, you bastard!!!!!!!!!"
Do not resist. Humans are mere insects. The black flame of ruin. Kan knew of only one existence that encompassed all of those things.
Thud—thud—
The ground shook.
"Hiiiiiiiiiing!!!!!!"
"Hiiik…!"
The two horses pulling the carriage at the front foamed at the mouth and went berserk, yet their legs had already given out and they simply collapsed where they stood. Birds that had been quietly preening their feathers deep in the forest now filled the sky in such numbers they blotted out the light. The distant rumbling grew stronger and stronger until even standing still became difficult.
"Ah… aaaah….!!!"
"We'reallgonnadiewe'reallgonnadiewe'reallgonnadiewe'reallgonnadiewe'reallgonnadiewe'reallgonnadiewe'reallgonnadiewe'reallgonnadie"
Genki flung away the shield and mace he had been gripping so hard his palms sweated, landed hard on his backside, and the crotch of his pants grew damp. Hanna pressed her face into the dirt and sobbed while muttering the same words over and over like a madwoman.
"What in the world…! Hey! That can't be right… right?"
The merchant, who had been staring around in pure bewilderment, already had hands shaking so violently that the reins had slipped from his grasp.
While everyone else had lost their minds, Kan alone still gripped his bastard sword—yet his knees had begun to buckle.
The ground stopped shaking.
And Kan realized that the sunlight which had been shining down on them only moments before had vanished.
"It has come."
At Hinsel's single quiet sentence, Kan slowly lifted his head and looked up at the sky.
He saw it.
"Ah."
Clatter—
The bastard sword slipped from the hand of the man who beheld it and rolled across the ground.
At first he thought it was simply pitch-black darkness. Realizing that the darkness was an eye took only a moment longer.
From a maw so vast it looked ready to spew eternally burning black flame at any second, the words poured forth.
KRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
At the same instant a roar erupted that threatened to rupture eardrums, washing over them. Kan's legs, which had until that moment kept him standing on two feet upon the earth, simply gave out and folded beneath him.
I'm going to die.
If the concept of death itself ever took physical form and appeared before one's eyes, this was surely how it would feel.
"E-everyone… run… awaaaaay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Even with his legs gone limp and trembling, Kan wrung out every last drop of courage he had left and roared the order.
"Huk?!"
"Heuk?!"
"Hik?!"
The others, who had been staring blankly at Tenebrix Nox—the Black Dragon—sucked in sharp breaths of pure terror and bolted for their lives.
And the Black Dragon merely watched them go. It did not give chase. In fact, after the mercenaries had run for a long while, wailing and wetting themselves, they eventually realized that the dragon's presence had simply… vanished.
And so the number of madmen who claimed to have seen the Black Dragon increased by five.
Of course, not a single person believed them.
A Black Dragon? What a thoroughly unamusing joke.