Is This a Breast Milk Mixing Dance?
The first time I saw this skill sitting in my skill window, I figured I had to be seeing things.
Dragon Buster Slash Lv1 (Cooldown: 600 seconds)
— The single strike of a legendary dragon-slayer long forgotten by the world.
— The next attack deals 150% additional damage.
— Upon activation, all status ailments on the user are nullified.
— Against dragons, deals 500% additional damage.
It was right there in my skill window, bold as brass, exactly when I needed a combat skill most. The description even looked like it had been written just for me. Given that my life was hanging by a thread against that bird-brained bastard, I assumed the crushing tension and my desperate will to survive had conjured up a hallucination.
Only after I opened the message log and confirmed I had actually drawn the skill through a gacha pull did I finally accept that what I had seen was real.
And then the excitement hit me full force.
A combat skill. A skill with a six-hundred-second cooldown that was, for all practical purposes, a finisher for someone at my current level.
—Kieeeee, kiiik, kieeeeek?!
Time had passed. The sandstorm of dust had the hawk-eagle in complete disarray. This was the moment. I quietly spoke the skill’s name.
“Dragon Buster Slash…!!”
My heart gave a single powerful lurch. A drumming pulse followed, and an unidentifiable heat poured from my chest, raced down my arm, through my hand, and into the greatsword.
“Wha—?!”
The blade flared with brilliant light. Over the pure-white edge, sharp dragon scales erupted—looking for all the world like jagged fangs or the teeth of a massive saw.
“Hah… good. Let’s go!”
The sword itself seemed to demand, Where is the dragon I am meant to annihilate? Gripping the hilt with both hands, I fixed my eyes on the hawk-eagle. Without a moment’s hesitation I stepped forward into the curtain of sand where the creature had vanished.
“What the—? The sandstorm…? Ah. So that’s what ‘status-ailment nullification’ actually does.”
The filthy veil of dust that had been choking my vision cleared in an instant. The skill had judged the sand curtain a status effect and peeled it away in the direction I was looking.
I didn’t waste the opening. I kicked off the ground and charged straight at the hawk-eagle.
Whether it had raised the sand to hide itself or was simply thrashing in agony from its severed tongue, I couldn’t tell. One thing was certain: I had spotted it, but it still could not properly see me.
—Kieeeeeeeeeek?!
I dropped low and scrambled forward like I was crawling across the floor. The moment I burst through the remaining dust, the bird-brain—still pouring blood from its mouth—flailed in panic and beat its wings wildly toward me.
Even confined inside the building, those wings could generate blade-sharp gusts with a single sweep. They were a threat all by themselves.
Before the wings could fully unfurl, I spun my hips with everything I had and brought the greatsword down on the weak point glowing on its body.
“Atol! Cherry! Doggy!”
—Kie, kieeeeek?!
THWAAACK—!!
With a guttural shout the heavy blade carved through the air, and a thick cutting sound rang out. One of the hawk-eagle’s steel-hard wings sprayed a fountain of blood and crashed to the floor.
A joint triumph of the Hawkeye I had received from Silla and my brand-new skill.
“That power’s ridiculous. Even aiming for a weak point… no, this really is a one-hit finisher, isn’t it?”
I barely had time to celebrate landing a solid hit on a B-class monster. True to the skill’s description of a single decisive strike, the greatsword had already returned to its ordinary form. The dragon scales that had shredded the wing were gone. I put distance between myself and the bird-brain without a second thought.
—Kirrk, kieeeeek!!
The creature began screaming in pure rage. Its tongue had been severed and one wing torn off by mere prey. Pride wounded as deeply as its body, the hawk-eagle turned every remaining weapon—beak, talons, the other wing—toward me, eyes blazing with murderous hatred.
If I hadn’t trained under Senior Arang to endure stares like that, I would have frozen on the spot.
I raised the greatsword like a shield and gave the thing a contemptuous snort.
“What are you looking at? My part’s already over.”
—Kirrk?
As if asking whether that was really all I had to say before I died, it opened its blood-soaked beak wide and lunged its head at me, clearly intending to swallow me whole. I kept grinning like a maniac at the sight and shouted toward the ceiling.
At that exact moment—
“So how long am I supposed to keep hanging around up here?! I’m seriously about to die!”
“I’m coming right nooooow—!!”
—Kirrk?!
Through the enormous hole in the ceiling—the same deep shaft that had dropped me into this place—a half-naked cowgirl elf in an obscenely revealing outfit plummeted downward, revolver leveled at the giant bird-brain.
I smirked at the hawk-eagle, which was still staring stupidly up at the hole.
“I was only barely C-class, so I couldn’t finish you myself. But how do you like the magic bullets of a true B-class elf? And you never even noticed I was luring you right under this hole, did you?”
—Ki, kieeeeek!
“You tried to play clever for a bird-brain and made things hard, but at the end of the day a bird-brain is still a bird-brain! You walked right into the cage on your own two feet!”
Hunters hated flying monsters for a reason: the high ground their flight gave them, and the first-strike advantage they always held. They could open a fight whenever they wanted and rain death on ground-bound targets at the timing of their choosing. That constant dread of an attack from anywhere, at any moment, was exactly why aerial predators—especially raptors—were so lethal.
This one had tried to exploit that fear by striking from below instead of above… and in doing so had voluntarily surrendered its greatest weapon.
Of course, that’s easy to say after the fact.
“Eat lead, you bird-brained bastard!”
BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG—!!
I stepped back a few more paces as Silla’s fanning fire sent a storm of magic bullets slamming into the massive target right in front of her.
—Kiek, keeeeeeeeek?!
Unlike me—a mere D-class—Silla was only still B-class for lack of recorded achievements. Her magic bullets tore through the hawk-eagle’s enormous body without the slightest mercy, turning it into a pincushion.
“I had to twist myself into every possible contortion just to land one good hit, and she turns the thing into scrap with a few triggers.”
Relief and a tiny, ugly flicker of envy mixed together. Blood, flesh, and feathers sprayed toward me with every impact until, at last, it was over.
“Kyah?!”
Silla landed hard on her backside atop the cooling corpse of the hawk-eagle. I walked over.
“Could’ve come down a little sooner, you know.”
“This fucking bastard still has the nerve to complain after I save him? I should’ve just left you to get eaten!”
“You’d die too if I did. Anyway, the sand made it hard to see what was happening inside, right? I know.”
That was exactly why I had aimed for the wings instead of the body—to stop it from kicking up any more dust.
Silla snorted.
“Hmph… I was just enjoying the show of you flailing around down there. I’ve told you how good my eyes are, haven’t I?”
“That so? Then how was it? Watching the meat shield you wrote off as D-class land a real hit on this giant bird? Did the surprise make you wet yourself?”
“There he goes with the sexual harassment again! And I did not wet myself! I nearly died laughing at that ridiculous battle cry—‘Atol! Cherry! Doggy!’”
“Really?”
I had been half out of my mind when I shouted, so I barely remembered what had come out of my mouth. Had I seriously yelled something that absurd?
A faint awkwardness crept in. Then Silla turned her head slightly, avoiding my eyes.
“Still… it was worth watching. Looks like you haven’t been wasting all your time stuffing experience down your ass.”
“Just say it straight for once. You always talk like that. Anyway—thanks for the save.”
“W-what? Why the sudden, completely out-of-character gratitude? Trying to make me feel guilty? Or are you already sucking up because in a few days I’m going to put a couple of neat holes through both your balls?”
Flutter-flutter—♡
Silla’s elf ears beat so fast they left afterimages, like a hummingbird’s wings. The moment she noticed what they were doing she forced them still, snorted again, and held out one delicate hand.
“Here.”
“What? There’s nothing in your hand.”
“Dense as ever. I’m generously offering a human who actually knows how to say thank-you the honor of helping me up—and the chance to sneak a feel of my hand while you’re at it!”
“Ah. That’s what this is.”
I’d heard elves usually hated physical contact with others. But treating Silla like a normal elf was a lost cause. I shrugged and offered my gauntlet.
“Alright, grab on and—wait. This is covered in all kinds of crap. Let me wipe it off first… huh?”
“Forget it. Stop wasting time on useless things and just pull me up already.”
With a sigh she laid her hand over the blood-, flesh-, and feather-smeared gauntlet. My brain short-circuited for a second; I blinked stupidly, then carefully pulled her to her feet.
Silla rose, snorting in rapid succession like a steam locomotive blowing its whistle, then clamped her hand around mine.
“Remember this moment well. In a few days this same hand is going to castrate you and take that worthless life of yours.”
“Hhk…?!”
“What’s with that voice full of ‘this bitch is picking another ridiculous fight’? I already told you—I’m putting holes in both your balls! Did you seriously think you could make me suck a D-class dick and walk away clean?”
“I just didn’t expect an elf to be this ungrateful after I let her gulp down my precious baby batter.”
“Y-you crazy bastard! I’m warning you now—don’t you dare tell anyone about that! If even a whisper reaches my ears, I’ll assume you spread it and kill you on the spot, got it?!”
She flung my hand away like it burned. Then she grabbed the greatsword I’d left standing nearby and started hauling on it with a strained grunt, making her huge breasts bounce and sway wildly. I tilted my head.
“What are you doing? Is this a breast-milk-mixing dance?”
“This insane bastard’s sexual harassment is now the default setting, isn’t it? Figured since you’re about to die anyway you’ll just say whatever you want. That’s exactly why you’ll never climb out of D-class!”
“What’s being D-class got to do with it? Oh—because I’m dead meat, so D for Dead?”
“Hmph!”
Silla’s ears were bright red as she fumed. I chuckled and apologized; she pointed at the sprawled corpse of the hawk-eagle.
“Cut its head off for me.”
“For the achievement points? Couldn’t you just take some feathers?”
“Well… the points are part of it, but this is the first time I’ve ever finished a B-class monster with my own hands. I want to taxidermy it as a souvenir.”
“That so? Then I’ll make a clean cut. Want me to throw in a little sword dance while I’m at it?”
“If that’s what you want.”
I immediately started hopping around like a headsman doing a jig as I approached the hawk-eagle. Silla watched with open curiosity as I casually lifted the massive sword she herself could barely budge, then burst out laughing when I began a proper executioner’s dance around the corpse.
“Yes! This is D-class! Look at you, sucking up because your life is already in my hands!”
“Says the woman who should be thinking hard. If you don’t find a way out within the next two days…”
“I know! I’ll put bullet holes through both your balls for sure, so wipe them clean and wait for me!”
“Heh heh heh… wonder what I’ll make you do next time. Looking forward to it.”
THUNK—
The hawk-eagle’s head left its body.