Dragon Slayer (1)

I heard gunfire cracking somewhere far off, and through the brush I caught a figure bolting away. Jang Yeong-jun. That coward had called the beasts down on us.

"Those bastards!"

There was no time to indulge the rage.

"Waaaaaargh!"

Roars rose on every side. Orcs and goblins were pouring in—more than even I could handle.

"Wh-what do we do now?"

"We're done for!"

The awakeners around me broke into panic and milled in every direction.

"I-I'm sorry, Hyung-nim. This is because of me."

"What are you talking about?"

"Those bastards are doing this because of me. Maybe I should just go alone—"

Lee Hae-il's eyes rolled in two different directions as she babbled, half out of her mind.

"Enough nonsense. Get your head on straight!"

Stay like this, and we were finished.

"Chae-ha."

I murmured my sister's name and forced every scrap of focus I had. For the moment I even set Jang Yeong-jun aside. Getting out alive was the only thing that mattered. A thorn hedge hundreds of meters long ringed the central clearing; beyond it loomed the pumpkin wyrm Eberra, well over ten meters of bulk, and a Jill-o'-lantern of staggering size. Everything I had learned—knowledge, tactics—flashed through my head in an instant, and one idea survived the sieve.

"Draw your guns. We move while firing into the sky. Mind the casings—don't let them jam."

"Guns? What?"

"No time to explain. Move!"

I yanked the MP5 off my belt with my left hand and walked a burst into the sky as I broke into a run.

Nearby jack-o'-lanterns kindled, fire leaping into their eyes.

"Listen to Hyung-nim first!"

Hae-il followed, ripping bursts from her submachine gun. The jack-o'-lanterns cradled roaring flame inside maws packed with blocky teeth.

"Watch yourselves!"

I saw the fire first. Leaving Hae-il and the awakeners behind, I sprinted out alone.

I crossed the jack-o'-lantern and tore open the side of its maw.

The instant the thrust landed I threw myself wide, clear of the backblast.

A beat later the jack-o'-lantern's head half-exploded. The pumpkin shot couldn't hold the pressure and burst out through the rent in its mouth. I'd gotten the feel of it fighting the first one: hit the right spot, and you could steer the blast.

"Waaaaaargh!"

The brush split, and beasts came bursting through—the nearest orc, and a handful of goblins. One of the party shouted.

"Th-they're here!"

"Stay calm!"

I bellowed it loud enough to keep them from tipping into panic, and drove the blade out fast.

Two thrusts in succession, both aimed at the orc's eyes.

"Graaagh!"

The blinded orc clutched its face, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠shrieked, and crumpled. Orcs were the same as jack-o'-lanterns. Taking one head-on was brutal, but drive through the eye into the brain and you never had to trade blows with that slab of muscle.

"Hyung-nim!"

Hae-il snapped back to herself, charged in, and laid into the goblins with her sabre—throats opened, shoulders smashed down.

"Good."

"Later. Later, I'll give you the full report."

"Don't know what it is, but do what you want."

By then the trees and brush caught in the pumpkin shot were blazing. I snatched up a few burning brands and hurled them at the thorn hedge ringing the clearing. The dense hedge went up in moments.

"Spread it!"

"S-spread it?"

"Get the fire moving! Now!"

"If we do that, the jack-o'-lanterns—"

"That's the point."

The awakeners hesitated, then followed my lead and fed the flames. Whether a wildfire always ran this fast, or the thornwood simply burned wrong, I couldn't say. But the fire raced along the hedge and laid a shimmer of heat haze far into the distance.

Beyond the thin mist, fire kindled in the jack-o'-lanterns' heads, packed tight as bulbs down a tunnel.

"A gap's about to open up ahead."

I hadn't expected it to work this cleanly. The fire spreading faster than I'd hoped was a mercy.

"I'll take the beasts, as far as I can. I can't cover all of you, so read the moment and run."

By then the lights beyond the haze were moving in earnest. The jack-o'-lanterns had fully woken and leapt down from the trees. If that many hit us at once, even I would go down. But instead of swarming me, they detonated their pumpkin shot right where they had landed.

The blasts rolled out, one after another. A person who eats without end eventually vomits. They couldn't hoard heat forever either. It was only natural.

"Kreeek, kreek!?"

"Waaargh?"

Panicked cries from the orcs and goblins nearby. Fire was spreading in every direction. The plan had worked. Jack-o'-lanterns automatically drank the heat of a gunshot and threw it back, so I had bet that a fire big enough would blow the pumpkin shot before it ever reached us. It had.

The blasts only drove the flames faster. Farther jack-o'-lanterns drank that heat and woke in turn, and I could feel the orcs and goblins hesitating harder. If this were a bout, this was the moment an opponent had spent their whole attack and run out of breath. The pleasure of having named that instant exactly curled the corner of my mouth.

"Now! Scatter!"

"What?"

"Run, and don't look anywhere but forward until you see the gate!"

"R-right!"

I broke into the burning Red Zone with the awakeners. The fire had eaten the whole thorn hedge and was crawling toward the center of the clearing.

"Waaaaaargh!"

Greenskin packs met us along the way—one or two orcs and a dozen-odd goblins apiece.

"Here!"

I drove through them on momentum and put them down. A kick burst a goblin's head. I popped the lid off a jack-o'-lantern.

"Ah—hahaha!"

I rammed the estoc into an orc's mouth and shoved until the point bit wood. Fights like that came one after another.

I wrenched the estoc from an orc's eye and heaved out a ragged breath.

"Hah—hah!"

Sweat had soaked my hair. My chest swelled and sank, swelled and sank, and my throat burned from the coughs I kept hacking up. My right leg had been throbbing for a while, and the estoc—light as a feather not long ago—had long since grown heavy as a barbell. I couldn't remember the last time I had been this spent. And yet this damned grin of mine refused to come down.

"Haha. Ha."

I couldn't remember the last time I had swung a sword to my heart's content, either. I was so elated I was short of breath. Training couldn't compare. There was the tension of maybe losing, and the duty of not being allowed to. There was the hunger to win, and the liberation of being able to swing as much as I wanted. Every feeling you can only have when it's real pulled me under completely. People usually called that happiness. I wiped away the beast blood splattered thick across my face.

"W-was he always like that?"

"I'm kinda scared."

"Split personality or something? What if he turns that blade on us next? We'd all just die, right?"

"Shh! He'll hear you!"

The awakeners' whispers reached me as if from far away. Flames surging on every side poured out a vicious heat. I was so overcooked I felt steam rising off the top of my head.

"Hyung-nim. Eyes on me a second."

Hae-il came up and held out a wet towel. She wiped the blood sprayed across my face and the sweat running in streams.

"Looks like we're nearly there. Hardly a monster left around us, so a short rest ought to be fine. What are your orders?"

Being looked at with that worried awe made the sword light again. Fear that I might come to harm, and the wish to become like me—both of them swam in the yellow cast of Hae-il's eyes.

"How much could be left. We go now."

There had been a time I worried about exactly this. That my ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠talent might be something wrong. That I ought to have been an ordinary kid, keeping company with games and soccer. No matter the sport, no matter the hall, I never met anyone who loved the blade and the match the way I did. More than once I thought I had been born into the wrong age. Even Coach had called me a swordsman of the eleventh century, born by mistake into the twenty-first. At the extreme, I had imagined myself unable to master this joy and turning into a killer who murdered for the pleasure of it. But I loved the awe a sword brought me, the envy and the cheers, just as much as I loved the sword itself. I had thought I'd had my fill of that as an athlete. As a hunter, I might receive it even thicker.

"This is the last stretch. Spread out and run!"

"Aaaaaah!"

We sprinted through the burning forest again. At this rate we could even take the sapling and get out. A future rose like a vision—clocking in at Saetbyeol Guild, living alongside Chae-ha.

A horrific cry shattered the dream. A living thing's instinct registered the danger. A chill climbed my spine, and my body locked stiff. Every flame in the area seemed to shudder once.

Then came the buffet of an artificial heat-wind.

A lesser dragon sheathed in rounded amber carapace. It beat its wings low and passed over our heads.

It dropped the way an eagle snatches prey and crushed one unlucky awakener underfoot.

Then it planted both wings against the ground and roared, as if declaring that no one would pass.

"What is that!"

"A dragon!"

"Why is there a dragon in the tutorial!?"

The awakeners who had scattered screamed, lost to panic. The pumpkin wyrm, pushing fifteen meters, looked like something we had no chance of beating as we were. There was something more important, though.

From the start I had been looking past the wyrm at the colossal Jill-o'-lantern. A Jill-o'-lantern the size of an eight-story building. It, too, was a beast that drank heat and then released it. It was about time it moved.

"Haaaaah—"

A sound like a giant drawing breath. Then every flame burning the clearing, the thorn hedge, and the surrounding brush went out at once. The bright forest turned gloomy in a heartbeat.

"Kraak!?"

Even Eberra, roaring a moment ago as if nothing in the world could frighten it, stared at the Jill-o'-lantern with its eyes wide. I found a shallow depression in the ground nearby and threw myself into it. I left the sword hanging from its wrist strap, clapped both hands over my ears, and opened my mouth.

KRA-BOOOOOOM!

An explosion beyond any comparison with the jack-o'-lanterns. A wave of scorching heat passed over my head. I felt my body caught in the storm and lifted clean off the ground.

"Ah..."

I opened my eyes slowly. When I drew a breath, acrid, baking air shoved into my lungs. Coughing, I looked around. The dense forest had become a vast clearing, and the smell of orc and goblin flesh charring drifted on the air. Turning my head, I saw orcs collapsed here and there.

"Grrrrrr..."

That fearsome pumpkin wyrm was staggering too, dragging its legs.

"Hot, it's hot!"

"Fuuuuuck!"

Far off I could see Jang Yeong-jun and his crew as well. They had taken the blast full-on and couldn't even stand, twitching like bugs hit with a zapper.

"Ha."

I let out a sigh of relief. A complete success. Set fires everywhere, induce a chain detonation of the jack-o'-lanterns, and blow the Jill-o'-lantern too—smash the swarming beasts in a single stroke. I had known we would run into monsters along the way, but I was confident I could win those scattered engagements. Once you commit to a bold plan, you have to be able to stamp the small variables flat. I got up, meaning to head for Zone One.

And fell right there.

"Damn."

My right ankle wouldn't obey. Of all things, the right one again.

"Grrrrrr!"

The pumpkin wyrm looked at me from far off. It gaped that rounded, solid-looking maw and spat short gouts of flame one after another, as if vomiting its rage. Then it came crawling toward me, lurching.

"Didn't see this one coming."

This was a bigger variable. What I had to do had not changed.

"Hoo."

I rose again, unsteady. Thanks to the cord on the grip looped around my wrist, the sword hadn't flown off even now. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I took the estoc and looked at the pumpkin wyrm.

"Kraaak!"

The membrane on both its wings was torn, and one leg was broken. A match with handicaps ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠on both sides. You could argue the weight classes alone made it unfair—but that was the spectator's complaint, not the competitor's. In the match called life, absurd pairings were simply how it went. All that mattered was the attitude you brought to the bout, and what was riding on it. I took my stance like a professional.

"Hyung-nim!"

A voice I had not expected at all.

"Hae-il?"

"Apologies!"

It was Lee Hae-il. She must have been caught in the blast too; soot was smeared thick across her face and her clothes.

"Sorry for what?"

"Grab my shoulder tight!"

Before I could get a word out she ran up, dropped to one knee in front of me, and hoisted my right foot. As I balanced on the other leg, she tucked my toes expertly under her armpit and seized my ankle in both hands.

A crisp pop, and strength returned to my right foot. Lee Hae-il had been the ace of the first-aid class.