The Foiled Plan (2)
The plan had gone sideways.
"S-Sir Hunter! What do we do now?"
At the trembling question of the terrified soldier, Kaban Vladbich's mind raced through his options.
In hunting, the two things that mattered above all else were improvisation and preparation.
I've packed everything that can be packed.
War machines, supply provisions, all of it. To bring down a monster called a dragon, he had made every preparation imaginable.
But with two of the most crucial core materials now missing, the magic scroll Hatensilla had given him was destined to deliver less than half its intended effect.
Still, there will be no other chance than this.
Kaban gritted his teeth and spoke.
"...We force the assault as planned."
"Sir Hunter!? If, if you proceed like that, then the—"
"Damn it, do you see that? The cave mouth up there!"
Grabbing the startled soldier by the collar, he pointed toward the volcano's peak.
There, a massive cavern gaped wide open, hollow and unobstructed.
"For decades, that entrance was sealed with her tail. But now it's showing itself like that, without a single obstacle in the way — that's proof the beast's guard has dropped completely!"
He remembered the traces of the fire spirits left midway up the mountain. Most likely, the dragon was delighted to have guests and had let her vigilance slip.
He snarled, voice raw with fury.
"Days like this don't come easily! This is our one and only chance to enter her nest without a single casualty!"
Just as no one could predict a natural disaster, a dragon's whims were likewise beyond prediction. Which meant that this very moment was the perfect opening to walk straight into the beast's heart.
The red dragon, occupied with the fire spirits, had no idea that her hunters were positioned directly below her.
"If we miss this moment, there's no telling when the next will come! Do you understand!?"
"But— but then what of the mind domination!? That was the entire purpose of this hunt!"
"That..."
For the first time, Kaban's words caught in his throat.
Subjugation and killing were two entirely different beasts.
Killing something was easy. You simply hacked the body apart without thought, destroyed it thoroughly, and moved on. But subjugation was far trickier.
To restrain a raging creature without harming it was possible only when you held overwhelming superiority. And if the target was a dragon, it was all but impossible without the aid of blood magic and artifacts.
Everything else he could accept. Hunting never went perfectly to plan anyway. But this — this alone had to go exactly as designed.
Kaban twisted his face into a scowl and spat a curse.
"Damn it all...!!"
If it went on like this, domination was impossible. Killing would be the only option left.
And then—
- Whoooosh, fwoooosh!!!
Flames suddenly burst from the cave mouth. Not lava — a torrent of fire of colossal size.
And moments later,
- THOOM, THOOM...
With the sound of ponderous footsteps, a shadow fell over the dragon-hunting expedition.
"Menassil...!"
The mountain's ancient mistress had revealed herself. Though time was devouring her alive, her crimson body stood proud upon the cliff's edge, like a setting sun at the moment before it sinks.
"H-hyaaah!!"
"The volcano's master! The master of the volcano has appeared!"
At the sight of her majesty, the soldiers began to tremble from head to toe, wavering in panic.
Kaban barked out orders swiftly.
"Get down! Don't move a single step! We must not be spotted now!"
The instant the command fell, the soldiers threw themselves flat against the ground. Following their lead, Kaban hid himself behind a boulder.
"Of all the times — she had to appear in person, now of all moments."
The timing could not have been worse. In the very instant he realized the plan had collapsed, the volcano's master appeared. It felt as though fate itself were barring his way.
With that thought, he glared up at the majestic red dragon atop the cliff.
"...Hm?"
But something was off.
Beside Menassil, there were three other presences.
"..."
He drew a telescope from his coat.
The first things he made out were the two pillars of flame blazing at the dragon's side.
"Fire spirits..."
Just as he'd suspected — the dragon had lowered her guard because of the spirits.
And the dragon's foreclaw was clutching something precious to her chest.
"...What is that?"
He adjusted the telescope's focus.
A massive, oval sphere. Something mottled all over with red spots, like the scales of a red dragon.
Kaban Vladbich's eyes grew wider and wider.
"Don't tell me — that's..."
In his single-minded obsession with the hunt and the domination, he had forgotten one truly important fact.
"Menassil has borne a descendant...!!!"
The fact that all living things meet an end — and that before that end arrives, they instinctively bring forth something to carry their will onward.
Dragons were no exception.
A shiver ran through him. An excitement beyond the thrill of the hunt — an extreme, all-consuming anticipation coiled around Kaban's entire body.
I see it now.
A new path.
The operation hadn't failed at all.
"We amend the plan."
"I beg your pardon? What do you mean, sir?"
Gripping the spear carved from dragon talons, he declared:
"We abandon the mind domination! Menassil is worthless now. She was a dragon on the verge of dying of old age anyway. Even if we broke her, she wouldn't last a century."
The soldiers, heads pressed to the dirt beneath the dragon's overwhelming presence, began to lift them one by one.
"In exchange—!"
Meeting each of their eyes in turn, Kaban raised the spear high overhead.
"We will dominate that egg."
There was something far more terrifying than brainwashing: making a dragon into human property from the moment it was born.
"We execute the operation this instant. The Age of Man — we open it with our own hands!"
Meanwhile, on the upper slopes of the active volcano.
To humor the spirits, who complained that the air inside the cave was stifling, three beings had stepped outside for a while, now standing in a row at the very lip of the cliff.
"The more I listen, the more wondrous it becomes."
Menassil opened her jaws wide in amusement, then closed them again. She had spent hours hearing the tales these spirits had gathered as they roamed the world over. Recalling the single anecdote that had intrigued her most, she spoke.
"Where was it that human resides, you say?"
[The Crossline Kingdom, at the heart of the Urakaras Mountains! This is already the sixth time I've said it! You've grown old and your ears have gone with you!]
"Ah, forgive me. It's simply such an unusual name that I find myself wanting to hear it again."
She bared her teeth in another grin. Crossline. Just as the name said — the place where lines crossed. And those lines meant races.
Humans, elves, werewolves, quarter-krakens, dwarves, golems — even the dragonewts, bearers of our race's inferior diluted blood.
"A nation founded by humans, and yet a land where every manner of creature lives mingled together. In all my life as a dragon, I have never heard of such a thing."
Cradling her still-unnamed descendant, Menassil murmured on.
"And that... Central Officer, what was his name again?"
[Nathan Kell. I don't know the meaning of the name.]
"I see. Nathan Kell..."
An awkward name for a dragon's mouth to pronounce. She turned her gaze down the mountain — toward the small village that sat where the volcano's slopes ended.
"Humans, those wretched little creatures, have only ever looked up at us with eyes full of envy."
Menassil had her share of experiences with humans. But all of them amounted to worshippers who called her a 'monster' or 'master of the volcano,' or thieves who crept in to steal the treasures of her nest.
They sang of destruction, as though it were the only language they knew. Beings who cast out all who were not human and sought to reign over them, as if they were the lords of the world.
"And yet, to think there exists such a remarkable creature, living as a part of the world itself."
If the fire spirits' words were true, the Central Officer was a truly fascinating child. He spoke the tongues of other races fluently of his own accord, and knew how to lower himself and raise up those he addressed. A feeling entirely new to her.
"What manner of being is this Nathan Kell, I wonder — and what short life has he lived?"
Pure curiosity stirred within her. To possess no mana meant being out of step with this world. And yet such a being could speak every language on it — could even, they said, quell the rage of fire spirits themselves.
Even to her, who had lived a thousand years, this was genuinely novel news.
Menassil fell into thought for a moment, then spoke in a low voice.
"If he is one who knows no barrier of language at all... then perhaps even I could hold conversation with him."
They were speaking in spirit-tongue now, but Menassil had one language she had not used in a very long time. The Dragon Word — a language where power dwelt within the utterance itself. Though age had withered her and she could no longer unleash it carelessly, there had once been an age when dragons ruled the sky, when those words could bend the very laws of the world. Could a human truly speak them?
The fire spirit nodded.
[I believe it is possible. Though whether a frail human body could endure it, I cannot say.]
"We shall have to see. So — what does he look like? At least let me picture his face."
[Well...]
The spirit devoted great effort to describing his appearance — or rather, to describing it according to the spirits' sense of aesthetics. Menassil listened attentively, then nodded.
"Hmm. In that case..."
She raised a single talon and began sketching on the stone floor with slow, deliberate strokes. Before long, a portrait had taken shape with surprising finesse. She bared her teeth in satisfaction.
"There. This is surely what he looks like. Am I right?"
[Humans do not have tails.]
"...Ahem."
She drew again. Skrrt, skrrt.
"Now then, how is this one? I'd say I've rendered it quite close to your description."
[Human males have flat chests. This is a female.]
"Ah, how in the world am I to know such things! These mammals are endlessly, hopelessly complicated."
Scowling hard, Menassil spat a gout of flame at the ground.
"Bah, I give up."
The red dragon flopped down at the cliff's edge, all four legs folding beneath her. She had come to want — desperately — to meet, by any means, this human who had provoked her curiosity to such a degree.
But she could not simply go to him. This beloved egg had to remain in the volcano. Only here, where the power of fire ran thick, could it absorb pure, unspoiled flame. For her to go meet the Central Officer would mean abandoning that precious chance.
"Then could you not simply bring that Nathan Kell here? If I promise ample reward, surely he would come."
[If you wish it, we could at least extend the offer.]
"Truly? Then I shall give you my finest charcoal, free of charge, for four winters to come!"
And then—
- Twitch.
Something stirred at the tip of her tail. A vibration that did not belong.
"...It seems I have left the cave mouth empty for far too long."
At Menassil's glance, the fire spirits stiffened and swelled their flames larger.
- Fwooooosh.
The cave interior blazed bright in the same instant.
"The only guests promised today are these spirits. Who dares set foot in my nest?"
She glared at the shadowed hollow beside the entrance. An answer came.
"Master of the volcano."
A most archetypal human stepped out of the darkness. And yet, he differed somewhat from every human she had laid eyes on until now. He wore armor made of dragon scales, and carried a spear whittled from dragon talons.
At the sight, Menassil let out a long, weary sigh.
"Ah. One who built his reputation on the corpses of my kin. How tediously predictable."
However many new and wondrous beings appeared in this world, there would always be just as many who were stale and shallow to match.
"I am being devoured by time as it is. If you value your life, wait a while. Soon enough you may claim this body of mine."
Menassil gave a dismissive flick of her wings.
Men like this never change, no matter how many ages pass.
She wished for one thing, and one thing only: to watch this egg hatch, to see its bearer become the new master of the volcano and live as a dragon should. If she could witness that with her own two eyes, it mattered not what treatment her corpse received after her death.
"No — you're of no further use to me, old dragon."
But the insignificant human shook his head with a sneer.
"No one cares about dying myths anymore. What I desire is..."
Kaban slowly raised his spear and pointed it at Menassil. No — a little lower than that. Between her forelegs.
The dragon's gaze followed the spearhead. Then she felt as if every scale on her body stood on end.
"Your descendant."
The spear aimed at Menassil's egg. The dragon spread both wings wide and roared.
"YOU WRETCHED HUMAN!!!"
At the same moment, the human shouted:
"NOW!!! FIRE!"
"What—!?"
- CREEEEAK... THWAAAACK!
From directly beneath the cliff where she stood, a camouflaged ballista loosed a massive iron bolt. It screamed through the air and buried itself in the aged dragon's right wing.
A scream of agony tore from her throat.
Impossible. A mere iron bolt could never wound a dragon.
But Menassil understood, in that instant, exactly how the impossible had happened.
"Mithril!?"
The arrowhead, forged from the only metal capable of piercing dragon scales, gleamed wet with blood. And in the same breath, Kaban, gripping his spear tight, roared:
"The hunt begins!"