Subjugating the Legion Commander (1)
The battle to settle things with Eris, the Oblivion Legion Commander, had just begun.
Unlike the original plan, however, this fight was not taking place in a separated space. The situation was fully visible to the forces fighting on the front lines—including Karna and Sharti.
“…So she did come out.”
“But if it goes on like this, the army will take damage too,” Sharti said.
“I’ll put up a barrier. You can hold out until then, right, Karna?”
“…Of course.”
Karna shifted his grip on the Holy Spear.
“The officers will try to join their Legion Commander. They might target you while you’re casting the barrier, so be careful.”
“Don’t worry.”
Sharti nodded and briefly put some distance between herself and Karna. He glanced after her retreating figure, then let out a quiet sigh. Powering the Holy Spear with another surge of formidable mana, he faced forward once more.
Among the writhing mass of monsters, several figures suddenly halted. They had spotted their isolated Legion Commander. Realizing those were the officers of the Oblivion Legion, Karna moved at once.
“Nothing gets past me.”
With a roar of flame, fire blossomed along the Holy Spear. It was no ordinary fire. Instead of the red one usually associated with flames, the entire spear was engulfed in pure blue.
Hero Karna activates Blue Flame Spear
Karna wound his arm once around the spear with crushing force, then swept it in a brutal horizontal arc. Blue flames surged upward like a towering wall. The barrier stretched all the way to the end of the front line, completely sealing off the monsters’ advance for a moment.
Yet there were still those who could punch straight through such fire.
“My master!”
A presence of an entirely different caliber from the ordinary monsters burst out, calling for the isolated Oblivion Legion Commander.
This was exactly what Karna had been waiting for. That blue flame was a filter of sorts. Ordinary monsters would never get through, but the Legion’s officer corps—especially high-ranking officers who directly served the Legion Commander—would be more than capable of forcing their way past it.
His calculation had been that some of the officers who spotted their isolated commander would break from the front line and try to rescue her.
And the one who had just emerged was one of the pillars of the Oblivion Legion.
Gurka, the second-in-command of the Oblivion Legion, known as the Butcher for the sheer number of people he had slaughtered with merciless cruelty. If he—second only to the Legion Commander herself in strength—managed to join her side, there was no telling what variables he might create.
He was one of the beings who absolutely could not be allowed through. Facing Gurka would mean Karna could not support the front line for a while, but…
“Re-form the ranks now! Do it while you still have the breathing room!”
“Restock the powder and arrows!”
Watching the army continue the war smoothly without collapsing even after losing their commander, Karna felt he could entrust them with it. He spoke to the officer beside him.
“I’ll go stop that one for a moment.”
“Yes, Hero. Go!”
Karna gripped the Holy Spear and leapt skyward in a single bound.
“Didn’t you hear me?”
At Karna’s single remark, Gurka’s gaze snapped around. In that same instant, Karna had already soared high and closed the distance right in front of him.
“I said nothing gets past.”
“The Hero…!”
Gurka drew a massive-bladed axe. The moniker “Butcher” had come from the way he indiscriminately hacked people apart with that very axe.
THWOOOOM!!!
Karna’s Holy Spear and Gurka’s axe collided, the impact booming across the battlefield. Yet it was Gurka who was forced back. Even as the Legion’s second-in-command, there was no way he could lose a one-on-one duel against Karna—one of the strongest Heroes alongside Erinn.
Erinn herself had drained most of Eris’s mana with a single strike; an officer weaker than that would have a hard time standing against him.
Gurka began to be pushed back by Karna. Realizing he could not break through alone, he roared.
“Damn it, Gergius! Fulfill the contract you made with the Legion Commander!”
At a name that followed the same naming conventions as dragons, Karna’s eyes narrowed. Then the voice that answered made him flinch in surprise.
“…Very well.”
A voice that resounded across heaven and earth. It was the kind of voice only a higher life-form of overwhelming size among all living things on the ground could produce.
Hearing it, Karna let out a hollow laugh. He now understood that the Oblivion Legion’s earlier use of spatial distortion magic to hide their presence had truly been because a dragon was cooperating with them.
“So a dragon really did ally with the Demon King’s army…”
With a heavy flap, enormous wings unfurled in the sky. Green wings the color of emerald jewels blotted out the heavens.
As a shadow fell over their heads, not only Karna but also Erinn’s party—still clashing with Eris—turned their eyes upward.
Caesius in particular was staring at him with startled eyes.
“…A green dragon?”
“Freya, can you go handle that side~? You’re good at catching dragons.”
Erinn’s judgment was reasonable. Karna alone could not hold off both the officers and a dragon, and if the dragon interfered, it might create an opening for Eris to escape.
Even if it thinned their own fighting strength a little, having Freya go stop the dragon was the correct call. But Caesius, standing beside them, spoke up.
“…Albrecht, Erinn. I’ll go.”
“What?”
“I… need to go talk to him. We might not even need to fight.”
“Hmm…”
From the reaction, it seemed Caesius knew the other party. Erinn guessed as much and said,
“The one over there looks older than you. Can you handle it~?”
“…I won’t cause any trouble.”
“…Fine. Go ahead, then.”
Caesius looked at Albrecht. With Erinn already having given permission, there was no way he would refuse. Albrecht simply nodded.
“Go.”
The green dragon Gergius took to the air to fulfill the contract he had made with Eris. Yet to his surprise, someone blocked his path before he could reach her.
It was a being of the same kind as himself. Of course, the other was a blue dragon—a clan stronger than the green dragons, who ranked among the weaker of their kind—but a fellow dragon nonetheless.
It had been a long time since he had seen one of his own. But the way she had clearly come to stop him made Gergius bare a fierce aura first as he spoke.
“To think there would be one of our kind on the human side as well. How twisted the fate of us dragons has become.”
“…Gergius, do you not recognize me?”
Gergius was mildly startled by that voice. For one, female dragons rarely left their nests, and for another, he had heard that voice somewhere before.
Come to think of it, her body was far smaller than his—she still looked like a young dragon. Had she only just left the hatchling stage?
Once he realized that, one particular being came to mind.
“…Caesius?”
“So you do remember.”
The blue dragon Caesius. She was the daughter of an old friend of Gergius’s. It felt like only yesterday that he had occasionally seen her as a child, yet here she was, grown enough to fly about on her own.
Gergius felt glad. But the emotion that rose even more strongly was regret.
Dragons were higher beings. That made them quick to read a situation, and he understood all too well that Caesius rising from the human side to appear before him meant… she had come to stop him.
“…I would love nothing more than to savor the joy of reunion, but I have a duty I must bear. Caesius, I do not wish to harm my friend’s daughter. Stand down.”
“Duty? What duty could we dragons possibly have?”
“…There are circumstances.”
Gergius spoke as he beat his wings.
“It is not something I can easily explain to others…”
“Is it because of Mersius?”
“….”
Mersius. Gergius’s one and only daughter. A precious child he would not have minded placing in his eye, and if she had grown properly, she would have taken to the skies long before the Caesius standing before him now.
Mersius, who had lived close to death since childhood, had never grown properly at all; every day she had to battle a painful illness. If she could only somehow leave the hatchling stage, she might have been all right, yet her growth itself had never progressed correctly, so even though her age had advanced she remained stuck as a hatchling.
The endless pain had been driving Mersius mad, and Gergius had wanted at least to let her forget that suffering. That was why… he had joined hands with Eris, who could inscribe the curse of oblivion.
The curse of oblivion did not merely erase memories. It could also make a living being forget the sensations it was capable of feeling. Gergius had asked Eris for that, and in return he was cooperating with her.
When Caesius spoke as if she already knew, Gergius sighed.
“…It seems your father said something.”
“I only happened to overhear him fretting. But for that reason…”
Caesius continued,
“You’re cooperating with the Demon King’s army?”
“….”
“We are beings who serve the Dragon God. Serving any other is an unforgivable act.”
Gergius did not deny Caesius’s words. That was precisely why not every dragon had entered the service of the Demon King, the pinnacle of all monsters.
Yet Gergius had had no choice. The Dragon God was not healing his suffering daughter, and for a young child drowning in pain and slowly going mad to find even a little ease… making her forget the pain had been the only way.
“Forgetting the pain doesn’t make Mersius’s illness disappear. If it isn’t curing the disease, it’s nothing more than a temporary measure.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?!”
Gergius bellowed. The dragon’s roar rolled across the surroundings, and that alone made lower-ranked or weak-willed creatures tremble from head to toe.
Of course, only extremely well-trained soldiers and high-tier monsters were present here, so no one fled in terror—but even they flinched at the razor-edged killing intent radiating from Gergius.
Seeing that, Gurka shouted urgently.
“Gergius! What are you doing instead of fulfilling your duty?!”
But Gergius could not hear Gurka’s words right now. The shame of having his current self exposed to a fellow dragon, and the wretched necessity of offering pitiful excuses to his friend’s daughter, were driving him into a frenzy.
“I never wanted this either! But there was nothing else! Only then could Mersius forget the pain and sleep in peace…!!”
“…Then just cure Mersius’s illness.”
“Do you think that’s possible? Even our Lord said there was no way. The best that can be done is to make her forget the pain at least, so that…”
Gergius spoke with a heart full of anguish.
“…she doesn’t have to hurt until the day she dies. That is what is best for that child.”
“No.”
Yet Caesius denied Gergius’s words. He looked at her in surprise, and she said,
“It can be cured.”
“What… are you saying?”
An incurable disease that even the Lord had concluded had no answer—how could she claim it could be treated? Caesius answered,
“There is a human who possesses the power to interfere with mana itself.”
“…What?”
“With that, Mersius’s illness can be resolved as well. Her disease… comes from an excessive quantity of mana, after all. It will take time, but…”
Gergius could not easily believe Caesius’s words. Power that interfered with mana itself? Was it not something like a mana eater that simply devoured mana?
“You mean like a mana eater…?”
“It’s similar, but the nature is a little different. A mana eater simply consumes mana, whereas that person can perform fine interference.”
The fact that he could seal another’s mana or separate it was proof that, while similar to a mana eater, it was also different.
“So please don’t go over there right now. Stay here facing me like this. Once they deal with the Oblivion Legion Commander… I’ll speak to him about curing Mersius’s illness.”
“….”
Gergius wavered over whether to believe this story or not. But it was no one else speaking—it was Caesius—so trust came more easily.
She had been a clever child from a young age, and above all she was the sole blood relative of his friend, the current Lord of the blue dragons.
“…Simply facing each other like this will not deceive the contract.”
“Then a bit of sparring would be fine as well.”
“Would it be fine?”
Gergius narrowed his eyes. Though he was of green dragon stock, what mattered most to dragons was not clan but age. The older they grew, the stronger their mana became, the deeper their wisdom, and the tougher their bodies.
Considering how ordinary living things began to age after a certain point, the nature of dragons was extremely alien. That was why long-lived dragons possessed such tremendous power. Of course, that also made producing offspring difficult, leaving the younger generation sparse—but that was another matter.
In any case, Gergius’s strength was not something a dragon who had only just left the hatchling stage could handle. However…
“Would it be fine, you ask?”
In the time since Gergius had last seen her, Caesius’s personality had grown considerably more blustering…
“You’re stating the obvious.”
…and at the same time, she had grown considerably stronger.