Shadow Step
When an earthquake struck, you were supposed to cut the gas and electricity and move quickly to a place with no falling debris.
If you couldn’t get outside, you were meant to duck under something sturdy, like a solid table, and protect yourself.
When a fire broke out, you were supposed to shout for help, cover your nose and mouth with a wet towel, and evacuate low to the ground.
Daeun even knew what to do in a typhoon, a tidal wave, an avalanche, and—roughly—what to do if a war ever broke out.
Some of it she had looked up herself because she was curious; some of it she had learned through safety training and the like.
But she swore to herself that she had never once been taught what to do in a situation like this.
Which made sense.
There was no reason Earth would have a handbook for “what to do when a dragon attacks.”
No, wait… maybe there actually is one if I look hard enough.
They even had instructions for zombie outbreaks, so why wouldn’t they have something for dragons?
With how popular hunter stories had become lately, maybe somebody had actually written one.
But would reading it help, really?
Daeun was skeptical.
“R-run!”
“Kyaaaah!”
Every time those massive wings swept past, buildings collapsed, and every time the dragon opened its mouth, fireballs scorched the ground. Anyone would have thought the same thing.
Heat brushed across her cheek, and Daeun finally snapped back to her senses.
“We have to run… we have to run….”
But where, exactly?
The buildings were falling apart like dried stalks of grass.
“Anywhere is fine, just move!”
Standing in an empty, barren patch of ground would only make her an easy target, nothing more.
Up to now, the dragon had ignored her, but she couldn’t possibly hope it would stay that way forever.
So Daeun started walking blindly forward.
There’s no way Kana lost. We just got separated somehow.
She forced down the ominous thought that flickered through her head and kept moving.
Then, before her, the street unfolded into pure chaos.
Daeun wasn’t the only one who had been caught off guard by the sudden attack.
Demons were pouring out of burning houses and running for their lives. Others were clutching children to their chests, holding their breath and trying not to panic.
And there, too, was one of the demons Daeun had seen yesterday.
“Attack it now!”
“B-but our attacks aren’t reaching it!”
“Damn it all! Are spells just for show? Use arrows, use magic, I don’t care—just attack! Are you going to stand there and watch the whole village burn?!”
“Captain! We’re out of arrows!”
“Then throw rocks, you idiots!”
Magic formed of Magi, arrows, stones—everything that could be hurled into the sky was launched upward.
Most of it was caught in the wind stirred up by the dragon’s wings and never even came close. The few attacks that did manage to land had traveled such a long distance that they lost their force, only to be stopped by the dragon’s hard scales without causing any meaningful damage.
That’s just unfair.
This is why air superiority matters.
“...Could I help?”
Daeun gauged the distance between heaven and earth, between herself and the dragon, then shook her head.
No chance.
She didn’t even need to think about it for long.
She did have a skill that released Sword Qi, but her Sword Qi couldn’t possibly reach that far into the sky.
Even if it did, it would probably vanish before it pierced the scales—just like the demons’ spells had.
Her hand clenched unconsciously, and the knuckles went bone-white.
“...So I really was just being stubborn about something impossible.”
The vague emotion she had been feeling came rushing at her all at once.
A sticky, suffocating helplessness that started at her toes and rose slowly upward.
That was the same feeling that had once held onto young Daeun and refused to let go, and now it was trying to gnaw at her all over again.
“No.”
Smack!
But she didn’t let herself get swallowed by it.
Daeun slapped her own cheek hard enough to make the sound ring out and glared ahead.
Yeah, I did cause trouble.
Yeah, I did put Kana in a bind.
But that’s not a reason to just collapse here, is it?
Those are the kinds of things you apologize for when you meet again and ask for forgiveness. Lying here and playing the victim won’t solve anything.
“Haaah….”
Daeun took a deep breath.
Even if she steeled her heart, fighting was still out of the question.
But fighting wasn’t the only thing she could do.
“Please help! The building collapsed…!”
“I’m coming right now! Hang on just a little longer!”
Heave…!
With all her strength, Daeun slowly lifted the heavy slab of rubble.
It wasn’t easy, not even for her tough body.
Sweat poured down her forehead in a steady stream.
“A-almost there!”
Thud!
“Haa… haa… c-ckh, cough!”
Daeun let go of the debris the moment she confirmed the demon trapped beneath the building had gotten out safely.
She sucked in a lungful of dust kicked up by the impact and coughed violently.
“Thank you, t-thank you!”
“We thought all humans hated us….”
“Cough…! N-no, it’s fine. More importantly, this place is dangerous, so get out of here as fast as you can.”
Thanks to the ring, Daeun didn’t have to worry about Magi contamination, so she had no reason to keep her distance from them.
She brushed off their grateful thanks and sent them on their way, then hurried toward her next target.
Daeun ran through the village as a dragon-level disaster raged overhead, not stopping for a single breath, throwing herself into rescue work.
Because of her efforts, the death toll remained surprisingly low despite the scale of the catastrophe.
“...”
Even so, there were still people she couldn’t save.
An arm sticking out from between the collapsed remains of a building.
Beneath that limp arm, a pool of red blood had gathered in a dark, silent puddle.
“Hoo.”
Daeun deliberately looked away from the colorless arm.
I know this is something I can’t help.
Focus on something else for now.
She spoke to herself like she was trying to hypnotize her own mind.
“Waaah! Mom! Mommy!”
“-A child?”
At the sound of a child’s crying, Daeun’s head turned reflexively.
The child, covered in dirt and small scratches, was standing in what had once been an alley and crying at the top of his lungs.
Had he simply lost his mother, or...
But Daeun wasn’t given enough time to guess at the child’s circumstances.
...
A huge eye moved.
Even if the child was crying loudly, his voice couldn’t possibly be more piercing than the screams and shouts all around them.
Yet that vertically slit pupil, dripping with ominous malice, was fixed squarely on the child.
And Daeun noticed it too.
“—Danger!”
She swallowed the rest of the word she hadn’t quite managed to say and threw herself forward.
Crash!
“Ugh…!”
Because she moved so suddenly, her landing wasn’t steady.
Ignoring the faint pain that shot through her body, Daeun saved the child in her arms.
The child, perhaps too shocked to cry now, only stared up at her with round eyes.
It had been a rather violent movement, but because she had tried her best to shield him, he didn’t seem to be hurt.
One tear, trembling at the corner of his eye, slipped free and dampened Daeun’s sleeve.
“Are you okay?”
“Y-yeah….”
The child looked about two or three years younger than Kana.
Of course, his real age was probably much younger, but in appearance that was about right.
“Did you lose your mom?”
Daeun asked, even as her own nerves tightened.
If it wasn’t as simple as having lost his mother—
If the mother had sent the child running from the collapsing house, smiling faintly as she watched his retreating back, only for debris to come crashing down over her head—
Aaaah!
Daeun shook her head furiously, driving the horrible image away.
If there was a story like that behind it, the wound would be even deeper, but in a situation like this, she couldn’t just not ask.
Fortunately, the child nodded.
“I was holding Mommy’s hand, but then she disappeared….”
“I see.”
So they’d gotten separated while evacuating.
Losing family in the middle of a frantic escape was hardly rare, so Daeun could understand it without much trouble.
“Should big sister help you find your mom?”
“...Really?”
“Of course. Really.”
But before that….
Daeun glanced back, careful not to let the child notice.
The ground, melted by the intense heat, lay exposed in all its ruined shape.
And that ominous eye was still trained in this direction.
The demons fighting against the dragon seemed to realize what was happening too, because they were shouting at one another loudly.
She couldn’t hear them clearly over the distance, but the gist was probably to run, or to do something—anything—to keep its attention off her.
Feeling as though acrid smoke was seeping into her lungs, Daeun stood up.
That filthy little freak.
Of all the demons here, the fact that it had singled out this child made her certain it had some deeply suspicious tastes.
The monstrous dragon that had driven the whole Ardina Continent into terror.
It took only a sliver of that beast’s name to turn a monster into a pedophile.
“I never thought the shadow in ‘Crumo’s Shadow’ would mean that kind of shadow…!”
Ordinary perverts weren’t that scary, but capable perverts were terrifying.
And if it was a flying pervert that breathed fire, wasn’t it stranger not to be afraid?
That was Daeun’s conclusion.
“Stay right behind your big sister.”
“Mm-hmm….”
The clothes Daeun wore weren’t especially large.
But her frame, just a little above average, was enough to hide the small child from view.
With the child tucked safely behind her, Daeun considered her options.
Should she try to hide?
But the dragon was watching from above, so hiding was impossible.
And once she’d already been marked as a target, it didn’t seem likely it would let her get away that easily even if she ran.
“Ugh… I guess I have no choice.”
She would have to rely on the demons.
Srring—!
The blade slid free of its sheath.
Thanks to the fire spewed by Crumo’s Shadow, the air around them was scorching hot, but the sword in Daeun’s hand remained cool.
The cool touch calmed her mind little by little.
Who would have thought she’d find comfort in something that had seemed so frightening?
Life really was full of surprises.
No sooner had she taken her stance than a fireball came hurtling toward her.
If a normal sword tried to cleave that fireball, it would turn to charcoal.
“Haaat!”
But the blade Daeun swung cleaved the fireball in two with surprising ease—well, not exactly ease, but it succeeded.
Once it lost its center and split apart, the flame rapidly lost strength.
“I can’t use mana, so I’ll have to borrow the power of a skill at least…!”
Keeping her head, she blocked the black-red flames that kept coming at her one after another.
It was possible only because of the absurd physical specs unique to Apostles.
Fast... but not so fast I can’t parry it.
She’d already endured attacks faster than this plenty of times!
Confidence surged through Daeun’s chest.
If she held out, support would come in some form or another.
Just as she had thought, some of the demons who had been attacking the dragon were now running toward her.
I’ll get the child somewhere safe, then I’ll run too.
That was what Daeun was thinking when a fierce gust of wind swept across her cheek.
“Huh—?!”
Air was being sucked violently toward somewhere.
She lifted her head to find the source, and her face turned pale.
A chest swollen to the point of bursting.
A mouth gaping wide, with black-red flames flickering between its teeth.
Daeun understood exactly what that meant.
“Breath…!”
Something far stronger than the fireballs it had been throwing was coming now!
“I can’t block that….”
In the face of that breath attack, a sword wrapped in mana—anything—would be reduced to ash without discrimination.
From the terrible pressure alone, Daeun knew it at once and frantically searched for somewhere to hide.
But in a village that was already half in ruins, there was nowhere that could shelter her from a dragon’s breath.
“B-big sister….”
Small hands grabbed at Daeun’s clothes.
Seeing the fear on the child’s face, she made up her mind.
She crouched down and met the child’s eyes before pointing at the demons.
“When I count to three, you run that way. Okay?”
“What about you, big sister?”
“I’ll be fine.”
Perhaps annoyed that she’d kept interfering, the eye that had been targeting the child was now fixed on Daeun instead.
This way, at least, the child would be safe.
She stroked the child’s dirt-smeared hair.
“One….”
Just in case, she rose carefully so the child wouldn’t be in the dragon’s line of sight.
“Two….”
She turned halfway around and spread her clothes wide.
“Three!”
The moment she gave the signal, the child ran.
Fortunately, the eye didn’t pay the child any more attention.
I need to run too….
...But there’s nowhere to run.
Then I’ll just have to face it head-on.
With a determined expression, Daeun raised her sword.
How many seconds can I last?
She immediately wiped that thought from her mind.
How many seconds, my ass.
“I’m going to survive no matter what.”
The instant the words left her mouth, the air that had been rushing inward stopped.
The chest that had been swelling endlessly also ceased its expansion.
Fwoooosh—!
Then, at last, the black-red breath burst downward toward the ground.
...Hhkk!
The pressure traveling through her sword was so fierce she couldn’t even force out a groan.
Her arms shook violently as though they might snap at any moment, but Daeun gritted her teeth and held on.
Hissssss—
The fabric touched by the breath began burning away in an instant.
Inside that savage heat, hot enough to feel like it was searing her skin, Daeun prayed over and over for this moment to pass as quickly as possible.
How many seconds had gone by?
She didn’t even have time to count before she finally sensed that the heat tormenting her had vanished.
And so had the crushing pressure that had been trying to snap her sword in two.
“I-I did it...?”
...Had she really endured the breath?
Daeun opened her eyes carefully.
The flames that had been blazing even through her tightly shut eyelids were gone without a trace.
All that remained was Crumo’s Shadow, flapping its wings in apparent frustration.
“Ha, hahaha...! I did it! I actually did it!”
Overjoyed that she was still alive, Daeun let out a cheer.
To survive a dragon’s breath—wasn’t that, by definition, a feat?
The thrill rising up her spine made her want to give herself over to the sensation—
“You call that ‘doing it’?”
Just then, a cool, haughty voice cut in from beneath her.
“I barely saved you from getting burned to death, and that’s how you talk?”
“...Huh?”
Daeun lowered her head with a creak, as though her neck had rusted.
Below her, where she hadn’t been able to see while looking up, a very familiar girl was staring up at her with the expression of someone looking at a fool.
In her hand was a pale red sword Daeun had never seen before.