Ep.8 - Return
Ep.8 - Return
***
[Loaded to the Save point.]
"Haaa..."
Once again, they stood before the burning L'Myune.
The women halted, each returning to Delin's side to engage in a serious discussion.
"What are we going to do? If the Dragon wants Delin, we can't just push through and slip past it!"
What began with Chichi's sharp rebuke quickly escalated into a quarrel.
"What do you mean 'what are we going to do'? We hunt it and move on."
"Hunt it!? Are you insane!? Do you think a Dragon is something you can hunt just by pointing a sword at it!?"
"We cannot fight a Dragon...! A Dragon is beyond us! We must avoid it somehow and go!"
As they stopped in their tracks and argued, Helen and Eva, who had no idea what was happening, were bewildered.
Helen soon grasped the situation, quietly composed herself, and looked after Eva.
"Miss Eva, let us step aside for a moment."
"Y-yes...? No, what's going on...?"
Watching them tactfully distance themselves, Delin sighed deeply and addressed the noonas.
"First of all, everyone stop fighting...! We still have Load, don't we?"
Some games his old friends used to enjoy came to mind. They had conquered bosses by relentlessly charging in and learning their attack patterns.
Couldn't he use Load the same way here? Roughly set a Save near the Dragon, then Load repeatedly until they could take it down...
"We absolutely cannot win. This is not something that can be solved by repeating it countless times."
Kaede expressed firm rejection. Against absolute power, even countless attempts by an insignificant being were futile.
Even if they raised their swords against the Dragon hundreds—no, thousands—of times, if their blades couldn't pierce its hide, it was meaningless.
Save and Load were excellent functions, but they couldn't defeat a Dragon with that alone...
Riko, however, was not swayed by Kaede's words. She was overflowing with confidence. Her body, now stronger than before, felt as if it could not lose to anything.
"Chickening out. You haven't even fought it yet—why are you pissing your pants in fear? Sounds like you've faced a Dragon before, lost because you're weak, and I can win easily. Delin? Let's go."
"I did not say we couldn't win! Listen to me! Philmark, you couldn't even beat me before! There is absolutely no way to win... Ke-hek!"
Riko clamped her hand over Kaede's mouth. Dragged up into the air, Kaede flailed and whimpered.
"Shut up and follow. We can win."
Riko, now overwhelmingly stronger than before, threw Kaede to the ground as if spiking her down and began moving again. Seeing this, Chichi and Neva flinched in surprise, wondering what on earth had happened, but there was no way to get an answer.
"Ri-Riko noona! Wait up!"
The only ones who knew that answer were Delin and Riko. The enhancement that had taken place over countless Loads was their secret.
------------------------------
The women, led by Riko, headed straight for the Dragon. Even without Loading, Berial, the lord of L'Myune, had already told Delin's group about the Dragon's nest, so finding it wasn't difficult.
"When we were developing the mine earlier, that Dragon woke up and soon started threatening us, saying a boy who had received a revelation was coming...!"
"Didn't it say why it was looking for that boy?"
"We didn't really get that far either..."
Only Delin and Eva, who did not participate in the battle, stayed behind in L'Myune with the Dwarves, waiting. There was no reason to stop Riko when she had left boasting she could take down something like a Dragon.
Even if she died, they could just Load. And if she actually hunted it and came back, that was good...
Anyway.
Delin remained in L'Myune with Eva, hoping the women would safely defeat the Dragon and return.
Since simply waiting was no different from wasting time, he extracted what information he could from the Dwarves. With the women having essentially stepped forward for them willingly, it was very easy for him, who stayed behind, to gather intel. Everyone answered willingly.
Why the Dragon wanted a man,
What the geography of the Dwarf Kingdom was like,
How the Elf tribe was doing these days...
There weren't many who gave particularly useful answers, but he still obtained information that could help their journey in its own way.
"I've heard that Dragons originally want men. They say they capture the decent-looking ones, use them as slaves, and then eat them when they get old."
"If you're going all the way down there, follow the Kushal Mountains westward. There's a river flowing there, and if you follow it, the land is flat and easy to walk on."
"This area is so remote we can't even catch a glimpse of an Elf's ear, so I don't know much. But sometimes rumors come that things are a mess over there too. It's not just us Dwarves having a hard time; they say the Elves are racking their brains as well... What was it? A black mage, was it...?"
"A black mage...?"
It felt a little abrupt, but since it didn't seem particularly important, he decided not to dwell on it.
Now wasn't the time. With a Dragon right in front of them, dealing with that came first.
"Phew..."
Before Riko left, she had told him,
[Save right here, and if any of us returns injured, or if we don't return after an hour, Load.]
It was a kind of strategy.
Though she had left boasting she could defeat the Dragon, she wasn't so arrogant as to ignore the possibility of defeat.
She, too, seemed prepared to Load a few times.
A Dragon wasn't a being to be taken lightly.
Riko had explained the strategy for using Save and Load before she left.
Before he knew it, an hour had passed since he set the Save,
so now he called out for Load.
"Load."
[Loaded to the Save point.]
---------------------------------------
"You should've blocked better from the front, you dumbass! No, you saw it raising its front foot—how could you not block it?"
"That was an unblockable attack. Dodging was the priority."
"Is your shield just for show? What kind of knight are you? If that's the case, just shoot arrows from the back."
"No, more than that, aren't you all fighting too recklessly!? While I was preparing an attack spell, you should have drawn its attention so it couldn't hit me!"
"See, I told you we couldn't win. No matter how many times we Load, it'll be the same."
"Well, I cannot speak since I do not follow the Loads, but I wonder if we can defeat the Dragon if all we do is blame each other."
"We lost because that fucking mutt just stood there trembling, doing nothing from the start. Haa."
"Keep your mouth shut if you don't know anything! I already told you we can't defeat a Dragon in this state! This happened because you ignored my words, so why are you blaming me!?"
Whenever a Load ended, they would blame one another, arguing over the cause of their defeat.
"Enough, everyone shut up and follow me. First, let's use about 10 tries... to see how far that bastard can fight."
Delin engraved their departing figures into his mind, then repeatedly extracted information from the Dwarves.
However, there was a limit to what the Dwarves knew.
After about five repetitions, he switched strategies. Instead of gathering more information, he simply sat quietly, waiting for the women.
"Yaaawn..."
"Th-they're all going to die. Idiots..."
Beside him, Eva sat trembling, unable to calm down, as always.
She engraved the departing women's figures into her mind, trying to stop them from going, but
she always failed to find the words and just sat there crying quietly.
"You're just going to die! It's no different from throwing your lives away. Idiots, idiotsh..."
After 10 Loads.
"I didn't know it would breathe fire! Wait, in the first place, can you even dodge that?"
"It is impossible to dodge inside the cave. We must lure it outside and fight."
"Neva-ssi, can't you block the breath with that defense technique of yours?"
"...I cannot block it."
"..."
The women now carried on quite strategic discussions.
Still, it seemed their attacks were working to some extent.
So they did not halt their Dragon subjugation.
After 16 Loads.
"Sniff, eonni, eonniii..."
"...No, if you were going to cry and call for them like that, why didn't you just tell them not to go...?"
"Shut it! What do you know! All men are the same! They're just stupid, foolish, and dirty!"
"...Yeees."
After 21 Loads.
"The area below its eye seems to be a weak point. When Philmark-ssi's dagger hit it, its reaction was sharper than usual."
"I felt it too."
"I'll target there as much as possible, so the rest of you draw its attention from the back."
"..."
"Neva, why have you been silent since earlier?"
"You aren't even fighting seriously! Try to block properly! Earlier, when we were fighting, you definitely could have blocked—but you didn't block properly!"
Once, Chichi, with one of her legs blown off, flew in struggling on her broomstick and shouted for him to Load.
Once, Kaede walked in dragging a frozen leg and shouted for him to Load.
Once, Riko crawled in with difficulty and shouted for Load...
A considerable amount of time passed.
Of course, it was only the perceived time that increased.
The same span of time just kept repeating.
Delin sat quietly, cheering for the women, occasionally chatting with the sobbing Eva.
He didn't think, This is boring.
How could he, when the other women were risking their lives fighting for them?
He simply prayed they would successfully subjugate the Dragon and return.
That not a single one would be hurt—that they would all survive and splendidly hunt the Dragon...
Was it thanks to that prayer?
The women were no longer just discussing strategies against the Dragon, but methods for all of them to survive and come back.
"First, you, Helen, have to survive. Because if you do, no matter how injured we are, we can all return alive."
"Understood. I must be careful, then. I will do my best to survive, so do not worry."
Once, Riko came back alive.
Once, Kaede did, once, Chichi...
But.
Strangely.
After the 49th subjugation attempt,
Neva, without a single scratch anywhere, came back down to L'Myune.
"Eonni...!"
"Ooh, Dragon Slayer-nim! Did you defeat the Dragon!?"
"..."
She was silent.
"Neva noona! What about the other noonas?"
"..."
"Ah... you failed again. Shall I Load?"
Seeing her return alive, Eva teared up, felt a flash of annoyance, and ran into Neva's arms.
But Neva's face was expressionless.
"Neva noona?"
"...No, they'll be here soon. We succeeded."
"You succeeded!? I knew the noonas were the best!"
Delin ran to Neva just as Eva had and hugged her tightly.
Finally, there was no need to repeat these grueling Loads.
Loads that spanned nearly 50 hours!
In a world without games or TV,
waiting 50 hours just watching the drifting clouds had finally come to an end.
"Good job! Really!"
"Everyone, cheer for these Dragon Slayers! Hooray! Dragon Slayers, hooray!"
Everyone's faces were filled with smiles.
Delin smiled,
Eva smiled for the first time,
All the Dwarves smiled...
"..."
Neva too,
holding Delin and Eva in her arms,
smiled faintly.
There was blood on her body,
but no one questioned that blood.
Because she was a Dragon Slayer who had just finished a long, bloody battle with the Dragon.
Because they naturally believed, without a trace of doubt, that the blood belonged to the Dragon.