The Butterfly Effect, Right Away (2)

A vast shape. Scales black as pitch. Enormous wings. Silver eyes flinging the sunlight back.

It was too far, and too high, to make out clearly—and yet I had the distinct feeling it was looking at me.

If my guess was right, that thing was...

Crackle— A spark snapped, and the world went dark.

"......!"

I swayed where I sat, but it wasn't long before Ivelia swam back into view. Whatever that had been, it seemed to have triggered on me alone.

She drew a fountain pen from the cloth bag at her side and went right on chattering.

"Once we reach Arcadia, shall I write you a special letter of introduction?"

"Ah, would you just—"

THUD—!

"Aaaah—!"

The ground heaved, and the carriage slammed to a dead stop. Ivelia and I jolted as one.

"What? Clid! What's happening!?"

I scrambled outside. A screech of wood, a roaring rush of air—and in an instant a pale cloud of dust swallowed everything.

A moment later the vast shape I had seen in the sky slowly took form inside the haze.

"Grrrrr—"

......A dragon.

It had set down in the middle of the grassland's only dirt road, the sole track cutting through all that open green. ...Why was that thing here now? Dragons didn't show up until the latter half of the story. There was no chance I had misremembered. Dragons were treated as divine beasts, and more than that, the only creature in this world that deserved to be called a dragon was the single one in front of me.

The thought hadn't even finished before the black dragon beat its wings hard, craned its neck, and roared, tearing the air apart.

A second later the air warped. The gale that came with it flipped carriages onto their sides, and the horses either bolted or collapsed where they stood.

"A— a dragon?!"

"A di... a divine beast! Why is it here!"

"It actually existed?"

BOOM—!

The dragon beat those huge wings, rose, and began to circle over the hundreds of soldiers. They froze. Some of them broke into open panic.

"———!!"

Far across the grassland, other monsters seemed to be screaming in terror as well. I covered my face with both hands and only just endured the pressure of the wind.

What can I even do right now?

The backlash from forcing my way into the story had already arrived. I flicked my eyes to the deactivated Skip and held them there, but just as expected, nothing happened beyond a harsh warning tone.

"......"

Which left me, in this exact moment...

"...an actual townsperson."

Reduced to a genuine piece of novel scenery, I found Clid in front of me. He looked shaken too, but the face of a high knight snapped into place, and he began to command the field.

"Form the line! Mages, raise mana barriers! Knight order, A-type defensive formation—protect the rear!"

The same Clid who had dismissed me for being F-Rank was spreading his voice across the battlefield even with fear written on his face.

"First Company, hold the left perimeter! Third Company, focus on the rear defense! Supply team, draw the carriages back into a triangular formation and prepare to withdraw!"

The orders came without a hitch. This was not a man doing it for the first or second time. At those few words every soldier's eyes changed, and a force of more than a hundred locked into combat readiness.

"First priority is Lady Ivelia's safety!"

"Yes, sir!!"

"Lady Ivelia, into the carriage!"

".........Ah. Ah."

Even as she climbed in, Ivelia kept muttering, rigid with fear. Clid watched her go, drew his sword, and launched the attack in earnest.

"Loose—!"

At his command the mages flung their robes back as one. Magic circles of every color bloomed in the air, and above them spheres of mana—fire, ice, and lightning snarled together—poured down like a barrage. Flame lances streaked like red arrows. Behind them came chunks of ice and blue lightning in a chain, all of it driving for the dragon's wings.

KRA-KOOM!!!

Scales burst from the circling dragon like shrapnel, and a shriek rolled over the field.

"Did we get it?"

The words slipped out of one soldier.

That bastard...

Flutter— On the strength of a single, swaggering death flag, the dragon blasted the dust aside, spread its wings wide, and dove again, straight at the soldiers.

The instant Clid saw it, he shouted and lifted the sword he had drawn.

"Triple barrier, now! If it breaks, shift to sequential shields!"

Faint blue mana spilled from the tip of the blade, and a vertical slash cut the sky as if parting it.

What? That extra was a magic swordsman?

But.

Ting— For all the flourish, the high knight's strike bounced away with pathetic ease.

"...What was that."

Flustered, Clid wheeled toward the mages posted in the rear and shouted.

"Raise a magic barrier!!"

The order dropped, and dozens of mages spread films of mana and cast their wards.

"Lock your weapons down! If the formation breaks, it's over!"

Amid cries tangled with tension and fear, the soldiers gripped their shields and hunched low.

Hiss— A pitch-black dragon some thirty meters across slammed down into the blue-glowing barrier.

"—Dodge!!"

A few of the mages, sensing it was hopeless, dropped their barriers and screamed.

BOOM!

Wings several meters across lashed the earth. Dust and sparks exploded outward, and the whole formation shattered.

"Aaaagh!"

"Aaaah—!"

Soldiers were flung as if kicked, and mages dropped unconscious from the shock. I had the best view of all of it, of course, having been the first one blown clear and left flat on the ground. There was truly nothing I could do.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"Cough—"

Clid fanned the dust away and pushed himself up. Another knight who still had his wits ran in to report.

"Central breakthrough held! Knight order, close the front! Sir Clid, we cannot maintain the encirclement!"

Clid bit down hard on his lower lip and stared ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠into the pale haze. The moment a wavering black shape showed through it, he drew his sword again and wrapped it in blue mana.

"Anyone still conscious, withdraw! Think of nothing but staying alive!"

He bellowed it and swept the point of his sword to the left.

"Second Company! Cover the remaining mages and fall back to the southern forest! Deploy smoke magic and cut the divine beast's line of sight! Third Company's knights will hold the front with me!"

Soldiers and knights answered, even on shaking legs.

"Sir Clid! The enemy is a divine beast. With our strength alone, we cannot possibly face it!"

"I know!"

Clid shouted through clenched teeth.

"We hold anyway! If we don't, Lady Ivelia behind us dies! And if that happens, the Kingdom of Rivelin ends here!"

Hummm— Blue mana climbed the sword and wrapped his whole body, and he roared like something cornered.

"Shield-bearers who can still move, lock the front line! Spearmen, aim only for the divine beast's forelegs! Don't try to bring it down—just bind its movement!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Right now we exist to send even one more person out ali—"

Crackle— Before he could finish, the world went dark again.

...Oh. Not again.

"Aaaaah!"

"Aaaah! I can't— I can't see!"

I rubbed my eyes and looked ahead. Clid was swinging wildly in every direction, and knights were crawling over the dirt, groping blind.

An area effect this time...?

I got up slowly, thinking. What happened if I died here? What happened to the story after that? I didn't need to think very hard. The answer was simple. People who were supposed to die in the Boundary Forest would merely have died on the grassland instead.

...Irregular. An ability with no manual.

When Toraniska tore my right arm off. When a low-grade emotion touched Irregular directly. When Blackout stole my sight. I could more or less piece it together. Irregular recognized Ellen—the only open ending—as an outsider to this novel. Which meant that if it judged me, an outsider inside the story, to be in danger, it rewrote things from outside the book, whether the direction was good or bad.

I didn't know why. Whether that so-called genius had grasped all of this and smashed the fourth wall, and whether that was why I had opened my eyes as Ellen. What I could say for certain, right now, was that it was a goddamn ability that triggered whenever I was in danger.

...Hah.

Somehow it felt as if I had picked a fight the world had no intention of letting be fair.

The dragon roared at me as if it had noticed, and under the intimidation the knights still standing began to faint, or to cower. I had considered running. The system window, though, was still displaying a happy ending.

I walked forward. Whether because Irregular had blocked the intimidation or not, I wasn't shaking at all. If anything I was calm, as if I had swallowed a fistful of nerve tonics. Far off, by the wrecked carriage, I could see Ivelia collapsed as well. But the dragon in front of me came first.

"...Wh-who goes there! F-Rank? You are F-Rank, aren't you?"

Maybe because of the Blackout, Clid was facing the wrong way as he called to me.

"If you are there, run! Take Lady Ivelia and get far from here!"

"?"

He wouldn't so much as look at me for being F-Rank, and now he wanted me to flee?

"Are you listening!!?"

I ignored him and kept walking.

"Hey, F-Rank!! I asked if you were listening!"

Smack— I knocked his flailing hand aside and walked on.

Under the continuing roar, the already ruined field kept overturning.

Behind me, Clid couldn't withstand the intimidation either. In the end he sank ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠down.

"Know your place—! What could the likes of you possibly do!"

He wasn't even looking at me. Eyes bloodshot, he shouted at empty air. So this was his true nature. I ignored him, as expected, and kept walking, and the conversation I'd had with Lee Suhyun came back to me.

Before I opened my eyes as Ellen, he had once enthusiastically regurgitated his monster lore at me.

The short recollection ended. I let out a small breath and turned my head.

"...Ha."

Clid was still on the ground, shouting at the air.

"You can never face that thing! That dragon is A-Rank... no, S-Rank! That's right! S-Rank! I am telling you it is not something an F-Rank like you can stand against!"

"......"

...There shouldn't even be a concept of S-Rank in this world.

So much for an extra's canon. Watching a deviation like that, I couldn't help thinking that behind the story, the extras were busy writing tales of their own. I spoke to the extra who had gone and observed an S-Rank.

"Right. Then you'll die here."

At that, the knight commander's mouth finally snapped shut. The handsome face twisted. He clutched his head, and then—trickle—he wet himself, and fainted.

Thud—

"...Was that too much."

I left the knight commander where he was, turned, and went on.

On toward the divine beast. Straight ahead.

Head-on.