The Right-Sized Dragon
It was a truly overwhelming spectacle.
It goes without saying, but as a hunter, I'd faced supermassive monsters before. On rare occasions, I'd even come across things bigger than the dragon in front of me right now.
But past a certain point, they stopped registering as big at all. Majestic, maybe? More like a backdrop than a living creature. More like an environment than a backdrop. That was simply the reality of it.
Which meant that, in a way, the great dragon before my eyes was exactly the right size. It hovered just barely under the threshold of what a human could perceive as a living being — one increment larger, and it would have been impossible to process as an organism at all. It stood as if balancing on the very border of human cognition.
Wings vast enough to blot out the sky. A tail as forbidding as a mountain range. A body so colossal it could have buried a valley twice over. Its scales were black, black enough to swallow the sun itself, and beyond its vertically slit pupils gleamed a sea of amber, like molten honey. A serpent's endless length, wings made of membrane, and — on top of all that — four legs. Its entire frame was sheathed head to toe in dense scales.
Which told me one thing, and one thing only.
A Middle Eastern dragon.
Oh, we are so fucked.
Well — of course. If there really was a mythological ecosystem on the other side of the gates, then a dragon summoned through the same gate as the ghouls had to come from the Middle East. The problem was precisely that.
One-Hit Faith. The protective property.
As I'd said before, that ability wasn't the ghoul's exclusive domain. It was shared between Middle Eastern ghouls and Middle Eastern dragons. Which meant—
I have to kill that thing in one hit?
Seriously? I wasn't joking. The opponent was a dragon. Its scales outclassed shield-grade armor, and its vitality ran thicker than the scales themselves. A creature that could single-handedly wipe a nation off the map — that's what a dragon was. And it wasn't polymorphing like when Hayeon and I first met. At that size? There was only one answer.
The signature. Cut Prettily.
That was the only way this ended. The problem was the city-side hunters who wouldn't know that. If they started blindly unloading on that dragon, the damage from my signature would heal right back before it could take proper hold. My signature might shred through the One-Hit Faith itself, sure — but that only applied to my own attacks. Whether the regeneration would vanish for everyone else's strikes too... I had no idea. You'd need actual experience coordinating an assault on a One-Hit Faith monster to know, and thankfully — or unfortunately — that wasn't in my résumé.
The moment it was summoned, the thing had let loose a roar. Dragon pressure makes no distinction between friend and foe, so odds were good that most of the low-rank hunters and ghouls on the city side had blacked out outright. I could only pray nobody's heart had given out.
That left two problems, roughly. First, the upper-rank hunters who hadn't gone under. Second, whatever the dragon did next.
The great dragon had roared the instant it appeared. But when nothing meaningful happened in response, it quietly closed its eyes. As any creature of that magnitude would be, it was impossibly insensitive to outside stimulus. The problem was that it had, quite literally, stopped paying attention to its surroundings entirely.
Including flight.
In other words, the very next moment, it began plummeting toward the ground.
Ah, shit—!!
The curse slipped out on its own. That gate alone could have swallowed an entire city, and now a dragon bigger than the gate was falling straight onto it. The outcome went without saying. Look at that size — forget the city, that thing's corpse could sweep up the satellite towns and still have room to spare.
Even I had no other play in this situation. My signature? I could use it, sure. But a monster is a monster, always. Even if that thing died without a single twitch of resistance, its remains would come down on the city all the same. And it was a Middle Eastern dragon — meaning its blood was almost certainly pure venom. That's their defining trait. So I had no answer to a falling dragon. Unless I was willing to drown every single person in this city in its blood, there was nothing I could do.
Which is why the one who answered the dragon's fall wasn't me.
krrrrrk—!!
Spikes of ice erupted upward from the earth like a geyser. I didn't need to ask who. Choi Seungjun. His ability. Centering on those pillars, a canopy of ice unfurled — and for one brief moment, dozens of frozen umbrellas formed an entire sky of ice.
kuuuuung—!!
The ice ceiling caught the dragon's falling body. Yes! If we could just halve the impact, we'd be lucky — but betraying that hope, ice pillars more than twice as thick as the first braced the sagging ceiling. A wave of bitter cold reinforced the cracking pillars in real time. Twice the first pillars, then three times, then five — pillars spreading their umbrellas, shoring up the ceiling.
The greatest talent in the world. The acknowledged ceiling of what humanity could reach in raw output and total capacity. Choi Seungjun's ability had caught even the fall of a great dragon.
The problem was that this side hadn't landed yet either. Fuuuuung — the air screaming past my ears like it was being torn apart, honestly quite the symphony. Of course, I had my own contingency ready. Had, in fact, since the moment I'd judged we wouldn't escape before the ritual finished.
Yeeun. There's no time to explain, so don't panic. And remember — you're a telekinetic.
Teacher!!
...Yeah. Insurance really is worth carrying.
The moment I'd been launched skyward by the eruption of the leyline, Yeeun hadn't been in my arms. I hadn't even been trying to keep hold of her, mind you. It would've been convenient, but realistically impossible. My objective was, first and last, Yeeun's protection. After that, all she had to do was find me as I fell. And if she couldn't? Well, then it was parachute time. I'd been carrying one around for emergencies since way back. Never used it, though.
Frankly speaking — could you actually deploy a parachute you'd never once touched, in a situation like this~? Probably not. That's what I'd judged. So instead, I shielded Yeeun from the shock of the eruption so she wouldn't black out, and spent the entire fall running through what I'd do if she had. When the dragon of all things popped out, I'd figured it was all over—
Tap!
A movement snatching my hand out of thin air. As you can see, she'd managed to hold onto consciousness after all. Thank god I wasn't about to go hunting for an unconscious girl while fumbling with a parachute I'd never deployed. The telekinesis gripping the surrounding air carefully caught us both and set us down.
And so we landed atop the ice ceiling. The dragon still hadn't shown the slightest reaction.
Wh-what... what even is happening?
Honestly? No idea.
What?
But when there's a monster in front of you, a hunter's got exactly one job.
As I said it and drew my blade, Yeeun squeezed her eyes shut. Fair enough — I'd be flustered too. She'd left the house that morning planning to do nothing more than go to school. Then her consciousness had abruptly cut out, and when she opened her eyes, her homeroom teacher was fighting a monster right in front of her. She'd used her power from behind to kill the thing as instructed, but apparently this wasn't her house. She was dead center in what looked like some cult ritual beneath the Academy, ghouls had swarmed a girl lying on the altar, she'd barely finished cutting them down on my word, and then — without so much as one proper explanation — she'd been swept into the sky in my arms. No wonder she was flustered beyond words.
Not that I didn't have something to add.
Um, I'm not the one who got dragged into this?!
I'd been wronged, damn it. But it wasn't exactly the atmosphere for saying so. Gates in the sky, a horde of ghouls on the ground — to a girl who'd been in the Academy basement until minutes ago, it would all feel like a bad practical joke.
And so I raised my sword, and Yeeun opened her eyes.
[Glad to see you're in one piece.]
But we never ended up clashing with the great dragon.
...Choi Seungjun?
The words slipped out of me on their own. Not that he could possibly hear.
So... what the hell do I even do here?
A quick scan of our surroundings turned up no obvious means of communication whatsoever.
[Just talk. I can infer well enough from the vibration.]
That's insane. But then, my counterpart was the pinnacle of humanity's power. Whatever he was doing, I couldn't even begin to imagine it. Power on this scale, fused with control this delicate — the capacity to do both simultaneously without breaking a sweat. It was enough to drain the life out of me.
Still, it did make conversation easier. I gave him a rough rundown of everything that had just happened, along with a request: given the One-Hit Faith, he needed to block any hunter assaults or military airstrikes on the dragon.
[Well, aren't you full of surprises. Got it. So that's why nobody's attacked — playing it safe was the right call.]
Thankfully, Seungjun accepted without further argument. External interference: fully cut off as of this moment. All I had to worry about now was the great dragon in front of me.
[By the way, are you worn out? Your voice sounds terrible.]
I'm fine. Peachy.
[Say the word if you need anything. If you want, I'll send Lee Joongoo up.]
Absolute hell no.
At my flat refusal, Yeeun gave me a puzzled look. But to me, it was the obvious call. This whole crisis had been set in motion by their organization's plan — which meant they were very likely watching this exact situation unfold right now. So far, Joongoo and Seungjun's presence had kept them from making a move, but that courtesy had limits. The raw power Seungjun was spending to hold up that dragon whole was unquestionably magnificent — worthy of all the praise about the world's greatest talent. But the moment my battle with the dragon began? Even Choi Seungjun would have to multiply his caution a hundredfold to keep the fallout from reaching the city. He'd have no bandwidth left to check the enemy at all. Which meant the only piece on the board capable of restraining them right now was Lee Joongoo, and him alone.
And that's enough.
The name of humanity's strongest isn't just for show. It's deterrent power — the ability to suppress their organization single-handedly. At the speed of a lightning strike, humanity's strongest could respond instantly to whatever Novus Ordo Seclorum tried to pull inside the city. Unlike me.
Because I'm, at the end of the day, an anti-monster specialist. If Joongoo and I swapped roles? Maybe he could take down that great dragon — though knowing him, it'd be messy. And right now I've got no bandwidth to spare either. If their organization decided to end things here and deployed every hunter they had — Tae Siyoung included — that would be the day we lost. Not that fighting Tae Siyoung in my current state is remotely possible anyway~ And even setting that aside — if I showed myself struggling against whatever reinforcements they threw in, the inflated expectations of Park Woochan's combat power that they've been nursing would evaporate on the spot. It'd get much harder to leverage later. Not the worst option, but a solid second-worst. Sending up Joongoo alone was beyond the pale entirely — with the New World Order's eyes still on us, it amounted to abandoning the city altogether.
So.
I'll manage somehow, so don't worry about me.
[Hm. Fine. If the Butcher says so, I'll trust you.]
Pft. Insufferable to the very last syllable, aren't you.
A snort escaped me.
I want to help too.
Yeeun stepped up beside me and added that quietly. Of course, she knew as well as I did that she had no part to play in the battle to come. And yet.
Yeah?
Wait. Something just occurred to me.
Yeeun, how are you even conscious right now?
What? You, you protected me, didn't you? You were holding me really tight—
[WHAT did you just say?!]
Choi Seungjun, you son of a bitch!!
I strangled his commentary right there, but the question about our current situation remained. Dragon Fear. The predatory aura possessed by beings standing at the apex of all life. Every dragon wears this pressure naturally, and anyone without the strength to stand before one simply blacks out. It's why, in countless fairy tales, only a small elite force is ever slipped into the dragon's lair — an army's strength is useless against it.
And yet, despite the roar that dragon had unleashed moments ago, Yeeun had kept her wits about her this entire time. Even while facing the thing essentially alone.
There are a few conditions for withstanding dragon pressure. The most conventional one, naturally, is being skilled enough not to lose to it. Dragon pressure is, at its core, a predator's cry. If you can be certain you're not the prey, you won't embarrass yourself by rolling your eyes back and keeling over. You could reasonably ask how that counts as conventional — but it's the other methods I'd worry about, so it's relative. The second is withstanding it through sheer heroic spirit — like the knights of epic legend, holding unbroken resolve even against an overwhelming foe. I don't consider that something you can demand of an ordinary hunter. And then there's the last one...
Not being afraid of dragons in the first place.
That's the one. I've heard it's mostly summoners who keep drakes and the like — people who've simply never learned to fear them. And Yeeun herself answered without a flicker of hesitation.
Because... I believe in you, Teacher.
The certainty that no dragon in the world could touch her — because she trusted me. That conviction was burning in her eyes.
Uh... yeah.
Hm? Is something wrong? Your reaction seems off.
N-no, nothing. You're imagining it, Yeeun.
Look, I wanted to accept my student's trust. I really did. But YOU WERE THE ONE WHO STOLE A KISS FROM ME NOT FIVE MINUTES AGO WITH THAT SAME MOUTH—!! Given the circumstances I couldn't say it, but honestly? The girl in front of me scared me more than the great dragon did.
[Noted. Telling Joongoo.]
CHOI SEUNGJUN YOU ABSOLUTE BASTARD!!
And so — I mean, I did tell him to buzz off, but Seungjun's perfectly timed mood-killer honestly did me a world of good.
...That hurt my feelings.
Wh-what did?
The feelings of a maiden.
THE MAIDEN FEELINGS YOU'RE MOURNING WERE STOLEN BY YOU, FROM ME!!
I swallowed the urge to say exactly that and let out a long breath. Well. Anyway.
If Yeeun genuinely could withstand Dragon Fear, then there was something we could do — even in this situation. No, more accurately, because of this situation. In my head, I traced the battlefield and began piecing together a plan to kill the dragon. Never thought I'd end up ordering a student to slay a dragon like this.
Well then. Time to hunt a great dragon. It's been a while.