Chapter 44
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 43
Chapter Title: The West (2)
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The ferocious howls echoing from outside.
The moment he heard them, Ignatius cast aside the drowsiness he'd shown until now and leaped straight out the window.
Whoosh!
After a burst of bright light filled his vision, what dominated the scene was a massive red dragon.
"Oh."
It was the majestic figure he'd been expecting... Was this really the same person who'd just handed him a fantasy onahole, calling it a chastity magic tool?
The soft texture in his hand made him feel a bit deflated, but regardless of his personal impressions, the situation was quite serious.
As Ignatius flew off into the distance, the landscape hidden behind her massive form came into view.
"My god. Karen, Karen, what the hell is all that?"
"...Could this be a dungeon break happening in the west too?"
Karen stood on tiptoes, peering out the window in a daze as she muttered blankly.
She seemed shocked too. Of course she was. It was only natural.
Countless undead were crawling up from beyond the horizon, and at their center loomed a colossal dragon made of bones, its eye sockets ablaze with ghostly fire.
To Karen, raised in the south, it must have looked just like a dungeon break.
Well, to Maykin, raised in the west, a dungeon break would look like this instead.
"It's the Wild Hunt. They've been coming more frequently lately."
"Wild Hunt?"
"Yes. Just like monsters overflowing from southern dungeons, in the west, the ghosts of the past rise from the pit of death to continue their unfinished wars."
"...The Night of Tragedy."
"Exactly. Those who stood against the God of Tragedy, Tragodea."
The God of Tragedy sought to paint the world in tragedy for the sake of its sole follower.
After descending into a mortal and lurking in the shadows for ages to prepare, it unleashed everything at once, declaring war on the continent.
The world drowned in tragedy was like a dark night, hence the name "Night of Tragedy" for that war.
Fortunately, they managed to repel it somehow, but countless gods lost their power and fell, and even more heroes and nameless soldiers perished inevitably.
...And the west's calamity turned those who once rose against the God of Tragedy into undead legions.
Dragons, once the race closest to the gods, suffered near-extinction during the Night of Tragedy.
Among them, the sole traitor who betrayed his kind and sided with the God of Tragedy.
The Death Dragon Mortheus.
That bone dragon leading the undead from afar was probably Mortheus.
He'd learned the basics of continental history from Karen and Hilda, so he knew it in his head, but this was his first time seeing it for real.
And the Wild Hunt led by Mortheus and his forces in person was...
"Seems tougher than a dungeon break? The Mage Tower's badass. Who knew they could hold that off."
"Ahaha... Thank you for the kind words, Your Excellency Duke Zahav. But as a member of the Mage Tower, I found dungeon breaks scarier."
"Really? The numbers look similar, but the overall quality seems different."
He narrowed his eyes, watching the undead hammering at the barrier conjured by the mages.
The eerie aura of death was palpable even from afar. And as if to prove it wasn't just his imagination, a fierce blizzard of ominous snow raged.
The blizzard laden with deathly qi clashed against the Mage Tower's barrier, while undead with flickering soulfire exploded under high-tier spells. It was honestly impressive.
Compared to the orc waves he'd experienced... Their average combat power was similar, but unlike undead, orcs used tactics, so orcs had the edge in direct combat.
But that blizzard filled with deathly qi was the problem.
He knew from fighting black mages just how tricky such insidious energy was without prior preparation or immunity.
That's why the undead posed the greater real threat. Especially since they came back to life even after death.
And there was an even bigger difference.
The leader.
The Orc Warlord had been powerful indeed. It took multiple Expert-level powerhouses to barely take it down—a one-man army if there ever was one.
But Mortheus was a monster beyond comparison to some mere Orc Warlord.
———!
The hollow roar reached even here. At the same time, the death blizzard intensified, shattering the barrier spell the Mage Tower had cast.
A crimson veil unfurled against the oncoming chill of death.
Not a spell from the Mage Tower itself, but magic cast by individual mages.
But it was effective enough—the ominous chill from the death blizzard visibly weakened.
Of course, it couldn't stop the undead that had been pounding the barrier from charging through the gap once it fell.
Crack!
Spear-like formations rising from the ground blocked them, guarding the mages.
Were they made from Ignatius's scales and teeth? They had a similar structure to the undead but looked far sharper and more aggressive.
In fact, they were tougher and stronger than average undead, fighting well.
Perhaps displeased by that, Mortheus swung a massive arm, sweeping the dragon fang soldiers aside.
Krunch!
The dragon fang soldiers, which had held their own against regular undead, shattered like brittle snacks in an instant.
Mortheus, satisfied, suddenly spread his bony wings and crouched for a massive leap.
Just as the white bone dragon's body hurtled straight toward the Mage Tower...
Kwaaaaah!
Ignatius arrived right on time, her breath slamming Mortheus down from the sky.
Mortheus thrashed with his enormous bones in resistance, but his blizzard melted under the red dragon's heat, and his rising body was smashed into the ground and pushed back.
Boom!
The vibration reached even here. But Ignatius didn't stop there.
She kept blasting breath while spreading her wings, and countless magic circles formed above her, unleashing unheard-of spectacular spells that blanketed the entire space.
In the end, Mortheus couldn't even mount a proper resistance and tumbled back down the valley he'd just climbed from.
With Mortheus gone, the Mage Tower mages, now with breathing room, began casting their next spells under the protection of the remaining dragon fang soldiers.
Unlike regular undead that stayed down when their heads were pulverized, they didn't use high-power magic.
Not a veil, but a spell dispersing in the form of crimson powder.
The undead touched by it slowed noticeably, and the dragon fang soldiers seized the opening, clustering together to form a wall.
The completed spell then summoned water and wind, pushing the undead back en masse with the dragon fang wall.
In the end, the undead had no choice but to follow Mortheus over the valley edge.
It consumed a large number of dragon fang soldiers, but they'd repelled the Wild Hunt with minimal casualties.
Yet the Mage Tower mages treated it as routine, calmly tending to the wounded and repairing broken barriers without much celebration.
Ignatius majestically circled the area once before flying back toward them.
It was a scene apocalyptic enough to doom a nation or two... yet as they watched her return having handled it so effortlessly in a daze, Maykin gave a wry smile.
"As you can see, the entire Mage Tower system is specialized against undead. Whether Mortheus and his Wild Hunt are stronger than dungeon monsters is debatable... but they have clear weaknesses, and magic is perfect for exploiting them."
"Ah."
That's when it clicked. Why Ignatius bothered raising knights but replaced them with dragon fang soldiers.
To fight an endless war of attrition against undead efficiently, you needed disposable shields.
Knights might be stronger than dragon fang soldiers, but you couldn't just throw living ones away. They'd join the undead ranks if they died.
Besides, as Maykin said, the Mage Tower's entire system and magic were tailored against undead.
They used magic's trait of growing stronger with preparation to repel Wild Hunts with maximum efficiency.
In contrast, southern dungeon breaks were like random boxes—you never knew what would pop out.
You prepare lethal poison for living things, and suddenly golem-types charge. You stockpile siege weapons for brute force, and slimes that nullify physical attacks or pure spirit monsters appear out of nowhere.
That's why the south needed absolute powerhouses who could handle any situation.
To mages, that must look like a horrific gamble.
"Got it. Each region has its own affinities and headaches."
"It's no wonder the founding emperor entrusted the south to Duke Zahav and the west to my master."
As he and Karen nodded at the new knowledge...
A flash of light from the window, and Ignatius, fresh from repelling the Wild Hunt, reverted from red dragon form to a petite girl, landing on the windowsill. And then...
"Guhh."
"Oops."
She toppled over bonelessly onto the floor without resistance.
He caught her reflexively, but the Ignatius in his arms dangled limp like dried fish, utterly motionless.
Shake.
A slight shake of his arm, and her plump tail swayed limply.
It was hard to believe this was the red dragon who'd just overwhelmed Mortheus with her breath.
As he panicked, unsure what to do, had she recovered a bit? Ignatius, drooling on his forearm, finally spoke.
"F-First, could you lay this body down? I'll explain this rudeness after."
"No problem."
He scooped her up effortlessly and sat in the chair Maykin had prepared.
He positioned the limp Ignatius across his lap, buttocks on his thighs, lying sideways.
Possible only because her human form was so small.
To avoid the hard chair edge hurting her, he cradled her head and the back of her knees with his arms.
A princess carry while seated in the very chair she'd occupied moments ago.
Her vertically slit pupils, like a reptile's, swirled with wariness.
"The Zahav of this era. Is this right?"
"Huh? What's the problem?"
"You don't even know what's wrong anymore."
"What're you on about? Ah, short on arms here—hold this."
He placed the onahole on her soft belly. She grabbed it reflexively and shook her head with a resigned voice.
"Even after a millennium, Zahavs are Zahavs."
"Dunno about that. Better quit the nonsense and explain the situation now."
"It's nothing much. As I said at first, my condition's been poor lately, so I just blacked out from exhaustion after using my power..."
"That's not it."
He cut her off mid-sentence. Quite rude toward one of the four great dukes, the Mage Tower Lord, and the last dragon.
But he was basically Duke Zahav now too. Their stations matched roughly. More importantly, something else mattered more.
"Ignatius. I saw the Mage Tower fight. You treat dragon fang soldiers like consumables."
"Feeling pity as a fellow warrior? Worry not—they learn martial arts, but they're basically dolls made from my scales and teeth."
"Yeah, figured. ...But if you're using them like disposables, why need stronger ones? You'll just use 'em a few times and toss anyway."
"Enough. Stop there."
"Why spend a million gold and borrow power from me—one of the four great dukes—to make far stronger dragon fang soldiers? Why overhaul the Wild Hunt countermeasures optimized over a millennium? I've been pondering that."
Her vivid red eyes stared straight at him, as if begging him to say no more.
But he had no reason to oblige.
He met her gaze—those imposing vertically slit eyes holding a strange fragility—head-on and pressed.
"You're dying, aren't you."
"..."
"Prepping powerful dragon fang soldiers for after you're gone."
"..."
Ignatius let out a short sigh and lowered her head.
"Enoch, was it? Beastishly perceptive. You hit very close."
"Very close?"
She gave a wry smile toward his puzzled look.
"This body is sleepy now."
"Huh?"
"Very, very sleepy."
"You're joking."
"No. No joke."
Ignatius continued gravely, voice lowered.
"Dragons are a sleepy race by nature. And I... to block Mortheus—my traitorous father—haven't slept once in a millennium since my hatchling days."
"...Huh?"
"If I sleep now, it'll be like true death."
"..."
"Sigh. Truth be told, I worry how the west will fend off Wild Hunts without me. Enhanced dragon fang soldiers were one countermeasure. Satisfied now?"
Ah.
So she was a sleepy baby dragon after all?