Tilia (4)
"Was it… always that kind of monster?"
"No… something's wrong. These things aren't supposed to come back like that…"
The scattered pieces pulled themselves together, and at last the Bloody Dragon rose as if nothing had happened and began to wander about once more.
Its distinctive cry rolled through the valley. The same sound as before — and yet somehow it felt far more chilling now.
"Do Bloody Dragons ever regenerate? But…"
Even Lena seemed to be seeing this for the first time; she kept muttering under her breath.
What if we just burn it completely?
"Lena. Can I burn it?"
"For now, dealing with it comes before recovering evidence. Yeah. Burn it."
Lena had given the go-ahead. Time to burn it properly, then.
"Fire Ball."
Flame bloomed in my palm, the embers gathering into a sphere. The air around me seemed to rush into my hand as the fireball swelled larger and larger.
It felt as though it would grow far bigger than the one I had cast in Orun.
Perhaps it had sensed the heat from the sky. The Bloody Dragon tilted its head and looked up toward the rim of the valley.
I wanted to make it even bigger…
The Bloody Dragon took flight — as fast as before.
Before it gets any closer.
The Fire Ball left my hand and struck the Bloody Dragon square on. A colossal storm of flame filled the valley.
Back in Orun the magical barrier had blocked it, so I had never known — I never imagined an explosion this vast.
Watching the firestorm tear through the gorge, Lena hurriedly cast a spell of her own. A dense barrier of air sealed around us and held the flames at bay.
When the storm of fire finally passed, the pale, snow-dusted rocks had been scorched black, and the sparse trees had all been reduced to ash.
Looking carefully down into the valley, I saw blackened bones. Flesh completely burned away — only the skeleton left behind.
Surely the meat won't start regenerating from those bones… right?
An uneasy premonition is always right on the mark.
As time passed, vivid red flesh began to regrow around the ribcage, and before long the shape of a Bloody Dragon was taking form once more.
Of course, its color was still that same purple.
How the hell am I supposed to kill this thing? Do I need holy magic? It doesn't even look like undead.
"-E-aSEMR--!"
While I was still turning it over in my mind, a shrill voice rang out and filled the valley with noise.
"---DEM__EK--eje- !!!"
In Hiades Valley, where everything had been burned black, a figure with reddish-purple hair stood out at once.
The moment I identified her, she vanished. She had definitely — definitely — been down at the bottom of the valley just a second ago—
And then she was right in front of me. The same purple-haired woman. There was nothing beneath her feet; she was simply flying between the walls of the gorge.
"-#%%-$G-R. Ah? You're human?"
She had been speaking some language I couldn't understand, then suddenly switched to one I could.
With vivid blood-red eyes she looked down at me as if from a great height and said,
"Was it you? The one tormenting my adorable children?"
"I'm asking if you're the one who tormented them—!"
When I didn't answer right away, the woman leveled her right hand at me, purple flame gathering in her palm.
This mana flow… that's a Fire Ball.
If I don't dodge or block, I die.
I quickly muttered a protective spell, and a pale blue film wrapped around my body.
The purple Fire Ball came streaking toward me.
It all happened so fast that Lena never had a chance to cast a barrier of her own.
"Tiable—!"
The Fire Ball hit me dead-on. Behind me, the unpleasant purple flames fanned out like a dance and then winked out.
I was completely unharmed. I hadn't felt so much as a hint of heat. Lena stared at me, looking a little startled.
"What was that magic? How are you fine after taking a hit like that?"
"Uuuugh, it was going so well, and then this again!"
Behind the woman, the fully regenerated Bloody Dragons rose into the air and filled Hiades Valley. They showed no intention of attacking her — only flapped their wings in the sky and watched us, completely different from before, making no move to strike.
No matter which way I looked, there were Bloody Dragons.
An endlessly regenerating mad dragon — and the woman who almost certainly controlled them.
How do we break out of this?
Do I use the magic I used in the war one more time?
Should I teleport away with Lena?
"You. You'd better not be thinking of running away right in front of me."
She spoke as if she had read my mind. The words were barely out of her mouth before she came flying at me, her other hand wreathed in a nauseating purple smoke—
She had been right in front of me.
Before I could even register where she had gone after vanishing from my sight, pain flared in my right side.
Teleportation?
Her hand slammed into my waist. The impact knocked me off balance and I went down.
I had cast magical protection, but I hadn't layered on physical protection in advance. I never imagined she would close to melee range.
"What? Why—why are you fine?"
"Why? Why? Why?"
The woman looked back and forth between me on the ground and her own hand.
My side still hurt plenty from the blow…
She's completely unhinged.
"Ah, seriously! Everything is so annoying. Tear them apart!"
The instant she finished speaking, every Bloody Dragon filling the valley charged at Lena and me.
In that moment a good idea flashed through my mind.
If cutting them doesn't work and burning them doesn't work…
What if I just erase them?
That spell that punched through the ceiling. The one that melted through the protective barrier in Orun.
It answered my intent last time, so there's no real risk.
Still lying where I had fallen, I braced my left hand with my right and cast the spell.
With that pronunciation from before—
"I, do."
A black sphere began to swell from my left hand. The moment I started casting, Lena read the situation and threw up a spell to shield me from the dragons.
Thanks for buying me time, Lena.
The woman's face twisted when she saw the sphere forming in my right hand; her eyes went wide.
"You—how do you have that?"
She recognized my magic — the sphere.
The black orb, a little larger than a fist, left my hand with a grotesque sound and shot toward the Bloody Dragons swarming us. Exactly as I expected, every part it struck vanished cleanly.
The sphere wasn't large enough to hit every dragon, but they had charged in mindlessly and were mostly clustered together, so I managed to damage a considerable number of them.
"Wait, stop! Are you—are you a demon?"
Apparently my magic had made her willing to talk. The attacking dragons halted and drifted back into the valley, simply flapping their wings in place. Some had holes punched through their wings; others were missing most of their faces.
With Bloody Dragons lined up on either side of her like an honor guard, the woman flew above the gorge and addressed me with relatively more composure than before.
"--E-r-ads--kji?"
"Demon tongue. Don't know."
"Huh? What kind of demon in this world doesn't know the demon tongue?"
"I asked you your name."
She snapped back in a sharp, irritated voice, as if she couldn't believe what she was hearing.
"Tiable…"
"Tiable? Never heard that name before. You—Dioak—no, no. Are you actually a demon or not?"
"Demon. Not. Human."
The look Lena gave me practically said liar.
"Then how did you cast that spell just now?! I've never in my life seen a human cast demon magic!"
"I can't even cast that myself!"
She looked nothing like a child, yet she was throwing a tantrum like one, yapping so loud it hurt my ears. It was starting to get on my nerves.
"Why are there humans here in the first place?"
"We came because we heard Bloody Dragons had shown up in Hiades Valley."
"If they're followers, I'd really prefer you take them and go home~?"
Lena used her usual tone, but she dropped her voice low enough that it was a little frightening.
"Beasts should stay quiet."
"Your name was Tiable, right? Why is a human hanging around with a beast?"
"Where are you affiliated right now? Orsis? Or maybe Sepia?"
"Yeah. Se—Sepia. Who are y—"
"Sepia? Ha. Sepia, is it?"
The moment she heard the word Sepia, the composure she had recovered fell away and her excitement showed plain on her face.
How about answering my question for once.
"&-E&5-"
Lena suddenly cast a spell. Maybe being called a beast had made her angry.
A massive crimson magic circle bloomed above Lena's head, and a towering wave of flame rolled out toward the Bloody Dragons.
"Ha. Aren't you looking down on me a little too much?"
The woman flicked one hand. The wave of fire struck an invisible barrier and was swallowed up as if it had never existed — just like that, effortlessly.
"If it's Sepia, I suppose we can talk just the two of us later."
"See you later, then~ Tiable."
She let out an unpleasant little laugh and vanished along with the swarm of Bloody Dragons.
Just the two of us? Later? What on earth is that woman talking about?
Something about it felt deeply ominous.