The Destiny of Naturals and Roiders
BOOOOOOOOM!
"Do not fall back!!! This is Princess Esmeralda's domain!!"
The battlefield crackled with hair-trigger tension. Flames roared from every corner of the impregnable fortress, and the commanders' booming voices rolled across the warzone.
SKREEEEEEEEK!!!!!
"What the fu..."
"Where the hell did these disgusting things come from?!"
The dragonian soldiers held the walls with everything they had, but the sight of the dead — shrieking in those hideous, ruined bodies — drained their morale all on its own.
A spear punched through a ghoul clawing its way up the rampart, and the soldier hurled the corpse back over the edge.
"Get back in your damn coffin!!"
Then he looked down, and his face went slack.
"There's a shitload of them..."
Beneath the wall, the undead horde still seethed like a living carpet. He clicked his tongue.
"But... this much is nothing."
"No matter how many corpses they throw at us, they don't stand a chance against elites like us!"
Even so, they began to butcher the enemy in steady increments, washing away the unease by degrees. High walls. Hardened dragonian soldiers. A centurion carving through the field like a man possessed, sweeping the dead aside wherever he went.
The midnight raid looked, for a moment, as if it would break against that stubborn defense and fail...
"Heh! Look at them, feeling all safe behind a pile of soggy rocks like this!"
"Obstacles. Are meant to be destroyed."
A silver-haired girl with a single-edged blade slung over one shoulder, and a violet-skinned demon woman, appeared before the front gate as if they had always been standing there.
"You bastards!! How dare you set your filthy feet on Imperial soil!!"
The Dragon Empire centurion who had been holding the undead at bay spotted them and charged at once, the air booming in his wake.
"...I take this one?"
"Understood."
Arin flicked her chin at Tarkan, treating the oncoming warrior as a joke, and strolled forward at her leisure.
"I am the 101st Defense Battalion Commander of the Dragon Empire! Face my blade!!"
Brown scales, thick muscle, enormous wings beating the air — the dragonian warrior came on in a rush of heat and wind.
A soft click of steel leaving its scabbard.
"Omae wa mou shindeiru."
A slender voice brushed his eardrums in the same instant the blade sang free.
"...?!"
"Next."
She slipped past his charge like a gust of wind, and by the time anyone could blink, she was standing in his shadow as if she had always been there.
A faint tap. Then a dull, rolling sound.
"Ah."
The centurion died without even realizing he was dead. His last sight was the world flipping upside down as the breath left him.
"Hmm, 0.29 seconds? I need to cut a little faster."
"Let's go."
A dragonian built like a fortress crumpled to the ground with a pathetic thud. The two of them walked toward the wall at an unhurried pace.
"S-stay calm! Those two can't just punch through the walls!"
With the commander dead, his sergeant — a decurion — shouted himself hoarse trying to rally the men. Tarkan cocked a fist to smash that hope to pieces.
Destructive Fist
A straight punch slammed into the wall, and the whole fortress seemed to flinch.
"Waaaaaah?!"
Concrete, rebar, and dragonium — a stronghold built to last for generations — began to split and crumble at the hands of a single slender woman.
"What the fuck?!"
"It's a m-monster!"
An imperial army that had held the continent's hegemony for decades was, in this moment, nothing but a pack of helpless grunts.
Destructive Fist — Chain Strike
She hammered the wall with fists like siege engines, blow after blow, pulverizing stone. The walls split. Pillars buckled. The stacked masonry of the fortress sheared away and began to crash down.
"S-save me!!!!"
Dragonians tumbled helplessly with the collapsing wreckage, their screams swallowed by the rumble of falling stone...
"So these inferior insects have been gnawing at our fortress?"
A winged woman with green eyes appeared in a heavy, bone-deep thud, and the collapse stopped.
Spikes erupted from beneath her feet, piercing the debris and binding it in place. The fortress, which had been coming apart, held — barely — and did not fall.
"Tsk. Didn't think a thousand-year-old lizard hag would be hanging around here."
"Strong."
The finest spear of the Dragon Empire had come to stop them.
No matter how great a hero one might be, to be pierced by her spikes was to be reduced to nothing more than another tale in the mythic sagas.
Arin and Tarkan broke into savage grins, cold sweat beading on their skin beneath that piercing, bone-chilling gaze.
"Die, insects."
A storm of steel spikes shrieked forth as Alencia moved to punish the invaders.
Destructive Fist
Tarkan stepped in front, swinging her fists into the oncoming barrage, shattering spike after spike in a cascade of screaming metal.
"Manageable."
She flexed a faintly tingling knuckle, a smile tugging at her mouth as her bloodlust boiled up — and in that instant, Arin's voice cracked across the field, raw with urgency.
"N-no!! Run!! Tarkan!!!"
"?!"
The spikes Tarkan had smashed numbered a dozen, maybe a few more. Behind them, hundreds of steel thorns were already surging in like a tidal wave.
"Hmph. Those spikes were but a speck of my true attack."
Alencia rested her chin on one hand, watching them with arrogant ease...
The iron tide hit. Tarkan was swept away like a leaf.
"Ghk...?!"
"Dammit!"
"Ah, shi..."
Arin stared, dumbfounded, at the figure blasted into the far distance.
"You're last, little girl."
"Whoa, your mouth reeks like a damn henhouse."
"..."
The Black Iron Dragon flicked her fingers, silent, ready to swat the foul-mouthed invader out of existence...
Swift Sword — Sky Splitter
The girl swordsman's blade cleared its scabbard in a flash of resolve.
"?!"
A colossal slash erupted from that small frame and that thin edge — a cut no one would have believed possible — and split the fortress clean in two. The collapse Alencia had barely pinned shut with her spikes lurched forward, and what remained of the stronghold came down entirely.
"You... you little shit...!! Fine! I'll tear YOU apart with my own two hands!"
Alencia roared and lunged, furious that her spikes had been blocked. Arin lifted a finger toward the Black Iron Dragon hurtling in at a terrifying speed, and spoke with infuriating calm.
"Our Swift Sword school has but a single secret art remaining!"
"A secret art?"
"That's right! Just the one!"
The girl sheathed her sword, spun on her heel, and bolted.
"You little bitch...!!"
"Hey! Tarkan, I'm piggybacking you for a sec!"
Paying no mind to the Black Iron Dragon raging after them, Arin hoisted the limp, ragdoll form of Tarkan onto her shoulder and ran.
A heavy, bouncing jiggle.
"Whoa! These tits are seriously fucking huge!"
"Get back here!!!"
Arin sprinted like a madwoman, enduring Tarkan's chest slapping her across the face with every stride... and in the end, she even shook the Four Heavenly Dragons' Alencia, and they made it out.
"...Where did they go?!"
"A sudden summons from the Student Council? What's this about?"
"No idea."
An official notice had come down in the name of Tersia, President of the Academy Student Council.
Issued under the authority of Student Council President Tersia.
The following cadets are hereby ordered to report to the Student Council Chamber at once:
Cadet Ryushia, Cadet Lee Jinwoo, Cadet Elia, Cadet Maestro, Cadet Arkis, Cadet Iflata, and others as named.
We stepped into the Student Council chamber with puzzled looks on our faces.
"...You're here."
The silver-haired empress sat waiting for us, chin propped on one hand, her expression grim.
Arkis awkwardly avoided her older sister's gaze. Then the President continued.
"Last night, the Dragon Empire's Ragnarok Fortress collapsed."
Everyone but Iflata sucked in a sharp breath, eyes flying wide.
"Why? Is it a big deal?"
"Until now, the Empire has crushed the Kingdom and every other nation with overwhelming military force. And yet someone smashed their regular army to pieces in a single night..."
I answered Iflata's question, though I couldn't keep the worry off my face.
...Faster than I expected.
Tersia nodded at that and added her own report.
"The attackers were a vast undead army controlled by a necromancer... along with two individuals known as Fingers of Redanis. They executed the Empire's front-line commander and brought down the fortress. The Black Iron Dragon intercepted them, but... the fall of an entire stronghold is not something we can take lightly."
I felt the corner of my mouth twitch upward at the news. The Dragon Empire and Redanis tearing into each other was a war of attrition with nothing to gain for either side. The spoils, of course, would be ours.
"That is why representatives from both nations have requested our support regarding this incident."
The Student Council President glanced sideways and called someone forward from behind her. Van, Holy Knight Commander of the Holy Kingdom, appeared with a glad smile.
"Haha! Director, it's been too long!"
"...Member."
The taciturn middle-aged man known as Earth, the Earth Dragon, appeared after him.
"...Mm."
"What? Spit it out."
"Luman, that traitor, attacked our Holy Kingdom. What's more, upon hearing that monsters who had defied the cycle of reincarnation had appeared, the Holy Kingdom's leadership ordered a subjugation."
"Her Highness has willed the enemy's punishment. I ask your cooperation."
Van and Earth stepped forward together, requesting a joint front from our party.
"Well, fine by me."
And so I accepted without hesitation. This battle would be a large-scale engagement featuring three of Redanis's foremost powerhouses. Hecate, Luman, Arin — even the Dragon Empire and the Holy Kingdom were being dragged in. A critical incident. It might even be a golden opportunity to profit from both nations at once.
"But we're rares, you know. Our rates aren't cheap."
"It matters not."
"If you assist us, we'll provide sacred relics as well."
They accepted our terms without a second thought.
With the Student Council President's cry, the next main story — the Holy Kingdom arc — began.
"Your Holiness."
"Van. Report. What exactly did Luman do?"
After everyone had dispersed, the Holy Knight Commander and Elia met in secret.
"Luman... that bastard blew our protein factory and gym off the face of the earth! The muscle loss the faithful will suffer for at least six months... I can hardly bear to look!"
"That fucking roider bastard! How dare he abandon being a Natural to go around stirring up shit... I will NEVER forgive him!"
Elia's knuckles cracked as she clenched her fists, seething at the atrocity of a man who had trampled the lives of gym rats into the dirt.
"Van. I hereby authorize the deployment of the 3-Lift 500 Holy Armor Unit. Hunt him down and kill him. No exceptions."
"Yes, ma'am!!"
He bowed hard at the Saintess's command and left.
"...Luman."
Alone now, the Saintess quietly spoke a name.
"Hehe... Mister! Can I take arginine too??"
"Mm. A little lady like you is still too young. Go eat your chicken breast."
"Ehhh... Director! I want to do high-intensity, low-reps!!"
"Haha. It may be tedious, but low-intensity, high-reps are far better for muscular endurance. Vanity muscle isn't good for a damn thing."
The trainer who, back when she was a gym newbie, had taught her supplements and how to train. The pride of the Holy Kingdom. A Natural gym rat to the bone.
The former Holy Knight Commander... Luman.
"Just you wait... you fucking roider..."
Elia ground her teeth and quietly let the rage out.