Dragon in a Romance Fantasy (2)
Dragon in a Romance Fantasy (2)
"Is your mother in good health, Tenebris-nim?"
"Of course. Ever since I received your prescription, Mother has been regaining her radiance, shining like the deep moonlight. If she were conscious, she would have surely told me to convey her gratitude to you."
"That's a relief. If you're grateful, could you please refrain from unannounced surprise airspace invasions in the future? Just the sight of your kind makes the citizens tremble and the factories stop running."
"But if I don't do this, you won't meet me. You always avoid me when I ask to meet in advance. So, even if it's not to your liking, don't I have to use ungraceful methods to drag you out?"
"So the method you chose is to spray 'Breath' over the city without asking, you fucking asshole?"
"...You're the first person to speak so roughly to me without holding back. As expected, Trixie, you are endlessly interesting."
Keu/aaaagh.
If I knew it would become this troublesome, I wouldn't have shown kindness for no reason.
Dragon.
The strongest existence in a fantasy world that you can't leave out.
Skin harder than steel.
Innate magical talent.
Physical strength befitting their ignorantly huge size.
Apex predators of the ecosystem that possess every romance trope: speaking human language, polymorphing freely, and having a lifespan close to immortality.
"Keuhahaha!! Tenebris controlled his strength somewhat, so don't hate him too much, Trixie! Isn't he doing all this because he likes you!"
"How can I not hate a crazy lizard that keeps terrorizing the city? Under city law, even without human or property damage, it still counts as attempted terrorism. It's innocent to kill that thing."
"Haha!! The complex logic and systems of Lunatium are difficult and abstruse even for me, who has lived for thousands of years!!"
"It's a level that the lizards living aloofly by themselves will never reach. Because civilization is only formed when the strength and wisdom of its members are gathered as one."
"Keuhe! That's a piercing criticism. Since all my kin live for their own greatness, I can't refute that at all. The same goes for my wife's case."
But there was a field that even such great dragons couldn't solve.
"Even if she's stable now, keep a close eye on your wife's condition. The medical measures I took only bought some time; the disease must eventually be overcome by the patient's own immunity. If it worsens even a little, be sure to come find me for a check-up."
"...I will keep that in mind."
Medical science.
No matter how strong a dragon is, they are terrible at treating and nursing injured kin.
Among them, not the surgical area dealing with broken bones or stitching wounds, but the invisible microscopic world.
Bacteria and viruses-
As they say, if you can't see it, you can't even recognize it.
No matter how many thousands of years an existence has lived, they cannot fight an invisible enemy.
Sepsis.
Literally a disease where blood rots and decays.
It's a condition where our body's immune system reaches its limit and can no longer filter out external germs, and bacteria or viruses circulate in the blood flowing through the whole body.
It's a dangerous state where germs overcome our weakened bodies and feast to their heart's content.
Tenebris's mother was in a state of dying from sepsis after suffering a serious injury.
[Saintess of the Empire, I heard you wield the power of restoration. Please, save my mother.]
In the original work, Tenebris asks the female lead for help.
As expected of a romance fantasy, she couldn't save her with protagonist power...
Something about the darkness mana innate to Black Dragons clashing with pure white holy power.
Because of that reason, healing was impossible.
I remember it as a cliché-ridden narrative where he is moved by the female lead's purity as she nurses his mother with all her heart, and they grow closer as she comforts him through the pain of loss.
A common, forced emotional manipulation story to tie them together somehow.
It was a story that just passed by with that much impression.
I really didn't expect Tenebris to come find me and ask for help with that matter.
Well, unlike the Saintess, I just pumped her full of antibiotics and injected Bacteriophage Nanobots, and she was saved safely.
Long live modern medicine, long live SF.
"Do you have any idea how she got hurt? Anyway, isn't your wife a powerhouse that can't be easily touched? I heard she's in the ranks of the strongest among Black Dragons."
"I'm the one who wants to know. What despicable human dared to wound my precious Luminarix. In the first place, can human weapons even wound her? Furthermore, she should be able to sense the killing intent around her with her mind's eye, so there's no way she could be so helplessly defeated by a simple human. I don't know who the opponent is or what despicable tricks they used, but they must pay the price for daring to deceive a dragon..."
Kwadeuk-!
Aurelion gnashing his giant teeth.
'It was definitely a trace of being hit by a weapon.'
Wounds pierced by something sharp all over her huge body, festering with inflammation and even oozing pus.
If it were a human, they would have died from systemic infection long ago, but she held on purely thanks to her dragon physique.
If I had shown it to the Saintess like in the original, there would have been no answer.
Setting aside the problem of mana and holy power clashing.
The power of healing was set to only be able to heal injuries the caster themselves perceives.
Even if you diligently fill the holes visible on the skin, it's meaningless if you don't take appropriate measures for the circulatory system, which is the root of the problem, due to a lack of basic understanding of the principles of body organs.
It's not for nothing that sepsis caused by infection killed more soldiers than any weapon.
Teol-teol-teol-
"Ugh, let's go down for a moment, everyone. I need to refill that wind."
The drone complains to release the compressed air for flight trajectory correction.
These blockheaded, talented, uncivilized dragons don't understand even if I say that, so I have to localize it as 'wind' for them to barely understand.
Drones are all good, but you have to refill consumables like batteries or whatever.
At times like this, I envy dragons with big fuel tanks.
"Ride."
"Excuse me?"
Hwek-
Tenebris turns his giant dragon head to the opposite side and says with one eye closed.
I thought he was some rich male lead throwing a gift to a poor female lead saying he 'picked it up on the way'.
"It's because it's you, Trixie. I'll allow you the honor of enjoying the free sky on my back until we reach the ground, just for a moment."
"Kya, I can't resist dragon riding. I'll enjoy it without declining."
"...Keut?!"
Tat-!
Aside from Tenebris being a despicable pedophilic, human-lusting gay bastard, he was a freaking cool dragon.
I am a person of Lunatium to the bone, already free from the Korean rule of refusing three times.
How many chances will I have in my life to ride a dragon?
Without hesitation, I use Tenebris's two horns as handles and settle on his forehead.
"Wow, dragons have good ride comfort too. Thanks to you, I've achieved one of my life's goals."
"Keut, what is this incomprehensible feeling of humiliation...?!"
"What do you mean, what. It's the result of the ecosystem's strongest yielding the initiative to a mere human imitation. Everyone knows dragons are famous for keeping promises once made, so you can't take it back even if you try."
"Keuhahaha!! To think you'd treat Tenebris like a dog! To see him, who doesn't even know his own father and butts heads with me, being pushed around by you, Trixie, is strange and spectacular!"
Ah, refreshing.
As expected, bullying others is what suits me.
"Trixie. The reason we visited you suddenly today is not for anything else, but because there is news I need to tell you urgently."
After coming down to the ground.
Aurelion brought up the main topic as if everything until now was just a greeting.
"Our clan is watching Lunatium. Especially you, Trixie, closely. Recently, nothing but talk about you has come up in meetings. Today's meeting will surely discuss the unstable situation between you and the Empire."
The world's adjuster.
Dragons are bound by a huge spell on a clan level, despite being strong enough that no creature can oppose them.
Bringing order to the world.
And restoring order by excluding those who harm it.
As upright powerhouses reigning at the apex, it is their mission to adjust the world according to the justice they think of.
"I'm sure you are born meddlers, but... that's tiring news."
"Me, Tenebris, and Luminarix, as well as the Black Dragon clan, are on your side. However, no matter how strongly we argue, we cannot twist the flow of the meeting."
"What on earth do they dislike about me so much? What kind of grudge could I have possibly incurred, living quietly as I was."
"Keuhahak! Outstanding people invite hatred just by staying still!"
"You need to realize what a unique existence you are that draws the world's attention, Trixie. Because your soul shines so brightly that it diminishes the pride of the elders who believe they are more noble than anyone else."
Tenebris worries more seriously than ever.
Red, Blue, Yellow, Green...
It's not a rainbow-colored all-out attack like the Kamen Rangers, and although it's a small species with less than a few dozen in total.
Each individual is a biological weapon capable of crushing a fantasy medieval city single-handedly.
Because they are high-mobility armored tanks that can freely move between the sky and the ground.
It means they are quite burdensome opponents to openly antagonize, even for just one.
Like lightly trampling and leaving a supply base I painstakingly set up as if they were out for a walk.
Or unilaterally ravaging from the sky, targeting only fronts that haven't secured air superiority.
They will harass us in countless ways, like a living asymmetric guerrilla strategic weapon that reminds me of a certain unscrupulous race's teleporting cruiser.
Unless they are stupid enough to crash into Lunatium, where all troops and defense systems are concentrated.
"Hoo-."
Just imagining the self-proclaimed adjuster lizards taking the Empire's side to 'keep order' and harassing various fronts makes my insides twist and anger wells up.
How much useless and meaningless loss of life and time delay will occur in that process?
There is a response policy for when a problem arises that is difficult to persuade, pedantic, headache-inducing, and has a high risk of causing conflict.
"You said the meeting is today, right. Would you mind taking me with you?"
A show of force.