One Final Trial
When the challenger first raised his sword, Ainharthar had felt no concern at all.
Mad Dragon Ainharthar. The only beings capable of wounding him were those who had accomplished countless mythic feats — and of all humanity, only a single person had ever met that condition.
Even that one left nothing more than a scratch.
And even that solitary figure had managed only the faintest of cuts — by the standards of the trials of his own era.
But the challenger standing before him now was different.
My scales were sliced open like paper. Flesh was carved through. My entrails spilled out.
It had been nothing more than a swing. No skill. No technique. Just raw force poured into a single stroke — and Ainharthar's shell and flesh had parted as easily as overripe radish.
Neither a dragon's armored hide nor its refined musculature had meant a thing. A truly lethal blow. A wound so catastrophic it forced everything out of him.
Just how many great deeds must one amass to strike me this hard?
Of course he was shaken. Ordinary accomplishments would never be enough. Even three mythic feats would barely leave a mark on his outer scales. To inflict a wound of this magnitude — even Ainharthar himself could not begin to estimate the required height of achievement.
A single mythic feat is the work of a lifetime.
Even one was nearly impossible. How many would it take for a single attack to become a killing blow? Ten? Twenty?
No. That wasn't it. Mere "mythic feats," even a hundred of them, could never reach this level of stature. The challenger before him had clearly accomplished several deeds that were myth itself — or something that surpassed myth entirely. Nothing else could explain it.
Though even that explanation still failed to fully account for what he had just witnessed.
He is on an entirely different plane from every challenger who has come before.
He had no choice but to admit it now. His fatal mistake had been taking the "unsummonable, unobservable" designation far too lightly. From the beginning, he should never have dismissed this one as merely "peculiar."
This creature stood on a plane beyond the combined sum of every challenger who had ever faced him.
And so… he could not simply step aside.
I cannot let it end like this.
It could not end this way. His duty was to draw out a challenger's limits. But as things stood, he could not even perceive where this one's limits lay. He could not grasp how far they extended.
Mad Dragon Ainharthar. For the first time, he set aside his pride against a challenger. He spoke words he had never once uttered aloud.
"I beg of you — just once more. Let us undertake one more trial."
I smiled inwardly.
Mad Dragon Ainharthar. The creature was still as arrogant as ever.
Hooked.
I had deliberately acted as though each trial strained me to my limit, precisely so the difficulty would rise one step at a time. Had I swung the greatsword with ease from the start, Ainharthar would have escalated the challenge dramatically on the spot.
The final trial is obvious enough.
The hardest test had always been to wound Mad Dragon Ainharthar himself. I knew this for a simple reason.
I already tried it as Wilhelm.
When I played as Wilhelm, I had naturally reached Main Quest 10. But the circumstances then and the circumstances now were fundamentally different.
The feats I've accomplished as Randolph far outstrip those.
Compared to the achievements I held when I reached Main Quest 10 as Wilhelm, what I had built now was vastly greater. The caliber of those feats was no different — I surpassed the old record in both quantity and quality. I had been certain I could wound Mad Dragon Ainharthar.
I was racing toward the absolute peak of every possible achievement. Even as Wilhelm I had been pushing that far, but now I had surpassed even that level.
Still.
…It felt like slicing soft tofu with a razor-sharp blade.
Even I had not expected to deal a wound this catastrophic. I had come within a hair's breadth of killing him outright. Had I put even a fraction more sincerity into the strike, Ainharthar would be dead and I would have earned the title of Dragon Slayer.
…Well. That might not have been so bad either.
"Hasn't the trial already ended? I don't see any particular need to take on another one."
What truly surprised me was this — the addition of a trial. Weren't the trials supposed to be fixed in advance? This was the first time I had ever heard of someone asking me to accept an extra one.
Originally, completing the trials grants you a single question. Mad Dragon Ainharthar is living history itself, so he answers within the bounds of what he can. With luck, you might even learn where a Unique-grade blueprint is hidden.
I had fully intended to ask where Earth's Dragon God was. I needed to find it before Isera did and disrupt his plans. Ainharthar had once been a Dragon God himself — he would naturally know the whereabouts of the others.
"Should you accept an additional trial, additional compensation will naturally be provided as well."
Oh-ho. So he was even offering a separate reward?
Dragon lairs were said to be stuffed with treasure, yet Ainharthar's nest was barren beyond belief. He surely wasn't about to gift me dust and pebbles.
"I'll hear the reward first, then decide."
Besides, the trial would undoubtedly be even harder. Snatching at an offer without thinking was the act of a fool.
Ainharthar spoke slowly.
"That which you need most."
I openly scowled at the cryptic answer.
"Is this a riddle? Then forget I asked."
"This is not something I can decide. But among all that I am able to give, I am certain it will be what you need most."
"You say you'll give me what I need most, yet claim you can't decide what it is? That's a contradiction."
"…You may hear the trial and still refuse it. Even then, the basic reward will be granted."
He carried himself as though he could say no more. Just what kind of trial was he trying to impose?
The one silver lining was that I could listen first and still walk away. I crossed my arms.
"Then let's hear this trial of yours."
Ainharthar lowered his massive body and fixed his gaze on me. Those dull, sunken eyes — the eyes of a mad dragon, utterly still, unlike any other of his kind. Just how terrifying a trial was he about to name?
"…Lift the curse that binds me. That is the content of the final trial."
A curse?
I tilted my head inwardly at the sudden demand.
He's under a curse?
But I couldn't read it. I couldn't even sense it. That Mad Dragon Ainharthar was cursed was news to me as well.
A curse even the Great Sage can't perceive.
Would raising the level of Truth Seeking make it visible? But I had no SP left to raise a talent level right now. To obtain large quantities of SP, I would have to climb the Rift Tower.
"Will you accept?"
…If I accepted, there would be no backing out. But I couldn't agree without knowing what kind of curse it was. I let out a quiet hum.
A curse on Mad Dragon Ainharthar. Who, when, and where?
Ruin.
If there was one being I could point to, it was Ruin. Ainharthar, guardian of the middle realm, had become the Mad Dragon immediately after his battle with Ruin. I knew that every dragon who had charged the moment Ruin was born had died — and only Ainharthar had survived.
If Ruin cursed Ainharthar, and that is what made him the Mad Dragon…
Ruin was the one who had appeared one day without warning and brought the world to its knees. No one knew who he was or how he had come into being. But one thing was certain.
Ruin burned everything and vanished. Yet when he first appeared, he failed to kill Ainharthar. Probably because he had been newly born — with no feats of his own yet accumulated.
He simply had not met the conditions required to kill Ainharthar at the time. This was critical information at the heart of the world's lore. Ruin was not something a person reached and became — he was born entirely anew…
Did certain conditions cause Ruin to be born? If someone had climbed the ranks and become Ruin, they would have killed Ainharthar with ease.
He couldn't kill him — so he cursed him instead. And with a curse of extraordinary power.
A curse strong enough to drive a Dragon God mad. Cast by a newly born Ruin, and still beyond my ability to detect. Just how powerful had Ruin been at his peak, then?
But I did know who stood at the opposite pole from Ruin.
Goddess Rhea.
She was the god who had fought Ruin most fiercely. And I was the one once called her knight.
I stretched out my hand. At the same time—
Blessing of the Stars has been cast.
Conditions to lift the Curse of Ruin have not been met.
(1) Possess 4 Stars — Incomplete
(2) Total stats short by 50
(3) Blessing of Out-of-Standard Status Ailment Recovery
Three conditions for breaking the curse appeared before me.
Two days left.
Inside the castle, Union sat motionless on his throne, hands clasped together. Two days until his promise with Isera. In two days he would have to dump every last experience potion and forcibly summon the Rift Guardians.
Damn it. I still haven't even accomplished my own goal.
The human who had toyed with his body. He could not find that human no matter how hard he tried. He had gathered every scrap of "information" about the man, and still—
Currently, the bastard is operating under the name MintChocoIsDelicious.
He had even learned what the sinners called him. But there was no way to pin down his location. Only the name was known; no one had actually seen him.
At this rate, I'd be better off fulfilling Isera's request early.
Carrying it out ahead of schedule might at least buy him a scrap of trust. Finding the man within two days was close to impossible.
Union exhaled a long sigh and slowly opened his mouth.
"Inventory. Experience potions."
Experience potions do not exist in the inventory.
Staring at the floating text, Union's face twisted into a grotesque scowl.
…What?
No experience potions in the inventory? Had that entire mountain of potions simply vanished all at once? Impossible. There had to be some kind of error.
"Inventory. Experience potions."
Experience potions do not exist in the inventory.
"Inventory. Union's stored experience potions."
Union's stored experience potions do not exist in the inventory.
He repeated it again and again. The result never changed. No matter how hard he stared, the answer before him remained immovable.
Union's face went white.
…………What the hell kind of nonsense was this?
Ahh…
Ainharthar's eyelids trembled. He could scarcely believe the reality unfolding before him.
The challenger had suddenly begun pulling out potions and drinking them. And the problem was what came immediately after.
Hwaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
Divinity poured forth without end. He saw it and still could not believe it. Even Ainharthar, who had lived through ages beyond counting, had never witnessed a blessing like this. He who had watched and experienced the blessings of countless gods firsthand — even he had never truly seen a blessing this wondrous.
No — could one even define what he was seeing as a mere blessing?
Step. Step.
In that state, the challenger began walking toward Ainharthar, one footfall at a time.