An Example to All
I climbed the mountain, dragging along a bandit to serve as my guide. The slope was steep, but my body wanted for nothing on the climb. A frame that had adapted to the Dragon Heart was seamless and unshakable — and with my innate draconic strength, with mana layered on top of it, I could have crossed mountains for three days and nights without so much as a pause to rest.
"Hey. What the hell are you supposed to be?"
I was hauling my captive up the slope when a hulking figure blocked the path ahead. Bald, with a bristle of stubble and a face like a clenched fist, he wore torn leathers and carried a greatsword slung over one shoulder — he looked a cut above your average bandit.
"You're holding our comrade hostage and walking into our home mountain alone? Are you right in the head? Are you some kind of suicide seeker?"
Covered head to toe in cloak and hood, dragging a single bandit along like a piece of luggage toward the bandits' own stronghold — the man who spotted me could hardly believe his eyes.
"I swear, I can't tell what kind of lunatic you are."
The bandit barring my way was not alone. They seemed to be a patrol sweeping the forest; five or six of them swayed in place, weapons in hand.
I raised my head and looked the man dead in the eye. He stared straight into my gaze — the one hidden inside my hood until that very moment. His breath stopped.
Khak—!
The man who had come within five meters of me and met my eyes foamed at the mouth and crumpled where he stood.
"What? What's wrong with him?"
"What did that guy just do?"
His companions jolted at the sight of the fallen giant. They stared for a moment at the hooded unknown — who, as far as they could tell, had simply fainted on the spot.
"Hey— hey! Don't you come any closer!"
"Damn it, what the hell are you?!"
It seemed no one here was in any state for a quiet conversation. So I met their eyes, one by one.
Urk.Urgh.
They dropped like men who had glimpsed the god of death himself. Had I expected too much of humans, then? They could withstand my presence no better than the Dragonians had. I had thought that after the assassin, people might fear me a little less. This crew was famous enough in its own right, yet their nerve was absurdly thin. In the end, I walked all the way to the bandits' headquarters without a single hand raised to stop me.
A wooden palisade sprawled wide before me. Their stronghold was fortified as thoroughly as a proper fortress. The bandits had built an entire settlement here — beyond the fighters, slaves and hostages lived among them too. Count every soul together, and they would easily number more than five hundred.
"You there! Halt! One more step and we shoot!"
We stood before the main gate of the bandits' stronghold. The sentry in the watchtower shouted down at me. Bands of bandits had ringed me from every side, but with the ones who drew near fainting before they could do anything at all, the rest could only eye me warily from their awkward half-crouches.
Shwip— thud, thud-thud.
When I did not slow my stride, the bandits in the watchtower loosed their arrows at me. But every shaft that struck my body bounced away limp, as though it had hit a wall of stone.
I tossed aside the bandit who had guided me this far. We had reached the enemy's main camp; I had no further need of a guide. And if I kept dragging the man around only for a stray arrow to open his throat, the blood would only dirty my clothes.
"What kind of monster IS this thing?!"
When even their most desperate volleys drew no reaction from me whatsoever, the bandits began to wail in frustration. I simply kept watching the men who pestered me with their endless shooting.
Huk.
Bows slipped from their hands, one after another. They shuddered violently, as though my gaze had run a current through them. I had not attacked, not exactly. I had merely looked at my enemies, closely and carefully. That alone was enough to snuff out their will to resist.
Krrrk— CRACK!
I extended a hand. With telekinesis, I seized the firmly sealed main gate, wrenched it from its frame, and hurled it away. Faced with the irresistible, the bandits parted in silence to open the way. By then, every last one of them was on his knees.
"Are you the leader of this place?"
I had found the one who carried himself differently from all the rest. A monster's hide was draped across his shoulders, he stood a full torso larger than any of his men, and the bare muscle of his upper body was covered in coarse, jagged scars. He was a bandit who intimidated others without even trying.
"Who— who exactly are you?"
Yet even this hardened chief of bandits, who looked as though he had never feared anything in his life, felt his voice tremble the moment he stood before me. Those who cross my path are instilled with courtesy whether they wish it or not. He asked after my identity in the most deferential of postures.
"Before that, I shall ask first. Are you not afraid of me?"
Even here, having come to raze their stronghold to the ground — even with restless bandits crowding all around to watch — this was what I most wanted to know. Was the leader of this bandit crew brave? Was he someone capable of holding an ordinary conversation with me?
He looked a little stronger than the assassin who had come for me last time. At best, the difference was that between a rat and a chick — but I allowed myself a sliver of hope for his abilities.
"Hah... huk... I'm sorry. I don't even know what crime I've committed, but I was wrong. Please, spare my life."
The bandit dropped to his knees, his face slack with terror. I had asked whether he feared me, and he had opened by begging forgiveness. His own life came first in his mind. He was neither a man I could converse with, nor in any state to try.
"Well, it is fortune enough that you have not fainted outright before me."
The others had collapsed the instant their eyes met mine, never to rise — but their leader at least possessed the mettle to beg for mercy. I gauged the gap in ability that much difference implied, and sensed that even so, this bandit feared me all the same.
"Why does your bandit crew attack Dragonians?"
I folded away my personal interest in the man. There was no chance he would attack me as the assassin had. Instead, I pressed him for the reason he dared lead a bandit crew against Dragonians.
"Dragonians? I'm sorry, I— I'm sorry."
"I shall keep asking until you answer me properly."
It is no simple matter to communicate with a man swallowed whole by fear. But I had no intention of going easy on him either, so I waited for his answer.
"Khh... to speak honestly, hunting Dragonians pays."
"Is that so? Dragonians are stronger than humans by nature — hardly easy prey. Nor do they carry much in the way of valuables."
"It's not their valuables — it's their corpses that sell! Dragonian blood fetches a steep price from wizards!"
He forced the answer out through clenched teeth. Unable to lift his head and look up at me, he stammered with both palms pressed flat against the ground.
"Dragonian blood. So there are wizards who buy it. Then the danger would be worth braving. Is that how your crew made its fortune? Did you drain Dragonians of their blood and swell to this size?"
A bandit crew the size of a small city, entrenched in a rugged mountain fortress. I asked whether it had grown to such size purely by hunting my own kind. My gaze upon him grew colder still.
"Khh... these are words I spit out because I'm a dead man anyway, but what's so wrong with hunting Dragonians? They've slaughtered far more humans than we ever have, and this land is crawling with men who hold grudges against them."
As if he had already foreseen his own death, the bandit raised his voice as he answered.
"Judging by that attitude, you too bear a grudge against Dragonians, it seems."
"I do! My family died to Dragonians in the Continental War! You devoured countless of my comrades alive — so I hunted just as many of you in return!"
He shouted it, wringing out the last of his courage. It would be the final struggle of a man who led a bandit crew — his last defiance before me.
"I see."
I nodded. It had been a courageous answer. With death staring him in the face, the words came pouring out of him now, even before me.
"What is your name?"
I asked the man for his name.
"Galek Yukrian."
The bandit lifted his head and answered, his gaze fixed on the air beside my eyes.
"Very well, Galek Yukrian. Your grudge is well understood. Your family and comrades died to Dragonians, and so you hunted Dragonians in revenge."
"But do you know that it has now been twenty years since the Continental War ended and the peace accords were signed?"
Had the war still been raging, his deeds might even have been called heroic. Hunting Dragonians is beyond what an ordinary human could manage — the average Dragonian is far more powerful than any man. But twenty years had passed since the accords were signed. His grudge was a private one, and naturally, it earned no recognition.
"My family died. What is a peace accord to me? Bandit or worse, I will tear every last one of you apart."
He spoke, crushing his fear beneath his hatred. Even so, he still could not lift himself from his knees.
"That you possess the courage to argue with me is admirable. But viewed from any angle, your revenge cannot be forgiven. You have recklessly harmed even innocent Dragonians, and worse still, you threaten the very peace our predecessors labored to achieve."
"What you do is simple banditry. I shall punish you here and now, Galek."
At last I had found someone who would talk back to me — though it could hardly be called a proper conversation. It was an exchange steeped in malice and old hatred, and by now the man was less a bandit than a vengeful ghost.
"Fine. Kill me. I'm nothing but a weak human who couldn't so much as touch a hair on your head — but if I'm born again, I'll kill Dragonians all the same."
"How arrogant. You cannot even meet my eyes, and yet you speak such words?"
I flung my hood back behind my head. Then, with my face bared, I looked straight down at him.
Urk— urghak—!
The moment his eyes truly met mine, he could cling to his grudge no longer. He simply thrashed where he knelt, seized by nothing but instinctive terror.
"I shall tell you the name of the one who punishes you. I am Demesis. Second Prince of the Draikna Kingdom."
"The D-Dragon God..."
It was not the choking man crawling on the ground who spoke, but another bandit, prostrate and flat, who had been listening to our exchange. So my reputation had reached even this place, it seemed.
I raised my body with telekinesis. For a moment, I undid the mana suppression bracelet at my wrist. Then, toward the ground, I exhaled a breath unlike any I usually allowed.
The exhalation of a Dragonian, charged with the mana of the Dragon Heart. Dragon Breath.
Huuuuuuuu—
The mana pouring from my mouth settled thick over everything and swallowed it in a spiral. The black dragon's mana bore no fixed element of its own — its density was simply so unfathomably high that it crushed even mana of every other attribute beneath it. Everything the Breath touched crumpled and came apart. Galek, caught first in its path, crumbled to dust, and the bandits' stronghold collapsed as its heart was pierced clean through.
Rrrrumble— KWAAAKOOM! An entire mountain was destroyed past all recognition.
I swept the clouds of dust aside with telekinesis and returned to the Dragonians waiting at the foot of the mountain.
"I have erased the bandits' stronghold. I spared even those too weak to take part in the fight, so when they return alive, escort them to the kingdom as with the bandits before, and let their crimes be weighed."
"Yes, Your Highness!"
At some point, the Dragonians too had all sunk to their knees. Having witnessed the majesty of a mountain erased from the earth, their fear seemed to have deepened all the more.
"Now we depart for the Imperial Capital once more. The bandits cost us little time. We shall arrive in good order for the entrance examination."
After gazing a moment at the collapsed mountain, I boarded the carriage. With no time to spare, I had decided not to pursue the bandit crew's backers, nor the wizards who had traded in Dragonian blood.