Chapter 237
Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 237
Chapter Title: Part 2 Chapter 15: Dragon Heart (2)
Jin stared at the broken blade of Blood Bringer with a dazed expression.
The thing that had endlessly regenerated even under his attacks had evaporated without a trace under Jamie's magic.
Honestly, he had expected it.
Unlike Jin, who only had Moonlight as his area-of-effect technique, Jamie was a grand sorcerer with countless such spells at his disposal.
No matter how high its survivability, if it was wiped out in one go, there was nothing to be done.
And it wasn't as if a 9th Class sorcerer lacked destructive power, so this was the orthodox outcome.
Even so, the bitterness didn't fade.
'I need to hone my skills further.'
Since he mostly handled assassination missions, he had focused solely on attacks against single targets.
But there was no guarantee that a situation like today's wouldn't happen again. Moonlight was an ultimate technique, so he couldn't spam it endlessly. He needed an alternative.
Separately from that, he was curious about where Jamie had been until now.
"Were you the one fighting up there by any chance?"
Jin pointed upward with his finger.
A massive structure floating in the sky—whether it was a ship or a fortress, he couldn't tell—still lingered there.
Jamie casually rolled his shoulders as he answered.
"Yeah. That's mine."
"......I have no idea where you were hiding something like that."
"Well, you know."
Jamie extended his hand toward Gremia and made a pulling motion. In an instant, the enormous thing shrank down and fit into his palm.
Jin, too, widened his eyes in shock at the astonishing sight.
Jamie examined the palm-sized Gremia from various angles and muttered to himself.
"Good thing there's no damage to the functions. I was worried it might be broken."
Holes like this could be self-repaired through Gremia's own functions.
With its developer long gone, repairing it would have been a headache.
He rendered it transparent and stored it in his sub-space. Jin looked somewhat overwhelmed as he spoke.
"Sorcerers truly are amazing. Every time I see something like this, it's shock after shock."
"Rye doesn't have stuff like this?"
Well, it wasn't common even on this continent.
Jamie murmured quietly.
Jin shook his head slowly in response.
"As I said back then, magic isn't developed on Rye. Plenty of people still call it miracles."
"Fair enough. It must look that way to those who don't know."
Magic came in as many varieties as its uses, and among them were spells that seemed miraculous to ordinary folk.
For example, healing magic could cure diseases beyond a doctor's skill depending on the level, and highly advanced time magic could even rewind portions of time.
Of course, almost no one in the world could properly wield time magic, and even those who could only interfere with tiny parts, limited to restoring broken objects.
"By the way. I was guessing on my own, but... did you fight a dragon?"
Jin asked Jamie cautiously, half in disbelief.
He knew full well how reckless and impossible it was for Jamie to face a dragon alone.
"That's how it turned out."
"I knew it. So it was a dragon's breath after all."
Jamie looked at the long scar of the breath stretching across the ridgeline.
The breath that had pierced through Gremia had whipped across the mountain range.
Thank goodness Jin hadn't been in that direction.
No matter that he was a Sword Master, he wouldn't have easily coped with a sudden burst of breath.
"So what happened? Don't tell me...?"
"I killed it."
"......You killed it?"
Jin stared in disbelief.
Jamie understood his gaze.
It wasn't a hatchling; he had slain an adult dragon.
Even for a 9th Class sorcerer, killing a dragon was extremely difficult by common sense.
Moreover, Jamie was only a half-baked 9th Class.
From Jin's perspective, it was natural not to believe the word "killed" easily.
Thus, Jamie couldn't give the full truth either.
"The bastard let its guard down completely. It underestimated me as a human. I just landed a big hit because of that."
"Even so......"
"You know how powerful my big hits are, right?"
Jin couldn't easily deny it.
Jamie had personally intercepted the divine beast Basilisk that descended over Harmonia's capital.
If he had used that light again, even a dragon would have taken severe damage.
"Of course, I nearly died too. It's a dragon, after all. Even gravely wounded, it was monstrously strong. One wrong move, and I'd have been done for."
Jamie mixed in appropriate lies, telling Jin what would have happened if he hadn't transcended his limits.
That seemed to convince Jin to some extent.
But there was still something that didn't add up, so he asked again.
"But why are you perfectly fine? Not a scratch on you."
"That's......"
Jamie recalled the events from just a few minutes ago.
"Fuc......king hell."
Jamie somehow made it to the dragon's corpse, panting like he was on the verge of death.
He had barely caught his breath when shock nearly hit him.
His body, forced beyond its limits, was one step away from collapse.
Gritting his teeth through the excruciating pain, Jamie grabbed the dragon's massive body and stood.
He had nearly died, but he finally made it.
Scraping away the rotting flesh revealed scales crumbling like sand.
The curse of decay had progressed properly even inside, severely damaging muscles and organs.
The massive ribs encasing the chest seemed less than 20% intact.
As the saying went, there was nothing to discard from a dragon's corpse—from head to toe, it was all treasure.
Even small scales fetched hundreds of thousands of gold on the black market.
But most of it had rotted away, leaving scarcely any usable parts.
'No. Actually, that's a relief.'
Jamie spotted a faint crimson glow between the rotten ribs and organs.
If the bones, organs, and muscles had been intact, he couldn't have dissected it in his current state.
But now, with the curse of decay turning everything to crumbling sand, he could.
"Urgh!"
Putting all his remaining strength into it, he crawled into Kairos's chest cavity.
Covered in sand-like bone and organ debris, Jamie reached the crimson glow and stretched out his hand with effort.
He grasped "it."
"Hah!"
His eyes widened as a tremendous power surged into his fingertips.
His completely depleted mana core began filling with mana.
Dragons were said to be born with near-infinite mana, and this was thanks to the Dragon Heart.
The Dragon Heart wasn't simply the dragon's heart.
The heart was separate.
The Dragon Heart was a kind of "mana stone."
A mana stone beyond human grading.
Just holding it filled his mana-less, crumbling body with restorative energy.
"Dragons...... you absurd lizard bastards."
The Dragon Heart was a beautiful crimson gem, slightly larger than two fists combined.
Not particularly big, but the power it contained was bottomlessly deep.
And as dragons aged, their Dragon Hearts grew, making them correspondingly stronger.
Born with something like this, it would be weirder if they weren't strong.
"Whew. Now I feel alive."
The Dragon Heart's energy fully revitalized his body, restoring it to normal.
Jamie stared at the Dragon Heart and nodded resolutely.
"I'll take it for now."
He considered absorbing it right away but decided against it.
Absorbing something this potent might take hours to fully digest.
If things went wrong below in the meantime, it would be irreversible.
Above all, other dragons might notice Kairos's death.
Jamie collected only the intact parts from the Dragon Heart and Kairos's corpse before descending.
"And that's how we got here."
"......I see."
Jin seemed a bit out of it from Jamie's lengthy explanation.
It was that shocking a story.
Worried Jin might not believe him, Jamie pulled out the Dragon Heart to show it directly.
"See? This is the Dragon Heart. Pretty, right?"
"Put it away quick! What if someone sees?!"
"Jeez. Who's gonna see?"
"......Well, it does seem real. The energy it's giving off is insane."
Jin swallowed dryly at the unfathomable power emanating from the Dragon Heart.
"Anyway, I need to think about what to do with this."
"Don't sell it. Dragons might wipe out the human realm."
"I know."
There were tales involving Dragon Hearts, and most ended similarly.
Dragons reclaiming their kin's Dragon Heart would destroy cities or nations.
The scary part was that these were real events, happening multiple times.
After repeating the mistake, humans learned never to trade Dragon Hearts, even if found by chance.
Any on the market would stand out, and dragons watched the entire human world.
"But why show it to me specifically?"
Jin watched Jamie store the Dragon Heart in his sub-space.
"A Dragon Heart is an incredible treasure. Showing it off could cause unnecessary trouble. Why show it to me?"
"Hmph. What's so special about a Dragon Heart?"
"......It is special."
"It's relative. Right now, it's pretty useful to me... but I could manage without it. And the reason I showed you? Nothing much. When you get something this expensive, don't you just wanna brag?"
Jin was speechless at the very human answer.
Then, staring at Jamie as if to say why ask something so obvious, he chuckled and made a face like he couldn't win.
"Good thing it wasn't an ancient dragon."
"Yeah. Ancient dragons wouldn't let their guard down."
"You know much about ancient dragons?"
"Roughly."
Monsters not to be touched right now, at least.
Jamie swallowed the rest and finished preparing to depart.
There wasn't much to prepare.
All his luggage was in the sub-space.
"Let's get going. Another dragon might show up. And it'd definitely be an ancient one."
"Damn. Spare me."
"Then we're off."
Enveloped in mana light, the two figures vanished.
A nameless mountain range whipped by blizzards.
An unknown region untouched by modern humanity.
A cute blue-haired boy and girl held hands, gazing down at the cliff bottom invisible through the storm.
Their eyes were the same blue as their hair, with vertically slit pupils.
The girl spoke.
"That creature down there. Strong."
"Yeah. Way stronger than we could handle."
"Weaker than Brother Sensutreon, right?"
"Stronger than Brother Sensutreon."
"Whoa—then Grandpa has to step in?"
"Yeah. Grandpa has to."
The boy smiled at the girl as he answered.
She blinked her big eyes in surprise and looked down again.
Invisible through the blizzard, but clear to her eyes: a humanoid woman standing below the cliff.
Similar to them, but with slightly brighter sky-blue hair braided long.
A round gem matching her hair color embedded in her forehead. The girl didn't know she was of the "Ran" race.
She had just been born.
"Grandpa's coming."
The boy pulled the girl's hand and looked back.
A middle-aged man with navy hair reaching his ankles approached.
He wore pristine white uniform without a single wrinkle, exuding immense dignity just by standing.
Behind him stood a sturdy blue-haired young man.
"Grandpa! Brother Sensutreon!"
The girl ran to them.
The middle-aged man called Grandpa scooped her up and called her name.
"My Sevye. Why'd you come all the way here? Rest in the warm cave."
"That creature down there. Strong. Can Grandpa win?"
"Sevye. That's rude to Grandpa."
Sensutreon, the young man behind, corrected her.
"Grandpa just came to hear what it has to say. No fight to be had."
"Grandpa strong!"
"Yes, yes. Grandpa's very strong. Ephetion, you've been taking good care of your sister."
"Yes, Grandpa."
Ephetion, the boy, grinned.
The middle-aged man set Sevye down beside Ephetion and patted their heads.
"Then Grandpa will be right back. Sensutreon, stay with the kids."
"Safe travels."
"Hoho."
Sensutreon hugged the two children.
The middle-aged man left them and walked to the cliff.
With a casual wave, the blizzard stopped as if it were a lie.
A hearty woman's voice came from below.
"I was struggling to keep my eyes open anyway. Thanks for clearing the view. Appreciate it, Lord Kaironseira."
"Isis. You made it all the way here. I clearly refused. Did you take my words lightly?"
Kaironseira's face, warm toward the children, turned icy cold as he glared at Isis.
Just his gaze made the sky crackle with lightning, as if nature bent to his will.
Isis grinned and shook her head.
"I thought it over. I really need your help. Without it, it won't work."
"You Ran wench. Bold of you. Have you forgotten who I am?"
"I nearly died for real back then, but I've come fully prepared this time."
Isis reached into the air.
A powerful bolt leaped up, summoning a massive greatsword emitting blue light.
Kaironseira's eyes widened at the sight.
"That is......"
"Thunder Dragon Sword Gram. As you see, a Dragon Slayer."
"You're insane. Do you truly seek death? Daring to draw something made from dragon flesh before a dragon!!!"
Lightning storms crashed around Isis.
It was a natural disaster of immense scale.
Enough to annihilate a metropolis in an instant.
Yet Isis stood unharmed.
She grinned in delight and slung Gram over her shoulder.
"You don't really want to kill me."
"Foolish Ran wench. Are you so determined to die?"
"Let's bet. If I don't die, grant my request, Lord Kaironseira. You know it's impossible as is. Dragons aren't the mid-realm's managers anymore. They're just......"
"Silence."
"So please."
Kaironseira closed his eyes at Isis's earnest plea.
When he opened them, his body swelled enormously.
Blue scales covered his skin, arms and legs growing mountain-crushing size.
His elongated snout and six horns atop his head.
Spreading wings vast enough to blanket the sky, Kaironseira roared.
GRROOOOOOAAAAARRRR!!
Isis smiled wider at the overwhelming cry.
She swallowed dryly, gazing at the sky-filling dragon.
Not hundreds of meters.
It had to be measured in kilometers.
An ancient dragon.
Those over 5,000 years old.
The root of why dragons were called the world's strongest race.
"Heart's pounding."
He opened his massive maw.
A colossal light plummeted toward the ground.
Isis swung Gram at the falling light.
That day.
Hundreds of kilometers around that untouched land evaporated completely.