The Dragon's Demand
Maybe the gods were half-asleep when they were handing out my luck. They must have dumped an extra helping of misfortune on me by accident.
Crash!
The chandelier that had been right above us plummeted, shattering into countless glittering fragments. The ceiling, once merely decorative, had become a deadly natural disaster.
Undine? No, she wouldn't be enough.
“Undain! Water Shield!”
Whoosh.
Undine alone couldn't handle something of this scale. The moment Undain appeared, his body spread outward in every direction, forming a rippling barrier of water. Falling chunks of stone bounced off with dull thunks, each impact making the shield shudder violently.
Because I'd summoned it in a rush and stretched it far beyond its usual size, the shield's defensive power was noticeably weaker. It could probably stop falling rubble, but anything stronger would tear right through.
A single flick of the dragon's claw would shred it like paper. Still, both Dikel III and the emperor happened to be inside the barrier's range. Not that I'd planned it that way.
“Aaaagh!”
“S-save me!”
“Uwaaaah!”
Unfortunately, several nobles outside the shield's protection were crushed beneath the collapsing ceiling. Their screams of pain echoed through the hall, but no one had the luxury to help them. Nobles farther away simply shrieked and stampeded toward the exits.
Knights drew their swords and formed a protective ring around the emperor, but such measures were meaningless against a dragon. I wove through the nobles still cowering on the floor and sprinted toward the king.
“Your Majesty!”
I called out urgently, but the king looked slightly dazed—understandable, given the circumstances. Compared to the others who were either wetting themselves or sobbing openly, he at least maintained a shred of royal dignity.
“We need to run!”
“Good heavens…”
Following his gaze upward, I saw the dragon staring down at us through the gaping hole in the ceiling. My jaw dropped. A low groan escaped my lips.
“It's huge…”
I'd thought this world already contained every bizarre thing imaginable, but a dragon? Even staring straight at it, I couldn't quite believe it was real. Its two massive golden eyes were terrifying, and the sight of those gleaming claws tearing through the ceiling made my skin crawl.
Honestly, I'd been fairly confident. The absurd kind of confidence that said I'd already suffered every possible misfortune life could throw at me. After all, I'd been through enough bad luck to last several lifetimes. Who in their right mind would expect to meet a dragon—one that supposedly appeared in the human world only once every five hundred years to wreak havoc—on my very first debut party?
Just how much worse could things get? Was there no balance patch for this insane god?
[Who is the emperor?]
The dragon's face appeared over the edge of the broken ceiling as it spoke. No one dared move. It was as obvious as breathing that any sudden motion would mean death.
The dragon's way of speaking—projecting its voice directly into our minds—reminded me a little of Rai, though far more imposing and oppressive.
Every noble's gaze instantly turned toward the emperor.
“I am the emperor of this empire, O great dragon.”
What choice did he have? The ruler of millions knelt and bowed his head in reverence. The other nobles followed suit, dropping to their knees in a wave. The knights lowered their swords as well. Even Dikel III knelt, so I quietly did the same.
Attacking now would be suicide, so I dismissed Undain. The shield vanished. I also recalled Undine, who had been containing Latsha. There was no room for games here.
I suspected everyone present was thinking the same thing: Why is a dragon here?
Once the dragon confirmed the emperor's identity, it cut straight to the point.
[Bring me jewels. Enough to fill this entire hall!]
“Jewels… did you say?”
[And every piece of mithril you possess.]
Enough jewels to fill the hall? And all their mithril?
“O great dragon! Even if we emptied every vault, we could never gather that many jewels. Please, have mercy…!”
[That is not my concern. Bring them all!]
The emperor tried to negotiate, but a dragon was still a dragon. It was the apex predator of this world, the being closest to the gods, and an absolute tyrant. Its strength and wisdom, accumulated over countless ages, were beyond anything any other race could hope to match. In short, an unstoppable bully.
I'd heard gold dragons were relatively gentle, wise, and benevolent… but apparently not this one.
“Have mercy! If we hand over everything, we'll be destroyed by our enemies!”
[You need not worry. I just came from visiting those very enemies.]
Ah. So the dragon was in the middle of collecting tribute.
Dragons were famous for their love of jewels, piling them like mountains inside their lairs. And where did they get them? By robbing people exactly like this. But why mithril? That wasn't a jewel—it was a weapon material.
“Someone bring the jewels! All of them! And the mithril too!”
Realizing that negotiating with the dragon was both pointless and dangerous, the emperor quickly gave orders to his knights.
I glanced up at him. He looked far more fragile than he had when I'd first seen him. Before a dragon, even an emperor's crown was nothing more than a silly bell on a cat's collar—something flashy and utterly useless.
Under the shadow of a being that ignored all human rules, human authority was worth exactly that much.
***
This was bad.
We'd been lying motionless on the floor for nearly an hour. The longer this dragged on, the clearer it became that none of us were getting out of here alive. Even if they scraped together every jewel in the empire, it still wouldn't be enough to fill this massive hall. And the dragon's patience had clearly run out.
Living for ten thousand years, yet it couldn't even wait this long. What a temper.
[Hurry!]
“We're sorry! We can't possibly fill it right now. But if you give us more time…”
[Grrrrrr.]
The dragon growled, a low, threatening sound that made several nobles faint on the spot. Most of the others were too terrified to even whimper, afraid of angering it further.
The nobles who'd been inside the shield had survived the falling debris, but now they were trapped beneath the dragon's shadow with no way out.
I felt cold sweat trickling down my back. Just the dragon's presence alone was enough to crush the air from the room.
[Rai, do you think you could beat a dragon?]
[What? Master, have you lost your mind? What kind of nonsense is that?]
Yeah, I probably had. Still, it was worth asking. The answer was exactly what I'd expected.
One of the knights rushed over and whispered something in the emperor's ear. Whatever it was, it wasn't good news—the emperor's face turned deathly pale. He pressed himself flatter against the floor, desperately trying to appease the dragon.
“O great dragon, this is everything we have! We offer it all, so please spare us!”
The pile of jewels and mithril looked enormous to human eyes—an impressive display of imperial wealth. But compared to the size of the hall, it was pitifully small. And nowhere near enough to satisfy the dragon.
[You made me wait this long, and this is all you bring? I flew all the way to your empire for this?]
“Please believe us! We gathered everything we could.”
[Lies! You're hiding more!]
“We are not!”
The dragon lashed its long tail in fury. Anyone struck by that would be crushed like tofu.
[This is barely anything! Humans really are creatures you can't reason with!]
Enraged, the dragon opened its massive jaws wide. A brilliant golden light began gathering inside its mouth—dense, blinding, and terrifying.
“O gods!”
“Kyaaaaah!”
I knew exactly what that was. A breath attack. The dragon's strongest weapon—more powerful than an eighth-circle mage's spell, one of the five great weapons said to be capable of destroying the continent.
[I will ask one last time… Will you hand over everything you've hidden?]
“Please, this is truly all we have!”
[Humans are liars! I'd sooner trust a snake than you.]
The emperor begged, but the dragon had clearly made up its mind. It prepared to unleash the condensed power in its mouth.
The emperor's expression was one of utter despair. Everyone else's was the same—they could all sense death approaching. Even Dikel III had quietly closed his eyes. Being a Sword Master didn't matter here. Only magic could stop magic.
The swirling mana told me the attack's scale would melt everyone here and then some. Getting hit by that wouldn't just kill us—it would erase us completely.
No matter how I looked at it, the only one who could do anything was me. I didn't want to, but there was no one else. And I wanted to live, too.
I refuse to die like this.
I had to survive. I had to protect the king. And, annoying as they were, all these nobles too. There was no more time to think.
The dragon was about to fire its breath.
The instant I felt it coming, I shouted with everything I had.
“Rai!”
[Yes, Master!]
“Block it!”
At my desperate cry, Rai shot off my wrist and launched himself into the air.