Mastering the Hero #2
Dragons were said to command a power that bordered on omnipotence.
In the game, that side of them rarely showed—sacrificed for the convenience of players and developers—but Adonis knew the lore well enough.
Even so, the woman standing before him left him stunned.
Never mind the lush curve of her hips or the full swell of her breasts beneath the black dress. What truly caught him was the polymorph itself: something he had only ever heard of, now unfolding before his eyes.
“Right. You said you didn’t know how to use a Hero’s power—drawing the Holy Sword and sheathing it included.”
“Yes. That’s correct.”
Adonis jerked out of his daze and answered. Semiramis’s gaze raked him from head to toe.
Rags for clothes, grime coating every inch of him—yet the lines of his body were clean and handsome. His voice, too, was pleasant to the ear.
“Your skill as a Hero has all but reached its peak, and yet you can’t wield that power. If you’d been under some restriction it might make sense, but this is just pathetic.”
She sighed, half pitying, half incredulous.
Adonis shared the sentiment and let out a long breath of his own—then startled, eyes going wide, when Semiramis laid both hands on his shoulders.
Hm. She kept her palms there a moment, humming thoughtfully, then looked straight into his sky-blue eyes.
“First: this ‘inventory’ you speak of seems to work on the same principle as a dragon’s subspace magic—meant for the convenience of play. But the owner has changed, so the link has snapped.”
“The link snaps?”
“From what I just checked, yes. So if I reconnect it…”
“Ugh?!”
A sharp tingle. Pale blue lightning crackled beneath the woman’s soft white palms, and Adonis’s brow furrowed as a groan slipped out of him.
It was weak, yet the jolt felt like a real shock. For an instant something ugly flared in his chest—then a strange sensation prickled at the nape of his neck, like a spider crawling over skin.
“That should have linked you to the space you called an inventory.”
“What? Really?”
“Yes. You sought me out because you believed it could be fixed simply, did you not? Had your words been a lie I might have had to fashion a new subspace, but they weren’t. A reconnection was all that was needed—just like this.”
Semiramis lifted her hands from his shoulders and stepped a few paces aside. There was no room to retreat farther, and using Fly magic felt like overkill.
“The space is joined now. You can open and close the door at will. Stretch out your arm and imagine opening a space. That should do it.”
“Yes. I’ll try.”
Will it really work?
Half doubting, Adonis extended his right arm straight out to the side.
Open the space.
That was what Semiramis had said, but to him it sounded like grasping at clouds. So he pictured himself seizing a doorknob and pulling, and clenched his fist tight.
Click. The sound of a door opening rang from empty air.
Mana swirling near Adonis’s fist twitched, then condensed into a small, pitch-black vortex. It looked nothing like the inventory he had known and used, yet it was unmistakably the real thing.
He stared blankly at the dark hole turning slowly clockwise, then slipped his hand inside.
Strangely, the interior became crystal clear—its shape, its contents, everything. All the items he had gathered still sat in their places. The Holy Sword that symbolized the Hero lay quietly asleep among them.
Armor and other defensive gear. Clothes. Potions that restored health and mana. Hides from every sort of monster, and money. A mountain of things that, in the end, had rarely been useful.
In a normal RPG they would have been precious assets. In this game they meant little. It was never a growth-focused title, and every ending was miserable anyway.
The Holy Sword was in the inventory, so from now on he could simply store it and draw it as needed.
Adonis pulled the Holy Sword free from the black hole, then imagined closing the door. The vortex shrank steadily until it vanished without a trace.
“Oh. So that is the Holy Sword? I had only heard of it; this is the first time I’ve seen it for myself.”
Semiramis crossed her arms beneath her breasts, murmuring with mild surprise. She knew what the blade was, yet having never laid eyes on it, her gaze was drawn of its own accord.
At a glance it looked plain, but the Holy Power dwelling in the steel was extraordinary.
Adonis’s eyes were drawn just as strongly. The moment he gripped the hilt, vast Holy Power surged up his arm and hammered through every corner of his body—no place left untouched.
“Nngh…”
So this is Holy Power.
For the first time Adonis felt the Holy Power that lived in the Holy Sword and in the Hero’s flesh. The two forces crashed together like mortal enemies, yet instead of grinding each other down they swelled in perfect harmony, growing larger side by side.
Semiramis watched for a moment, then spoke slowly.
“From the look of you, you’ve felt the Holy Power. Am I right?”
“Ah—yes. It was warm, and yet it tingled.”
“Then drawing it up may not be so hard. First take a deep breath, and imagine the air you draw in through your nose spreading through your entire body.”
If I could do that I wouldn’t be in this mess.
Adonis cursed her silently even as he closed his eyes, willing to try. He inhaled deeply as ordered and tried to push the breath all the way to his fingertips and toes.
Nothing. No sensation, no change—only his lungs expanding and contracting.
Semiramis tilted her head, wondering what on earth he thought he was doing. Watching him simply breathe was almost absurd. How had he even made it this far?
“You really have no sense of it at all, do you? Open your eyes.”
Adonis obeyed—and recoiled a full step without thinking. Semiramis’s dark-red eyes were far too close.
“I’m sorry. I just can’t get a feel for it.”
“A little ridiculous, yes, but your body changed overnight. It’s understandable. Stand still right there. I’ll examine you properly this time.”
She warned him not to retreat again, then laid her hand on his stomach. Dragons had a Dragon Heart that gathered mana, but Holy Power tended to pool near the belly. That was why her palm went there.
“It may tickle a little. Don’t panic.”
“Yes.”
After the brief warning she sent mana flowing through the fingertips pressed to his abdomen. Magic circles like rings unfolded around every long white finger—not simply pouring mana in, but scanning the Holy Power within him, analyzing its nature and how to draw it out. Circles of a complexity that would have taken an ordinary mage days to construct.
It really does tickle.
Adonis twitched under the full-body tickling sensation, yet something else left him more flustered. The itch was bearable; the problem was that the same tickle had begun to stiffen something lower.
He was getting hard—no other way to put it. The sweet scent rising from Semiramis’s skin only urged him on.
But Semiramis, utterly absorbed in her work, continued tracing the dormant Holy Power inside him. Only when she had a solid grasp did she finally withdraw her hand.
“I’ve got a sense of how to draw out your Holy Power. But… why is your cock standing?”
“Uh, that is… it tickled, and I couldn’t help…”
Words failed him. He turned his head and shut his mouth.
Semiramis looked from the erection to his lower belly and back again, then nodded as if she had learned something fascinating.
“So human males get hard when they’re tickled. I learned something unexpected.”
“Yes… lucky me.”
Adonis offered the thanks half-heartedly. A faint curve touched the corner of Semiramis’s lips. Amusing as the phenomenon was, finishing the matter of the Holy Power came first.
“Ah. We wandered off the path. I’ve found the way for you to draw out Holy Power.”
“What? Really?!”
The gloom vanished from Adonis’s face; his voice rose with joy. Semiramis gave a quiet nod.
“The Hero’s body and soul are not yet in harmony. Align those two and you should be able to call Holy Power as naturally as moving your own limbs.”
“They’re not in harmony?”
“Correct. This body was never originally yours, and your soul does not yet fit the flesh. The mismatch is not so severe that you will die of it, but it is the root of the problem.”
A mismatch. Adonis felt a fresh wave of relief that he had sought Semiramis out. Had he tried to avenge himself alone, the road would have been far steeper.
“Then how do we bring them into harmony?”
“The obvious way. With magic, of course. Since the topic has come up, let’s settle it at once.”
She spoke as if it were nothing, yet the work demanded extreme delicacy; it was no simple task. Adonis, ignorant of that, only marveled.
Semiramis paused, then looked down the passage into the vast cavern beyond and parted her lips again.
“This place is cramped and stifling. Better we go down below. Can you manage the descent?”
I don’t know.
Adonis’s face soured as he peered over the cliff at the dizzying drop. It looked like a shortcut to the underworld; he could not bring himself to try.
Semiramis seemed to understand. She shook her head and lifted her own body into the air—taking Adonis with her.
“Wha—whoa?!”
His feet left the ground. He flailed uselessly in empty air, looking for all the world like a drowning man. Then he realized it was her magic and surrendered to the current.
For a while he drifted beside her like so much cargo while she descended at a leisurely pace. When the heels of her black shoes finally clicked into the gaps between the cold stones of the cavern floor, Adonis straightened himself and set his own feet down as well.