The Silver Comet's Charge
The Inquisitor: I forgot lol
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Explosions erupted all around the running Lene. The dragons rained down countless spells, refusing to let her approach. Yet no mere barrage of magic could catch the silver-white comet streaking forward. The speed was impossible for someone carrying a warhammer of that size and weight.
“What the— This is ridiculous…!” the red dragon roared in shock. Their minds could not comprehend such a thing. How could a mere human, a lowly creature, dare to challenge dragons standing at the pinnacle of their race?
“Ghh…!” But reality refused to be denied. Lene steadily, surely closed the distance.
“Don’t make me laugh…!” Unable to accept it, the red dragon—Pafnil—gathered his mana. The ground cracked with a sharp sound. “Huh?” The fissure reached Lene, and the floor collapsed beneath her.
CRAAASH! From the shattered earth surged a wave of devouring flames.
“Die, insolent insect!” Pafnil bellowed as the fiery tide swallowed Lene whole.
“Even with a goddess’s blessing, no mere creature could possibly—!”
“Move!”
“What?!”
BOOM! A white dragon—Lutia—threw himself forward and shoved Pafnil aside. “Ah, um, you… you really shouldn’t dodge like that…”
Lene had already appeared behind Pafnil. Her warhammer now pierced the exact spot where he had stood. Had Lutia not intervened, Pafnil would have fallen to that single strike.
Only then did the three dragons realize the truth. The being before them was no fragile insect. It was an enemy they had to defeat with everything they had.
“How dare you…!”
Mana that had been compressed inside Lene’s small human frame exploded outward. A blinding flash erupted, bright enough to sear the eyes of any ordinary human. When the light faded, enormous wings that blanketed the sky unfurled.
[Regret this. Your arrogance, and that of your goddess, will be your death here.]
The voice echoed directly inside her mind, completely different from before. Lene tilted her head.
“Aren’t you the arrogant ones…? Calling yourselves great lizards yet spouting nonsense about challenging Ia…”
[Insolent!]
The gold dragon, Nidhogg, swung his tail at her. An overwhelming force capable of toppling fortresses lashed out faster than a viper.
“Dealing with heretics in human form is always the most annoying part…”
Yet Lene leapt up without hesitation and landed on Nidhogg’s tail.
[What?!]
The three dragons froze in momentary confusion. Lene did not give them time to recover.
“I need to finish this and go rest…”
She accelerated again, becoming a silver-white comet racing along Nidhogg’s tail. The dragons, even startled, were not so easily caught off guard. Nidhogg immediately took to the air and thrashed violently while the other two prepared spells.
[Fall off!]
But the silver comet never stopped. Even on the wildly shaking tail, Lene advanced with ease. The other two dragons hurled magic that would not harm Nidhogg, yet nothing touched her. She dodged, blocked, and pierced through every attack.
Eventually she reached Nidhogg’s head and whispered in a calm voice.
“Would you like to repent… even now?”
[A lowly creature like you dares—!]
“Hah!”
BOOOOM! A cute battle cry was followed by an explosion-like impact that shook the air.
[GRAAAAAAGH!]
Nidhogg writhed in agony, but his tough dragon hide and natural resilience kept him standing. “Still sturdy, huh…” Lene swung her warhammer again and again at his head until he finally collapsed unconscious into the snow.
“Repent…”
THUD! The massive body crashed down, shaking the entire snowy mountain. The other two dragons hoped the impact had injured Lene as well, but she simply crawled out of the snow as if nothing had happened.
[The goddess sent a monster.]
“Excuse me… Getting beaten by a girl much younger than you is a little embarrassing, you know.”
Lene pouted, looking exactly like the young girl she claimed to be. Yet both Pafnil and Lutia could feel it—this was something beyond common sense.
[We should retreat for now—]
“You think you can run away…?” Crimson eyes fixed on the remaining dragons. The two felt as though spears had pierced them. That gaze held no lies. Even if they fled, she would chase them to the end. Therefore, they had to kill her here.
[GRAAAAAH! Then I shall hold nothing back either!]
[Agreed. We end this in one strike.]
Pafnil and Lutia spread their wings and soared into the sky. Immense mana gathered in their jaws until space itself warped. Breath—the strongest attack a dragon could unleash. Legends claimed a full-powered breath could erase everything.
Lene had no way to stop them.
“If you use that attack here, you’ll hit your own comrade too… But I guess heretics casually ignore things like that for the sake of survival. As expected.”
[Silence!]
With their roars, two beams of light completely filled Lene’s vision.
BOOOOOOM!!!
A deafening explosion rang out. Yet their breaths were perfectly blocked by a thin, pure-white barrier.
[What…?]
It was a Divine Blessing—the goddess’s protection granted to ordained priests of the order. The strength of such blessings varied greatly depending on faith. The barrier Lene had deployed meant her faith surpassed the combined mana of two ancient dragons.
Exhausted, the two dragons’ wingbeats slowed. As they began to descend toward the mountain, Lene charged forward.
“Repent…!”
★
CRASH! With a thunderous impact, Albion’s body slammed into the ground.
“It’s over…!”
The one who leapt down from Albion’s head was Lene, clad in jet-black full plate armor—the Traveler.
Just as she had mentioned in a previous stream, Lene had gathered a proper party of thirty-five players and cleared the Albion raid without using Skadi’s Tear. It had taken ten attempts and five long hours, but the important fact was that a party had finally defeated Albion without relying on that item. Even though it was the same raid, the two clears had used completely different mechanics.
“You worked hard too, Lene!”
In both clears, Lene had stood at the center. Whether players were priests or not, whether they followed the community or cared about streamers, Lene’s name was spreading among New Dimension players as naturally as breathing.
“But why didn’t you turn on the stream?”
Of course, Lene herself had no idea.
★
It was a spacious conference room. More than ten people sat around the large round table in the center.
“If we add it now, there’s a 100% chance the story will come up,” one woman said. Everyone nodded.
“That’s true, but… we already decided to add it after the first Albion clear was discovered,” a man countered. His point was also valid, so they struggled to reach a decision.
“Team leader, what should we do?”
They had no choice but to ask the person in charge—the team leader sitting at the far end of the room with arms crossed and eyes closed.
“Hmm…”
Even he could not give a definitive answer. Both adding the content now and waiting had reasonable arguments.
“…We’ll add it.”
In the end, the team leader sided with the man. “Hyun, you’re right that the story will come up. But if it turns out to be false, there’s no need for us to worry unnecessarily. We’re simply doing our job.”
“Still…”
“It’s fine. If any problems arise, I’ll take responsibility.”
Even as they nodded, the team members could not shake their gloomy expressions.
“Why does everyone look so down? Don’t tell me someone here has been secretly contacting that person?”
“It’s not that…”
“Then get moving! Skipping lunch for this? Go prepare to eat.”
Only after the team leader spoke did they reluctantly gather their things and stand up.
“Haa…”
Left alone in the conference room, the team leader let out a quiet sigh. From the hacking controversy to the first Albion clear and the recent PvP with pro gamer Ga-eun, the player known as Inquisitor had been at the center of every major incident in New Dimension lately. She herself had done nothing wrong, but it was only natural for the game company to feel concerned.
“Is it coincidence, or skill…?”
Yet even as he muttered this, the team leader smiled faintly. New Dimension had never once changed its core theme of “freedom” since the initial planning stages. And Lene’s playstyle was freer than any other player’s. She explored regions no one else visited and challenged raids in ways no one else attempted. If those choices led to situations like this, then as the game’s original planner, he could only approve of her current path.
“…Well, we might need to touch on the PK issue a little.”
Having reached his conclusion, the team leader stood up. Today’s lunch was his favorite—stir-fried pork.