Chapter 331: The Tin Knight and the Reviving Myth – Opium & Dracaena (3)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 331: The Tin Knight and the Reviving Myth – Opium & Dracaena (3)
《──────■■■■!》
The dragon was mighty.
The dragon was a being clad in majesty.
The dragon was so, so... terrifying.
Whenever the dragon gathered potent mana around its maw and fired, everything in its path was swept away without a trace.
Immense mana and heat converged where the breath struck, erupting in a mushroom cloud.
Some were swept away by the mace-like wind pressure, their heads smashed to pieces.
Some were struck directly by the scorching heat, their bodies bursting into flames and turning to ash while they were still alive.
Some lost their lives as their eyes boiled over, the price for gazing upon the flickering mana.
It was a catastrophe.
It was despair.
And yet, people struggled to survive.
The commander led his troops even as he coughed up blood. Knights, with broken arms, deflected the flying debris. Mages, their faces pale, maintained the barriers.
They were the rearguard.
A death squad, desperately buying time so their comrades who had departed earlier could escape to safety.
And at the very front of this death squad stood a single knight.
The knight’s body was covered in wounds.
His injuries were beyond severe; it would have been faster to find a part of him, from head to toe, that wasn't injured.
He looked as if he might draw his last breath at any moment, yet the knight did not let go of his sword.
Every time he swung his sword against the dragon's claws, he bought time for one more person to escape.
Every time he forced himself back to his feet while spitting blood, he bought time for a unit to regroup.
Every time he struck the dragon’s jaw, forcing its breath to a halt, he increased the chances of survival for humanity's last elite army.
The knight, facing the dragon, glared at its wings.
The only reason he could fight the dragon now was because the elite mages had sacrificed their lives in a grand spell to bring it down from the sky.
No matter how strong a knight he was, there was no way to fight an opponent his sword couldn't reach.
Therefore, he had to break the dragon's wings, here and now.
The knight fought.
The knight fought.
The knight fought.
After fighting, and fighting, and fighting…
At last, the knight's sword sliced off one of the dragon's wings.
《───■■■■■■!!》
Whether from pain, rage, or some other emotion the knight could not comprehend, a mind-numbing roar erupted from the dragon's maw.
The knight tried to move again, to pierce the dragon's heart, but soon realized his body wouldn't budge.
His flesh had reached its limit.
No, to be precise, it had reached its limit long ago. He had been forcing it to move, but now, even that was impossible.
The dragon's eyes met the knight's, and its tail lashed out, striking his body.
His tattered form flew through the air before tumbling to the ground.
"No…!"
A girl called Nesarose appeared, riding a giant undead dog, and snatched the knight's body.
As she desperately tried to flee the battlefield, the dragon watched her back and took another deep breath.
A light of destruction gathered around its mouth.
If that light were fired, the knight's body would be utterly annihilated, not even dust remaining.
But just before the breath was unleashed, a volley of fireballs flew from somewhere and struck the dragon's face, creating a massive cloud of smoke.
The dragon's gaze shifted to the ground.
There, it saw beings that were nothing more than insects in its eyes.
"You vile□ villain! In Sir Torwin's stead□, I will be your □pponent!"
"Stop□ him! Don't let him fire his b□reath!!"
Humanity's surviving resistance fighters were charging toward the dragon.
Their courage was admirable, but their condition was, to put it plainly, tragic.
While the knight had battled the dragon, the other humans had fought against the People of the Underground, holding them back so they couldn't interfere.
And though they hadn't been directly hit by the dragon's firepower, its attacks were powerful enough to extinguish life just by being nearby.
There was no way the humans on this battlefield could be unscathed.
Swords were broken, armor was pierced, and mana was depleted.
In contrast, even with one wing severed and its body wounded, the dragon was still a dragon.
Without using any mana, simply by moving its body and rolling on the ground, it could easily annihilate them all.
They seemed to know this, too. Their legs trembled, and their eyes were bloodshot.
Yet they did not flee. Just as the knight had bought time for them, they would now buy time for the knight.
The dragon stared at the humans. It could crush them like bugs. Or it could leave them to the other People of the Underground and either pursue the knight or rest.
But the dragon did not.
It took a great breath and fired it toward the ground.
As if to display the very pride of the strong.
“……”
Dorothea watched the battlefield in silence.
*
You pushed your concentration to its absolute limit.
It was a war fought in the air, riding chimera eagles.
The eagles were fast enough, and skilled enough to perform complex maneuvers even while carrying your heavy frame.
It was a testament to Dorothea's ability that she could create and replenish several of these creatures.
But even so, the battle did not go smoothly.
Whoosh!
Every time the flying dragon swept past, the sheer wind pressure sent the eagles reeling.
The dragon's body, a mass of immense weight and overwhelming mana, was like a mace itself. A careless collision would send you flying, making a direct approach difficult.
You tried to climb onto the dragon's body to attack, but it was quick to notice, creating distance and giving no easy openings.
Moreover, the beams of light constantly radiating from its body were each lethally powerful, requiring your full attention just to evade them.
It was difficult to approach, and even if you did, the absurd difference in weight class meant you couldn't easily deal damage.
And so, you waited for your moment.
A leg, grazed by the dragon's mace-like tail, was crushed, but you paid it no mind. It could be restored with mana.
An arm was torn off while blocking the dragon's claws with your shield, but you paid it no mind. This body felt no pain.
Your torso was pierced and your body set ablaze by the dragon's beam, but you paid it no mind. As long as it wasn't an instant kill, you could keep fighting.
The dragon was like a natural disaster.
Its defense, mana, and speed were all exceptional, but its firepower was especially overwhelming.
Every minor attack could inflict a fatal wound.
It didn't matter.
This body, and the experience etched into it, knew very well how to fight in such situations.
Turn fatal wounds into serious ones, serious ones into minor ones, and minor ones into nothing.
Endure, withstand, watch for an opportunity, and if none came, forcibly create one.
If this was a battlefield where a single mistake meant defeat, then you simply had to not make a single mistake.
And finally, your chance came.
Your hands gripped the hilt tightly.
Your legs leaped up, using three eagles as stepping stones.
Mana surged and circulated through every corner of your body.
Your sword—
SLICE!!
—sliced off the dragon's wing.
[The 'Tin Knight' declares the first phase cleared!]
*
A person struggling desperately can sometimes compel silence from those who witness it.
The sight is so tragic, so pitiful, that one hesitates to even speak a word or pass judgment.
Such was the reaction of those who saw the knight upon his return to the royal palace.
His condition was that tragic.
"My apologies, Your Majesty. We managed to hold onto his soul, but his body is already…"
It was no longer the body of a living man.
It was nothing more than a piece of meat, its breath long gone, forcibly held together by necromancy.
Gazing upon the fallen hero, the people were filled with grief.
Thinking of the battle ahead, they sank into despair.
Yet no one blamed the knight for his defeat.
They knew of his valor. They knew of his devotion.
His body was broken from a series of grueling battles. His lifespan had been whittled away, and his aging accelerated as a result of using herbs and magic to forcibly mend his body.
Injury, aging, fatigue. All the calamities a mortal must face tormented the knight.
With every general he defeated, his skills became more refined, but his body deteriorated.
The people knew what he had fought for, for whom he had burned his life away, and how much blood he had shed.
That was why they couldn't bring themselves to blame him or ask him to rise again.
《—Please, allow me to fight again, Your Majesty.》
Only one person.
Excluding the knight himself.
At those words, uttered from a skull by a soul left behind, everyone present held their breath.
The queen narrowed her eyes.
While everyone else was speechless, the queen, her face contorted, answered him.
"One whose very heart has stopped still wishes to fight?"
《I lost my arms, so I replaced them with metal. I lost my legs, so I replaced them with metal. I lost my mana, so I embedded a jewel in my chest. If so, is there any reason the rest of my body cannot be replaced?》
"That is not the life of a human."
《Then I am fine with not being human. Being a knight made of tin is enough.》
The queen bit her lip.
To Dorothea, it looked as if she wanted to scream something, to vent her fury at the knight.
But a queen was a queen.
She was not just the monarch of one kingdom, but the monarch of all who burned with the last embers of hope in this Land of Ashes.
Therefore, the queen had to be a woman of iron; she could not show any sign of weakness.
In this land, there were people who clung to hope and endured through suffering, and soldiers who faced death without fleeing for the sake of what they held dear.
For their sake, the Kingdom of Ashes still needed its knight.
And so, the Queen of Ashes opened her mouth and replied.
"—I grant you permission."
What followed was a massive undertaking that shook the nation.
The most precious jewels and treasures of the royal palace were invested without reservation as materials.
The most renowned artisans worked day and night, forgoing sleep to craft the knight's new body.
It had to be a body that could withstand the knight's strength, a body that could fight against the powerful beings of the underground. For that reason, it was designed to be thoroughly 'practical'.
It had no function to feel human warmth. It had no function to eat or drink. The flaws of sleep and fatigue were eliminated.
With every human pleasure he discarded, the knight became more perfect as a warrior.
The moment the queen, a master of all kinds of magic, used necromancy to place the knight's soul into the doll…
The man who was once a knight vanished, and only the Tin Knight remained.
As the knight knelt on one knee to show his respects, the queen silently pinned a brooch on him.
It was like a knighting ceremony.