As the pouring breath descended, the wyverns scattered like bursting fireworks in all directions.
Some wyverns fled, but others were struck directly, melting away without a trace or caught on fire and plummeting.
The elders, tied with wyverns and leather straps, had no choice but to be dragged along with their waists bent like bows.
Thud!
Boom!
Wyverns fell like meteors into the basin we were in. A few elders died instantly from the shock, but most managed to put up a barrier with their mana just in time.
The surviving elders seemed half-conscious, as if fainted.
Among them, an elder who was conducting the oracle crawled out from atop a wyvern, glaring at Jane and shouted angrily.
“What… what have you done to make the Dragon God so furious on this momentous day of awakening!”
“……Everyone is responsible.”
Seeing that shameless elder even now made Jane’s shoulders tremble with rising anger.
She turned her gaze to the woman behind the elder, wearing a see-through white dress and a wooden crown.
“Did you modify the ceremony’s attire to look hideous? Have you come to offer a ritual to accept the new Dragoness? Did the cardinal really dismiss me as he said?”
“N-No! We heard about your kidnapping by pirates and…!”
“For that, you’re acting quite fast. It hasn’t been long since I was kidnapped.”
“……”
“Is that outfit your preference? It’s way too revealing, it’s nauseating.”
The elder shut his mouth, unable to respond. Just a moment ago, he was yelling, but now, his words choked as he feigned pain from the impact of the fall.
“W-Well, more than that, grant me a healing miracle! It’s your specialty as a Dragoness!”
“My miracles are for the lowly.”
“Dragoness!”
As the elder called out, Jane clenched her fists and stepped towards him. She brutally stomped on the hand the elder stretched out while lying on the ground.
“Stop calling me that! You all dismissed me! I’m no longer a Dragoness! I’m just Zane Adonia, a Dragonkin!”
She pointed at the next Dragoness who was watching nervously behind.
“If you want it, ask your Dragoness.”
Now no longer a Dragoness, Jane tried to twist away, looking relieved, but I stepped forward and pulled her back.
“Let’s use a healing miracle.”
“Eh? No… I was just being really cool and turning around…”
Suddenly getting interrupted like this was troublesome for Jane, but I pointed at the wyvern carrying the elder and the new Dragoness.
“No, let’s do it on that one.”
“Ah! I see!”
The new Dragoness quickly reached out to the wyvern as she caught onto my intentions.
Grrr… The wyvern, only barely breathing, slowly started to heal its wounds.
While restoring the wyvern, I turned my eyes back to the sky. There, the Dragon God was still struggling with the wyverns.
Eve, who wanted to distance herself from the Chokugen Faction, cautiously approached me with Sen, whispering.
“But I thought a Dragon God would be really powerful, yet Daniel pushed him back all alone.”
“Isn’t Daniel strong?”
“Is that so?”
I wished it were true, but objectively speaking, not really.
“It’s just that guy who’s been pretending to sleep curled up in the same position for hundreds of years. What could he possibly do now that he’s just woken up?”
“Ah.”
Eve nodded repeatedly in understanding.
Controlling mana and moving his body are still pretty foreign to him, meaning it’s an opportune time to overwhelm him.
Watching Shakallim, who was getting angry at his now heavy body for not being able to catch the nimble wyverns, I was grasping how to fight.
A cold chill ran down my spine.
The head of the Chokugen Faction approached us along with his subordinates. He bluntly asked me.
“Can you kill him?”
“No, I can’t. I have no intention of killing.”
Killing Shakallim would reverse our motives.
We thought about persuading him in a somewhat forceful manner but had no intention of killing him.
“……”
Not satisfied with my answer, the leader gazed at me with a mysterious expression. Perhaps being an assassin, he showed no emotions on his face.
“You guys are living as extras. You know that much, so just stay quiet.”
This kind of testing the waters behavior irked me, so I gave him a strong warning. From behind, the members of the Chokugen Faction began releasing killing intent silently.
The leader was not only humiliated but also knew exactly how many members of the Chokugen Faction I had already cut down.
He must’ve thought he was getting a good deal.
“Don’t hiss if you can’t bite, you bug-like bastards.”
With those words, the killing intent from the Chokugen Faction members vanished like a rat scurrying into a hole.
“Thinking about what you’ve done to Sen makes me want to kill you immediately. If the Dragon God weren’t here, I would have killed you right away.”
But.
“I’m holding back because I need to conserve some power and I want to give you at least a moment to talk.”
Sen looked at me in surprise.
Without turning my gaze to her, I clearly warned.
“If you mess around, the lizard will be next. Shape up.”
“……I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Ah, I’ll be lenient because of old times.”
The leader and the eccentric stepped back with a nod. Sen seemed like she had a lot to say to me, but unfortunately, before she could open her mouth.
“Wyvern healing is all done!”
With Jane’s shout, I ruffled the hair of Sen, who was staring at me with teary eyes, and headed towards the wyvern.
Before I knew it, Jane was already mounted and holding the reins.
“What are you doing?”
“I want to go too. I have something to tell the Dragon God, and you don’t know how to ride a wyvern.”
“Can’t you just wing it, like your words suggest?”
“Stop talking nonsense and get on.”
Having given up her name as Dragoness, Jane’s voice had become a bit husky, but this will likely work better for fighting, so I hopped on right behind her.
“Make sure to tie the safety cord around your waist.”
“If I do that, I can’t fight. Ah, wait!”
My hands felt empty.
My sword was lodged precisely in Shakallim’s right eye.
That long sword came into view.
“Hey, hand that over.”
“……”
As the leader of assassins, wouldn’t he usually carry a dagger rather than a sword as long as himself?
“What are you, a thug?”
Jane looked at me in shock and the leader didn’t want to give it, but.
“Ha, there’s no time.”
So, I quickly took his sword. To them, it would have appeared as if the sword suddenly appeared in my hand while mounted on the wyvern.
“That’s…!”
Though the leader tried to shout something, I responded with a smile.
“Thanks. I’ll use it well. This sword is sharp and will pierce well through dragon scales.”
I patted Jane’s back and signaled to start moving. She shot a sad look at the leader as she gripped the reins of the wyvern.
I could hear the leader’s voice shouting something from below, but it was drowned out by the flapping of the wyvern’s wings.
“I’m sorry about something.”
“It’s usually like this.”
At the end, I barely heard Eve and Sen’s voices jumbled together, but my gaze stayed fixed above.
Shakallim, having devoured all the wyverns, was roaring in rage, soaring through the skies to gather mana once again.
“Get as close as you can. You won’t hear voices in the sky, so communicate telepathically.”
“I’m not great at telepathy.”
“I can’t use it at all. Just let me know your position.”
There was no way we could provide detailed explanations while frantically fighting up there.
“When Shakallim charges, try to penetrate as far as you can. Maybe because he just woke up, he’s stiff and can’t respond flexibly inside his body.”
“……”
“Just be wary of magic and breath. I’ll do my best to make sure he can’t use them. He’s probably too disoriented to even attempt multi-casting spells.”
I had been analyzing thanks to the wyverns, but I couldn’t tell if Jane was actually listening, as she only gripped the reins tightly without saying a word.
“Really.”
And then she suddenly said.
“Really, Shakallim isn’t a god after all.”
“……”
The same sense of hopelessness I felt when conversing with the saint Lucia surged up. Although I’m borrowing power from the Goddess of Time, I do not offer any faith or worship towards the gods.
I couldn’t comprehend their feelings of faith.
So I answered honestly.
“Ah, he’s just a long-living old lizard.”
“……Are you not going to offer consolation?”
“I’ll think about it while we fight. That bastard is coming.”
“Bastard… ha.”
Shakallim spotted us and let out a powerful roar as he rushed towards us. It seemed he intended to use breath to melt us.
But he only coughed and let out empty breaths without unleashing his devastating breath.
“He doesn’t even know how many times he can use breath.”
I tightened my grip on the sword.
I’d only handled long swords like this when Kulika gave me the great sword during my first iteration.
But the conviction that this kind of sword was better for facing a dragon surged as I grasped it.
“By the way! What’s our objective?”
Jane’s voice was buried in the wind as the wyvern began to accelerate. I smiled and grabbed her shoulder, saying.
“Our goal is to hit the Dragon God hard enough for him to think, [Ugh, I’m really going to die].”
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