Ground Dragon Showdown

When I blew away Kamila’s “Ice Wall” with the fire-only spell “White Flame,” the dragon on the other side had its eyes wide open.

…No, maybe it was my imagination.

It was even harder to read facial expressions than Bangagonga’s… and it was a lizard.

“Shouldn’t you only call it fire after you can evaporate ice like this?”

“You lowly humanfolk…!?”

“I heard that line earlier too… Ah, is it because you’re a lizard and your vocabulary is small? Sorry about that—my bad for asking the impossible of a lizard with feeble flames and feeble words.”

Before I could finish what I was saying with a shrug, the dragon spun around in place… and swung its tail to sweep us.

“Lynferia.”

“Yes!”

The instant I called her name, Lynferia stepped forward toward the tail and slammed the small shield in her hand into the huge tail rushing in… and bounced it back.

“GRAAAAAH!?”

…No way.

As I watched the dragon fall back on its rear while screaming—probably a scream—I couldn’t help but call it out in my head.

Why was a dragon over thirty meters long getting blown away after colliding with Lynferia, who was maybe one-seventy tall…?

Huh? Was Lynferia actually heavier than a dragon…? No way.

Something was wrong… Lynferia had simply straightened her posture and looked back at me, and yet I felt a terrible chill… I probably shouldn’t think any further. My Overlord intuition told me that was dangerous.

“For your size, you’re pretty frail. I thought your tail might tear off since you’re a lizard… but you don’t have a gimmick like that?”

“Y-you…!”

It was trying to sound intimidating… but there was nothing to fear anymore.

Bangagonga’s smile had more presence.

“I’d like to see something dragon-like from you soon… are you tired? Or are you actually weak?”

“GRUAAAAAAAAH!”

Roaring, the dragon raised a foreleg and tried to slam it down on me, but—

“Jōsen.”

“Understood.”

As I stepped back while calling his name, Jōsen stepped forward in my place, and the instant he placed his hand against the descending claw, the dragon’s huge body went flying with a boing.

He didn’t even draw his sword…

This wasn’t “softness controls hardness”… it was on a different plane. Well, in reality it was just the strong tossing the weak…

“G… g… gruu…?”

It seemed to have lost its words… well, not in that sense, but it seemed too shocked to use any language we recognized.

I couldn’t exactly blame it.

If Lumina bit my finger and threw me, I’d definitely sit there stunned.

The dragon lay sprawled on its back, clearly not understanding what had happened… I didn’t know if dragons were live-bearing or egg-laying, but… it probably didn’t even have a bellybutton.

It was starting to feel kind of pitiful—should I stop provoking it?

“Have you understood our strength yet? If you apologize for your many acts of rudeness, I’ll forgive you.”

Whether it heard me or not, the dragon raised itself and glared at us with a low growl.

“Grrrrrrrr…”

“Did you forget language? Or are you pretending to be a lizard? It’s far too late now, I think…”

“…What are you…?”

“What are we? We’re humanfolk who live on this land… and I am the king of those people.”

“…This land is mine. If there is a king on this land, it is I! It is absolutely not you, insignificant wretch!”

The fact it could roar like that in the face of such an overwhelming power gap was impressive… but it wasn’t exactly intelligent.

Well, humans and dragons probably thought very differently, so maybe intelligence had nothing to do with it…

“Whatever we are, you’re the one getting tossed onto the ground, and we’re the ones standing on it with our own feet… and with a gap this clear, you still claim you’re the king?”

“GRAAAAAAH!”

The dragon roared again and leapt up into the sky… It was as huge as ever and looked cool, but… the inside was pretty disappointing…

“You look down on me, even though you cannot even fly!”

“Well, it’s true I can’t fly, but…”

The dragon was hovering about ten meters above the ground… at that height, I thought I could reach it with a jump.

Could I…? I’d never tried, but it felt doable. I wasn’t going to, though—landing was scary.

“Humanfolk who can do nothing but crawl on the earth may watch from there! I will burn your settlement to ash!”

After sneering at us, the dragon took a deep breath.

It had a lot less composure in its lines than before, though.

It looked like it had given up on targeting us and intended to attack the castle town or the castle.

“Kamila.”

“Okaaay~”

The moment I called her name and she replied, the dragon fell from the sky.

Looks like today’s forecast was sunny with occasional dragon… that aside, how did Kamila drop it?

Sword and Legions didn’t have gravity magic… and the dragon didn’t look injured anywhere… did she create a downburst with wind magic?

Even so, we hadn’t been hit by any strong wind… but hey, if the dragon fell like I wanted, that was good enough.

After all, I was a man with 85 Strategy… and Kamila was a woman with 125 Strategy. I couldn’t compete.

Well, I was still better than the lizard in front of me…

“What’s wrong, flying lizard? Didn’t you fly up there to do something?”

“I-impossible…”

It didn’t look physically damaged much, but mentally it had to be in shambles.

It looked even more stunned than when Jōsen threw it.

“If you swear fealty right now, I’ll let you live. What’ll it be?”

“How long will you keep getting carried away!? You insignificant humanfolk—me! A dragon! Don’t underestimate me!”

“You say that… but you were the one who started this in a hostile stance, weren’t you? In that case, doesn’t that mean you were the one getting ahead of yourself?”

“…”

The dragon shut its eyes for a moment, then inhaled deeply and exhaled.

…So dragons did deep breathing, huh.

“…I have decided, humanfolk.”

The dragon slowly raised its body and spoke in a different tone than before, with a solemn air.

Hmm… surrender?

Well, better than needless killing. It could talk, after all—though I wouldn’t be able to turn its entire body into materials… Could I at least take some scales, claws, and blood without killing it?

Maybe I should develop dragon nail clippers and a blood-draw syringe.

Thinking that, I waited for the dragon’s words.

“…Not only this land. I will burn, devour, and rend all humanfolk—”

I didn’t let the dragon say another word. I drew the Overlord Sword Verdia and unleashed the area attack “Wide Slash.”

Unlike when I cut down the frenzied bear, I felt just a tiny bit of resistance… If the bear had been softer than tofu, this felt like slicing a tomato with a kitchen knife.

“Kamila, the blood would be a waste. Freeze it.”

“Okaaay~”

Before the headless dragon could even fall, Kamila froze its entire body with ice magic.

Viewpoint: Viktor-Era-Ruars, Duke of the Lumoria Kingdom

After His Majesty announced the dragon’s attack, he issued instructions to his retainers and left the Audience Chamber.

I watched him go with a vacant stare.

Fighting a dragon with four people… and His Majesty himself?

It took me no small amount of time to understand what those words meant.

My body moved as someone guided me, but when I came to my senses after a while, what I saw was a beautifully maintained garden… where was this?

“Are you okay~? This is the sky garden in Einheria Castle~”

A brown-haired woman leaned in to look at my face, speaking to me in a drawn-out, airy tone.

“You are… Lord Ilmitt? Ah—w-what is happening to me?”

“You seemed a bit~ spaced out~. Right now~ I brought you here at His Majesty’s instruction~”

“His Majesty’s…! Then—where has His Majesty… where has the King of Einheria gone!?”

“If it’s His Majesty~ he’s over there~”

As Lord Ilmitt said that, she turned her gaze toward the grassland… and His Majesty was nowhere… no, far away, I could see a few human figures.

Only then did I realize this garden was far higher than the ground.

A sky garden… true to its name, the scenery visible from here looked as though one were flying.

When I shifted my eyes, I could see the castle walls far below… They must have built this garden higher than the walls simply to improve the view.

No—this sight was certainly splendid, but His Majesty came first… and as I turned my gaze back toward the distant figures, it came.

“Hih…”

A strangled cry escaped the back of my throat… It was shameful, but I couldn’t suppress it.

Its massive body was incomparable to the human figures standing on the grassland, and it looked truly majestic as it glared down at His Majesty and the others.

We were somewhat distant, yet the way it behaved as though distance meant nothing made it worthy of legend.

A dragon… an existence no human could even resist… and now it made my ears tremble.

Even from this distance, I could clearly hear its words… and they openly looked down on humanfolk.

I couldn’t hear His Majesty’s replies… but facing an opponent that embodied fear itself, were His Majesty and the others even in a state to converse?

…No—the dragon was clearly speaking words that suggested a conversation.

So His Majesty and the others were speaking with the dragon without flinching…?

That alone was astonishing… but if only His Majesty could escape… and yet my hope was crushed as the dragon made the motion of drawing a huge breath.

“It’s going to breathe fire!”

The instant I heard someone shout, flames were unleashed toward His Majesty and the others.

“…Ah!”

We had lost such a king… and the voice I heard earlier said it would burn us next… if only it would spare the people…

Having lost that king, and even the framework called the Lumoria Kingdom, what would become of the people now…? As I imagined that future of despair, the dragon fell over for some reason.

What in the world…?

As I narrowed my eyes, I saw that the figures I had thought were burned away by flame were moving unharmed.

“They’re… safe?”

“Of course they are~”

Lord Ilmitt, standing beside me with the same unchanging smile, answered a little proudly.

As relief flooded me from the bottom of my heart, I also felt something off.

But before I could identify that discomfort… the dragon let out a huge scream, then went boing—flying through the air in a strange posture.

…

…No.

…No, no—surely not.

That can’t be… right? There’s no way… the dragon got thrown, is there?

As I tilted my head at the incomprehensible phenomenon, the dragon took off into the sky with a roar that clawed fear up from my gut.

The dragon that rose into the air shouted as its huge body trembled with rage… and then fell to the ground.

…Why did it fall?

The scene unfolding before my eyes was so nonsensical that my words were starting to get strange.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath—one of I didn’t know how many since arriving at this castle.

It’s fine… I’m calm… and this is reality… I’m not seeing hallucinations from fear… it doesn’t seem like it.

Alright… I’m fine now.

I’m ready to accept reality.

I slowly opened my eyes—just in time to see the dragon’s head fall off.

A dragon’s head… was that detachable?