I was only met with shocked silence.

  I had said what I’d had to say, so I turned on my heel and left Leon alone. I might have gone too far, but if I hadn’t said that, he might have gone back to clinging to that power too easily. Leon was a simple fool, but that foolishness could sometimes be a weapon. Saying that just now had probably cemented the fact that using the Goddess’s power meant Leon couldn’t fight me. So he would no longer use her power. His greatest goal was me, after all. He would never choose a method that brought him farther away from that.

  In a sense, he was a cute and very easy to understand fellow. People say that a lot, don’t they? That dogs and cats are cuter the stupider they act? It was true that Leon was a troublesome guy, but it wasn’t that big a deal to me.

  How should I put it? I pondered it for a moment. Yeah, if I had to force an analogy, it’d be this: Pretend there was a cat. Imagine the cat wanted your attention, so it jumped onto your laptop and sat on the keyboard. Thanks to that, it hit the power button. Given no other choice, you play with the cat until it gets bored, and it scratches your hand and walks off like it’s lost all interest. That would be very troublesome and selfish, and you might curse out the cat in your head. But you as the owner would think of all of that as cute and forgive the cat.

  Leon was exactly like that to me. At the very least, he wasn’t scum on the level of the Dragon King I’d once fought. It was true that he was true to his desires and very arrogant, but frankly it wasn’t much different from a wild lion hunting and eating a zebra. The scale was just different.

  I paused, confused. Huh? Who’s the Dragon King?

  ＊　　　　＊

  The light of mana illuminated the trees of the forest. Plants that couldn’t move on their own instead used their divine power in the form of heaven-arts to create a heaven-arts life-form, a spirit, to innocently fly around. Some among these spirits gained a sense of self, and those that had become completely independent of their true plant bodies became fairies and were sometimes worshiped as holy beings. Likewise, those who had been affected by fairies became known as the fey, or elves. That was why they had an affinity for heaven-arts even though they’d been mutated by mana.

  A single man wearing white armor was walking in that forest. He was known as the Devil King’s son, Terra, and boasted the second most authority and power amongst all the devilfolk after the Devil King himself. With bold steps, he walked towards the deepest part of the forest while the spirits and fairies watched his progress with interest, sometimes flying around him playfully. Terra smiled at them, making sure not to lay a hand on any of them.

  Spirits and fairies took on a wide range of forms, but they generally turned out to be adorable boys or girls about twenty percent the size of a normal human. That was not a hard and fast rule though, and most powerful fairies ended up being indistinguishable from humans. There were even some men with uselessly firm and sturdy builds with pirate-like looks.

  Eventually, Terra reached his destination, where he found a girl standing there as if she’d been waiting for him. She had fluffy honey-colored hair that reached down to her shoulders and wore a headband. Her eyes were green, and the dress she wore was tricolor, a nice red, blue, and white. Next to her stood an armored heroic spirit whom she’d given a temporary body to serve her with.

  “What a rare guest we have here. I’m afraid I won’t welcome you, though.”

  Residing in the deepest parts of the fairy paradise of Alfheim was the Fairy Princess, Pollux, who stood at the top of all fairies. As the one who stood at the peak of all life forms made of divine power, she was, as implied, equal to the Devil King. If the Devil King and his devilfolk were the symbols of darkness encroaching upon Mizgarz, then Pollux and her fairies were the symbols of light. They would never mix, but they would also never clash. Instead, many long years had been spent simply glaring at each other. The light and dark always remained balanced as if they were communicating behind the scenes, preventing one side from completely sweeping up the world.

  “It is a pleasure to meet you, oh great Chief of the Light. My name is Terra. Please, let me first apologize for my sudden rude visit.”

  “He—” Pollux paused. “Hmm? Aren’t you him? The Devil King’s son? I’d heard that Orm had a son, so I’d imagined a miniature version of him, but you seem to be quite well-mannered.”

  Pollux observed Terra. From the look of it, he wasn’t hostile. His sword was still sheathed, and Pollux could see respect hidden within his gaze. Still, he was a devilfolk. Unfortunately, he wasn’t trustworthy.

  “So, why have you come here? If it isn’t incredibly important, I’d like you to leave.”

  “I want you to teach me more about avatars, and, if possible, how to make them.”

  When she heard that term come from Terra’s mouth, she fell silent. Pollux’s look grew cold, and she narrowed her eyes.

  Avatars could be said to be the spirits and fairies themselves. They themselves were nothing more than temporary bodies of their original plants. While there was a difference between magic and heaven-arts, spirits and fairies were similar to devilfolk, who were made of mana.

  Taken to the extreme, spirits and fairies were just heaven-arts being used by plants. Plants, which couldn’t speak or move by themselves, split down two paths in order to be able to achieve this. One was mutation. By mutating into a monster, they’d be able to move. This was how demihumans like dryads had come to exist. The other was by creating an avatar. This was how spirits and fairies were born.

  The only ones in the world who knew how to make those avatars were the Goddess, the Devil King, and the Fairy Princess. Even plants needed permission from Pollux to make an avatar, since they wouldn’t be able to do so without her help. This left the question of when Pollux herself was born, but no one around could answer that question. After all, Pollux had been around even before humanity existed.

  “And what do you plan to do with such knowledge?”

  “I have someone I want to release from the fate of all devilfolk, and I have a friend who died in order to make that happen. I want us to have a life not as a puppet of the Goddess, but one we own ourselves.”

  Pollux pondered for a moment, then said, “I see.” For an instant, her gaze upon Terra became kinder, but at the same time, it turned into a look of sympathy and pity. The next moment, her gaze became icy. “Sorry, but that knowledge will never be shared with anyone else. No matter the reason, I cannot tell you.”

  “I know. But I will not give up no matter what. I swore to my dead friend that I would see this done.”

  “Then what will you do?”

  “What do I have to do to get you to tell me?”

  “Let’s see...”

  The Fairy Princess waved her arm. That moment, over a hundred heroic spirits manifested, standing in Terra’s way. They were all over level 700. There were even those at level 1000 scattered around the crowd.

  “Dance, my beloved children. Argonautai!”

  Generations of guardians of the sanctuary showed themselves. Heroes from the past who had wiped away the dark clouds that had gathered over Mizgarz when it had still been shrouded by darkness descended. Soldiers of the first heaven-winged army, from before one of them had eaten the forbidden fruit, were recreated in droves.

  Ale, the valkyrie who had gifted the poor with fruit, appeared. So did Brunehilde, the noble warrior who had guided people to the Goddess’s side. Notable individuals from history revived one after the other in a show of force that almost mocked the difference between their total power and Terra’s.

  “If you win, I won’t mind giving you a hint. Though that really just means I have no intention of telling you anything,” said the Fairy Princess as she adopted a cold sneer.

  The Dragon King Made a Challenge

  There were five continents on Mizgarz as well as some islands. People named the five biggest masses of land “The Five Large Continents.” Each of those five continents had its own ruler who spent their time glaring across the water at the others, barely holding together balance.

  Those who ruled the northwestern continent were the nobles of the night, vampires. At their top stood the Vampire Princess Benetnasch. The devilfolk occupied the northeastern continent with their leader, the Devil King. The central continent was home to the most fearsome monsters in the world, with the Lion King Leon at the top, maintaining the rule of survival of the fittest.

  To say that those who lived on the southwestern continent had a leader would be misleading. The Fairy Princess Pollux lived there, yet in no way did she rule anyone. The power she wielded as the opposite force to the devilfolk couldn’t be ignored, though, and even the Lion King or the Devil King couldn’t easily lay their hands on her domain.

  Then there was the southeastern continent... This was where the dragons, hailed as the strongest species, lived along with their royalty, the Dragon King Ladon. There was a problem in the southeast that no other continent had to deal with. The Crown Empire, which represented humanity’s largest country and thus largest piece of land, was in the middle of a battle for survival against the dragons.

  In the past, the dragons and humanity had coexisted based on mutual agreement...or rather, they simply didn’t bother each other, but the Dragon King Ladon had broken that balance. He was born with even more power than those said to be the strongest species and believed that dragons were the ones most deserving of ruling the world as the strongest, so he set out to eradicate humanity.

  In response, the Crown Empire desperately tried to resist, but the difference between people and dragons was clear. Even a dragon child could be matched up against a country’s entire military force, and the outcome would still be up in the air. Against a mature dragon, people stood no chance. This was no bluff; it was common sense and showed just how cruel and merciless the law of strength that controlled Mizgarz was.

  Even passing level 100 was rare for members of humanity, so passing level 200 or 300 made one able to defeat entire countries by oneself, and the average level of a dragon was over 400. Their numbers were few, but some dragons were even over level 600 or 700. If they felt like it, they could turn all of Mizgarz into scorched earth within a couple of days. Among them, the Dragon King reigned the strongest at level 1000. With him, it was no longer a question of winning or losing. He had ten heads, and each had enough power to equal ten dragons, which was why he was said to have “a hundred heads.” It was almost like ten level 1000 dragons had merged into one. Simply meeting the Dragon King meant death.

  However, even in front of such monsters the Crown Empire was still holding on and resisting. In the past, the Crown Empire has built four fortresses in four different directions some distance away from the capital in order to intercept the dragons. Three out of those four had fallen and only the western fortress was left. The lines of battle had now reached the capital of the empire, and every day the dragons invaded with more vigor and ferocity.

  It could actually be said that the Crown Empire had done exceedingly well to hold on for so long. Even if they were the world’s largest country, scholars all over the world had predicted that they wouldn’t last a night against the dragon’s strength. Yet it had already been two months since the fortresses fell...and the country was still standing.

  What was the reason for that? Their national power? Well, they certainly had some power. It was true that they could fight and shelter their citizens because of their plentiful stores.

  Was it the quality of their soldiers? That was also true. The Crown Empire’s soldiers were very well-trained down to the last man, and the army was comprised of strong veterans.

  Was it their excellent tactics? This also couldn’t be ignored. Captain Alphecca and one of his subordinates, the mage Meridiana, both used their wealth of experience gained over long years of battle to always come up with the best answers in order to defend the western fortress.

  However, even combined, those answers would only result in the dragons easily crushing the Crown Empire. Even so, the dragons couldn’t. Why was that?

  There was but one answer. Because there was a monster that could even repel dragons.

  “Transmute: Winter of Swords!”

  A woman’s voice reverberated through a wasteland currently serving as the front line of the war with the dragons. At the same time, countless giant swords burst out of the ground, skewering wyverns and lifting them up into the air one after the other. The one who watched over and controlled so many swords was a single heaven-winged woman who was currently floating in the air. Her large black wings were spread wide. Lufas crossed her arms as she declared, “Shoot straight through them!”

  As soon as she’d spoken, a storm of swords brewed, skewering even more dragons in droves. A dragon’s scales were definitely not brittle or soft. They could deflect swords, spears, and even cannons without a scratch. This natural defense was a dragon’s pride. Their scales could withstand the heat of magma, wouldn’t burn when exposed to lightning, and could even withstand high-pressure water strong enough to cut diamond. The fact that they were being pierced through as if they were paper was like a bad joke.

  “Aqua Tornado!”

  Next, a man’s voice rang out. Mana condensed in the air and turned into water before swirling and becoming a waterspout. The waterspout stuck itself into the head of a nearby dragon and only came back out the other end after wreaking merry havoc inside the thing’s body. The user of such excessive magic, Megrez, turned his spell onto another dragon, but it was struck from the side by the dwarf blacksmith Mizar and was sent flying.

  On top of that, Alioth leapt into the storm of swords that Lufas had whipped up, easily scoring a kill and continuing on to leap around freely, cutting apart dragons.

  While watching her reliable friends’ exploits out of the corner of her eye, Lufas snapped her fingers and gathered the mana that was the source of the dragons’ power to her fingertip. Eventually, it came to form a shining golden apple, which Lufas wasted no time biting into.

  “We did it, everyone! The dragons have been decimated! All that’s left are several wyverns!”

  “Lufas and the others have grizzly strength. They’re almost too reliabear.”

  Seeing the four adventurers’ exploits, the empire soldiers Phecda and Dubhe heaped praise on them. Lufas and the others’ fight was truly one of mighty warriors; each member of Lufas’s party could take on thousands. The imposing figures—as they destroyed dragons of all things—were now the hope of the entire empire.

  But Lufas herself wasn’t happy. In fact, everyone around her could tell she seemed unsatisfied. She was seeing the bodies of several soldiers that were lost to the battle. Lufas was unmistakably a hero. No one else could fight like her. However...

  Even she couldn’t keep the losses at zero.

  ＊　　　　＊

  “That can’t be! What are you thinking, my liege?!”

  Alphecca’s shout echoed off the walls of the throne room.

  After finishing the battle with the dragons, Lufas and the others had been invited to have an audience with the king, who was supposed to praise them for their hard work. This had been happening almost every day for the past few days, so by now all the soldiers knew that maintaining the battle lines without Lufas and the others was impossible. That was why everyone was convinced that they would be seeing the same boring scene they’d been witnessing for the past two months. But that day, what Lufas and the others received wasn’t praise.

  “It is as you heard, Alphecca. We will be handing Lufas, Alioth, Megrez, and Mizar over to the Dragon King.”

  “Wh-Why...?! If you do that, our country will be destroyed!”

  The four people who comprised Lufas’s party were now a necessary defense for the Crown Empire. Without them, the Empire would be trampled over in an instant. War was about numbers, but that was only true as long as the individual’s strength was limited to what would be sensible for humanity. As soon as a person stepped outside of that, this theory no longer applied. No matter how many tens of thousands of level 100 humans you gathered, they wouldn’t hold a candle to a single dragon. Opposing someone who completely outclassed you wasn’t about numbers. What was needed was someone else who also transcended common sense.

  “We have been contacted by the Dragon King. Our losses in this war have gotten too high...” Emperor Borealis, the Crown Empire ruler, continued, coldhearted. “Continuing to lose our beloved brethren like this would be a loss to both of us, so he has said that he will stop his invasion. However, Lufas Maphaahl and her friends have killed too many dragons. They will not be satisfied until Lufas and the others are dead... We’ve been told to hand them over.”

  “A-And...” Alphecca trailed off. “You’re just going to accept that?! That cannot happen! There’s no guarantee the Dragon King will honor his promise!”

  This was a trap. There was no need for Alphecca to put it into words. Everyone knew it was a trap. The Dragon King was the one who had attacked them in the first place, thinking that the current arrangement was too passive. It was impossible to believe that he would change his tune now. This was undoubtedly a plot to dispose of Lufas, who’d been a thorn in the Dragon King’s side.

  Borealis simply shook his head, seeming tired. “It is as you say, Alphecca. But there is also no guarantee that he will break his promise either.”

  “W-Well, yes, but... You should know of his cruelty and brutality as well, my liege! Even if he were to honor his promise and withdraw here, he will simply come back! That’s just how the Dragon King is!”

  “You might be right, but... We’re already exhausted from fighting. Our forces, which used to be in the tens of thousands, now are only a measly ten thousand. All our captured monsters have also been decimated... Our people have suffered untold losses. Even if we continued to fight, we would only be drawing out our destruction.”

  The war with the dragons had caused many losses on both sides, but in terms of pure numbers, humanity had suffered much more. No matter how strong Lufas and her party were, just four people were not enough to protect everything. If the enemy were to split up, Lufas and the others would have no way of protecting everything at once, and their allies would be killed while they were still running to save them.

 

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