kscans

Chapter 107 - The Ice Palace

I let flames wreathe my blade.

A swarm of dragons bore down on me. It was a scene straight out of a video game, yet it was undeniably real.

Which meant I had to break through. I had to trample these lizards blocking my path, secure our survival, and rescue the captives.

"Get out of my way!"

I kicked off the air with explosive force, supplying my blade with maximum mana output as I glided forward. The wind and flames that swelled around me, I unleashed them all at once.

The crimson light illuminated a sky shrouded in dark snow clouds.

About ten dragons, their maws wide open as they prepared to fire lances of ice, were swallowed by the inferno. In an instant, their scales were charred black and their eyeballs evaporated. In the wake of the firestorm, the Cuelebre fell from the sky, trailing black smoke.

As I raced down the path carved by the vaporized snow, the other dragons, buffeted by the pressure wave, surged toward me, determined not to let me escape.

I shifted the flow of mana to the soles of my feet. With [Concept Interference], my feet gripped the wind, and the horseshoe-shaped magic items allowed me to dig in deeper, stronger, launching my body in my desired direction.

I forced back the cold air streaming past my exposed mouth with a hot breath, then accelerated forward into a sharp ascent. As I gained altitude on a perpendicular trajectory, the dragons lost sight of me for a moment.

I flipped my body upside down and charged toward the targets, their necks now carelessly exposed. With all the force of my legs and gravity behind it, I slammed my blade into a long neck, channeling mana into the sword at the moment of impact.

Wind and fire enveloped the blade, melting through scales and flesh alike. As the ground rushed up to meet me, I adjusted my orientation with a burst of wind and channeled mana back to my feet.

I ran through the air as if descending a steep hill while five dragons gave chase from above. Dozens of ice lances stabbed into the earth, kicking up plumes of white snow like explosions where they landed.

They were on my tail, but I tried to shake them with sheer speed. A moment later, a massive shuriken flew in from behind the dragons, whose role had just switched from interception to pursuit, and reaped their lives.

A Cuelebre must have tried to defend itself with some kind of magic, but it only backfired. At an unbelievable speed, the shuriken flew over my head.

Just as the shuriken was about to vanish into the blizzard, Professor Arisugawa suddenly appeared in mid-air and wrapped a golden chain around the ring-shaped handle at its center—the one part not imbued with the [Concept Interference] skill.

The shuriken stopped spinning in an instant. Like a hammer thrower, she swung it once by the chain and hurled it back the way it came.

The re-accelerated blade bisected another dragon, and I sensed the enemy formation fall into disarray.

Just as I thought it had stopped with a solid thud, I heard the sound of the professor, who had just passed me, drawing her bow.

With a deafening roar, the mana signatures began to vanish.

No slowing down. The three of them were coordinating well, and it seemed Byakuren was helping them, too.

In that case, I should just keep running as I please.

"Hyaaaaah...!"

This must be the right way. After all, another swarm of dragons was appearing, so thick I could see them even through the blizzard. They really didn't want me going any further.

I gripped the hilt with both hands, took two, three hopping steps as if skipping, and then leaped with all my might.

"GAAAAAAAAAAH!!"

A gaping maw, easily capable of crushing a human skull. I slid my blade into it without slowing down as I passed, cleaving it in two and sending the upper jaw flying.

Next, I dodged three charging dragons with small, precise steps to the left and right, then kicked the fourth one in the face and did a backflip.

Instantly switching the flow of mana, I spun my body horizontally. The wind and flames wreathing my blade forcibly tore through scales and neck alike.

In response, the Cuelebre immediately changed direction and tried to surround me in a sphere. As I thought, their turning performance was overwhelmingly superior.

It didn't matter. Thanks to the professor, I had the advantage in speed.

Channeling mana into my footing, I sidestepped to evade a surprise attack from behind. Then, as I jumped diagonally upward to avoid a bite from the side, I met a charge from the opposite direction with my sword.

Twisting my body, I tore through a wing, kicked off the air, and dove. Ice lances rained down on the spot where I had just been, the dragons not caring if they hit their own allies.

"Kyouta-kun, can you hear me!? The Cuelebre's weak point is its throat. Just as eastern dragons have a reverse scale, their weak point is there!"

"Roger that."

I see. So that's why that spot felt so soft.

As I fell with my back to the ground, the dragons swooped down from above to devour me. Just before my body touched the snowy earth, I released a blast of wind, sliding horizontally across the ground. They, too, avoided crashing into the snow-covered road and pulled up their noses—no, their dragon heads.

But I wouldn't let them catch me. As I pushed myself up and kicked off the ground to leap, another group was waiting in the air, mouths open, ready to pincer me.

I dodged the welcoming curtain of ice lances with a triangle jump. The moment the Cuelebre tried to switch to close-quarters combat in the now-closed distance, I thrust my sword into the throat of the nearest one.

Just as she said, the throat was soft. With my sword buried deep, I used the wind to reverse our positions and leaped again with the strength of my legs.

From above, I looked down on dozens of Cuelebre.

I knew their weak point, but I didn't have the luxury of aiming for it. So—I would simply trample them all, regardless.

"Burn..."

I channeled mana into the ring, making my blade glow red.

"Burn...!"

I cloaked it in wind, fanning the flames to greater intensity.

"BUUUUUUUURN!!"

I diverted every last bit of mana from my footing to my attack and unleashed it straight down.

The Cuelebre, clustered together like arrowheads fired from the ground in pursuit of me. But it seemed they weren't fools.

With the lead dragon at the center, they deployed a purplish barrier. Using the magical shield, not a physical one, they tried to pierce through the storm of fire.

The chaotic dance of flames, hot enough to melt iron, only slightly warped the dragons' ice-like barrier. The difference in output was just too great.

The swarm of dragons broke through the red wall. And they were in close range—within reach of my sword.

The feint was enough. Time to land the real blow.

[Concept Interference].

The blade I'd held in place slid through the barrier, slicing it open. The impact threw my body upward, and the breath caught in my throat. Swallowing back whatever was rising up, I poured the same amount of mana as before into the ring and my sword.

A storm of fire raged within the barrier. It shone like a lighthouse in the blizzard, and a few seconds later, it shattered the purple barrier like glass.

Enough salt to bury a large truck, along with the remnants of the barrier, rained down to the ground.

I spared it a single glance to make sure there were no survivors, then kicked off the air and started running again.

A feeling of something rising within me. I'd felt the same sensation twice since the battle started. I had probably leveled up.

How game-like, I thought, a bit late in the game. But I knew the mountain of corpses and river of blood I'd seen on the way here were no illusion. That family crushed to death in their car—that was real, too.

There were no saves or loads. In that respect, I almost wished this world really was more like a game.

...But this wasn't the time for such sentimentality.

I shook my head, forcing my mind, which was beginning to calm, back into a frenzy. I drew the painfully cold air into my body and glanced behind me to see how the others were faring.

It seemed enemies were gathering from all sides, not just from the front. Several Cuelebre were bearing down on them.

But they were being shot down as if brushed aside with an armored sleeve.

Unlike the ice the Cuelebre fired, these were chunks of blue ice. Several of them, many times larger than a person, floated around Mia-san and the others.

As the dragons scattered to break through the ice blocks obstructing their attacks and approach, Erina-san, who had been hiding behind one, leaped out and gouged a dragon's brain through its eye with her ninja sword.

She rotated around the sword as if doing a pull-up on a bar, then used the dragon's head as a springboard to jump. Using a grappling hook, she leaped from one ice block to another, picking off the Cuelebre whose flight paths were now restricted.

And at the spot she wasn't covering, Byakuren was hurling an iron ball at the face of any Cuelebre that tried to break through.

It struck the barrier the dragon deployed just before impact, and the iron ball, its destructive power enhanced by [Concept Interference], shattered the scales like spun sugar, crushing flesh and bone.

While not quite an assembly line, the two of them and the golem were dispatching enemies without any trouble. However, there was one person slaughtering dragons at an even faster pace.

The only D-Rank adventurer among us, and a university professor who, despite being an elf, was over seventy years old.

She flickered in and out of existence as if blinking. From the flow of mana, I could tell she was using short-range teleports repeatedly, but the interval between her spell activations was incredibly short.

The Cuelebre couldn't even keep up with Professor Arisugawa, and before they knew it, she was close enough to touch.

Before gravity could pull her slender body down, the arrow that was already drawn was loosed.

With a destructive sound like cannon fire, the professor pierced the throat of a Cuelebre with a single, lethal arrow.

She's strong. Partial time-stop and continuous short-range teleports. Her skills are pretty damn broken, too.

As I was thinking that, a voice echoed from my earring.

"It's happening so fast and the mirror is so small I can't really tell, but is Grandma actually getting close to shoot them? With a bow and arrow? Ah, the Cuelebre have some kind of barrier..."

"It is difficult to hit a moving target. In the first place, I had never even handled a bow before the Day of Awakening."

"Seriously?!"

If you can't hit them, just get close enough that you can't miss...

I wanted to question the point of using a bow, but one look at the power of the professor's arrows silenced me. The red cloth wrapped around the limbs of her bow was probably what amplified its destructive power.

In any case, we'd broken through the first and second waves. The remaining enemy strength was unknown, but their stronghold was coming into view.

"Is that..."

It was hard to see through the blizzard, but that was definitely a palace.

A cluster of buildings made of purple ice. Except for the central dome, each one was about the size of a multi-story house.

But the majestic aura they emanated, combined with the incredibly dense mana, made them seem like far more massive structures.

Under any other circumstances, I might have been captivated by its beauty. An ice palace that seemed neither man-made nor a creation of nature.

But right now, it was just an annoying, illegal structure. I was going to tear it down.

"I'm going in."

"Understood, go on ahead!"

"Hey, hey, isn't it a bad idea to get too far ahead?!"

"I'll just trample over that kind of logic."

I dashed through the debris and 'red stains' scattered in the snow, heading straight for the main gate without slowing down.

I slammed into the ice door with all my momentum. The hinges shattered, and the thick gate fell with a tremendous crash.

The sound was deafening. The smooth floor cracked, and the blizzard began to pour in through the newly opened entrance.

It was a dome-shaped building. Inside, there was nothing except for 'one thing and one being'.

In a space the size of several gymnasiums, there was a single throne.

It was adorned with intricate decorations, and combined with its immense size—far too large for a human—it exuded an unfathomable pressure.

But even that was nothing but dust compared to the palace's master seated upon it.

With a rustle, its wings spread like the masts of a sailing ship. Purple patterns were etched into the black membranes, glowing faintly with the mana flowing through them.

A dragon, its entire body covered in rugged, jet-black scales, glared down at me with crimson eyes.

Its two powerful legs supported a frame several sizes larger than a normal Cuelebre.

Like the cracking bark of an ancient tree, the monster's jaw opened.

"■■■■■■■───!!!"

An unearthly roar shook the palace, and a fierce blizzard erupted from nowhere, instantly transforming the interior into a world of silver.

Rey Cuelebre.

The lord of dragons was looking at me with eyes colder than anything else in this place.