In just one day, Theodore freed three towns from the dragons. Each town was ruled by one dragon. Theodore would casually walk up to it and slice it clean in half with one strike of his sword. The people didn’t thank him, though. Far from it—they threw stones at him and cursed him, as they feared retribution from other dragons.
Theodore kept going from one place to another, determined to restore the world that had been so dear to his hero friends.
Less than a month later, half of the thousand towns in the kingdom were dragon-free. Even as the people were scared the dragons would retaliate and get their revenge, they began to secretly hope that this mysterious swordsman might bring an end to the dragons’ rule. They began to call him the Dragon Hunter.
“Are you the Dragon Hunter?”
An enormous black dragon blocked Theodore’s way on a steep mountainside. It watched him with yellow eyes gleaming like gemstones.
“You are strong, but you are lacking,” the black dragon said to him.
Theodore sensed that the dragon was stronger than the demon lord he’d defeated, stronger than any of the dragons he’d killed, stronger than any of the holy beasts he’d triumphed over in the tower. But he drew his sword nonetheless, as he’d always done when encountering an opponent, as he’d always do.
“Are you prepared to sacrifice yourself for your objective?”
Theodore nodded firmly.
The dragon bared its teeth in a smile. “Very well.”
For three days and three nights, they were locked in battle, until they both collapsed. Theodore, covered in wounds all over. The dragon, with Theodore’s sword buried in its chest.
“I am one of the five kings,” the dragon said as its life slowly drained away.
It told Theodore that it knew dragons didn’t belong in that world. It told him it never felt the dragons had any right to destroy the cultures they encountered in the world that wasn’t theirs, or to make themselves the rulers thereof. The dragon was very fond of humans, in fact, and had even fallen in love with a woman, but a world where dragons and humans peacefully coexisted was not meant to be. The reason for that was the other four royal dragons.
“I couldn’t protect her, her family, or her town. So many years have passed since they all died. All this time, I have been waiting. I have been waiting for someone who could kill dragons.”
Theodore listened quietly. He had no energy left, not even enough to move a finger.
“I shall give you my power, but be aware that I can only do so by fusing with you. And then you will no longer be able to live as a human, but neither will you live as a dragon.”
Theodore mustered the rest of his strength to reply, “If that’s what it takes for me to save my homeland, I will accept your power.”
Theodore had slain the demon lord to prove something to himself. He’d climbed the tower for the same reason. But now, for the first time, he sought power not for his self-realization, but to protect humans and the land his friends had loved so much.
Reassured by Theodore’s answer, the dragon closed its eyes. Its body began to glow faintly. Theodore’s body had been losing heat as his life trickled out of him, but suddenly, he was so hot, he was burning. Then he felt pain, as if he was being torn to pieces.
✦ ✦ ✦
When Theodore reached the next town, about a hundred dragons gathered around him. One of them laughed mockingly.
“Filthy human! How dare you kill our kind. We are superior to you, who cannot even fly. You humans are pathetic creatures who deserve the worst.”
The group of dragons spread their wings and took to the sky. Theodore sensed they had left nobody alive in the town. He fixed his gaze on the soaring dragons.
“Though you may burn to death, at least your body will be consumed. Your end won’t be for nothing,” a dragon said with a laugh.
Theodore stuck his sword into the ground. The next moment, the dragons breathed fire, turning the town into a sea of flames. But something was moving among the flames, accompanied by a thunderous noise as if the earth was splitting open. Enormous wings stretched above the flames, flapped, and put the fire out. Gemlike yellow eyes locked on the dragons, fire growing hotter and hotter in the throat of their supposed victim. When the flames shot out, they burned the dragons helplessly like moths, melting their fire-resistant scales.
A swordsman walked through the town, which had turned to ash. His name was Theodore, the Dragon Hunter. But he was no longer human.
✦ ✦ ✦
The capital was still in the dragons’ clutches. The throne room in the palace had no ceiling. There were five thrones, but one of them was empty. The others were occupied by dragons, which snarled when a man nonchalantly walked in, carrying a sword on his shoulder.
“You’ve finally come for us, Dragon Hunter?”
The half-human, half-dragon swordsman watched them with his yellow eyes.
“So how does life here compare to the tower?” he asked them quietly.
The dragons roared with laughter.
“This is paradise! We were never meant to be kept in a tiny cage. Here, food is plentiful, and nobody can kill us.”
They laughed, convinced that even Theodore couldn’t hurt them.
“Well, you’re wrong. I will kill you all.”
Theodore held out his sword, but the dragon kings kept laughing.
“Has killing Daemondor given you delusions of grandeur? That fool was the weakest of us, obsessed with humans, wanting to coexist with them.”
Golden light began to emanate from Theodore’s body.
“Well, you may be in for a surprise…”
✦ ✦ ✦
“It worked,” Theodore said, gazing over the wasteland around him. “My strength and the power of your yearning for peace together were stronger than them.”
Next to him lay four dead dragons. As Theodore had seen in the tower, the death of holy beasts also killed all their minions. When he slew the dragon kings, all other dragons in the human world began to spontaneously die.
Theodore had saved the world once again, and this time, people knew whom to be grateful to. He didn’t want fame and glory when he killed the demon lord, but he decided not to hide the fact that it was him who had killed the dragons.
He thought that knowing the dragon-slaying hero was among them would reassure the people they were safe.
I must make sure nobody tries to destroy this world again.
Theodore gave up on trying to reach the top of the tower. He went to visit the graves of the three heroes who’d been his closest friends, glad they never got to see the kingdom taken over by the dragons.
Whether it was the effect of his long stay in the tower or the dragon’s power, he couldn’t say, but he wasn’t aging at all. Since fusing with the dragon and defeating the rest of its kind, he was no longer the same man fixated only on discovering the limits to his strength.
Ten years went by, then a hundred. Theodore watched as human towns, cities, and nations grew and prospered.