“Hup!” I grunted.
“Wha?!” uttered the stunned Aruku.
This wasn’t any fancy judo or aikido technique—this was just me lifting Aruku with everything I had and letting all of that momentum slam him into the ground!
The ground bowed where Aruku hit it, and his armor rattled loudly from the force of the impact. When I heard his despondent groan, I felt bad for what I’d done but immediately healed the damage from my throw attack as I confirmed that he was finally unconscious. I’d been careful to make sure that Aruku didn’t land on his head, but I’d nonetheless thrown him with tremendous force to make sure he wasn’t going to be able to get back up.
I let out a sigh of relief as I stood back to my feet and caught my breath.
The healing punch healed with each blow, but this time the ability healed at the moment he was thrown to the ground.
“I hereby call it . . . the healing throw!” I stated.
I came up with it in the heat of the moment, but I had a feeling the technique would come in really handy in the future.
In any case, I finally had Aruku unconscious. He probably wasn’t free from Nea’s brainwashing yet, but I hoped that knocking her out cold would solve that problem.
“Alrighty then,” I said, shedding the gauntlet on my left hand.
I healed the burns across my hand and looked up at Nea. Even with Aruku completely out of the game, she didn’t look fazed in the slightest. In fact, she looked down at me like she had expected this from the very beginning. It sent a shiver down my spine.
“It’s just you now,” I said.
“Or is it?” replied Nea.
“I don’t care how many more zombies you’ve got, they won’t stop me.”
“No match for you, huh? Well, that is, if they’re an ordinary zombie, I guess. If they’re just a run-of-the-mill, everyday zombie.”
I didn’t like her tone of voice.
“What are you scheming?” I asked.
Nea simply giggled and shot me a bold grin. She wasn’t going to tell me anymore, so I figured there was no better time to knock her out cold.
Then I felt something strange.
Why does she still have her palm pointed at the ground like that?
It didn’t look like a sorcery hex. Was she casting something at the ground?
No, it looks like she’s casting through the ground.
“Trying to raise more zombies?” I asked.
She knew just as well as I did that I would crush any ordinary zombie. Did that mean she was raising something like Blurin? A powerful monster zombie?
But there couldn’t possibly be any monster corpses . . . Wait. No way.
“The thing that Amako saw . . . in the basement.”
The one place I hadn’t seen myself. The place that Amako had been strangely terrified of. Just as the thought hit me, the manor shook as terrible sounds echoed from within. The sound of things breaking.
“What the heck?!” I exclaimed as I turned to see what was going on.
It was the sound of something forcing its way to the surface from below the manor. I could see the manor creaking and shaking as it happened.
What is going on?
I watched dumbfounded as a blue shape emerged from the manor and dashed toward me. It was Amako astride Blurin.
“Usato!” she shouted.
“Amako! Blurin! You’re safe!” I said. “But what’s happening, Amako?”
Amako hopped down from Blurin as she spoke.
“I don’t even want to imagine it, but I think the creature I saw in the basement is . . . waking up.”
“Can you cut the dramatics and give it to me straight?”
I knew that something bad was happening—that was a certainty—but I still didn’t know exactly what. Amako’s face went white as a sheet as she turned back to the manor and spoke.
“It’s a monster. It’s big and it’s got a mouth full of sharp teeth, and . . . its one remaining eye is overflowing with pure hatred. I think it’s . . .”
Before she could finish, a huge claw burst up through the first floor of the manor. Another soon followed, opening a huge hole.
Even with her own manor being destroyed before her very eyes, Nea cackled with laughter as her wings kept her floating in the air above us. I turned away from the monstrosity that was appearing before us and glared up at her.
“Nea! What did you just wake up?!” I shouted.
“Oh, but isn’t that obvious? It’s the creature that’s going to take you down!”
You want me so bad that you’re going to bring something like this back to life?
I heard a raspy growl from within the manor, and the hairs on my neck stood up. There was a brief moment of silence, and then, the manor floor burst into a cloud of dirt and dust. From it emerged a monster.
“You have to be kidding . . .” I muttered.
It had huge front legs, a single wing on its back, and one ominous, menacing black eye. I was hit hard by the rotting stench of it.
“What is that?”
I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. It couldn’t have been a living creature. Such a creature never should have been allowed to even exist. Its presence alone radiated with hatred and enmity. It opened its mouth and let out a rumble that grew into a deafening roar. It must have reached as far as the heavens.
It was the dragon from the notebook I’d read.