Chapter 2: The Overwhelming Power of the Dragon!
I felt my fist plow straight through the dragon’s scales. I had no idea what kind of power I was capable of unleashing, but I knew I could at least punch the arms off a zombie. It was the kind of strength I could never allow myself to use on a fellow human.
Against the black dragon, however, I barely felt any shock at all from the impact. It felt more like punching straight into thick rubber.
“Ugh. I’m stuck!”
This wasn’t like one of Nea’s hexes. It was like the dragon had simply taken my blow and absorbed it. My punch was completely useless. It reminded me of a line from the old book I’d read.
“. . . but even his powerful spells were useless against the dragon’s thick scales.”
It wasn’t that I’d completely forgotten the line when I threw my punch. Rather, it was just that they’d fought hundreds of years ago, and living creatures rot away and deteriorate with time, and so I’d admittedly been pretty optimistic about my first strike. Now that I’d punched it, I could confirm that the dragon had, in fact, deteriorated. Unfortunately, that didn’t change the fact that my fist was still stuck inside of its body.
“Hrngh!”
The dragon shook, but I need to get clear before Nea recovers.
But just as I tried to pull my fist free, I felt a rumble through my arm.
“What the . . . ?”
At first, I thought I was just imagining things, so I tried to pull my arm free again, but suddenly something blocked the moonlight that had been streaming down upon me.
“Uh . . .” I muttered.
Nea was still wailing somewhere, probably covering her eyes. There was no way that a zombie under her control could move of its own free will. And that’s what I kept telling myself as I clenched my fist and looked up.
We made eye contact. The dragon was in profile with its one good eye meeting my own as it peered down at me. In the dragon’s dry, cracked eye I felt the movements of a consciousness. As the corners of its mouth curled upward, I got the distinct sense of a derisive, scornful grin.
This is so bad. I have no idea what’s going on, but I don’t like it one bit.
I knew then that the dragon was so much more lethal and even more dangerous than the snake I’d fought. I’d never been very eloquent, so I was no good at describing it with words alone, but now I knew how it felt to be a frog trapped in the glare of a predatory snake just before it was killed. That’s the position I was in. The dragon’s one-eyed stare was like chains locking me down. I was frozen in place.
I’m done for if I don’t get moving.
It no longer mattered whether the dragon was conscious or not. I was about to get ground into paste by a dragon while Nea was still writhing around on the roof of the manor.
I can’t let that happen!
“Hrngh . . . gah!”
I pulled hard and finally my fist came free, but in my haste, I also punched myself straight in the face. For a second I felt my consciousness about to fade, but instantly I was back, body and mind working together. I could move again.
“Alright,” I said to myself.
When I hit myself, I’d accidentally split my forehead, and now blood poured between my eyes down to my jaw. But it wasn’t anything my healing magic couldn’t fix. I wiped the blood away with my hand and leaped away from the dragon to put some space between us. The dragon, however, didn’t move. Instead, it simply continued to stare at me.
“Well, now what?” I asked.
The dragon’s poison was life-threatening, its claws weren’t any better, and I didn’t like the idea of having to deal with its tail. On top of that, my fists were useless against it. My chances of winning were practically zero.
“So, I’ll start with Nea,” I said to myself.
If the dragon really was under her control, then taking her out of the fight would take the dragon out of it too. And while the dragon was much more powerful than Aruku, it was also much slower. It wouldn’t be able to stop me from getting to Nea and knocking her out.
My plan was to shift my focus away from the dragon and put the hurt on Nea. But before I could put my plan into action, the dragon shifted its gaze, its neck twisting unnaturally as it peered off in a different direction.
“Des . . . tion . . . Bl . . . od . . . Forall. . . exti. . . on . . . nnnrrrrgghhh. . .”
It looked off into the distance behind me.
“What? Is it trying to say something?” I wondered aloud.
Are those murmurings just a zombie thing? Is the dragon working on some kind of homing instinct? Or is it looking off at the place where it once battled the hero? But is that something zombies are even capable of?
As far as the record I’d read was concerned, the hero and the dragon had faced off in Samariarl, which meant the dragon was looking in the opposite direction. If it was facing anything at all, it was facing Ieva Village, where Tetra and the other villagers lived.
“Well, whatever,” I shrugged. “If it’s not doing anything, then I’m not going to worry about it.”
I took off running for the manor, but I kept one eye on the dragon all the same.
It’s not reacting at all. I guess it really is under Nea’s control after all.
Relieved, I got myself a run-up and prepared to leap onto the manor roof. But at that moment, I heard what sounded like the most horrible chuckle. At the same time, the dragon’s throat began to expand.
“Oh no . . .”
Was it a trap? Is the dragon going to cover me in that poisonous sludge?
I leaped away, but the dragon never turned to face me. It wasn’t concerned with me at all. Instead, its throat continued to expand as it breathed in. I didn’t know what it was doing, so I watched in confusion as I stood by the edge of the manor. That was when I heard Amako’s voice, just faintly, shouting from where she was taking shelter. I looked over and saw her desperately trying to tell me something.
“What is it? I can’t hear you over the wind!” I shouted.
I couldn’t make out any words clearly. I raised a hand to keep sand and dirt from getting in my eyes and looked carefully at Amako’s mouth while she continued to shout in a panic.
“Vil . . . lage! Dan . . . ger! Poi . . . so . . . n!”
No way!
The moment I understood Amako’s words, I jumped up and kicked off the manor wall to leap straight at the dragon’s face. I clenched my left fist as wild winds whipped around me. This time, I had a clear target, and there was anger in my actions. I launched my punch and it collided with the dragon’s lower jaw, right under its one good eye.
“Not on my watch!” I shouted.
The dragon’s jaw slid to the left and let out a purple gas, which surrounded me. I healed myself as I fell back to the ground, but I wasn’t quick enough, and landed flat on my butt, coughing. The poison had gotten into my throat, and I spat blood with each cough.
“No matter how much training I do,” I muttered, wiping the blood from my jaw, “poison always sucks.”
I healed all the poisoned areas and looked back up at the dragon. It was holding its jaw, having crashed into the manor and fallen over from the force of my blow. But it wasn’t out of the fight yet; it was just rattled, and it quickly stood back onto its feet.
“Guess that means me too,” I said, standing up.
Now I knew for certain: I could not just leave the dragon here like this. I had to finish it off, no matter what. That was when Amako ran up to me, her face pale.
“I’m so glad you heard me,” she said.
“Thanks, Amako,” I replied. “Things would have been really bad if you hadn’t gotten through to me. But that dragon . . .”
It had ignored me entirely and tried to attack Ieva Village. When it had turned its head to look elsewhere, it was toward the lights of Ieva, glimmering in the darkness. I didn’t know why the place was important, but I did know that it wasn’t the work of Nea. There was no way she would have used the dragon to brazenly massacre all those people.
“Looks like I underestimated this dragon,” I said. “And now I know what it was trying to say earlier.”
It had spoken its words while it stared at Ieva. I hadn’t understood it at first, but now that I had seen the cruelty of its actions, the meaning was clear.
“Destruction . . . Blood . . . For all, extinction,” I said. “The dragon is driven by a need to destroy. It treated me like a toy, but when it saw the village, it found something even better to play with.”
When the dragon couldn’t land a strike on me, it had turned its attention elsewhere. That made the situation all the more dire, and clearer. The dragon was far too evil and cruel a creature for me to abandon and run away from.
“Nea resurrected a truly horrendous beast,” I said. “And for better or worse, she still has no idea what she’s done.”
That thing was way better off dead. It was irresponsible to bring it back.
I could tell that to Nea, but also to the last hero, who had not killed it. Either way, running away was no longer an option.
“Well, it looks like my fists do work to some extent,” I said. “See how the dragon’s jaw is dislocated? It can’t close its own mouth anymore. It’s got a tough outer shell, but the bones inside can still be broken. And I have the strength to break them.”
Just as I was about to take off, Amako grabbed my arm.
“Usato, let’s run,” she said.
The words left me stunned.
“What?” I uttered. “Run? If we leave that thing to its own devices, it’s going to be a massacre here. On top of that, with all that sludge around us, there’s no way out.”
“Some of the trees still haven’t been hit by the poison. We might be able to use those openings. Usato, I’m as worried as you are about the villagers, but some problems you can’t just punch your way out of.”
I dropped into silence.
“That’s not an ordinary monster. And no matter how strong you are, that dragon’s going to need way more than just punches.”
She’s right. It is overwhelmingly powerful.