It took a bit of searching, but I had found just the right word to describe her charm. I looked at her proudly and found her obsidian eyes glimmering in the sunlight that shone through the window. Her cheeks had a rosy tint, and her slightly ajar lips quivered. I wondered what sorts of emotions she was going through.
Suddenly, I felt her pinch the back of my hand.
“Yeow! Ow, ow! You’re gonna rip my skin off!” I yelped. As my face contorted in pain, Wridra’s expression lightened into a smile. She must have been some sadist because the melancholy from earlier had vanished without a trace.
“You fool. You buffoon. You sleepy-faced delinquent office worker who goes home immediately at the end of the work day,” she said.
“Wait, are you insulting me?” I asked.
“Hmph, I doubt any insult I hurl at you will get through your thick skull. In any case, you propose an interesting idea. When I picture him in the palm of my hand, my worries vanish as if awakening from a dream. It feels like finishing a mystery novel. Your sharp reasoning has cut the problem down in one fell swoop.”
A pleasant aroma filled the air as a cup of tea appeared before me like magic. Maybe this was her way of thanking me.
“Trying to make me your accomplice?” I asked, chuckling.
“I know you. You may look like a straight arrow, but you are the type to plot in secret, waiting for the opportunity to turn the tables. I must say, I do not hate rascals like you.”
She thought too highly of me. At work, people just saw me as an ordinary, harmless guy. But I completed my work quickly so I could go home immediately when business hours were over, which wasn’t worthy of praise.
We suddenly burst into laughter, though we kept it stifled since we were in a library. I listened to Wridra’s soft chuckles as I sipped from the fragrant tea. While I was careful not to spill any on the books, I wasn’t proud of breaking the rules. Once Wridra’s laughter settled down, she pointed a finger at a book.
“First, I must make sure he listens. With our difference in power, it would only be fair to even the playing field with some underhanded tactics,” said Wridra, smiling.
“Oh?” I said, noticing the rather uncouth thing she was pointing at. It was a book about large-caliber rifles.
I wondered what our Arkdragon was up to, yet she narrowed her eyes in an alluring smile as if to say I would have to wait and find out.
Repairing the Ichijos’ relationship a little while back was quite an undertaking. Still, a quarrel between two legendary dragons was going to be on a whole different level. It was a dragon we were talking about, so I assumed he wasn’t going to die just from getting shot a few times. And so, I enjoyed the fragrance of the tea as I took another sip.
§
Wridra took in a deep breath, closed her eyes, and reached out her arm. Her hand brushed up against a rough, textured surface. It was like a rock or perhaps metal, although it moved as if it were breathing.
The air was cold against her skin, and no one had visited the cave she was in for a long time. All alone in that place, she slowly pursed her lips.
“This may fundamentally change the way I am as an Arkdragon,” said the dragon who had lived through the Age of Darkness, Age of Night, and Age of Man. Her voice carried a hint of regret mixed with anticipation and joy at opening a new door.
When she opened her eyes, a dragon covered in scales the color of night with her likeness appeared. It was a strong, majestic being beyond human comprehension, with clear, unclouded eyes.
She thought its eyes had changed as she stroked the dragon’s scales. Before, she would have avoided such reckless battles. But her mind had continuously worked on finding a way to win. She smiled, realizing she had guided the boy into battle in the past, so it would be hypocritical of her to flee now.
Her opponent was unfathomably powerful. The Prominence Dragon, the Arkdragon’s antagonistic entity, had absolutely dominated her in their last encounter. Strangely, the sheer fury that had been boiling within her like magma all this time had vanished without a trace.
Energy enshrouded Wridra like a quietly burning flame. Her dress-shaped armor thickened, and her dragon horn and tail strengthened. She had transferred her dragon cores, the source of her power, back into her body. After absorbing three of them, it became clear what she had meant by changing the way she was as an Arkdragon. She had decided not to fight as an Arkdragon but in her draconian form. This was her first time attempting such a thing, and she could not tell how it would turn out.
While Wridra hummed a tune, she created something unknown to this world. With her skill, Creation, complex mechanisms and suspensions were being assembled and attached to a cylindrical object. She made it based on the documentation she had read, which led to differences in the details. Additionally, she modified some parts to accommodate demon matter as an energy source.
The objects burst apart with a loud cracking noise, then reassembled at different angles.
After she put it together, she took it apart again to make improvements. Several cycles of disassembly and reassembly occurred, and various parts formed geometric shapes behind the laughing dragon.
There was a sense of motherliness about her as she said, “Those kids... I am about to face such a formidable opponent, and they ask me when I will return. Do they believe I am going on a grocery run or something?”
The barrel attached to the rest of the gun with a heavy click, and she loaded a bullet brimming with demon matter sealed within it into the chamber. Wridra was having fun with the process, finding it satisfying to go through multiple revisions to create something new.
She took a deep breath and exhaled as she prepared to weave the finest of magic. Moreover, she had a duty to enforce their positions as a neutral party.
A deep silence fell upon the Arkdragon’s den.
Though a serious and resolute expression would have been appropriate, Wridra was far too happy for stoicism. She continued creating weapons other than the rifle she had already made, and her den soon looked like a storehouse for heavy weaponry.
The weapons, products of research and engineering, were works of art in her eyes, and she sighed ecstatically.
“Ahh... I cannot wait. Soon, I will pursue new heights of magic to my heart’s content. To think the day would come when I would understand how Kitase felt,” she said, chuckling.
Although she would soon be fighting a grand and decisive battle, she seemed to be having fun.