“Gideon, don’t give up. You are a stubborn man.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment…”
Stupid Dragon! Is that really somethin’ you should say in this situation? Even his usually eloquent choice of words has become sloppier. There should be a limit to how much you can catch somebody off guard during battle. The tension eases from my clamped jaw.
“You are the most stubborn creature I’ve encountered in the past hundred years,” he adds.
The creases in my brow loosen. Whoa, am I smiling right now? In this extremely desperate situation with no possible escape?
“…What an honor.”
Dragon circles around and faces Demon Beast once again. That’s right, I’m a knight. By means of the sword, my body becomes a shield. My sword broke, but my heart hasn’t yet.
Abandoning sleeping townspeople, who believe that morning will come because they don’t know any better, is never an option… Never. Princess is well-aware of that. Her intentions are the same. And that’s exactly why—
“Let’s do this, partner. For the princess.”
“For the princess.”
I glare at the demon beast blocking the path in front of us. Illuminated by the rising morning sun, the horn on its forehead glows.
“…! Do you see that, Spike?!”
“Aye, I see it, Gideon.”
Through Dragon’s vision I can see it clearly: the gigantic, warped, razor horn jutting out of the blue girl’s forehead is a mirror. It’s a cluster of mirror shards. Reflected light bounces from the mirror-like horn, as if stitching together every nook and cranny of the demon beast.
That’s it: the source of sinister blue light that’s been madly firing at us like it’s got no end to its energy.
That’s the core of this thing!
“Gideon, it’s the horn. Break that horn!”
“Gotcha! Leave it to me!”
Having said that, all I’ve got on me is a broken sword. This hunk of metal is ridiculously inadequate for the job. And I can’t remove my shield; I have to keep protecting Princess with it.
Is there anything heavy around? I need something heavy and long. Is there anything? Anything at all? Something somewhere?
I can see the castle spire from where we’re flying. Looking like a humongous spear, it’s an overdone, excessively pointy metal spire affixed to the top of the roof. It’s an addition from Lord Designs’ massive castle renovations. Was it built to ward off evil spirits? As a weather vane? Repellent against lightning? Or is it simply a decoration for showing off his might? Dunno what it’s for, but it’s about to come in handy.
“Spike, fly close to that spire.”
“You ask for the impossible.”
“You can do it, can’t you?”
“Of course.”
Steering his wounded body with his swishing tail, Dragon tilts diagonally. The tail end of his sizzling and singed wing throbs in pain. Holding onto the harness strap, I lean forward.
It’s coming closer. Just a little more. Just a little closer—now!
Standing on the tips of my toes, I grab hold of the weather vane. I channel the speed of Dragon flying past into my arms. Mustering all the strength in my body, I twist it. My knees buckle and my body lifts into the air. Icy sweat permeates my skin. Will I or the weather vane break first?
“I absolutely won’t…let go!”
SNAP!
My shoulder is saddled with a definite heft. I won. The spear-like weather vane snapped and broke off its base. Praise be to lazy workers with a slipshod work ethic!
“Yes! GOOOO!”
We fly around the spire and confront the demon beast again. Now, this is the moment of truth!
“Princess.” I take her tiny hand and wrap it around the shield’s strap. “Protect yourself with this, my princess.”
Her freckle-covered face looks up at me and nods powerfully, her red hair bouncing. “I will, my knight.”
That’s my girl. My face unconsciously softens into a smile. I find her precious from the bottom of my heart all over again. Reverfeat’s Lala Lilia is a brave little lady with a fighter’s spirit.
“I’m off then.”
“Incoming, Gideon!”
“Got it! Once I jump—”
“I know.”
“Okay!”
The moment they fly past each other is when the distance between the red dragon and blue beast shrinks the greatest, and we come as close as possible to making time stand still. Tightly grasping my makeshift weapon in both hands, I kick off Dragon’s back and jump for it. From the perfect location at the perfect angle. Demon Beast will come at me of its own volition from here! For a moment I am left without my great dragon steed and float in the air. Dragon swoops away, and Demon Beast charges at me.
Blue light brushes by me. I’m lucky—it seems to struggle with aiming the smaller its target is.
Swinging the weather vane overhead, Demon Beast crashes into me and I slam my makeshift spear down into the beast’s horn and slice through from the tip to its root. The blue girl’s jaw drops and she shrieks. I can’t hear her voice. From the top, the horn crumbles and scatters away in very small pieces. A blue lump buried at the base of it is revealed. It’s a sapphire skull embedded in the girl’s forehead. Landing my feet on the beast, I smash the skull with all I’ve got without easing my grip. The sensation of crushing bone vibrates through my weapon to my hand. Without caring or pausing, I continue bashing the weather vane against it.
“Aaah…”
The shards sticking out of the girl’s eyes tremble, then vanish into powder. Her injured eyelids open. The light of life twinkles momentarily in her blue eyes until it’s extinguished.
I reach out my hand to close her eyes. I can’t find any words to offer her. A beautiful and cherubic face with a grotesque body kneaded together with corpses; everything she’s done is engraved in this body. Creaking, thin cracks start to form throughout it…
“Huh?”
The body begins to fall apart. Glowing sand ripples away. The beast I once stood upon falls apart like ash from a burning log.
“WAAAH!”
Losing my footing, I fall. I flail my arms and legs, but there’s nothing for me to grab on to. Dragon is flying full-speed in the opposite direction, since that’s exactly what we decided he should do just before I leapt from his back onto the demon beast. He won’t make it in time even if he notices and turns back now. I went through with the plan well-aware of the risks. Wind howls in my ears. The ground is incoming, inevitable. So this is what they mean by sayin’ time slows down before death, like trying to chew hard toffee. The speed is all the more cruel.
Ahhh, damn it all. Is this how it ends for me? What an idiotic way to die… Well, at least I accomplished what I needed to do. No regrets here.
If I look up, I can see the dawning sky. It changes colors from indigo to purple to light-crimson. How pretty. Not a half-bad final landscape to see before it’s all over…
SLAM! My descent stops. I am jerked sideways as if by some unseen force. My body swings through the air and toward the castle. “WAAAAH!” I scream out in panic.
“Oh?” a voice says calmly, almost as if it were secretly laughing at me. “It appears to be rainin’ black knights…”
A gargantuan spider is clinging to the castle walls. And the silver-haired witch is on its back. A hand covers her lips, but I can hear her giggling even as my momentum slows while I swing back and forth at the edge of the castle wall.
“There you go.” The silver thread connected to her ebony fingers is firmly secured around me. “You need to think through your endgame better, old man.”
“…I’ve got no excuses there.”