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LUSHERA sank up to her shoulders in the red, white, glowing substance.
Her skin and even the inside of her mouth dried to parching, incredible heat pushing down on her from all sides, tormenting her.
“Agh…”
She felt like she was going to breathe out fire every time she exhaled. She focused everything on the energy running through her body, circulating it all the way to the tips of her fingers and toes.
She knew that her body was abnormally resistant to heat and fire, but she also suspected this lake of lava would burn her alive if she relaxed her focus for even a moment.
It’s denser than normal fire…and…it’s not just the temperature. There’s something else…
There was a moment when her mind suddenly moved away from her body, as if it were seeing the world unfolding before her without end. In a horrifying nightmare of nothing but swirling fire, she was plummeting into the abyss.
The lava here was just a tiny sliver of the raging power in the world, no more than the tip of her fingernail. The heat that attacked her now was connected to the world, and she felt like the entire world was trying to swallow her whole.
But that was just a primitive fear felt by a living creature when faced with something great.
“You are really giving it your all,” said Shurei.
He sat floating in midair above the pool of lava with a nonchalant smile.
Lushera lifted one arm from the lava and looked at it. The skin smoked, covered in painful burns, but immediately healed itself.
Her body was surviving at the bare minimum of functionality.
As she was physically destroyed and reformed, the magic inside her—or perhaps it was more accurate to call it the dragon aura—circulated, somehow wicking the damage away to maintain the fact of her existence. There was a difficult to endure pain, like she was being slowly whittled down.
“How…does this end…?” she asked.
“Hm, I’m not really sure.”
“What?!”
Shurei put on a thinking face, playing dumb. Lushera forgot her pain for just a moment as she let out a hysterical cry.
“I’ve heard dragons value their contracts, does that mean they can do whatever they want to someone they don’t have an agreement with?” she asked.
“Do you think you’re equal to us? And here I thought just giving you a chance was already a huge concession on my part.”
“I came here not even knowing what would happen. This started before I could even…agh…before I could even ask any questions. Ahhh… I know it’s late for this, but can we agree on the rules now…?”
Going into a job not knowing what you needed to do or what you would get in return was asking for something bad to happen. Lushera knew it was a mistake to get swept up by the situation and thrown in a pool of lava before clarifying the details.
Lushera and Shurei would never be equal. Lushera had gone beyond being a mere human, becoming closer to being a dragon, but she would never actually be a dragon.
Lava bathing might be just a method of washing to red dragons like Kaphal, but to Lushera, it was a test that could take her life.
And what about it?
She glared right back at Shurei, refusing to look away from his burning eyes.
“All right,” he said. “I will accept you if you survive until the sun rises.”
“But, Father!” cried Kaphal as she watched the proceedings.
That was nearly a whole day from now.
“Are you trying to kill me…?” asked Lushera.
“Are you already whining?”
“I… I think I have a pretty good idea of just how strong I am. Generally…”
Since this was the first time Lushera had ever experienced raging primeval flames gnawing away at her body, she didn’t have a completely clear picture of what her limit was, but she could estimate.
Would she survive until the sun set? If she pushed herself to her limits, grit her teeth and forced herself through on sheer willpower and determination…she wouldn’t make it to see the next sunrise. That’s what she sensed.
And she knew she wasn’t the only one who knew it.
“You know it too,” she said.
“Hm?”
“You gave that target knowing it would be impossible. Which means you must have something else in mind,” she said, looking up at him.
She knew she couldn’t take this old man lightly, not in any way. He probably knew exactly how strong she was with one look. At least an hour had passed since the start of this “test,” and he probably measured how much it drained her. He must have some reason for throwing an impossible task at her, so impossible even she knew she couldn’t do it.
“If you’re using my language out of consideration, don’t,” she said. “Speak to me in Draconic. Or would…doing that be a problem for you? Since it’s not a language suited for hiding things…”
When Shurei suddenly switched to her language, she assumed it was out of consideration for the fact that she was no longer wearing Giselle’s Ring, but what if there was some other motive behind that? Draconic wasn’t good at concealing anything.
“…Such an insolent whelp,” he said. “If you were right, what of it?”
His eyes followed his words. He stared at her, as if seeing into her.
This conversation was part of the test.
“I can’t do anything. I’m just…in a position of trying to be accepted. But if…the purpose of this ‘test’ is just to toy with me and kill me…then…I have to try and think of what to do. I would really appreciate it…if you told me…if that’s not the purpose.”
“If I did intend to kill you, do you think you could stop me?”
“No,” she said firmly. Managing that wouldn’t even just be a one-in-a-thousand chance. It’d be wishful thinking to imagine she even had a one-in-a-million chance. She knew that much at least. “I don’t think I could stop you, but I’d still fight. Because if that happened…the best hope I had would be…to give it everything I had to convince you to work with us.”
“To me, you look just like you’re xxx trying to find a way to xxx survive.”
“I am. If it means my survival, I’ll face any fight without cowardice. I’m not…trying to be cool and claim I’d be happy giving my life for this… I’ve learned that…only tragedy waits for those who don’t value themselves…”