I went outside and saw a red dragon flying toward us from the front. My Scan was effective up to three miles away from me, but their being in the air meant I could see them from further than that.
I used Telescope and saw a massive figure in a bright-red full plate riding on the dragon’s back—and I already knew who this guy was.
He was Blast Garland, the Fallen Dragon Knight, a former S-rank adventurer turned cleaner. He lost his adventurer title after killing his entire party. Needless to say, a pretty violent guy.
“There’s a high-level cleaner riding the dragon. Eric, what do you want me to do?” I asked.
“Could you leave this one to me? Gregg, you and your squad intercept the dragon. Oscar, have your squad set up a defensive perimeter here.”
The knights leapt into action at Eric’s command.
Gregg and his squad cast Fly and flew toward the dragon. Oscar, Turner, Ziehr, Jarred, and Guyer made a circle around the carriage. Sophia and Zeke ordered each of their two guards to join them. Milia and Sophia stayed near me so I could protect them.
“Eric, I’ll protect everyone and the carriage,” I relayed.
“Thank you, Arius. Knowing you’re protecting them means I won’t have to worry.”
The dragon had continued to advance during this until it was within my Scan range.
“The dragon is about level 300. The guy on its back is over level 500. There’s a chance he could be even stronger if he’s hiding his mana,” I told everyone.
“You can detect his mana from this far? You really are incredible,” Eric remarked, then he sent the information to the knights via a Message along with orders.
Once Gregg’s squad was about a half a mile away from the carriage, they spread out in the air to intercept the enemy. Gregg readied a six-and-a-half-foot-long magic item with a dark metallic gleam. This was the magic gun used by Zack Trigger, the cleaner who attacked during the Combat Tournament. Eric had recovered it and put it to good use.
“Snuff it, you damn lizard!” Gregg shouted as he lined up the shot and pulled the trigger. It fired a mass of mana that discharged shocks into the air as it traveled faster than the speed of sound for a direct hit to the dragon’s head.
One hit wasn’t enough to take it out, but the dragon thrashed in pain, throwing Blast off its back.
“Hey, what’re ya doing all a sudden?! Natural dragons are expensive!” shouted Blast, who, in the next moment, was right in front of Gregg using Short Teleport.
The giant of a man, over six and a half feet tall in his bright-red plate armor, swung a massive battle-ax at Gregg, sending him plummeting toward the ground.
“Captain!”
Gregg’s squad countered with skills and spells. Blast was clearly a higher level than they were, but they were no newcomers to combat. They focused on defense as they went after him, with the rear knights casting defensive spells while the others hit Blast with skills and spells from front and back, top and bottom, left and right.
“Tsk! Y’all think you’re so smart?!”
Refusing to just take it, Blast used Short Teleport to put distance between them, where he then tried to meet back up with his dragon. But a mana bullet traveling faster than the speed of sound pierced the dragon, and its massive body fell to the ground.
“You’re the one who thought they were smart, taking us by surprise,” barked Gregg as he flew up, magic gun in hand.
The moment he’d taken the hit from Blast’s battle-ax, Gregg activated a skill that allowed him to guard against the attack. He’d still taken a decent amount of damage, but not so much that he couldn’t fight.
“Ya killed my dragon!”
Blast attacked Gregg, trying to smash his gigantic battle-ax into him again, but it was blocked by a defensive spell cast by one of the support members of the squad.
“Unfortunately, you’re fighting more than just me,” Gregg sneered, switching the gun for a sword to counterattack. The other knights joined in, focusing their fire on Blast.
Backed into a bad position by the knights, Blast cast Short Teleport to escape, but when he appeared in the new location, he suddenly froze perfectly still, like he’d been bound head to toe in chains.
“Since Short Teleport isn’t your forte, you really should pay more attention to your rear,” announced Eric. He was the one who’d stopped Blast with Chains of Binding, a tier-seven mind control-type spell that completely stopped the target from moving. It even stopped their mental activity. High-level targets or those with a high resistance to magic could resist the spell, but not even Blast at over level 500 could resist Eric’s point-blank Chains of Binding.
Immobilize the enemy and take them out in one hit. That was Eric’s true fighting style. If he’d used Chains of Binding in the Combat Tournament, he could have instantly defeated Keith.
“Your Highness, we can handle this enemy on our own, and the duke is after you,” said Gregg with annoyance.
“I wanted him taken alive so we can get information out of him. If I’d left it to you, you likely would have killed him, no?”
Eric ordered the knights to put manacles on Blast’s arms and legs, magic items that sealed mana in the same way as the black collar I’d used on Chris. They weren’t as powerful as the collar, but four should be able to hold the mana of someone like Blast.
The knights dragged him to the wagon and tossed him in a cell they’d placed in the bed, another magic item that couldn’t easily be destroyed. Two knights stayed in the wagon to keep an eye on him, but Blast wasn’t getting out with his mana sealed.
One of the support knights healed Gregg’s wounds with magic. They worked great together and functioned well as a squad.
“Good work, everyone. I’m glad there were no casualties,” Sophia said to Eric when he returned.
In the end, she and the others didn’t need to take part in the battle, though they probably learned something just by being there when a dragon attacked.
“Things went well this time, but there’s no guarantee they will next time. I don’t intend to lose to Duke Jordan, but I doubt we’ll escape with no casualties,” Eric replied.
“I understand, Your Highness.”
What Sophia needed most right now was more experience. Eric wasn’t asking her to be part of the fighting force. In order for her to be what he required her to be, she had to gain experience and grow as someone who carried the future of Ronaudia on her shoulders. Sophia knew this as well. Her thoughts informed her actions when it came to supporting Eric.
Zeke and his guards were currently watching the surroundings. He was also trying his hardest to do what he could.
Gregg and several of the knights gathered around the dragon’s corpse. When you defeated monsters in dungeons, they left behind nothing but magic crystals and occasionally loot, but natural monsters left bodies like any other natural creature. If left, it would rot and could lead to illness, so they needed to take what materials they needed from it and burn the rest.
Materials from dragons were used in powerful magic items and potions, meaning they threw away basically nothing. It was pretty damaged since it was shot while flying, then hit the ground, but dragons were sturdy, so there was still plenty that could be salvaged.
“Captain, are we really going to burn the whole thing?” one of the knights asked.
“We don’t have time to break it down. Come on, get moving,” ordered Gregg.
It took quite a long time to cut apart something as huge as a dragon to get what could be used.
“Why don’t you let me transport it?” I suggested. “You can break it down later.”
“Uh…how are you planning to carry it? We’d have to cut off its head and legs to get it in your Inventory, and that would take—”
Before Gregg could finish, I put the entire dragon in my Inventory. It was faster just to do it than to try to explain.
“H-Hey! What the?! It disappeared!”
“Are you saying you fit the entire thing in your Inventory?!”
Inventory was a tier-ten Space spell. Most adventurers of A rank and above could use the spell, but there was a limit to its capacity, about six square feet and up to about a ton in weight.
In order to fit an entire dragon into your Inventory, you’d need to understand the structure of the spell so you could expand its space. I was pretty sure there were some SS-rank adventurers who could do the same. However, maybe there weren’t that many who would bother going that far since it was just for storing objects.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to demand a portion of it because I carried it for you.”
“Uh, no, I wasn’t worried about that. Prince Eric did tell us about you, but…what are you?”
Gregg and the knights were flabbergasted, but my friends had a completely different reaction.
“When you spend time with Arius, this kind of thing doesn’t surprise you at all,” said Sophia.
“Yeah. Because he’s the one doing it,” groaned Milia.
“Looks like you two understand him well,” Zeke observed.