But just this one moment, he couldn’t do it.
In his heart, Warren clicked his tongue.
Alois…it seems you weren’t knight captain for nothing.
There was a deep stab wound in Warren’s right leg.
Alois and Warren were worlds apart in skills. Normally, Alois would not even have been able to wound Warren. But that would have only been if Alois were attached to his own life.
Being prepared to take the other man down with him had made things different.
In his final moment, the knight captain had given up on his life. He had chosen to give the other man a wound, even a minor one if he could, in order to help Brunhild and her friends win. Warren had misread the knight’s determination. That was why he had taken a wound on the leg.
That wound kept his body from moving as he wanted it to.
He couldn’t dodge the Thunder.
A crackling sound rang out, and the great hall was lit up white.
The Thunder had struck Warren.
Brunhild cried out quietly, “I did it…!”
Now she had won.
Or so she would have.
The arrow of light hadn’t reached Warren’s body. It struck his left arm and then dispersed.
“It can’t be…”
Warren had defended himself from the Thunder with his left arm, wrapped in his long-sleeved coat. That was impossible. A coat that could block God’s Thunder…
There was no way for Brunhild and her friends to know, but what Warren was wearing was not just any coat. He had favored this coat since his days fighting as a dragonslayer, and it was made from the coat of a magic sheep called Heidrun, which lived in a foreign land. Its wool was so durable, it surpassed even fine armor. The wool of Heidrun had almost entirely reduced the force of the Thunder.
Taking advantage of Brunhild’s carelessness, Warren made to counterattack. He drew a stiletto with his unwounded right hand and threw it at Brunhild.
The sound of flesh being pierced rang out.
“Urgh…” The stiletto had pierced Brunhild’s right shoulder.
That made Warren grind his teeth. I was aiming at her head.
If he had pierced Brunhild’s head, with her invincible body, it would have knocked her out for a little while. Warren had excellent aim with his stilettos—there was just one reason he had missed. He had thrown with his nondominant hand, his right one.
Having blocked the arrow of light, Warren had not gone unscathed. While he had blocked the arrow from reaching his body, his blocking left arm had been burned, coat and all, and was no longer of use. And Warren was left-handed.
He approached Brunhild, who had been stabbed in the arm. If he brought the fight into close range, even attacking with his nondominant right arm, he wouldn’t miss. He was thinking that rather than throwing, he would pierce Brunhild directly.
Seeing Warren come close, Brunhild internally chuckled. Yes. Just like that.
Warren’s blade would pierce her. But that was fine. While she did feel pain, her body was invincible. As he was attacking her, Anima’s magic spear would stab right through Warren. Then they could win this battle.
She glanced over right as Anima recovered from the attack with the severed head and was rushing over toward her.
Brunhild closed her eyes to prepare for the pain of the stiletto. Even if her body was invincible, she never got used to pain.
But the pain that was supposed to hit her never came.
The violent sound of metal clashing made her open her eyes.
“What…?!”
How could this be?
Anima was blocking Warren’s attack toward her with the magic spear.
Finding this unbearable, Brunhild yelled, “Idiot! You…”
Anima cried, “Shut up! I’m sorry…!”
He understood just as well as she did—if he had attacked Warren, they would have won. But seeing Brunhild stabbed with the stiletto in her right shoulder and clearly in pain, he had changed his mind. No—perhaps it would be more accurate to call it an emotional reaction rather than changing his mind. Seeing Warren’s stiletto coming in a follow-up attack, his body had moved on its own. His desire to not hurt Brunhild overcame his logical thinking and made him act. This was the negative side of him thinking of Brunhild as a friend.
His magic spear repelled the stiletto. Warren backed up a few steps.
Warren glared at the two of them, and they glared right back.
The battle in the great hall came to a brief deadlock.
Anima was the one to take a step forward. Warren met his attack. Blade and spear clashed.
Warren had fought with this magic spear once before. At that time, with his uncommon instinct for combat, he had largely analyzed the magic spear’s attack patterns. He basically understood what sorts of attacks were coming.
But despite that, Warren couldn’t break through Anima. While Anima had accustomed himself a little bit to combat in his mock battles with the amber dragon, the biggest factor was the wounds to Warren’s arm and leg. The pain of his cut right leg and burned left arm threw off his concentration. Frustratingly, he couldn’t move his right arm as he wanted.
But Anima was also frustrated. Even with just one arm, Warren was blocking Anima’s attacks. There was no sign at all that his spear would reach the man.
The pair of them struggled, at an impasse. The only one who could change the situation was Brunhild.
Brunhild wanted to shoot Warren with her Thunder. But with the two of them in such a close and intense exchange, she couldn’t fire her arrow. She felt like she might hit Anima. But neither did she have the skills to engage in a close-combat fight.
“Ngh…”
As Brunhild continued to look for an opening, there came a voice from behind her.
<Brunhild. Pull out the blades pinning me,> the amber dragon called out to her.
With a start, Brunhild went toward him and started pulling out the blades. If the amber dragon could move around, then they could finish this.
She began drawing out the blades.
Behind her, she could hear the sound of clashing blades. Anima was buying time.
It happened when there was just one more blade to pull out.
Brunhild felt an intense impact in her head. She lost control of her body and collapsed. As her consciousness grew dim, she saw it—a blade was sticking out from her forehead like a horn. A thrown stiletto had pierced her head.
“How…?”
But Warren had been fighting with Anima, and he wasn’t supposed to have been able to interrupt them.
She looked over to see that Warren had sacrificed his immobile left arm to block the magic spear. He had deliberately let the spear pierce his left arm to block it, and he’d used that opening to throw a stiletto at Brunhild.
Lying on the ground, Brunhild struggled to draw the blade out of her head. But she couldn’t manage it. That was because it was impaling her brain.
“Bastard…!”
Anima was attacking furiously. But that was actually not a good thing.
Warren could easily read such monotonous attacks.
This was right as Warren had already gotten rather used to fighting with his right arm.
“You’re still green.” He easily evaded the magic spear.
As the two passed each other, a stiletto pierced Anima’s body.
With that, Anima could move no more. He wasn’t physically invincible like Brunhild, and neither was he tough like a dragon.
The stiletto pierced his stomach, and a burning pain stole his will to fight.
“That hurts…dammit…” Anima went to his knees on the floor. Blood spread around him.
Looking down at that, Warren said, “Watch from right there. After everything is over, I’ll heal you with the Miracle.”
Warren stole the magic spear away from him.
Hard-sounding footsteps approached Brunhild.
Spear in hand, Warren was walking toward her.
Sensing oncoming death, she struggled. She floundered, trying to get the blade out of her head. But she wouldn’t make it in time. She needed a bit more time to get it all the way out.
But…
…there was someone there to protect her.
It was the amber dragon.
He drew out the final blade that had him pinned and stood before Warren.
Writhing on the floor, Brunhild let out, “No…”
The old soldier was a dragonslayer with a magic spear in hand. A mere dragon was a shield of straw.
Warren looked at the dragon and spat, “Some filthy dragon, playing at being a loyal retainer?”
<Indeed. I’ve decided that before this girl, I will pretend to be a noble dragon.>
A human wouldn’t hear the Dragon’s Tongue, but the dragon replied anyway.
So then he had most certainly said it in order to make himself look good in front of the woman in his heart.
Man and dragon both moved at the same time.
It was such an act of domination that it couldn’t even be called combat.
The magic spear pierced the dragon’s heart. The dragon didn’t even try to defend himself.
In exchange, the dragon captured Warren in an embrace.
In his last moment, the amber dragon thought—
How ironic this was.
Many decades ago, his life had been saved by the First Queen. The one to save him when Warren as a boy had tried to kill him had been the First Queen. While he had felt intensely lonely, being confined in the Academy basement, he had never considered suicide because he’d wanted to treasure the life she had saved then.
But it looked like he was going to be killed by that very same dragonslayer, in the end.
The amber dragon tightened his arms around Warren.
Warren thought that he meant to crush him in his embrace.
But it seemed he couldn’t manage it.
With his heart pierced, the dragon didn’t have much strength. His life itself would run out in just a few more seconds.
Warren just had to wait for that time to come.
Suddenly—
Warren felt pain in his chest.
It was a small, silent, but sharp pain.
He looked down.
There was a blade thrust into his chest. That blade was coming from an impossible direction.
From beyond the dragon, he heard a sniffle.
<I’m sorry.>
That remark in the Dragon’s Tongue was trembling.
But there was no longer anyone there who could hear those words.
Appearing from behind the dragon as he fell was Brunhild.
“That blade…,” Warren said.
Brunhild had gotten the stiletto out of her head and had gone right through the dragon with the Healing Blade to pierce Warren. This blade had magic-repelling properties. It was even able to pierce through the coat, with the protection of its magic wool.
Before the amber dragon had attacked Warren, he had said to Brunhild, <Pierce right through me.>
It had been the final secret exchange between dragon and princess. That had been the only way to defeat Warren.
Brunhild didn’t like it.