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–––Karin’s viewpoint

“Let’s proceed as planned.”
“Let’s go then. Spirits of the land, lend me your power.”

Diaria focused her spiritual magic and called for the spirits, soon after the ground began moving at her command and she quickly sealed the different entrances to the cave. That was the type of magic she was most proficient at. She could control the spirits living in the earth and the air, bending them at her will, which could be really handy in different situations.

As far as offensive power went her spiritual magic was inferior to Ciel’s, but it had many other uses that were impossible to accomplish with regular magic. For instance, the way she had sealed the entrances, if Ciel had to do it, she would have needed to cast spell after spell to close off one entrance at a time. But Diaria’s spiritual magic allowed her to seal all at the same time. Having her as a member in our party made our lives much easier.

“Alright, they’re closed. Your turn Ciel.”
“Okay.”

Ciel pointed her staff at the remaining entrance and focused her mind.

“Ice Storm.”

As soon as she uttered those words, pebbles of ice materialized in front of her staff, which were sent into the cave with a lot of momentum provided by an icy gale. An instant later the cave was covered with frost which extended slightly out of the entrance. Where we stood the weather was nice and almost invited us to take a nap, but a few steps ahead where the cave was, it felt like being in a northern country during a blizzard. A while later we noticed a creature crawling out of the cave towards us.

“There it comes! It’s a fire lizard!”

As if trying to prove those words correct, a fire lizard appeared at the entrance of the cage and opened its mouth towards us. I instantly hugged Ciel and together with Diaria, we leaped back from there. The air behind us was replaced with blazing flames. They extended straight ahead, almost reaching the forest trees. Seeing that the intruders had stepped back, the fire lizards slowly marched out of the cave. There were five of them in total.

“Let’s go!”
“I’ll support you from here!”
“Ice Arrow!”

I charged towards the closest fire lizard and swung my sword, the other lizards slowly moving away to avoid getting hit. Ciel was right! The cold had slowed their movements!

“Hahh!”

The fire lizard slowly opened its mouth and bared its fangs against me, but I was already aiming at its neck with my swing. There was a loud metallic clang and my sword was deflected by its tough scales. It seemed like regular swings would not cut it, so I imbued my blade with magic and swung again, this time going through its neck like butter. I jumped back to get away from the lizards, preparing myself to attack my next mark. In my stead, a flurry of ice arrows came flying, which impacted straight on the head of a fire lizard that was distracted by me.

“Karin, behind you!”

I turned around and saw two fire lizards swinging their claws at me. Diaria’s arrow pierced the head of one of them, killing it instantly, while I ducked to avoid the other one before I thrust my sword into its head from below.

“There’s only one left! Ice Lance!”

Ciel’s magic pierced through the body of the remaining lizard, which was left convulsing until it finally passed away. The fight had been really short, was that really all there was to the request? I used some of the plants nearby to wipe the blood off my sword before I returned it to its scabbard.

“Now we just have to investigate the cave, gather something to identify the number of lizards, and return to the village. At least we finished this without any major-”
“Watch out! Everyone jump!”

We did not question Diaria’s call, we knew there was an actual danger so Ciel and I jumped with all our might and got away from that place. A moment later, something giant fell there, making the ground shake. After a closer look, ‘fell’ was not the best word, it had landed there.

“…A dragon.”

Diaria and I finally understood what that was when we heard Ciel’s quivering voice. The thing that had landed there was a dragon, just like she had said. It had a body covered with green scales, large wings and sharp talons, the strongest of all monsters, a dragon. It possessed a high degree of intelligence and had a burly body, a monster that easily toyed with large groups of other monsters or cheeky adventurers that tried banding against it. Why was such a creature in these parts?

“…It’s eating the fire lizard bodies?”

Was it here out of hunger? It was rare to meet a dragon in a random place like this, maybe the dead fire lizards had lured it here? It did not seem to even notice us standing there, gorging on the fire lizards we had just killed. Its large jaw lined with sharp teeth only needed to bite once to tear a fire lizard apart like a soft cake. The simple act of watching it eating was enough to send shudders down my spine, I knew just how sharp its teeth were now.

“…Calm down, let’s retreat slowly. Luckily that seems to be a young dragon, so it doesn’t have much knowledge. We should be fine while he’s distracted eating.”

Ciel whispered to us, Diaria and I nodding silently. We walked away slowly and silently, repressing our breaths even. It was disappointing that the fire lizards we had killed were gone, but our lives were more important. It was better to get a bad mark for failing a request rather than dying for it.

“Almost there…”

We were already past some trees in our silent retreat. Just a bit more and the trees would offer a nice cover from the dragon. When we started breathing in relief thinking we had escaped, the dragon lifted its head from the lizard it was eating and slowly turned its eyes towards us. This is bad!

“””!”””

Without a word we jumped to the sides, the place we had been standing on covered in flames that made the fire lizard’s breath seem like matches. The trees that were hit by the dragon’s flaming breath went up in flames, which then extended to other nearby trees. That was way too dangerous! A direct hit from that would leave nothing but ashes left.

“Graahhhh!”