Leave a comment

The entire ship trembled as it was hit by a massive shock. A colossal figure with sturdy claws and thick legs pressed the soil-covered floor beneath its feet, and its tail, like a round log, swept across the surroundings.

Leaping over this creature, a silver humanoid figure armed with a blade of light emanating from its arm dashed toward the crimson giant. However, the golem was unexpectedly repelled into the air by an explosion that occurred without warning. Bouncing off with a roll of smoke and landing in a defensive stance, the golem quickly regained its footing.

In the meantime, another golem attacked from the opposite side. It lunged sharply, leaping like an arrow, and its light sword tore through the mane. Along with the mane, one of the heat-emitting horns on the back was severed, and blood scattered lightly.

“Graaaaah!” She roared and unleashed a sweeping breath attack.

However, its effect was limited. With eight golems surrounding her in a coordinated manner, Kafal had to divert her attention to all of them simultaneously. Consequently, the pressure on each individual golem was lessened. While they suffered some damage, the golems minimized their losses and continued their encircling assault.

“Mom!” Hearing the sounds of battle, Lucella returned to the garden. Somehow, the same combat golems as the one before had emerged and were gathering around Kafal.

“Lucella! Don’t come, it’s dangerous!”
“That’s not an option!”

Lucella crouched down and touched the ground. The piled-up soil heated up, melted, and quickly solidified into a sword-shaped rock. Using what should have been a straightforward application of her powers felt heavy, as if stirring glue.

—Is this place… blocking the Raw Mana? I can’t use my dragon’s power to its full extent like this…!”

Dragons, like humans, couldn’t generate energy endlessly. While they could store some within themselves, absorbing external energy was crucial. However, the source of that energy, the wild power of nature known as “Raw Mana,” was exceptionally scarce in this place, separated by just one wall. This ship was likely constructed during the time of the Human-Dragon War and would have naturally possessed some level of defense against dragon attacks. This mechanism seemed to block Raw Mana.

In this situation, Kafal, who was a genuine dragon, couldn’t unleash her breaths infinitely, and their power would also be iffy.

“I’ll save you!” Lucella exclaimed as she grasped the lava stone sword.

The golems reacted to her movement, but not in the way Lucella had anticipated.

【Danger—Please—Evacuate】

One of the golems warned Lucella in a monotone, inorganic voice.

Lucella was taken aback, but the warning in classical language was clearly understood even by Lucella.

“Huh…?”
【Please—Evacuate—I—Shall—Guide—You】

One of the golems broke away from the encirclement and approached Lucella. It stood between her and Kafal, its emotionless slit eyes looking down at her.

“Gaah!”

Kafal, using only her hind legs, rose up and brought down her front claws in an intersection. With that well-aimed, full-powered blow, she tore through a golem’s armor, reducing it to scraps. Kafal knew she was creating an opening by doing this, but she prioritized reducing their number.

The golems, however, didn’t overlook this. One of them retaliated by slashing Kafal’s side with its light sword, and another attempted to climb up her massive body to target her vulnerable scales. Kafal used her long neck like a whip to throw off the golem that climbed on her back, then knocked it down with her tail.

【Emergency—Please—Head—To—The—Shelter】
“Out of my way…!”
【Emergency—Please—Head—To—The—Shelter】

The golem’s slow and non-threatening movements surprised Lucella as it extended a hand towards her. With a deliberate and gentle touch, it lifted her effortlessly.

【I—Shall—Guide—You】

The golem stated in its emotionless tone.

Lucella felt startled even more from that.

She was being treated like a human, a civilian caught in the midst of a battle with a dragon. She could sense the warm, sticky feeling on her side from Kafal’s blood, and the golem was carrying her with a hand covered in it.

Her chest was filled with miserable feelings that couldn’t be described as just anger or sadness.

However, she managed to keep her composure and analyzed the situation carefully. She knew she had to focus on the immediate problem and find a solution.

“Mom!” Lucella shouted while being carried away.
“Attack me! Do it with the intent to kill!”
“What?!”
“Hurry! I’m completely safe, I promise!”

In Dragonian, even emotions and intentions could be conveyed through language. While it didn’t transmit detailed thoughts, it ensured a basic level of understanding. Lucella’s sudden flash of an idea and her conviction must have reached Kafal too.

Kafal, who used to be on the defensive under their siege, took a step forward. Her fiery dragon eyes gleamed with lingering flames. As expected Kafal couldn’t direct the full extent of killing intent at Lucella so the pressure on her was loosened, but the looming presence of a mighty dragon was still enough to send shivers down her spine.

【Danger—Danger】

The golem carrying Lucella repeated its warning.

With Lucella in its grasp, the golem began to run. What had seemed like a seamless black wall opened up to reveal a gleaming silver room. Lucella was being carried into that room.

Kafal pursued relentlessly, her footsteps scorching the ground. Flames flickered between her teeth, and her breath, sharp and finely honed like a javelin, struck like lightning.

The breath aimed at the golem’s feet melted its left thigh while twisting it to the side.

“Agh!”

As the golem tumbled, Lucella was thrown to the ground. However, the golem didn’t release her, instead, it protected her from the impact by holding her close.

【Danger—Caution—Required】

The golems worked in eerie coordination, almost as if they were like the fingers of the same person. It seemed they had some means of sharing thoughts or information. Half of them circled around to stand in front of Kafal, while the rest approached her from behind. Their movements were now more frantic and hasty compared to moments ago.

“Groaaaaaarrr!!”

Serpentine flames swirled around Kafal, both scorching and possessing virtual mass. The flames staggered the approaching golems, slowing their movements. Amidst the fiery chaos, Kafal managed to crush one of them despite the sword in its hand piercing her. Another golem met its end as Kafal unleashed a ray-type breath, cleaving its torso in two as if it were cutting wood with a saw.

Then, she swiftly changed direction and swung her tail, mowing down everything in its path. The trajectory was set to hit Lucella directly, and two golems attempted to intervene. They concentrated, crossing their swords. They appeared to be attempting to cut her tail to stop the attack. Although Kafal’s tail scales were cut and her flesh was torn, her bone remained mostly intact.

Two golems, and one more without legs holding Lucella, and Lucella herself, were all swept away by Kafal’s tail, causing a tremendous shockwave. Lucella gritted her teeth to endure it, but the intense shock traveled all the way through her head.

Kafal, further pursuing, spewed a radial breath aimed at Lucella.

Of course, the Fire Breath had little effect on Lucella’s body. However, the golems threw themselves in front of her to shield her.

They transformed their light swords into shields, standing their ground despite their armor being scorched.

Three damaged golems slowed down in their movements, serving as Lucella’s defense, while three intact golems remained.

They aimed for an opening during the breath attack, but when Kafal glared at them, the ground trembled, and the golems were instantly buried up to their waists. While two of them broke free, Kafal thrust her claws into one, tearing it apart.

Then, Kafal launched a massive tackle against the remaining golems. Despite piercing her armor, Kafal restrained the golems.

In close proximity, the golems should have delivered a lethal attack. However, they became motionless. The sturdy armor, supposedly designed for combat against dragons, heated up and gradually melted. The light swords emanating from their arms flickered, wavered, and vanished.

The remaining injured golems retracted their shields and reshaped their swords. There was no longer any means to protect the civilian except to slay the dragon. But the civilian whom the golems had tried to protect was not an ordinary civilian.

“Yaaaah!”

Lucella put all her strength into the lava stone sword and pierced a golem from behind.

The red-hot tip of the rock blade punched through the seam in the armor around the waist, skewering it. Lucella then swung the sword and slammed them away.

By the time the tumbling golems reassessed their perception of Lucella, Kafal had already delivered the finishing blow.

“Haa, haa…”

Lucella took a deep breath. Sometimes, endings come suddenly and without warning. Kafal might have died just now. Lucella’s heart was still beating coldly.

“Mom, are you okay?”
“I’m fine. You really shouldn’t be so reckless!”

Kafal nudged aside the remains of the golems with her nose and rubbed against Lucella with enough force to almost crush her. Then, she licked Lucella with her large tongue.

“Where did these golems come from?”
“The wall over there suddenly opened and they showed up from within.”

Lucella looked towards the room-like cave that had opened up in the wall.

It seemed like a trap room, but it was probably hidden not for intruders but for residents. After all, some people wouldn’t want rough and dangerous security golems in their everyday living spaces.

“Maybe it was a standby room. They found us with the golem downstairs, so they went on alert and…came out.”

Lucella peered into the room, but it seemed there were no more golems inside.

If their arch-nemesis, a dragon, had infiltrated the ship, it would make sense for them to mount a full-scale attack. It was hard to imagine they would leave more fighting force behind.

“But what was that all about? Didn’t the previous golem attack you too, Lucella?”

Kafal examined the remains of the golems and meticulously destroyed those that seemed only lightly damaged.

Golems like these probably didn’t play dead, but she was likely cautious about the possibility of them suddenly springing to life.

Lucella pondered the strange behavior of the golems to the best of her knowledge.

It wasn’t a particularly enjoyable task.

“Earlier, I was hit by that anti-dragon weapon, so it blew away all my dragon aura that was like Mom’s scent. To these golems, I probably didn’t look like a dragon. I think they saw me as someone else who looked similar to the attacker. So they thought they were protecting a civilian from the dragon…”

The first golem probably attacked Lucella because it might have thought she was some kind of “humanoid puppet” or something like that.

Dragons could transform at will and even create humanoid puppets to manipulate. It was dangerous to judge solely based on appearance. It was likely common sense for people of the era who were fighting against dragons.

Lucella could absorb and sustain herself on the surplus dragon aura released by Kafal, but she couldn’t generate it on her own.

Even if she absorbed the Raw Mana from the natural world, it would only remain as raw, pseudo-dragon aura.

In the tactical assessment of the golems, this didn’t meet the criteria for being considered a true dragon.

“…I’m sorry, Mom. I told you to attack me.”
“It’s okay… Thanks to you, I’m safe.”

Kafal, not minding the blood flowing from her wounds, gently nestled her massive form closer to Lucella.