Dragoon

Rudel looked at his own chest.

His white armor slathered in mud, he had incurred various injuries of all shapes and sizes. They were the proof he had managed to stand firm.

Bot now he was pierced by a black, twisted polearm.

Thousands of similar rods were stabbed into ground all around him, almost like a jail cell to lock him away.

He tried blowing away the rain of black spears from the sky. He had managed to parry a few of them...

“... Is this the limit?”

He let go of the sword in his right hand. Sewn onto the ground, his back arched back, Rudel spat up blood from his mouth.

A single stab to the heart.

A fatal blow.

“He’s got me. I can’t move anymore.”

Looking down on him was the gora, he’d severed three arms from a moment prior. The arms were gradually regenerating, and now it looked down over an immobile Rudel.

The vile serpent was the same.

As if to say their role was over, now they did nothing but stare down at him.

He heard footsteps.

Knights and soldiers of the empire.

While they were wary of the dragon and gora, as the two were no longer moving, they tried to approach. Of course, that was out of hatred of Rudel.

Having brought about such large-scale losses, they walked over to Rudel who had produced this current state of affairs.

“You crazy bastard.”

“Coward of Courtois.”

“How dare you, my brother...”

Comrades and relatives. Those who had them killed by Rudel’s hand took weapons in theirs to close in on him.

Their movements didn’t seem as if they were being led; they were moving on their own.

Rudel laughed.

“Did I crush the chain of command?”

It would be nice if that made them retreat, he thought as he looked at the sky.

The sky was clouded, the sort of weather to bring one down. The vile serpent flapping its wings in such a sky seemed to have already lost interest in him.

It gave off an air as if it was satisfied with this result.

“... Sakuya really is number one.”

Looking at the dark dragon beating its wings, Rudel closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

He heard the imperials soldiers flocking with weapons in hand.

“Did I... manage to resist?”

Rudel didn’t know who his words were directed to. Perhaps it was Sakuya, perhaps his dear friends. The superiors and colleagues he trusted—and, Izumi’s face came to mind.

With a roar, a breath was fired at the vile serpent.

The winds growing rough, the sound of two large masses colliding opened his eyes.

There was Sakuya.

Swinging her two large arms, she punched at the Gora. Witnessing her in all her glory, Rudel gave a small laugh... as the power drained from his body.

◇

Jumping down from Heleene’s back, Izumi drew her katana the moment her feet touched the ground.

Bennet threw her projectiles one after the next to clear away the knights and soldiers approaching Rudel.

In order to reach Rudel, Izumi ignored her foes and plunged straight forward.

As she ran cutting down the large, black bars pierced into the ground, she spotted Rudel, his chest pierced through by one of them.

“Rudel!”

Izumi cried, cutting down all the black bars around him in her advance. The gathered imperial army soldiers directed their weapons towards her.

“Cowards of the kingdom!”

They were removing spears to make their way to Rudel, they numbered a few hundred.

Before such an enemy, Izumi narrowed her eyes.

“You’re in the way.”

A single flash of her sword. Firing a slash, she mowed down black spears and cut down a few enemy soldiers, all while Aleist, whose shadow slipped through the gaps in the bars blew his foe away bars and all.

“Rudel!”

The two raced to Rudel in great haste; by the time they reached him, he had already breathed his last breath.

Izumi immediately severed the spear pierced into him, unpinning him from the spot.

“W-we have to heal him at once—”

Her hand shaking in her fluster, Izumi got to healing Rudel. There, out of boomerangs, a dagger in each hand, Bennet raced over.

“What are you doing? Pick him up and run.”

A glance at the sky, Bennet looked at the gathering imperial soldiers and readied her daggers.

“Even Heleene can’t win against that one. And that one doesn’t seem up to it anymore—”

Confirming Rudel’s death, the black gora and dragon had lost their motivation. However, as the two bodies—looked at Aleist running towards Rudel, they roared.

“W-what!?”

The Imperials were confused as well.

Seeing there were even some who took to their heels, Bennet clicked her tongue.

“So they can’t control it.”

Izumi held Rudel tight. She was shedding tears.

“Major Bennet. Rudel has no pulse... and. And, I can’t feel anything from him.”

Izumi’s shaking voice.

Aleist looked at Rudel in a daze. Unhanding the twin swords hs gripped, he stood stock still on the spot.

“You two, get a grip on—”

There, one of Aleist’s harem members rushed over and informed them.

“This is bad, guys! The stationary armies on both flanks are now coming towards us.”

Hearing the armies that had ignored the main body up to that point were now moving, Bennet looked to the sky. There was the form of a serpent treating her partner Heleene’s attacks as if they were nothing at all.

But looking down over them, it was taking a stance for battle.

Izumi held Rudel to her chest.

“This, this can’t...”

He had been put to battle alone under such a hopeless situation, Izumi embraced him as all manner of thoughts passed through her head.

The gora Sakuya was fighting was also strong. To Izumi, it looked as if Sakuya was losing in raw power. Rudel had fought such a foe all alone.

Bennet made her resolve.

“I’ll take up the rear guard. All troops, immediately pull out—”

Aleist picked up his weapons and screamed.

“Don’t screw with me... don’t screw with meeeee!!”

Aleist kicked the ground to propel himself towards the Gora. A sword in each hand, he cut with all his might.

A black mana resided in his blade, it flicked and bent like flames as it grew to swallow the Gora down.

When Sakuya leapt out of the way, an attack with all Aleist’s might poured down on the beast.

An impact great enough to enrapture the surroundings in a sudden gale rung out as smoke hung over all.

Aleist raised his shoulders in breath. Looking at his back, Izumi.

“Aleist, you...”

His shoulders rose, his shoulders fell, soon it was turning into a slight quiver.

“Don’t screw with me. He’s a precious friend. Give him back. You damn—”

But a flap from the dragon and the smoke had cleared.

There stood a gora, burnt on the surface. But new skin soon generated from below that, and the black carbonized flesh fell off in pieces to return it to its unharmed state.

He heard a voice from the Gora.

But it didn’t come from its mouth. He could hear it from the mouth of Askewell, buried in its forehead.

‘I’ve waited so long for this moment.’

Izumi had stood, and shouldering Rudel, she perked her ears to this ominous voice.

Aleist looked a little flustered.

‘It was all for today, for this very moment... and for you to die.’

The one the gora and dragon glared at with the word ‘you’ was undoubtedly Aleist.

“W-what do you mean?”

Izumi looked at Aleist. But Aleist seemed somewhat accepting of this declaration.

◇

Aleist felt as if his heart was being clutched by the voice he heard from the gora.

‘I was born for the very sake of your existence. That was the reason for us to exist... but a reason like that can eat shit.’

The gora pointed at Aleist, the dragon opened its mouth as well.

‘At first, it was a truly minuscule distortion. It all started more than fifteen years ago. When you, in your ignorance, called a dragon to your manor out of pure curiosity.’

Sakuya landed on the ground, and stood to protect Izumi and Aleist. Heleene kept a careful watch on the dragon’s movements.

While the imperial soldiers were running, they would immediately reform their forces and advance on them.

“Back then? Don’t tell me, when I said I wanted to see a dragon on my birthday...”

When Aleist recalled were memories of the day he pleaded to his parents to see a dragon.

This was a world of swords and magic. It was quite inevitable he wished to witness a fantasy. Yet such a meaningless action from Aleist had set it all in motion

‘That small distortion gradually grew in size. That was Rudel. It’s your fault that whelp set out to be a dragoon.’

Aleist turned to look at Rudel being held up by Izumi.

Everyone looked at Aleist.

The dragon continued.

‘We were born in order to correct that distortion. Do you know why? That is because you wished for it.’

That manner of speech almost as if Aleist was related to the monsters before their eyes; Izumi’s expression darkened a bit.

Aleist shook his head.

“Even if that’s true! You killed Rudel!”

The gora indifferently spoke.

‘That’s right. But had you done nothing, that’s where it would end. You are the source of it all. We prepared the stage for you, set up every event, so this final day could come.’

The vile serpent opened its large mouth.

Mana turned to beads of light gathering in its mouth to a sinister black and red hue.

‘The very last event, you can’t imagine how we’ve waited... all that’s left is to erase you, and it will all be over. We may finally be at peace.’

Aleist brandished his weapon.

But the ground and the sky—what’s more, a foe even Rudel couldn’t match before them, the result was laid out from the start.

In addition, Aleist’s head was occupied with thoughts of regret.

(Is it because I wished for it? Because I wished to live in a game world that this—if I just disappeared...)

The regret of the reincarnator Aleist.

His dear friend had died for the world he had wished for, and he would die to it as well.

(Is this the result of reincarnation?)

He thought he had obtained everything. But what he really wanted could never be obtained with cheats.

(How stupid was I.)

Aleist was beginning to give up.

(I finally got what I really wanted. Yet I’m going to die in a place like this?)

The gora, it’s four large arms held aloft, and a vile serpent about to fire a breath from the sky.

With these two bodies before him, Aleist grew desperate and raced forward.

“Like hell I am!!”

Aleist cried.

But his voice was immediately covered by the sound of explosions.

Sakuya stooped over to protect Izumi, and Heleene took her distance.

What rained down on the gora and dragon was tens, hundred of magics and breaths.

“Wai, gyaaaaah!!”

Aleist cried out in a different sense, bracing his body as the wind and smoke swept over him. Surviving the attacks that didn’t take him into account by diving into his shadow, once he could no longer hear the explosions, he protruded out his face.

“W-what just...

Looking over his surroundings and racing his head, there were several hundred dragons flying through the sky.

A rider could be seen on the central existence, a single water dragon.

And before that water dragon, a red dragon and wind dragon followed close. They were equipped with bags, and it was clear the two by its side were the partners of dragoons.

However, riding the water dragon’s back was...

“Eh Why!?”

Aleist leapt from his shadow in surprise at the young girl with a spear, whose side ponytail swayed in the wind—the form of Rudel’s little sister.

“The hero is always late to the party... but maybe a little too late this time.”

Looking up at Lena, who said that with a laugh, Aleist was dumbfounded by the legion of wild dragons before him.

◇

Atop the sky.

Riding on Mystith’s head, Lena looked at Rudel being shouldered by Izumi on the ground.

“Brother...”

‘We didn’t make it.’

Lena’s ponytail swept sideways as she turned her eyes to the gora and dragon before her eyes.

“No, not yet. My brother won’t end in a place like this. He’s a man I recognized, after all.”

Mystith laughed.

‘Very well. If that got you down, I’d be beating that black thing to bits by now.’

To Mystith’s side were Cattleya and Lilim. Mystith had grabbed them when they were rushing over as reinforcements.

Cattleya took a glance at Lena.

“Why is she boldly standing in the center?”

Lilim was just as confused.

“Rather, she hasn’t even enrolled in the Academy, yet she’s contracted to Mystith... was the Arses House actually amazing?”

The two looked at the ground.

“Even so, this is already...”

Both Catteleya and Lilim’s expressions turned dark as they inferred Rudel had spent his life supporting the front lines. Thereupon, the vile serpent before their eyes emerged unscathed from the smoke that broke out in their attacks.

‘Another distortion? I shall erase you too. Along with Aleist—’

Lena leaned her spear against her shoulder.

“Oh shut it, you. In short... he pisses you off, so you want to take him down, right? Well I’m the same. I want to tear apart whoever did my brother in.”

Mystith gave an irritated roar.

‘Hey, you, yeah you, blacky! You act like hot stuff for a newborn brat!’

The dragons roared out one after another, obeying their current leader Mystith.

The serpent narrowed its eyes.

‘Accursed lizards. Let me teach you what a real Dragon is. Gora, you erase Aleist.’

Cattleya and Lilim prepared for battle.

“Rather, I really don’t want to fight someone who got out unscathed from so many attacks.”

Perhaps Lilim was the same, as she breathed a sigh.

“Right. I don’t see us winning this one.”

Mystith smacked her right fist into the flat of her left hand, speaking in a low voice.

‘That’s simple. We surround it, gang up, and beat the living daylights out of it. It’s got to pay the toll for calling us lizards.’

Lena seemed just as irritated.

“Ah, how irksome. Me and broski love dragons and all. Well, put all the troublesome stuff aside... and you’re dead.”

Wyverns bubbled up from the serpent’s body. Their sinister forms resembled the serpent.

Even bigger, and more menacing than the enhanced wyverns. They came out one after another.

Lena smiled.

“Bring it on.”

Cattleya and Lilim, upon looking at Lena.

“This kid’s definitely Rudel’s sister.”

“You’re right. I can really see the resemblance.”

In the sky, a dragon dogfight was about to commence.

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