Chương 34: One Monster Too Many

Gloria cleared the broken window and dropped into the air, falling far enough for the true scale of the Katamaran to become apparent for her. The vessel itself was considerably smaller than the creature pulling it, yet its decks still stretched across an enormous portion of the ocean, with towers, galleries and entire rows of windows passing beside Gloria as she descended.

Salt filled the wind striking her face, bringing with it the scent of the open sea and a cold freshness unlike anything she had experienced in her whole life, and for several moments Gloria allowed herself to enjoy simply being there. The approaching surface soon ended her appreciation, prompting Gloria to open and ignite her wings as she angled her body forward. Her descent became a glide only briefly, for one powerful beat of her wings launched her across the water toward the dark wake of the returning Draco.

Several slime tentacles were already descending to intercept the creature as its scaled head broke through the surface, but Gloria crossed the distance before any of them could reach it. The Draco emerged with its jaws spread, unaware of the invisible figure approaching from directly ahead until Gloria drove her extended fist into the side of its chest.

The impact hurled the creature away before the sound of Gloria's flight reached it, and the sharp crack following behind her rolled across the ocean as the Draco struck the surface, bounced once, then crossed another wide stretch of water before bouncing a second time. Its body finally disappeared beneath the waves several hundred meters from the Katamaran, leaving two enormous curtains of spray collapsing behind it.

Gloria slowed above the ocean and looked down at her arm, where dark-blue blood covered her claws and ran toward her elbow in several thick lines. She had placed a respectable amount of strength behind the punch without using any skill or magical enhancement, and the distance travelled by the Draco suggested that the creature possessed enough durability to make the encounter exciting.

Draconic species had always been among the greatest cheats in DDO, since even their lesser bloodlines combined enormous vitality, physical strength, powerful defenses and a natural talent for magic within a single body. Their only consistent weakness came from their miserable senses, which rarely extended far beyond ordinary sight unless the creature possessed a specialized class or ability.

Even now, Gloria could locate the Draco only by watching the dark shape turning beneath the water, though the fresh blood coating her arm offered a far more useful means of examining it. Gloria opened her hand and gathered several drops within her palm before casting the spell. [Analyze] A window unfolded before her eyes as the blood dissolved into blue light, revealing the creature's information one section at a time.

───────────────────────────── STATUS: Name: Deepwater Draco Level: 450 HP: 254, 880 / 300, 000 MANA: 61, 400 / 61, 400 ─────────────────────────────'A decent level, with most of its growth invested into health and physical endurance, while its magical ability is almost embarrassingly poor,' Gloria observed, paying particular attention to the missing portion of its health.

'My punch removed around fifteen percent of it, which means it is durable enough to survive a few more without forcing me to become excessively gentle.' The shadow beneath the water finished turning and began accelerating toward her once again, still unable to perceive what had struck it.

'That poor pup must have been disturbed by the mana passing through the ocean,' Gloria thought as the shadow accelerated beneath her, for even though the sword had carried a reconnaissance spell rather than an attack, the amount of power holding its formation together had still been tremendous.

'Either way, we are the ones crossing its territory, so killing such a beautiful creature would be rather unfair.' The Draco burst from the water in another attempt to reach the Katamaran, its powerful tail throwing half its body above the surface before it angled downward to gather speed again, though Gloria reached it before the descent could begin and struck the side of its head with considerably less force than before.

The blow still sent the creature tumbling across the air, and as it struggled to right itself with fins never intended for flight, Gloria swept beneath its spinning body, passed ahead of its path and drove one foot upward into its stomach when it came within reach. The Draco folded around her heel before rocketing into the sky, where it spun helplessly through several rotations as its limbs and fins clawed at empty air.

Confusion appeared to have replaced its anger entirely, for the creature could neither see its attacker nor understand why every attempt to approach the ship ended with it being launched in a different direction. Gloria hovered below it and glanced toward the Katamaran, which had continued traveling throughout the encounter and now stood far enough away that anyone watching from its decks would struggle to follow what was happening.

That distance suited her perfectly, since Exspiravithad never been designed to last for long; countless concealment spells could remain active for hours, days or even indefinitely under the proper conditions, whereas this one sacrificed duration in exchange for removing its caster from nearly every sense and method of detection. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

"Now, how shall I persuade you to leave the ship alone?" Gloria wondered aloud as the Draco reached the peak of its ascent and began falling back toward her. One final strike directed away from the vessel would probably communicate the idea clearly enough, and after suffering so many consecutive blows from an opponent it could not perceive, even a territorial beast ought to understand that continuing the pursuit would bring it nothing except further humiliation.

"No time like today!" The distant shout came from somewhere behind her, and Gloria turned to discover a sight strange enough to make her briefly forget the descending beast. A shirtless man wearing little more than swimming trunks had erupted from the ocean and was now soaring past her with an enormous sword raised over his head, water streaming from his body as he climbed directly toward the helpless creature above them.

'Wha-Who is this guy supposed to be?' His appearance answered nothing, though the speed of his ascent and the ease with which he carried the oversized weapon revealed enough for Gloria to place him somewhere near the Draco itself in strength, which was remarkably impressive for someone who looked as though he had wandered away from a beach and accidentally joined a monster hunt.

Unfortunately for him, Gloria had no intention of allowing a stranger to appear during the final moments of her encounter and butcher a creature she had already decided to spare. She beat her wings and crossed into his path just as her spell reached its limit, causing her body to reappear directly between the swordsman and his target. The man's triumphant expression collapsed the instant he found Gloria floating within arm's reach, though his momentum left him enough time to utter only two startled words.

"Oh, crap." Gloria planted her palm against his face and swatted him back toward the ocean, sending the swordsman downward so violently that the surface erupted when he struck it. Behind her, the falling Draco completed its own return from the sky and crashed into the water a heartbeat later, raising a second column of spray so remarkably similar in size that Gloria found herself glancing between the two with satisfaction.

Gloria remained above the settling water and watched for movement, hoping that the Draco had finally understood her warning and that she had not overestimated the durability of the strange swordsman. The first concern resolved itself when the dark shape below completed several disoriented turns, recovered its sense of direction and fled from her with astonishing speed, leaving a narrow wake that rapidly dwindled into the distance.

"Good pup," Gloria murmured. The second patch of disturbed water calmed soon afterward, only to burst apart as the swordsman launched himself back into the air, coughing violently and dragging several strands of seaweed across one shoulder.

"You did not have to hit me that hard!" he shouted once he regained enough breath to complain.

"I struck the damned ocean floor!" Relieved that she had judged his resilience correctly, Gloria drew a small circle beside her shoulder and cast [Partielle], allowing its concealment to spread across her wings until they disappeared without affecting the rest of her body.

Her ordinary appearance had already passed unnoticed through a crowded city, whereas the wings would connect her to the legends surrounding Gloria Superba almost immediately, and although vanishing entirely might have ended the encounter faster, leaving without discovering why a powerful swordsman had appeared in the middle of the ocean seemed unnecessarily careless.

"It was foolish of you to raise your weapon against a creature I had already chosen to spare," Gloria replied. The man rose until his feet reached the surface, where a faint green glow spread beneath his soles and allowed him to stand upon the water as though it were solid ground. His enormous sword remained in one hand despite the plunge, its blade resting across his shoulder.

"Lady, I was trying to help you," he said, still coughing between several of the words.

"From where I was standing, you didn't exactly look like you were spearing the damn thing." Gloria offered no immediate answer, since his misunderstanding was reasonable when viewed without knowledge of her intentions, though the question of where he had been standing interested her considerably more.

The tremors might have thrown him from the Katamaran, or he could have entered the water voluntarily once he noticed the Draco approaching, and Echidna had mentioned two unusually powerful individuals aboard the vessel only the previous night.

'Perhaps this ridiculous man is one of them.'

"No matter," the swordsman declared before Gloria could question him, his annoyance disappearing beneath a broad grin as he pulled the weapon from his shoulder.

"That strike told me everything I needed to know about you." He extended the sword until its point faced Gloria, and the excitement spreading across his face made his next words considerably more concerning than the threat suggested by the weapon.

"This may sound strange, but I would love to lose to you."

'... What a profoundly idiotic statement.' Gloria had no intention of indulging such nonsense, though the swordsman apparently considered his declaration sufficient permission for both of them. Green magic surged around his legs as he sprang from the water, crossing the space between them in a single bound before bringing the enormous blade down toward her shoulder.

She raised one hand to catch its edge, only for the swordsman to stop the swing moments before reaching her fingers, twist through the halted momentum and send the weapon around his body from the opposite direction. Gloria drifted backward and allowed the second attack to pass before her, yet as soon as the blade crossed the place where she had stood, the man leaned into the movement with a shout and converted the missed slash into a sudden thrust aimed directly at her chest.

His control over such a cumbersome weapon was considerably better than his appearance suggested, though the cleverness of the maneuver could not overcome the difference between their speed. Gloria drove her fist directly against the approaching point and met the thrust before it had crossed even half the remaining distance.

"A rather useless show." The impact threw the blade backward with enough force to drag the swordsman's arm behind his body, and although his grip somehow remained closed around the hilt, a sharp crack sounded from somewhere between his wrist and shoulder. Rather than acknowledge the injury, the man twisted with the returning weapon, steadied himself and looked at Gloria with a delighted smile.

"I am not finished!"

"Yes, you are." Gloria's claw swept through the air, leaving a white circle large enough to surround the swordsman before he could begin another charge. The image of an iceberg appeared within its center, four snowflakes settled around its edge, and a wave of cold closed over him the instant the formation was complete, trapping his body and sword inside a solid block of ice.

[Eis] The frozen swordsman remained conscious behind its surface, his grin finally replaced by alarm as Gloria descended, caught the entire block with one hand and drew it back beside her shoulder.

"Have a safe flight, you savage." She hurled him across the ocean, and the block disappeared from sight almost immediately before a thunderous crack rolled back over the water, leaving Gloria staring after the distant trail of white frost that marked his path.