Chương 58: I Fight a Dragon

POV: The Dark Lord, Milo Miles So I flew laps around the hall, dodging the great gouts of flame the dragon kept spitting after me, until it occurred to me that all this fire was washing over the walls, and the walls were where the Pyrathites lived. Torch the gemstones and this whole trip might became pointless. New plan. I stopped dodging and dove straight towards the fire instead; it still only felt warm instead of hot, so I flew through it and drove a rising uppercut to the dragon's jaw.

The dragon's head snapped up, and I thought it actually felt that one, although it recovered pretty quickly and lunged to swallow me whole. I peeled away just before its jaws clapped shut on empty air. The problem was the Pyrathite. I still had the first one clamped in one hand, which meant I couldn't fight properly. I glanced across the hall to Lunessa, who'd pressed herself back against the narrowing wall near the corridor, and I held the gem up, tilting it toward her. She nodded.

So I hurled it across the hall and kind of steered with Telekinesis, guiding it down towards her without worrying that I might break the thing, all while I dodging a claw swipe and another fire breath. The instant it landed at her feet, I broke for the second stone she had marked.

I pried it loose and, on the way past, hit the dragon in the head with my Infernal Flame skill; a ball of purple fire streaked off my palm and burst towards it, dark flames spilling over its scales and clinging there, but the thing didn't so much as flinch. Right. Fire dragon. Of course throwing more fire at it did nothing. Sleep Gas came to mind. If I could make it fall asleep, we would be able to escape swiftly.

I swooped in close to its face and exhaled a cloud of the purple haze, and its thrashing scattered it into nothing before it could draw a single breath of it in. Damn it, my whole kit was useless here; just like how it had been against Ywain, and I was left doing the one thing I could always fall back on, being unkillable and hitting things. I threw the second Pyrathite to Lunessa, guided it in with telekinesis, and a claw the size of a door slammed into me and drove me straight down into the stone floor.

Fuck, I wish I had Spider Sense like Sp*derman." Milo!" There was real fear in her voice, and some small part of me was pleased to hear it. Someone actually worried about whether I lived. I could afford to think like that only because the blow hadn't actually hurt; it had been just pure force, hammering me into the ground without leaving a mark. I was pushing myself back up when I saw the fire coming for me, so I threw up Purgatory Shield and split the flames around me.

I could've just taken it head-on, but it would've burned my pants, and I was not going home naked; losing my shirt was embarassing enough. The fire cut off. Across the hall, Lunessa was already examining the second stone, and she shook her head. Dud, both of the first two. Which meant the real one was the third? Unfortunately, it was the farthest one, set into the wall directly behind the dragon. I called Hell's Sword to my hand and charged. The dragon slashed at me and I rolled clear of the claw.

Its tail whipped around and I ducked under it, driving in toward its skull with the sword leveled to punch straight through, and it beat its wings once, a hurricane blast of air that stalled my flight dead. Then its neck shot forward, and its jaws closed over me, and it swallowed me whole. Dark. Or it would have been, if the Hell's Sword weren't lighting the place up.

I found myself in what felt like a small, low room with a soft, wet floor, rows of teeth walling it in, and a stench I'm not going to attempt to describe. Then the floor tilted, my feet started to slide, and the whole space swung upward. It had thrown its head back to gulp me down. A few more seconds and I would be sliding down its throat. Fortunately, I had read enough manga to know the correct response to being eaten.

I cranked the Hell's Sword up to its hottest blaze and flew straight up, punching the blade clean through the roof of its mouth. The dragon's jaws flew open with a roar; I yanked the sword free, shot out through the gap, and immediately dove back down at its head, driving the blade across one of its huge eyes. It shrieked, recoiling, one eye ruined, and that was my window. I flew around behind it, tore the third Pyrathite off the wall, and made straight for Lunessa.

I could've stayed and tried to finish the thing off, but there was, again, the matter of my pants, and I decided living to keep them was the wiser decision. Lunessa gave the stone a fast once-over while the dragon flailed and clawed at its face, then looked up at me and nodded. That one was real. We ran for the corridor. The dragon blasted fire down the passage after us, so I got Lunessa in front of me and threw up Purgatory Shield, backpedaling and holding the flames off us as we went.

The shield came up noticeably wider than before; I remembered its skill description that mentioned its strength scaled with how badly you wanted to protect something. The moment the fire died, I scooped Lunessa off her feet, properly, one arm under her knees and one at her back, and shot down the corridor in a dead-straight line, as fast as I could push it. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

We were out on the grassland by the seaside cliff, catching our breath, or at least, Lunessa was. She had the Pyrathite clutched to her chest, her chest heaving, still winded from that short sprint out of the dungeon. Not built for running, apparently. I, on the other hand, felt completely fine. Maybe the Level 9999 covered stamina too.

"Well," I said.

"That was not fun. And I'm pretty sure I don't have a spare set of clothes." Lunessa held up a finger, still working to get her breathing under control.

"Worry not..." A breath.

"I…brought some." I genuinely couldn't tell whether she was just this out of shape or whether something was actually wrong with her. I hoped it was the first one.

"You brought some? Men's clothes?"

"Yes. In your size." She swallowed.

"Figured we'd go through a few." Come to think of it, she'd had spare clothes on hand back at her house too, that first time, when the mercenaries wrecked mine. I had assumed she kept them because her assistants got roughed up on the job. Maybe it had just become habit. Maybe she was cursed to have every companion's shirt ruined on every outing, and had made her peace with it.

"Okay, that's great. Though we should really widen the wardrobe situation in general. Once the Arkhay stuff is sorted, we can buy some." Then I remembered she'd been the one paying for absolutely everything on the last trip, and added, "With my money. Which I will have. Somehow." She just smiled at me, still a little breathless, which did nothing to ease the worry.

"Um, are you okay? Like, actually okay?"

"I'm fine. I just tire easily." She pulled in one more deep breath and pushed to her feet.

"All right. Let's head back." She hugged the Pyrathite to her chest with one arm and closed her free hand around my wrist. I cast Teleport, and we were standing in front of the kingdom. Mel was out on the porch, looking like someone who'd been sitting with nothing to do for a while. When she saw us, her whole posture changed—eyes going wide, taking in Lunessa's disheveled, out-of-breath state. She was across the yard in seconds, hands landing on Lunessa's shoulders.

"Are you all right? What happened? Did he do something to you?" Did I look like someone who'd do something to her? Whatever that something was supposed to be.

"I'm fine, Mel. It all went smoothly, thanks to Milo." Mel turned to me. There was a flicker of surprise on her face, and then it softened, just slightly, before she caught herself and turned back to Lunessa.

"W-well. Good, then." Then, awkwardly, she looked at me again.

"... Thank you."

"Uh, sure." I rubbed the back of my neck.

"Glad I could be useful for once." Mel held my gaze a beat longer, like she wasn't quite sure what to do with a Dark Lord who said things like that, then turned and walked Lunessa toward the house. I trailed after them. Inside, there were baskets of food already sitting on the dining table, probably Milly's daily delivery. Mel must have hauled them in after Luke carried them over.

For someone who still clearly didn't trust me an inch, she was surprisingly conscientious about pulling her weight around the place, quietly doing the small things without being asked. Lunessa set the Pyrathite down on the table, swung her backpack off and hung it over a chair, and lowered herself into the seat beside it with the air of someone who'd earned it.

"Right. We've got the Pyrathite." She let out a long breath.

"Now we just need the Rosemarots and the Cerberus fur." Yes, the Cerberus fur. I haven't told Luke about it. Evelisee and Nyx didn't seem to have returned, so I figured I should handle the Cerberus situation. Which turned out to be shockingly easy. I went outside to Luke, feeling faintly ridiculous, and asked whether she'd be willing to part with some of her fur.

She bobbed all three heads in agreement, and then, apparently to make the whole thing as convenient as possible, flopped onto her side, stuck all six legs in the air, and lay there completely still, presenting her flank to me like an enormous offering.

"... Thanks, Luke." One head gave a small, encouraging huff. The problem was that I had no idea how to actually get the fur off her. I didn't have shears. I wasn't going to yank it out by hand like some kind of monster. So I went back inside and called for Lunessa.

"You need to cut it," she said, in the tone of someone explaining something to a small child.

"With a blade. You do have a blade, don't you? Something that materializes on command, perhaps? Wreathed in ominous fire?"

"... Oh." Right. The Hell's Sword.

"Wouldn't that, like, burn it all up, though?"

"Then don't set it on fire." She pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Can you summon it without the flames?"

"... Maybe? I've never tried."

"Try it then." So I did. I held out my hand and called the Hell's Sword, but this time focused on not igniting it, and it came, the blade there but dark, the fire banked down to nothing. Huh…good to know I could do that.

"There." Lunessa handed me a wooden basket.

"Now trim. We want it clean and long. And Luke—" she glanced down at the Cerberus, still lying there with her legs in the air "—do let us know if he gets anywhere near the skin." Luke huffed again, which I chose to interpret as agreement rather than a threat. So, kneeling beside her with a sword, I very carefully sheared away sections of the thick fur along her flank, gathering each handful into the basket. It came away in long, silken lengths, far softer than I had expected.

Luke, for her part, seemed to find the whole process pleasant, one of her heads sighing contentedly while I worked. By the time the basket was filled enough, she looked a little patchier along one side. I gave her a pat, which earned me three heads leaning into my hand at once, nearly knocking me over. I asked how long it would take the fur to grow back.

She shifted into her human form and held up her hand, making some gesture with her fingers that I couldn't quite make out, because they were swallowed by those absurdly long sleeves of hers. I could see three little bumps pushing through the fabric, though.

"Three? Three... weeks?" She shook her head.

"Three days?" She nodded. That was surprisingly fast. And I immediately hated the part of my brain that went we could do this every three days for easy money, treating my sweet, willing companion like a livestock operation. I filed that thought away somewhere I could be ashamed of later. I gave Luke a scratch behind one of her ears instead, and she leaned into it.... I wondered how Evelisse was doing.