Phecda Wants to Evolve Into an Adventurer

The jolly halflings, or to us, floresiensis, shared a slot as one of the seven races of humanity along with dwarves. Originating from humans, they were mutated by mana to become smaller halflings, before further splitting into merry, outgoing nomadic halflings and introverted halflings who stayed in caves. Thus, they became dwarves and halflings, this world’s version of the floresiensis. Scholars were split on which race came first, but these days the common theory was that dwarves came first.

The biggest piece of evidence supporting that were their heights. It wouldn’t make sense for a race that lived a nomadic lifestyle to mutate or evolve to be even shorter. The opinion of scholars was that they would instead have changed to have larger strides to make walking long distances easier and become tougher to be able to deal with a variety of environments. In fact, there was an example of just that among the demihumans in the form of giants, though their brains had gotten smaller inversely to their body size, so they’d lost their intelligence and got removed from humanity. But the halflings, or floresiensis, were small. Considering their nomadic lifestyle, this was clearly strange. If the dwarves were first, though, it would make sense that they were so small.

First, the humans who would become the smaller races moved into caves, and because of the cramped restrictions of caves, they became smaller and smaller. From there, some of them chose to start living outside and became halflings (more commonly known on Earth as floresiensis). This was the scholars’ theory, though no one knew if this was in fact correct. The halflings might have started from people leaving the caves, or maybe they got tired of traveling and became dwarves. Either way, there was no doubt that out of all of humanity they were the closest to each other being as how they branched from the same path.

But their cultures and personalities also clashed the most. Halflings loved traveling and freedom, so they just couldn’t understand dwarves, who chose to stay put. On the other hand, dwarves loved the quiet. That was why the halflings considered them weird. As for the halflings who loved freedom and travels, not all of them were spending their time as they pleased. Some of them had circumstances that forced them to live the opposite of that way of life.

He, Phecda, was a halfling. He was employed as a soldier by the largest human country, the Crown Empire. Even while he dreamed of traveling the world freely, he instead spent every day donning his armor and spending his time in a fortress.

Sounding full of self-derision, Phecda consulted his comrade, who was standing next to him. “Hey, Dubhe... What do I look like to you? I’ve been wondering recently whether I’m actually a dwarf.”

Today’s job was to guard the gate to the fortress. Their job yesterday was to guard it, too, as well as the day before that. He was sure that they would be doing the same thing tomorrow, and the day after, and probably next week, and basically every day until they died. To him, being stuck in this small place and being forced to wear limiting armor was just like being a dwarf, which led Phecda to that sarcastic question.

“You bring to bear some strange questions. You have the bearing of a halfling from any angle.” The one Phecda asked his question to and who insisted on peppering his answers with quirks to assert his personality was his comrade and polar bear beastfolk, Dubhe.

On one side was a huge over 2.5 m tall beastfolk, and on the other was a halfling only 1.3 m tall. The two lined up together seemed like a strange pair and were a somewhat famous sight.

“Hey, Dubhe. Why are we standing here, day in and day out?”

“Bearcause we don’t know when a dragon might bring some violence to bear. The Crown Empire is currently engaged in a grizzly war with the dragons.”

“Shouldn’t we just run instead of fighting a fight we can’t win? We can’t even really deal with a single dragon, and our opponent’s leader is the king of all dragons, the ‘Hundred Heads,’ you know? There’s no way we humans can win.”

The Crown Empire was humanity’s largest country. Lead by Emperor Borealis, the Crown Empire played host to all seven races of humanity and boasted not only bountiful lands but the world’s greatest economy. But that was only up until a few years ago. Right now, it was nothing but the world’s most dangerous country thanks to the threat of dragons.

One day, the king of all dragons, a living calamity, had attacked humanity out of the blue. The entire continent had been consumed with fear in an instant. Dragons had always been around. They were symbols of fear, and everybody knew they shouldn’t be messed with. Up until now, there had been a mutual understanding between humans and dragons. Dragons didn’t actively attack humans thanks to the troublesomeness of their united nature as well as their sheer numbers, and outside of a few evil dragons, most dragons were fairly peaceful anyway as long as they weren’t attacked. Either that, or humans simply weren’t impactful enough to register to them.

Ladon, the recently crowned head of the dragons, was of a different opinion. He felt that humanity was an annoyance. Ever since he’d attacked, the conflict had been one-sided. Several villages and towns had already gone up in flames, and the numbers of the lost had reached the five-digit mark.

In response, the Crown Empire built and staffed four fortresses in cardinal directions, as if to encircle its capital and the surrounding towns. It wasn’t to stop the invasion. The purpose of the fortresses was to alert the country as fast as possible in the event of an attack and also to buy time for the country to prepare a counterattack. The soldiers here could be described as a suicide squad, formed under the assumption that they would die in battle.

Phecda and Dubhe were employed in one such fortress, and they spent every day standing in front of a gate on guard.

“You know, for all your complaining, you’ve been bearing with this job a long time without running, Phecda.”

“Well, yeah, I guess.”

Phecda actually wanted to escape this country as fast as possible. But he couldn’t do that, so he sat here instead. He had a younger sister and brother, and with his parents gone due to an epidemic, they only had Phecda to rely on as the eldest brother. On top of all that, his younger sister was also sick and in no condition to take any long trips. In order to take his sister with him out of this country, the one thing Phecda needed was money, enough to pay for passage aboard a ship, a carriage ride, and food. The fees for her medicine were stupid high and yet not nearly as high as the cost of healing her completely.

At any rate, he needed money, money, and more money. Even knowing the risks, Phecda had volunteered for this position. Since they were basically guaranteed to die if they were ever attacked, the pay was good. As long as they weren’t attacked, the job was a cushy gig where they could basically steal wages by just standing around all day. In the end, all that meant was that Phecda had sold off his life. He had entered the most dangerous job in the world to protect his little brother and sister.

Well, they weren’t guaranteed to die... The dragons might assault from a different direction, or they might get bored and call off the invasion altogether. In the worst case, Phecda could still “lose” his job by forfeiting a leg and being branded as useless. If that happened, at least he’d finally be able to take his siblings with him and leave. Though, if the dragons really did come in their direction, there was no way a miracle would just drop into Phecda’s lap and allow him to get off with such light injuries. It was almost a one hundred percent chance that he’d die...

“Hey, Dubhe. I could say the same about you too.”

“I bear goodwill towards this country, since it accepts beastfolk. I’d like to defend this country from a grizzly fate.”

“Hah, you softie.”

Countries that accepted beastfolk were few and far between, since they were close to being monsters themselves. In fact, several beastfolk were already treated like demihumans instead of humans, and demihumans got the same treatment as out-and-out monsters. Probably thanks to that, beastfolk as a whole tended to be outcast from society no matter where they went.

After that line, the two of them stood around in silence for a good while, but in the end, guards still had nothing to do most days, and boredom won out. In order to stave off the boredom, there was no choice but to talk more.

“Dubhe, imagine the war ends and you’re still living. What do you want to do?”

“You know, the hero Michael said that people who say that tend to bearish first.”

“Who?”

“He was a beary strong hero who was summoned from another world via Exgate a long time ago. It was rumored that he could take on any foe with no weapon, just a bear of gloves and pants. He was a truly beartacular person.”

“That just sounds like a pervert to me.”

“I admire him beary much.”

“You shouldn’t.”

Otherworld heroes were people who occasionally surfaced in heroic tales and the like. Phecda knew that they apparently came from some world called “Earth,” but nothing other than that. Unfortunately, Phecda had basically no interest in history.

“So? Isn’t there something that you want to do?”

“Hmm, let’s see... I’d beary much like to expand the number of countries a beastfolk can walk around boldly in.”

“Oh? Those are some big dreams there. You wanna be like a king or something?”

“I’ve bearly thought that far ahead. What about you, Phecda?”

“Me? Let’s see... Yeah, I wanna travel. I want to walk all around the world and see everything Mizgarz has to offer.”

It’s an impossible dream. I know that. I’m sure that we’ll just end up dying on a battlefield somewhere. I know that too.

But that was exactly why Phecda admired the outdoors. That was precisely why he couldn’t stop dreaming the impossible.

I know I’ll just end up feeling empty, but I should at least be free to dream, right? It’s the only joy I have in life. I don’t even know if I’ll die tomorrow. I’d like to at least be able to dream.

“Phecda...”

“Wha?”

“Something is coming from over there.” Dubhe sounded uncharacteristically serious, so Phecda’s expression naturally changed as well.

Are they finally here? Did they decide to come this way? His heart beat heavily in his chest as he also wondered why no alarms were sounding. There was a lookout in a tower. If anything huge like a dragon came anywhere near, they’d know.

The answer to Phecda’s question came quickly. It wasn’t a dragon that was approaching them from far away. It was a wagon.

＊　　　　＊

The wagon was driven by a merchant that had traveled a long way from the neighboring continent and his escorts. Zeno, the head of a huge trading company that bore his name, was already an old man of seventy, but he was still powerful and active even in his old age. He had a surprisingly small number of escorts, with only four people accompanying him. There was a heaven-winged girl with black wings, a muscular man, an armored dwarf, and an elf with glasses. It was a strange combination.

Adventurers were a rough bunch that walked hand in hand with death, using their lives as recompense for living so freely. It was the one job that Phecda secretly admired above all others. If a person were to compare the social standings of a soldier to an adventurer, the soldier would have the overwhelming advantage. There were as many soldiers that looked down upon adventurers as there were stars in the sky, and normally no soldier would want to be an adventurer. But Phecda belonged to the extroverted and freedom-loving halfling race. The lifestyle of the adventurer just really appealed to him.

Wow, it’s rare for a dwarf to leave his cave to become an adventurer. How ironic is it that someone like me is living like a dwarf, while a dwarf is living how I should be?

Apparently they’d come to sell weapons in the capital, but first, those weapons needed to be inspected. There was no way they could just be let through with no questions asked. Understanding that, the merchant Zeno cheerfully agreed to the questioning, and so it was decided that they would all be staying in the fortress.

That night, Phecda came upon the group of adventurers eating in the mess hall after he switched shifts with the night watch. Sitting in front of them was a man with slicked-back blond—or rather, almost ochre-colored—hair and tan skin. They seemed to be having a merry conversation. His name was Alphecca, and he was a skilled swordsman who was in charge of this entire fortress.

“Huh? Well, if it isn’t the captain.”

“Oh, hey there, Phecda. I was just talking to these adventurers here. They’re amazing! This is the rumored dragon killer party.”

“Huh? Dragon killer? ...You mean from that bullshit story about a couple adventurers from the other continent managing to kill the evil dragon Nogard?”

“You shouldn’t call it bullshit when they’re right here. Well, it’s true that I also didn’t really believe it until I met them, though.”

Dragon killing adventurers from the neighboring continent... It had been the subject of rumors a little while back. Apparently they’d killed a real dragon with only a handful of adventurers. It was an impossible story, and Phecda had considered it an utter exaggeration. No, he still considered it that way. After all, such a thing happening was just patently impossible. A country could rouse its entire military might and assemble an army numbering in the tens of thousands, and even then they would only maybe win. A dragon wasn’t something only a handful of people could claim victory over. If a dragon was that easy to deal with, then we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.

“Right, Lufas. Could you show me your sword one more time?”

“Sure, I don’t mind.” Lufas, the woman with the black wings, placed the sword she wore at her waist on the table.

Phecda wasn’t very well versed in swords, but even so, he was a soldier. It was obvious to him even at a glance that the sword was giving off an incredible sense of presence...of strength. Even a complete amateur who didn’t know the first thing about swords would believe that this was a strong one. That was just how amazing it looked.

“Apparently this was made from a couple of Nogard’s fangs. A sword made out of a wyvern’s fang wouldn’t feel like this. I can’t believe I only managed to learn that a true masterpiece of a sword wouldn’t even need appraising at this age.”

“Y-Yeah... I could tell at first sight too. This sword is amazing.”

There was no room for doubt. The sword was real. Even Phecda had seen a sword made out of a wyvern’s fang, and he’d also seen scammers trying to sell swords like that while advertising that they had been made from dragon fangs. But this sword was different. There was no way it was a knockoff like that.

“This sword is unshakeable proof that that story was real. No regular adventurer would be walking around with a sword like this. No country would give an adventurer something like this, so they’d only be able to get this sword if they killed the dragon themselves.”

Phecda couldn’t refute Alphecca’s statement. That’s true. If they’d done anything short of killing the dragon themselves, like only helping, they would never have gotten a treasure like the fang, though they’d probably still have been rewarded somehow. She has that sword precisely because they actually fought and killed the dragon. That fact imprinted itself onto Phecda without being filtered by his brain.

“And sorry to bring this up again, but... How does one million el sound? That’s all I have. Would you give me the sword for that?”

“Sorry, but no.”

Sounds like Alphecca’s trying to buy the sword. It’s not like I don’t get it... No, I get it so much it hurts. We’re in a fortress that’s basically on the front lines of a war with dragons. It’s only natural to want as strong a weapon as possible.

However, Lufas immediately shot the offer down, and it seemed to Phecda like Alphecca had expected it, though he was still sad.

“Come on, Cap, that’s obviously an impossible ask.”

“Yeah, I figured... A country would easily pay one hundred million el for something like that. Yeah, there’s no way she’d sell the sword for this pittance.”

“What?! One hundred million?! Lufas, sell it! You’re okay with your bare hands anyway, aren’t you?!”

“As if!”

After hearing how much it was worth, the swordsman Alioth got a greedy look in his eye. But Lufas had no desire to sell.

Well, it’s true that strong fighters can make their own fortunes with a good weapon.

Lufas quickly put the weapon away, causing both Alphecca and Alioth to groan in disappointment.

“Hey, if it’s all right with all of you, could you tell me about your adventures? I’m interested in adventuring.”

Phecda pestered Lufas and the others to talk about their adventures, and they cheerfully agreed. They talked about how the party had gotten started and their fight with the dinosaur. They also talked about exploring some ruins and how Alioth had gotten struck by traps over and over. The next story was of Mizar tossing a bomb into a cave which had been settled by goblins, burying them alive. After that was the time they’d been hunting monsters on the beach, but when Lufas had tried to capture a spiral-shell monster, she messed up and got a crab instead. Lastly was how they’d met Mizar, as well as the fight with the dragon.

Every single one of those tales made Phecda’s heart soar, increasing his aspiration for the job. They were all like the stuff of dreams to him, but the sudden sounding of a whistle brought him back to earth. And Phecda wasn’t the only one. Tension ran through all the soldiers in the mess hall, including Alphecca, as they focused on what they could hear.

The whistle sounded again. It happened twice more, and Phecda started to sweat. The whistle was a signal from those on the watchtower saying they saw something in the distance. The type of whistle differentiated the type and size of the enemy force, and the number of times the whistle was blown indicated how far away they were. The first set had indicated medium danger. The fortress was being attacked not by dragons, but by their followers or retainers. The second had indicated their size. The whistle had blown three times, so the enemy force was at least company size.

Then lastly, a different whistle blew, and Alphecca and Phecda nodded to each other. The last one informed them of how far away the enemy was, and this time they were about fifty kilometers away. The distance was hard to deal with; it was in the perfect spot where they would look far away, but they were close enough to close the distance in no time at all. High-leveled monsters could move at a speed that defied logic and common sense.

“Hey, what was that sound just now?”

“It’s saying that your inspection is over...” Alphecca replied to Alioth’s question with a lie.

This fortress would now become a battlefield, and they shouldn’t involve adventurers in it. That was why Alphecca lied.

“Huh? But we were told it’d take an entire day...”

“Apparently it went way faster than expected. I’m surprised too.” Alphecca pretended like it was no big deal by brushing off Alioth’s misgivings.

Alioth looked satisfied with that answer. “I guess it’s just like that sometimes?” Alioth muttered to himself, and he didn’t press any further.

“Okay then. Take Zeno and hurry on your way. Get outta here.”

“Hey, hey. You know how late it is? And didn’t you tell us that we could stay?”

“Yeah, until the inspection was done. It’s done now, so there’s no reason to let you stay.”

I bet this sounds so unreasonable to them... Honestly, if what Alphecca was saying were true, then it actually wouldn’t be that strange.

But Alphecca was a soldier. He couldn’t allow civilians to be involved in a battle. He was surely thinking that only the soldiers had to face death today, so playing the villain and forcing them out was necessary.

Turning his back to Lufas and the others, Phecda ran for the gates, meeting up with Dubhe, who had remained there. Either because of his extra stamina or because of his own wishes, he worked longer than everyone else. But right now, it wasn’t just Dubhe who was there. Everyone stationed at the fortress was gathering at the gates.

Eventually, Alphecca showed up after seeing off the carriage carrying the adventurers, which had left from the opposite side of the fortress. He was accompanied by the fortress’ staff officer, Meridiana. Meridiana would be turning seventy this year. With a remarkably long and crooked nose, she looked a lot like a witch from fairy tales. It was a sign of how backed into the corner this country was that they’d had to drag someone that old out onto the battlefield.

“Their size?”

“Around two hundred wyverns. They’re company sized.”

“Two hundred wyverns, huh...?”

Wyverns, unlike full dragons, were a different species of monster that only looked similar to dragons, but now they were under the umbrella of the powerful dragon king and would frequently mount attacks on the empire. While they weren’t as powerful as a full-fledged dragon, they were still a threat to humanity. Each one of them was around level 70-80, and there were very few people who could take a wyvern one-on-one. There were two hundred of them coming this way... In human terms, their force was easily larger than a battalion.

On the opposite side, the fortress had two thousand soldiers stationed in it. Including volunteers, captured monsters, and alchemist-made golems, the Crown Empire’s total forces exceeded one hundred thousand soldiers, and almost all of them were tasked with defending the country.

Once again, the role of the people in this fortress wasn’t to decimate the enemy. It was to report an enemy attack to the rest of the nation and buy time for them to form a retaliatory force. No one was expecting them to win.

“We have ten times their numbers... They’re confident, aren’t they?”

Alphecca was joking around, but Meridiana bit a retort. “Yeah. Confident they’ll kill all of us.”

“You got that right.”

In just pure numbers they’d be able to fight a single wyvern with ten people. But as stated earlier, wyverns were by no means weak. A highly skilled soldier like Alphecca could take a wyvern by themselves, but that would be impossible for common soldiers. Even ten to one, their chances of winning would be very low.

“How’s the report to the higher-ups?”

“I sent the messenger pigeon already. They should be getting it soon.”

“Good.”

Alphecca only asked Meridiana for the bare minimum of information before quickly changing tack to planning their course of action.

The enemy was a force of wyverns of about company size. With the usage of traps and other tactics, victory wouldn’t be impossible, but it still wouldn’t be very likely at all. It would be nothing for the main force to take out that number of wyverns, so the goal was to buy time until the main force could muster for an assured victory. There was no need for them to push themselves and lose their lives.

“This is an order to all soldiers: we will now be entering combat with the wyverns. Our goal is only to keep them from continuing their attack. There’s no need to force ourselves to defeat them.”

The force that came this time wasn’t enough to call a vanguard. To the dragons, something like this was just in the realm of poking and testing the empire. There’d be no end to it if every soldier of the empire sacrificed themselves trying to kill off the attacking forces every time. All that would happen was that the empire would eventually run out of soldiers, leaving them wide open for the dragons. So no matter what, the soldiers of the fortress needed to stop the wyverns here.

“The strategy will be Plan A. Don’t rush. We can just move like in practice. Make sure you don’t give up hope and act in desperation. Show me your guts. Struggle to live until the end without giving up. My order is this: live, even if you have to crawl through mud to do it!”

Alphecca’s short speech lit a fire under the soldiers as they responded with a war cry. In order to raise morale, Alphecca knew that he’d need to force himself to give a show to heighten their excitement. Otherwise, the soldiers would be swallowed by their fear.

Yeah, I’ll make sure I survive. I’ll survive, return, and shove this in their faces. This fight isn’t a fight to die. It’s a fight to survive.

Drawing upon their training, the soldiers all moved towards where they should have been according to the plan. As for Phecda and Dubhe, they were on standby. Their role was to engage the enemy in battle at the gates. It was the most dangerous role in the base.

The wyverns had gotten close enough to see from the foot of the gates when fire arrows were launched all at once from inside the fortress. Meridiana also cast her Fire magic in concert with the arrows, spawning a wall of fire as the arrows landed. There were barrels filled with oil around where the fire arrows were landing, camouflaged by grass and the like.

Suddenly engulfed in fire, the wyverns started to run, seeming confused. However, Alphecca simply stood with his arms crossed and didn’t react. The two alchemists that flanked him put their hands to the ground and transmuted a large wall of earth. Then, the ground under the wyverns crumbled beneath their collective weight, dropping several down a pit where there were iron spears waiting for them.

“Assault squad, charge!”

Responding to Alphecca’s order, the soldiers that were waiting in front of the gates all raised their spears at once. For spears, they were very long and seemed hard to wield. They were probably around three meters long, so they weren’t well suited for battle.

Phecda and Dubhe both picked up a spear, and the entire squad ran forward all at once.

The earthen wall that had just been made by the alchemists had holes in it to allow spears to poke through it, and the soldiers all stabbed their spears through the holes in unison. The seemingly useless length of the spears was actually to prevent counterattacks from the enemy and allow the soldiers to stab one-sidedly.

Both ends of the wall exploded simultaneously from the other side. The source was explosives that had been set there beforehand in order to stop any who would try to go around the wall. However, the wyverns weren’t limited to moving on land. Several of them reached the obvious conclusion and took to the skies. Right when they did, a hail of arrows was there to greet them. The arrows were tipped with something similar to a balloon, which broke when it hit the monsters. There was almost no damage, but it turned out to be filled with a very sticky liquid, which stuck to the wyverns and slowed their movements. The liquid also stopped the wyverns from being able to flap their wings well enough to stay in the air. One by one, they fell to the earth, forced to crawl miserably on the ground.

Of course, the soldiers wouldn’t let such a chance go. Phecda heaved his long lance upward so that the falling wyverns would skewer themselves on it. Anything that actually made it to the ground was quickly taken care of by Alphecca.

“Next spear forward!”

Phecda pulled back to collect his spear once again, and his spot was smoothly taken over by another soldier from the front line, who wasted no time in stabbing his spear through the port in the wall.

Hmm, we’ve been dealing with this battle pretty well so far. With ten dead, I suppose we’re doing well, Alphecca thought. For now, we’ve set the pace, but the fight is just beginning. The next wave will probably take a wider detour to get around the wall, and they’ll be careful of arrows too. Not to mention that the wall isn’t exactly indestructible.

If the enemy were bound to the ground, Alphecca could have considered taking a formation to encircle them, but since the wyverns could fly, a lot of strategies and formations were rendered useless. Geez... Flying is so unfair, isn’t it? Goddammit...

Alphecca charged into a wyvern that had gotten through the siege of arrows, slicing it apart as he passed. He quickly returned his sword to his sheath before looking towards the wall like what he’d just accomplished was no big deal.

There were other wyverns that had managed to get past the wall, but they were shot down thanks to Phecda’s remarkable skill with the bow. Alphecca fought the desire to whistle in appreciation. While Phecda was short, he was in excellent physical shape and a skilled archer. Not to be beat, Dubhe was facing a wyvern head-on, forcing it to submit through sheer power. It was obvious that Dubhe was a powerful fighter, and he was also one of the few people who could take a wyvern one-on-one from the front.

I don’t want to let them die... Not those guys... To Alphecca, the two were still young. They had a bright future filled with possibilities open to them, so much so that Alphecca was sure that if they survived, they’d become great enough to carve their names in history. If someone has to die, let it be someone like me, who’s lived a fairly long and fulfilling life. Young seedlings like them shouldn’t be picked ahead of their time. It was an exceedingly soft and naive thought for the battlefield, but that was exactly why Alphecca was loved and respected by his subordinates.

Alphecca’s eyes never strayed from the ongoing battle as he readied himself, preparing to react, give out orders, and make the best decisions possible no matter what happened. Even crossing his arms in a show of composure was a calculated move to reassure his soldiers. Just by standing firm, a commander greatly affected the morale of his soldiers, so even standing still was part of Alphecca’s job. But such fictitious bravado could be turned into gut-wrenching despair in an instant.

A shadow fell over the battlefield. Everyone reflexively looked up and saw the manifestation of fear. Its body was big enough to block out the light of the moon, and it was calmly looking down on the soldiers.

“A d-dragon...”

It wasn’t a mere wyvern. Right now, a real, honest-to-goodness dragon was looking at the soldiers. It surveyed them with a look that said that it was looking at trash.

No way... He definitely wasn’t there a second ago. And none of the lookouts spotted a dragon either. Did they just miss it? No way, surely not something that big? Look at it. That monster has to be, like, fifty meters long! Like, there’s no way that happened! Did... Did it fly over?! Did it come over from beyond where the lookouts could see at a speed faster than they could blow the whistle?!

People often held the misconception that dragons were slow because of their size. They were greatly misinformed. Given a day, it wasn’t impossible for the species said to be the strongest in Mizgarz to do a lap around the whole planet. Some scholars even claimed that their top speed was over a hundred times the speed of sound. According to a certain scholar, dragons were a monster that combined the strength ratio of a bug with the size of a whale.

A rhinoceros beetle could lift twenty times its own weight, and a grasshopper could jump dozens of times its own height. But that was possible only because they were so small in the first place. If they were human sized, then they would just be crushed under their own weight. Dragons had that strength in an even larger body. Even while being so huge, they could lift dozens of times their own weight and leap to the ends of the earth in a single jump. They even had human-level intelligence and could use magic. That was how powerful dragons were. Fighting a dragon meant fighting something as big as a whale with human intelligence, a bug’s strength, and magic.

“F-Fire! Fire, fire!”

In a panic, the archer squad loosed their arrows. But the attack wasn’t successful. The arrows fruitlessly bounced off its scales, failing to even cause a scratch. Dragon scales were strong. They had the hardness of diamond, but with high flexibility and toughness, and could even resist mana.

The dragon looked upon the fortress as if it were looking at an eyesore and simply started drawing breath.

“Crap, all of you, get out of there!” Alphecca screamed, and the soldiers quickly retreated. The speed of their retreat reflected the thoroughness of their daily training.

Then, the dragon released its breath, easily gouging a hole into the fortress, which should have been incredibly sturdy. As if it were taking a bite out of space itself, the breath damaged the fortress, greatly causing all the soldiers to turn pale.

Just a single breath held so much power. Just a simple action that seemed as light as blowing some lint off a desk caused so much destruction.

“No...way... The ground, there’s a furrow all the way out to...”

A dragon’s breath was its most iconic and powerful weapon. Seeing it once in person showed that off more than a thousand words ever could.

A furrow was shaved out of the ground, as if someone had used a giant shovel to clear snow all the way to the horizon. Of course, there wasn’t actually any snow around, but the ground itself was probably as soft as snow to a dragon. Walking would probably have them sink into the ground, and a breath would send it flying. A human’s and a dragon’s way of looking at the world were totally different.

They were monsters.

In that instant, Alphecca and all the other soldiers realized that they didn’t have a snowball’s chance in Helheim.

It’s impossible now. Two thousand people is nowhere near enough to deal with this. No, “deal with” isn’t even the right phrase. We probably can’t even wound it.

Dragons were a mobile calamity, and fighting them wasn’t even an option. It was much like how no idiot that would try to fight a tornado with a sword existed, or how no fool existed who could psych themselves up to yell at an erupting volcano that they were its opponent. Such futility was so obvious anybody would figure it out instantly. As soon as the dragon had noticed them, they should have given up on fighting and ran.

We, the empire, were... We were wrong... This isn’t something we can stop with just two thousand soldiers and a fortress...!

The fortress held no meaning anymore. Alphecca was sure of that. After all, the dragon could just ignore the fortress if it really wanted to. With its overwhelming speed, the dragon could have just flown over and assaulted the center of the nation any time it pleased. Even if it didn’t, it could probably take down the fortress itself with a single tackle.

What do I do? How should I save even one more person? Alphecca didn’t care if he himself died. But he couldn’t allow himself to waste the lives that had been entrusted to him. They can’t be allowed to die wastefully here just because they were accompanying a talentless man like me.

While he was thinking, Phecda and Dubhe jumped in front of Alphecca to shield him as they took swipes at the dragon. Of course, they didn’t deal any damage. It was sad how little their attacks mattered.

Annoyed, the dragon opened its mouth, a flame that would immolate the tiny retaliators igniting inside it.

“S-STOOOOOPPPP!”

The dragon’s breath—never left its mouth.

The next moment, a black shadow came flying in from the side, blowing the dragon away.

It flipped once, twice, three times. In an unrealistic turn of events, the dragon was thrown back in a tailspin. One of its fangs had snapped in that one strike, and scales from its cheek had been ripped off and sent flying. The dragon hit the ground, causing it to shake and digging a furrow as it continued on into the distance.

“Apsaras!”

Following that, a bird made of water flew through the air, sweeping up the wyverns and avoiding the soldiers as if it were sentient before bursting.

The soldiers turned to look at the source of the unexpected help and saw the adventurers that should have left already.

That elf named Megrez must have cast the spell just now. Its scale and power is absurd.

Almost half of the original two hundred wyverns had disappeared in one strike, but it was still dwarfed by the first punch that had been thrown by Lufas. Of all things, the heaven-winged girl punched the dragon with her bare hands to send it flying.

“Y-You’re...”

“We owe you for the meal, so we came back,” Lufas said, drawing the sword at her waist.

Then, the sword extended and twisted like a snake, flashing across the battlefield. The sword bit into the wyverns one after the other, turning each one into a corpse with a single strike.

Mizar placed his hands on the ground and created golems. The artificial soldiers formed a line to protect the human soldiers. From behind the line, Megrez launched another spell, and Alioth ran through the battlefield to assault the wyverns.

“I-Is this a miracle...?”

“Hey, Dubhe, am I dreaming right now?”

“I think I’m dreaming too...”

“You forgot to make a bear pun there.”

Another epic tale was unfolding before their very eyes, and the ones who were fighting were heroes. Just four adventurers had already managed to destroy the entire horde of wyverns. The dragon returned and threw a blow with all its might, but Lufas stopped it with one hand. The blow, which was made with an overwhelming size and weight difference, caused the ground under Lufas to cave in as she received it, but Lufas herself hadn’t budged an inch. Then, she countered. In a flash, she jumped in front of the dragon’s face and unleashed a straight right. The dragon was launched backward, and Lufas followed. To others, it looked as if she’d kicked the air, and in the next moment, she was already caught up and attacking.

She continued to chase it further. Flying even faster than the dragon was, she kicked it upward before once again flying up ahead of it and punching it back down. But she wasn’t finished yet. Lufas dropped and reached the ground faster than the dragon yet again, kicking it away as it fell into range.

The dragon rolled away like it was a ball, its horns and claws snapping off and flying in all directions.

To finish it off, Lufas raised both hands together.

“I order you as your master: bisect mine enemies with your steel blade. Come, Karkinos!”

A crimson-red form jumped out of the rift in space, answering Lufas’s call. It was a gigantic crab monster that was just as big as the dragon. The crab grabbed the dragon by the neck with its pincers and slammed it into the ground. Then the pincers closed. The dragon’s hard scales, which should have protected it, did nothing as its head was easily separated from its body and fell to the ground.

With its job done, the crab waved its pincers as it retreated back into the crack in space. The literal instant kill had Alphecca dumbstruck.

Eventually, the situation caught up with some of the soldiers, and there was an uproar. As more and more soldiers regained their senses, they added their voices to the yell. Eventually the yells became cheers loud enough to shake the ground.

“W-WOOOWWWW! Amazing, utterly amazing! You’re all, uh... Anyway, you guys are great! Dammit, that’s the only way I can describe it!”

“Hey, man, is this a joke?! Did we really survive that?!”

“I’m gonna go back and confess to the girl I like!”

“The hell?! Is this a dream?! Dammit, I never wanna wake up!”

Among all the soldiers’ cheers, Alphecca couldn’t help but notice that his fingers were trembling.

Is this fear? No, it’s elation, excitement. With the threat of the dragon in front of my face, I was convinced of humanity’s loss. I thought that even the notion of fighting was ridiculous.

But... Ah, I see... Hope was right here. Here, with the heroes. We can win! As long as they’re here, humanity can win!

Later, he would swear loyalty to Lufas, and Alphecca William would later go down in history as an extraordinary warrior who stayed by Lufas’s side even in the fight with the Seven Heroes. His autobiography would say that this was the start of his epic tale. On that day, humanity bore witness to numerous miracles, and that marked the start of humanity’s counterattack against the dragons.

“On that day, I witnessed the start of a story,” was what Alphecca had written down in his autobiography.

Eventually after his death, Alphecca’s autobiography would become widespread, and in its popularity, it would raise a question and show how heroes ought to be. Every book that he wrote always ended with the same line:

“I don’t believe Lufas Maphaahl would come to an end like that. I just don’t. I’m sure she’ll come back someday. She’ll come back and once again show us countless miracles. That’s what I believe.”