Chapter 17: Earth Dragon and Queen

Chapter 17:
Earth Dragon and Queen

FROM THE SKY, the ancient Earth Dragon’s back looked like a black mountain range. It slowly shifted its body to turn toward us.

I forced myself to switch gears. I couldn’t let myself think about that gracious, bespectacled man, the first person I ever met in this world. Any hint of regret could only spell death for me.

Right, switch gears, I was a man who could switch gears.

No problem. There’s obviously no problem. I’m me, after all. Switching gears is—

I suddenly no longer felt that strange wind pressure within Gol’s arms. The absence of wind gave the illusion that time had stopped.

Then Gol began to descend. She had leapt into the air with her impressive leg strength; she couldn’t fly. And what goes up must come down, right?

During our descent, I locked eyes for a moment with the ancient Earth Dragon. Goosebumps rolled down my arms. Its stark black eyes held no emotion, not even a speck of bloodlust. It saw us as nothing more than flies.

Gol landed lightly on the ground. Even though we fell from such a height, she made no sound as she did. With great care, she lowered me to the ground. After she confirmed that both of my feet were planted, she bent forward to lower her center of gravity.

Gol rushed the ancient Earth Dragon like a pure-white arrow. Just before she was about to make contact, she jumped up at incredible speed. Her raised white fist caused the air to scream, and she threw her punch—the one that had pulverized every enemy she had ever encountered.

There was no particular technique to it or anything like that. It was raw power, a straightforward blow that used her whole body’s momentum. However, this extremely simple attack was the best way to release her absolute destructive force.

Her fist landed a perfect hit. Since the Earth Dragon had turned to us, its flank, essentially its abdomen, was completely exposed, giving Gol a clear point of contact. At the moment of impact, the dragon’s bedrock-like scales looked like one of those impact craters on the moon.

I gasped in relief. We won!

That force must have instantaneously transmitted to the dragon’s internal organs, critically injuring or destroying them. It didn’t matter how large a body was; if its organs were damaged, any living creature would fal—

“What…?”

The Earth Dragon did not fall. Far from that, it was unperturbed. It neither flinched in pain nor howled in anger. It didn’t react at all. Even the color of its eyes remained the same. Those emotionless black voids continued to see us as nothing more than insignificant creatures, bound to be crushed to death beneath great, uncaring feet.

Gol was repelled by the recoil of her punch. She usually didn’t make a sound when she landed, but for the first time, I heard her hit the ground. A heavy thud reverberated and left a crack in the earth.

Immediately, Gol rushed the dragon again. With a jump, she soared through the air like a bird, landed on the Earth Dragon’s back, and let loose a crazed rush of punches on the giant creature’s spine. Her flurry of blows flew left and right in quick succession. Each blow carried the weight of fatal impact, leaving comet-sized craters in the dragon’s thick scales.

However, the ancient Earth Dragon did not fall, even though I was pretty sure some of those attacks reached all the way to its spine.

Her enemy still not felled, Gol dashed up its shoulder toward its head. There, she spun in the air and released an axe kick like a guillotine on the Earth Dragon’s thick neck. Her slender leg whizzed, whip-like, through the air. The explosion of impact echoed after.

This was execution by decapitation from a merciless war goddess. The monumental body of the ancient Earth Dragon dipped a few meters. Yet it remained standing. It didn’t even stagger.

This evil, five-horned dragon wasn’t just physically massive; between its hardened scales and dense, dark color, it had an enormous presence. It never faltered. It only continued to look down on us, motionless. Its stark eyes showed not a single sign of pain.

No effect, even after that demonic tornado of attacks? Unless this guy was composed of pure protein and calcium, there was no way his cells hadn’t been damaged after taking all that abuse. What was going on with this creature’s body?

It cannot be killed, no matter how strong Goretaru is. These last words from Mister Speria slipped into my head like a shadowy figure. It is half spirit. Its physical body is here, but that means nothing.

Was that not just a cryptic description used as a metaphor to express the dragon’s composition? Were physical attacks actually meaningless to the body of this monster…?

Impossible. But that was the only conclusion I could make. I was speechless as I stared up at the Earth Dragon with a pale face.

As if in response to my stare, Gol was suddenly thrown backwards like she had been repelled by an invisible wall. What was that?! What was happening?

The Earth Dragon turned in the direction Gol had flown. It opened its cavernous mouth, revealing each of its fiendish fangs. Suddenly, an immense number of dirt particles converged between its jaws.

This phenomenon was all too familiar. It was an Earth spell—no, Earth sorcery.

As I had that thought, a colossal stone pillar of a missile shot at Gol. Ominous brown clouds of miasma whirled around it, radiating a strange purple plasma. This Earth sorcery was clearly different from the kind at the monkeys’ disposal—had it been what destroyed the ground where we stood just moments before?

This was bad. Gol was in midair. Furthermore, she was off balance and defenseless. I frantically raised my right hand toward the missile. “NTR!”

I had executed this move against the monkeys over and over, and it had repelled their stone bullets every time, no matter how many thousands it had to catch. This was not an exaggeration. I was fully confident in the might and power of NTR.

If I could wrest control of the giant stone bullet, I could neutralize it. The Earth Dragon’s bullet was significantly larger than the monkeys’, but it was at most two meters in diameter and several meters in length. Furthermore, there was only one. Neither material nor structure would pose a problem for me.

And unlike the time I failed to control the golems at the shrine, I felt that strange sensation of hitting a target. NTR was working.

Yet the ancient Earth Dragon’s projectile didn’t stop. Its speed faintly decreased, but it continued straight toward Gol.

“Wha—?” I was speechless.

Fortunately, Gol reacted quickly. She spun, fixing her posture the moment the projectile slowed, before powerfully kicking off the ground. She brandished her right fist at the approaching bullet.

The white goddess’s knockout punch crashed into the titanic rock spat out by that evil dragon. The two inimitable forces clashed, creating a shockwave. I grimaced against the furious winds.

The bullet plowed relentlessly forward, driving a furrow into the earth, and pushing Gol back with her fist still in contact with it. They left behind a river of destruction, a long, straight ditch of scattered sediment and miasma.

Gol had lost in a battle of strength. The stony material of the bullet was likely much different than I had expected.

As I thought that, a crack began to form in the center of the stone. It feathered out like a spiderweb, eventually covering the entire bullet. Then the bullet shattered.

Gol was caught in the secondary shockwave of its explosive end and blown back over ten meters. But she was uninjured, and she planted her feet firmly on the ground.

“W-we survived…” I unconsciously let out a sigh of relief.

But something was off. A large crack ran down the base of Gol’s right arm. The crack soon circled Gol’s thin limb, and then her entire right arm landed on the ground with a thump.

Gol staggered, lost her balance, and fell on her back. She desperately tried to get up, but her body stiffened, unable to move.

What’s wrong, Gol? I thought desperately, blood draining from my face, my limbs, my whole body. “Gol, you all right?!”

I was so shocked that I couldn’t think of anything. I stumbled as I dashed through the vortex of miasma to the injured Gol’s side. I slid on my knees and held the torso of my partner in my arms.

Her body felt different than usual. It was so strange to see the residual brown miasma coiling around her white skin. Had she been hit by the mana in the stone bullet? Or perhaps, by the miasma itself…?

Incidentally, I was well aware that if the ancient Earth Dragon were to fire a second bullet, I would be caught up in the destruction and undoubtedly perish. That much was obvious. But if I left my Gol alone, she would die!

Fortunately, the Earth Dragon was quiet. Thinking back on it, I realized it didn’t attack us while we were defenselessly falling from the sky either. Could it be that it couldn’t fire off those stone bullets consecutively?

In any case, I embraced Gol’s shoulders. She turned her head slightly and stared at me with her red, red eyes.

“I’m glad…I’m glad you’re still conscious…” I murmured.

She usually made whatever part I touched of her body warm and soft, but she felt hard and cold, like a real statue. This was bad. What could I do? I never received any first-aid training for golems.

Just as I was at my wits’ end, particles of dirt began to gather in front of the Earth Dragon’s mouth again. The second shot was coming.

It was never an option to abandon the immobile Gol to avoid this attack. Not for me. I had to hold my ground and defend against it.

I tightly hugged Gol in my left arm and raised my right hand at the Earth Dragon. “Damn it! NTR!”

The tip of the approaching stone turned ever so slightly black.

I beg of you, please work. Curve!

Faintly—very faintly—the stone’s trajectory shifted.

Winds billowed, a shockwave shook, and purple light flashed. The blast ruptured my eardrums as the stone passed. When I looked to my right, where it had traveled, the ground was all devastation. A massive jet-black ditch dripping with miasma seethed a mere two meters away.

Although NTR had provided only a meager shift in initial trajectory, it had diverted the line of impact more than I could have hoped. Was it due to the incredible amount of kinetic energy stored in the stone bullet?

“A-are we saved…?” I exhaled.

We were still alive. But why? The gears in my head spun rapidly. Why did NTR work this time and not the other? I was sure I had seen only half of the second stone bullet change color, and then only just as the trajectory was altered.

Wait…I had cast NTR at the first stone right before Gol made contact with it. However, for the second bullet, I cast NTR at roughly the same time as the Earth Dragon created it. Did it all come down to timing? Had I just not had enough time for the first shot?

I didn’t know whether it was mana or miasma cloaking the Earth Dragon’s stone bullet in such intense power. Either way, it meant I required much more time to completely control it, unlike the other spells I had encountered, which I’d commandeered instantaneously.

However, there was no way I could cast NTR any faster. Did that mean that at best I could only alter the bullet’s trajectory? Worse, unless I somehow obtained full control of it, I couldn’t use NTR as a counterattack. To make matters even more dire, an absurd amount of mana was sucked out of me each time I intervened with the Earth Dragon’s stones. There was no way I could keep this up. Even if I continued playing defense, the moment I ran out of gas was the moment I would lose.

I also couldn’t run away on foot. Not while carrying Gol.

Carry…? I looked down. Come to think of it, how much did Gol weigh? She habitually dodged any contact with me that might give away her weight, and with truly formidable maneuvers at that. As such, I had no idea how heavy she was. Actually, the way she lightened herself at times gave the impression of a shy maiden who tried her hardest to fake her weight in front of the man she adored. In fact, this was the first time she had felt even moderately heavy in my arms.

Whatever the case, it was impossible to run away with Gol injured. On top of that, it would go against my personality and all I held dear to abandon her and run away by myself.

I had no choice but to either somehow land an attack or escape between the Earth Dragon’s shots. Whether doing so was possible didn’t matter. These were my only options.

I wracked my brain for any memory of the handful of beginner spells in Introduction to Spellcrafting IV. I’d never used any of them for fear of an explosive misfire, but it would be foolhardy to avoid them for safety’s sake when the situation was already so perilous.

Besides, on top of my Earth spells, I could use sorcery. I now understood the difference between them: Earth spells by themselves didn’t allow me to do anything with the things they created, but with sorcery, I could freely manipulate my creations through the air like RC toys—just like the ancient Earth Dragon and the monkeys could with theirs.

If I was going to counterattack, this was the only way.

I summoned my will, focused on the ground in front of me, concentrated, and began to cast. “Earth Spear.”

Grains of dirt rolled together over the ground. They twirled and intertwined until they formed the lengthening shape of a bar. Once it reached two meters, it made for a heavy brown spear.

All right, looks like I’ve accomplished the first step.

It didn’t seem like my creation would disintegrate, either, meaning I had managed to properly craft it.

I chose a spear for a reason. Other introductory spells would have let me create axes and hammers, but I needed a weapon that could fly. A spear, made to be thrown, was therefore the most appropriate. Moreover, once I got it flying through the air like the monkeys’ stone bullets, a spear would have the best penetrative power.

Now came the hard part.

How exactly do I activate sorcery…?

I figured it should be fundamentally similar to how I used NTR. The only difference would be the target—I wouldn’t be manipulating an enemy spell, but rather one I created myself.

I had to believe in myself. If those damn monkeys could instinctively use sorcery, then I, a higher-level primate, the human me, could do it too. I could not under any circumstances lose to those monkeys.

Burning with this needless antagonism, I began my courteous request to the spell, just like I always did with NTR: “Friend spear, I want to defeat that dragon. Please lend me your strength.”

The second I finished my request, a familiar sight unfolded. That ominous jet-black color consumed the spear as it silently hovered in the air and pulsed with a perplexing aura. It looked exactly like the kind of spear a dark demon lord would manifest in hell.

Yeah, success! Did you see that, you monkeys?! I can finally stand equal to you!

Unlike with NTR, it seemed that I didn’t need an explicit order to manipulate my own creations. I mean, I couldn’t exactly cheat on myself, right?

I tried maneuvering the spell in the air to test it out. The black spear wheeled in a beautiful spin before my hand. It was perfect. It felt right. With this, I could face the dragon.

I made sure the spear was spinning like a drill as I made it float over my head. Then I aimed right at the middle of the ancient Earth Dragon’s forehead.

“Spear, pierce!”

That order was also a prayer. The Earth spear flew. As if possessed with a mind to slaughter, it shot straight for the dragon’s enormous forehead, slicing through the air with a strange whizzing sound. The black Mach-speed attack hit home between the Earth Dragon’s eyes…or seemed to.

Right before it made contact with the dragon’s forehead, my spear crashed into a transparent barrier and stopped moving.

“Huh?! What the hell?!” I shouted at this sudden turn. I didn’t hear a single damn thing about a mysterious barrier!

Why did my sorcery attack, which I worked so hard to fire, have to be blocked at the last second by this incomprehensible thing? What outrage! What absurdity! I was sure Gol felt the same agony as me as we realized that, no matter how much we beat up on this monster, it just wouldn’t die.

Nonetheless, this wasn’t the end of my attack. The Earth spear kept trying to pierce the enemy, and the invisible barrier kept standing in its way. Their clash was just beginning.

The jet-black spear spun ever more violently. It flashed against the barrier, sending black sparks flying out from its tip. My spear was obviously abnormally powerful, yet the barrier held firm. Although it couldn’t even be seen, this wall had to be the source of the dragon’s unassailable sense of its own imperviousness.

Then…was that barrier the origin of the invisible attack that sent Gol flying before?

My spear continued driving into the barrier, but their battle couldn’t last, and my spear was going to lose. With each spin, it whittled more and more of itself away. Finally, it used the last of its strength and shattered into a million glinting black particles.

“Ugh…!” I let out a small groan. The moment the spear disintegrated, I felt an unfamiliar discomfort, like I’d been forcibly cut off from a staggering amount of sensory information.

I lightly pressed down on my temples, shook my head, and peered upward again. The particles of my spear’s remains returned to their original brown color as they rained down like snow.

Oh, how could this happen? My spear was defeated. To think that my first normal move would be beaten in such a disappointing way in its debut battle…

The ancient Earth Dragon remained implacably placid. As I stared at its emotionless eyes the color of mourning clothes, I was at a complete loss for words.

This dragon had shrugged off even the strongest of Gol’s physical attacks. Furthermore, it practically ignored my precious NTR, overwhelming it with speed and quantity. Even the sorcery attack I had finally devised was repelled by a mysterious barrier. Despite the fact that Earth sorcery utilized physical mass and should have been effective against barrier spells, mine was repelled as simply as a gnat.

The dragon was a total cheat!