Dragonlord

Ep 203. As Soon As I’m Out Of This Mess. (1)

Ep 203. As Soon As I’m Out Of This Mess. (1)

Following a small detour to deliver their three captives as Iris wished, Serenis and Patrick now stood outside the capital’s walls, waiting for their enforcer’s return.

And while the dragonlord seemed perfectly content to stand still, her brother couldn’t feel any less uncomfortable in their unsettling silence.

“Uh, so…Serenis. Tell me something.”

“Hm?”

“You’re going after the Twelve right now because that’s what demonkind was trying to do during your era, right? To get rid of divinity?”

“That’s correct. It’s my last duty as a surviving lord.”

“So, in a sense, this is ‘work’ for you.”

“…I suppose?”

Hearing the rather reluctant confirmation, Patrick crossed with arms. Despite hearing the expected answer, the expression on his face clearly showed dissatisfaction.

“You know, people don’t normally like working.”

“Neither do I. I’d rather continue going through my children’s letters at home.”

“That’s the thing though! If you don’t like it, why are you so eager to do it?”

“…What?”

This time, Patrick took a step closer, his voice growing steadily louder as he continued to question his sibling.

“It’s not like someone gave you a deadline to finish this, right? But one word about where a deity is and boom, you’re right out the door. That’s not how most people react when they hear they have to work.”

“…”

“So, what I’m really asking is…why ARE you acting like that?”

This time, Serenis hesitated in giving her answer.

In kinder words, it was out of a pure sense of duty.

In harsher words, it was out of immense guilt over what she could’ve, but hadn’t done before.

Or, in stranger words, it was…

“…Because I want to.”

“Wha?”

The dragonlord’s gaze fell to the floor as she struggled for words. Several times she thought she could piece her thoughts together, but the key reason seemed to elude her at every attempt.

“It’s rather difficult to explain…I suppose I feel at ease when committing myself to this task.”

“…So you’re anxious?”

“In a sense, yes.”

Patrick let out a surprised snort at the unexpected answer.

Any other person, and it would’ve made sense – being anxious over a difficult task wasn’t exactly alien to Patrick himself. But in the case of his sibling, he strangely couldn’t see her being stressed about a difficult task. Ever.

Hence the evident surprise on his face.

“…Huh. So even a dragonlord can be anxious over something.”

“I am not invincible, Patrick.”

“Really? Tell that to Iris. She talks as if you could toy with deities in your sleep.”

“Tell me what now?”

Quickly realizing that the last remark hadn’t come from Serenis, Patrick turned his head to see the red-haired enforcer walking out of her shimmering portal – now with a much lighter load.

“Uh…nothing. Everything went well?”

“Yeah, Olga’s going to take care of delivering them to Partivine. But that aside…”

With narrowed eyes, Iris darted her gaze between her clearly-nervous-friend and his straight-faced sibling.

That alone said a lot.

“What were you two talking about? I swear I heard you say my name, Patrick.”

“Oh, just small talk. Serenis just told me she’s not invincible, and I thought you might need to hear that more than me.”

“Why would I need to hear that? That’s obvious.”

“Uh…in case you forgot, you kinda talk as if she can snap her fingers and make half the world disappear.”

“What? That’s ridiculous.”

“Haha, right?”

“Even for Serenis, that’d take a good while. A full day, at least.”

“…”

For a while, Serenis continued to watch the two mages converse: it was quite amusing to hear the two speak their respective estimates of the dragonlord’s boundary.

But when the conversation seemed to be on the brink of breaking into another fight, she loudly cleared her throat, gesturing for the two to approach her.

“Rest assured, I’ve no intention of making half our star disappear. Now, if we’re finished here, then let us be off.”

As the dragonlord’s form shimmered and shifted into the brilliant scales of a proper dragon, Iris quickly hopped over unto her back – while Patrick still remained on the ground, staring up in hesitation.

“…Iris, why do you seem so used to this?”

“Didn’t I tell you? A thousand years ago, riding dragons was like riding horses. It was common.”

“Wait, what?!”

“I’m joking.”

“…”

As her grumbling brother finally climbed aboard, Serenis gave a short nod towards the two, unfolding her wings to take flight.

“Feel free to rest your eyes, both of you. It may be a while until we arrive.”

“Hey, who do you think we are? We’re used to pulling all-nighters at work! And besides, we might even come across that sky-fortress-thing on the way, yeah?”

“I suppose…”

Serenis looked to her brother with a doubtful stare. She initially considered convincing him to sleep, but she soon discarded the idea; there was no reason to argue over a matter that would settle itself.

And by 10 minutes later, Patrick was – for the very first time – sound asleep on a dragon’s back.

✧   ✧   ✧

With two mages on her back, a white dragon continued to soar across blackened skies.

Though, the flight she’d anticipated to be filled with silence was actually not as quiet as she’d thought it would be.

“I must admit, it’s quite a new experience to fly through the night sky like this. I never quite realized how bright stars could be…”

Iris continued to marvel at the glimmering stars above. She couldn’t tell if it was the altitude or for some other reason, but the stars seemed strangely brighter than usual.

Meanwhile, what the dragonlord found strange was none other than Iris herself.

“Are you feeling alright now? I recall you being quite frightened during the day…”

Considering how Iris had been shivering while holding onto Patrick for dear life, ‘frightened’ was an understatement.

But this time, the enforcer answered the dragonlord with a soft grin, free of fear or stress.

“Semes like it. I can’t see the ground now, so that helps.”

“…”

True to Iris’ words, even the brightest stars couldn’t replace the glimmering rays of daylight. The desert far beneath was nothing but a floor of darkness now.

But as some time passed, Serenis’ gaze drifted over to a peculiar structure that was amidst said floor.

‘What is that? It’s strangely tall…’

The structure that had caught Serenis’ attention was a row of massive white walls. The structure marked the eastern end of Caldon Desert: a physical barrier that served as a border between Wayla and Karia.

And beyond said wall was another structure that served as both gate and base to the elven continent.

“Oh, looks like we’re at Senon already. You can assume it’s Karian soil from there and onwards.”

“Is that the keep’s name? The architecture’s rather…large.”

Iris narrowed her eyes as she heard Serenis’ observation.

Senon’s walls were as she remembered: white, tall, and massive in length. But the actual keep behind it was strangely…higher than what she remembered.

“…Huh. Yeah, it does look bigger than before. Letherien tends to make things unnecessarily large, but I don’t recall it being so…”

Tall.

It wasn’t just slightly taller than before; it was significantly taller than what Iris remembered. Even though the ground beneath them was still pitch-black darkness, Senon’s towers were reaching nearly as high as the altitude they were flying at.

But as they closed into the keep, Serenis soon realized the reason behind Senon’s strange height.

“…It’s…”

The keep wasn’t touching the ground.

To be precise, the keep was resting on a patch of land that seemed to have been torn out from the ground – as if someone had scooped it up and made it levitate midair.

Slowing down to a gradual stop, Serenis’ eyes carefully observed the phenomenon before her.

“…Could that be the sky fortress that the elves spoke of?”

“I don’t…think so? If it were, I think they would’ve just called it Senon. But they made it sound like the fortress didn’t have a name.”

A pure white fortress topped by a faint green dome, surrounded by numerous towers that were sharper in appearance. The structure’s appearance seemed perfect to be called a ‘sky fortress.’

However…

‘…No. It’s not there.’

The elves had spoken of Letherien’s fortress being completely camouflaged – something Senon clearly lacked. And further, Serenis herself couldn’t feel any hint of divinity from within the levitating keep.

Frowning, Iris clawed at her own chin in frustration.

“The only explanation would be that Letherien’s conjured more than one skybound structure. And if that’s the case, then we might need to r-“

Unfortunately, the enforcer’s observation was cut short. The thunderous explosion that followed instantly drowned out her voice – and the ball of fire that accompanied it was enough to make even the dragonlord flinch momentarily.

“…!”

Given hardly any time to react to the sudden, massive attack, Serenis rushed to raise her claws. The fire-coated sphere of metal bashed into the dragonlord’s arm, splintering to pieces from the impact.

But even as Serenis grimaced in momentary pain, the rest of Senon’s numerous towers were already alit with growing firelights.

‘…It seems the towers weren’t mere décor.’

The elves within Serenis’ memories were a race that abided by nature’s rules, living in harmony with the woods that surrounded them as best as they could. What little weaponry they had consisted of bows and arrows, tiny hunting daggers, several poisons that they could find among certain herbs, and the occasional self-taught mages.

But from their encounter with the shadowguards at Kavir, to the firing towers here at Senon’s skies, the dragonlord was finding her memories increasingly undependable.

“Serenis! There’s-“

Boom!

Additional firing from Senon’s towers continued to drown out Iris’ voice.

At least this time, Serenis had reacted in time to shroud themselves in a protective barrier – but strangely enough, the towers’ aims were almost perfectly on point, continuing to pummel away at only one specific point across the entire barrier spell. And with their firepower leagues above the hand cannons that the shadowguards had used, even the dragonlord’s barrier was beginning to show cracks.

Of course, casting another layer of barrier was a simple enough task. But the real problem was…

‘There’s no end to this.’

Even a single tower was firing dozens of rounds at the airborne dragon. Considering how many towers were present around Senon, Serenis was practically being bombarded without respite.

“…”

Briefly,

For a fraction of a second, Serenis considered bringing down the levitating keep entirely.

Even for her, defending themselves all day against a barrage of never-ending cannon fire was an implausible task: even if her mana reserves were sufficient, maintaining and renewing their barrier required constant attention, something she couldn’t afford for days on end.

The easiest solution, then, was to destroy the very source of the attacks. But…

‘I’d rather not if I could...’

A simple reason.

Judging from size alone, there must’ve been at least hundreds of elves residing within the levitating keep. Bringing the entire structure down wouldn’t just end at an act of defense; it’d result in a massacre.

Of course, sitting around being fired at all day wasn’t exactly an option, either – and being so massive in size didn’t exactly help when trying to avoid being noticed. Thus far Serenis had assumed that her altitude would prevent her party from being noticed, but airborne watchtowers weren’t exactly something she’d anticipated.

Alas, even if Serenis were to fly past and ignore the cannon barrage, there was no telling how many levitating keeps would be up ahead to repeat the exact same process – as Iris had mentioned, the deity of creation could have conjured dozens, if not hundreds of the exact same structures.

‘I suppose they’re merely protecting their own nests. If anything, it’s quite the natural response…’

At least in this scenario, the massive white dragon was the invader that was trespassing into elven territory.

Things may have been easier had Serenis been violent enough to take on the role of a proper invader – to storm thorugh elven lands and raze their resistance to the ground.

Fortunately (?), the chance of that happening was a complete zero. Especially with Patrick on her back.

‘I suppose flying in this form is out of the question…’

With a resigning sigh, Serenis’ gaze finally fell to the distant darkness beneath her.

“…It seems we’ll have to walk a short while.”