Chapter 71

Chapter 71. Please Do Not Lie (11)

At that moment, something flew from the wall, which had been noisy all this time.

Fluttering its clothes as it flew through the air, it crashed into a sand dune some distance away.

I could tell that it was Exel.

Because I heard laughter.

“Hehehehe! Heh! This is fun. Truly fun. Hahahaha!”

Did getting hit do something to his head?

I slowly walked toward where he had fallen.

Exel was lying on the sand dune with both arms and legs spread wide, looking up at the sky and chuckling.

“Are you all right?”

“Aah! Ahem! Mm, is that you, Reed?”

When I saw his head turn slightly toward me, I nodded.

He is fine.

I removed the robe I was wearing and spread it on the ground.

At that, Exel, still lying beside me, stared blankly at what I was doing, then slowly raised his upper body.

“For something dead, it is quite strong. As expected, this body will not do.”

Then he took off his long coat and began unbuttoning his shirt.

I glanced at him, then pulled out the scrolls I had tucked here and there into my belt and threw them onto the robe.

There were about six in all.

Magic was ineffective, after all.

I roughly wrapped them in the robe like that and placed them with Exel’s discarded clothes.

Then I slowly walked forward.

At that moment, Exel, who had finished undressing and was lifting his necklace, must have seen something on my back.

“Are you hurt? There is a lot of blood coming from your back.”

At his words, I reached behind me, touched my back once, and held my hand up to the moonlight.

I could not see it clearly, but something dark had soaked my hand.

It cracked further. Of course it did.

After roughly wiping it on my pants, I continued walking forward and said,

“I am fine. More importantly, I will go first, so you come later.”

I left those words behind and ran forward.

Behind me, a bright light began to shine.

Exel must have been returning to his original form.

I almost looked back, but stopped myself and raised my head to look ahead. Aiarunit was now just about to break through the wall and enter the city.

I increased my speed and reached the dragon’s tail.

The tail was simple in shape, so there was nothing to hinder me from stepping onto it and climbing.

I stepped onto Aiarunit’s tail and ran up the dragon’s back.

Perhaps the dragon had not noticed me yet, because Aiarunit continued slowly moving forward, swaying from side to side.

I stumbled a few times while keeping my balance, but I barely managed to reach the back of Aiarunit’s neck.

The moment I arrived there, I pulled my fist back with all my strength and thrust it forward.

THUD!

“SCREEEEEECH!!”

Aiarunit stopped moving forward, raised her head, and screamed.

I pulled out the arm that had sunk in up to my forearm.

The petrified outer skin and the inner flesh that had not yet turned to stone were caught in my hand and dragged out with it.

I left that alone and used both hands to strike the dragon’s neck several more times.

Each time, along with a tearing scream, chunks of tissue and muscle like animal entrails came away in my hands.

Since the body is huge, even this is huge.

At that moment, Aiarunit suddenly let out a monstrous cry and shook her body.

I hurriedly tried to drive my fist into the back of the dragon’s neck to avoid falling, but my hand missed, and I had no choice but to fall to the ground.

THUD!

Ugh, that is almost as high as a decent wall.

The moment I fell to the ground, Aiarunit’s head in the air whipped toward me, and a gigantic foot came flying at once.

However, I did not dodge.

I did not feel the need to.

I raised both arms and caught the foot that came flying over my head.

Earlier, it had been hard to endure because the ground had been sand, but here, the ground was paved with stone. And, sadly, I was different from before too.

When I endured once again, Aiarunit placed her entire upper-body weight onto that foot.

I seized that moment and put strength into the arms supporting it, pushing the foot away with all my strength.

As a result, I was sent flying backward and slammed into the wall of a house.

The dragon, meanwhile, ended up kneeling on one foot in apparent tribute to me.

CRASH!!

“What is all this noise?! Let a man sleep, you bastards!”

Was he from Merses?

The door of the house I had slammed into burst open, and a young man with his upper body bare appeared.

He saw me crumpled beside the door and frowned.

Do I look that strange right now?

At that moment, Merses language with a soft voice and a slightly unusual accent came from behind the man.

“Um, dear? What is happening outside?”

“It is nothing. Do not come out. It is dangerous.”

The man stretched out his arm to stop the woman from stepping outside the door.

However, the woman rested her chin lightly on the man’s arm and stuck her head outside.

At that, the man made a bitter expression, but did not really say anything else.

Huh? Now that I look, they are newlyweds, are they not?

This makes me feel needlessly sorry.

I smiled softly at the man, who was looking at me as though I were a drunkard on the roadside, and at the black-haired beauty beside him, who held a lamp in her hand and narrowed her eyes. It seemed her eyes were naturally small.

Then I stood up.

When I turned my gaze, Aiarunit was up above, narrowing her eyes and glaring down at me.

“Grrrrr.”

There were no words in a fight.

In that instant, flames began forming in front of the dragon’s mouth as Aiarunit silently looked down at me.

A breath attack?!

With a startled face, I looked back and forth between the flames forming in front of the dragon and the young couple standing behind me.

No! If that is used in a place like this!

Unconsciously, I spread both arms and stood in front of them to shield them.

Fortunately, however, what flew from in front of Aiarunit’s mouth was not a breath attack, but a Fire Ball.

WHOOSH—

I let out a slightly relieved sigh as I watched the Fire Ball flying toward me at terrifying speed.

Behind me, the scene being played out was that of the man embracing the terrified woman after she saw the fireball crossing the darkness.

So I gave them a somewhat bitter smile.

Turning my head forward again, I pulled my fist back, then thrust it forward with force.

BOOM!

The Fire Ball shot up into the sky and clearly showed us what light our newly created star would emit.

I looked up at it for a moment, then quietly turned my head.

The woman’s face was filled with fear, but the man pressed his mouth shut and held her tightly against his chest.

Seeing them, I thought of Rene and myself, smiled softly, and turned my head.

“Go inside and do not come out until the morning sun rises.”

It seemed they understood me properly, because they quickly went inside and closed the door.

Taking the sound of the closing door as my cue, I ran toward the wall again.

I cannot let Aiarunit enter the city any farther!

There must not be any more casualties!

When I ran toward the wall, Aiarunit thankfully revealed her intention to kill me, turned, and followed me.

I was able to lure the dragon back outside the wall just like that.

That was when a wolf’s howl rang out from the top of the wall.

“Awoooooooooooo~~!!”

When I lifted my head with a startled face, Exel had returned to his original form. Holding a sword in each hand, he was flying through the sky, covering the full moon behind him.

Having leapt from the top of the wall, he flew straight toward Aiarunit’s head as the dragon lowered it and charged at me.

And from that sight, I could feel a slight excitement.

Aiarunit, who had been chasing me, quickly raised her head when a shadow suddenly fell over her face.

Exel smiled faintly and drove the sword he had raised high into the dragon’s forehead with all his strength.

“ROOOOOOOAR!! SCREEECH!”

Aiarunit shook her neck from side to side at tremendous speed, trying to shake off Exel and the sword stuck in her head.

Exel clung to the handle to avoid being separated from the gun blade, but after being shaken around wildly, he was eventually thrown into a nearby building, smashing through the wall and entering it.

CRASH!!

I turned my head and looked up at Aiarunit.

With a sword lodged in her forehead, the dragon raised a massive foreleg and clawed wildly at it to pull the blade out.

Aiarunit flinched several times from the pain of the wound, but managed to pull the sword out, and Exel’s blade fell in front of a building some distance away.

CLANG?!

I quietly looked at that sword, then bared my teeth.

Good. Let us try it.

I turned and ran forward, then picked up Exel’s gun blade.

This is my first time holding it.

The moment I grabbed it, I ran straight into the alley beside me.

While Aiarunit was pulling out the sword that had been lodged in her forehead, the dragon lost sight of me and began looking around, shaking her head.

I seized the moment when Aiarunit turned her head backward and leapt with all my strength.

“Aiarunit!”

At my call, the dragon’s head turned at high speed, but that was only bait.

CRUNCH!

“GRAAAAAAAH!! SCREECH! SCREEEEECH! SKREEEE!”

I suppressed my pounding heart and calmly drove in the sword.

With all my strength, until the blade sank into the flesh and could no longer be seen.

At that, Aiarunit screamed and slammed her head into the wall.

I gritted my teeth, let go of the hilt, and tried to fall away from the dragon’s head, but that was only what I wished.

That was because my fingers had slipped into a strange ring attached to the sword’s handle and gotten caught there.

Aiarunit raised her head to slam it down once more, and I felt a sense of defeat. In my urgency, I pulled my hand back with all my strength.

And I saw a strange sight.

The cylinder attached to Exel’s sword moved one space to the side with a click. At the same time, a small hammer-like ornament on the guard was pulled backward, then sprang forward again.

BAAAANG!!

Stone powder, torn cold flesh, and brain matter splattered in every direction.

With both a dumbfounded face and a sorrowful one, I fell toward the ground where wooden crates were piled up.

CRACK!

The impact made my back ache, but I had no time to care about that.

The dragon’s brain matter, which had fallen with me, twitched for a moment, then gave off white smoke and vanished in an instant.

And I saw it.

What a dragon looked like when more than half of her head had been blown away.

Aiarunit held her head upright and looked down at me.

The dragon’s silhouette, blocking the moon, was dignified and beautiful, but in one sense, it was also grotesque.

Half of the head was gone.

Aiarunit slowly turned her head and looked up at the full moon, which floated in the sky and looked down at us with a sorrowful expression.

A short while later, beneath the quiet full moon, the dragon’s gentle voice rang out.

-My name is Aiarunit. I am a wretched mother who, four hundred years ago, was deceived by the cunning of humans who came from the sandy land and had to watch my child’s skin be stripped away before my eyes.

By fortune, I was made to rise again by the hand of a human, and so I came to you like this to claim the blood price for my child. Yet even that has become difficult.

After saying that, Aiarunit lowered her head and looked at me.

-The name I know you by is not that name. What is your true name?

I smiled bitterly.

“Han Reed. That is my true name.”

As soon as Aiarunit heard my words, she lifted her head and looked toward the top of a building.

-What is your name?

“Exel.”

It was far away and difficult to hear clearly, but it was Exel’s voice.

After hearing his words, Aiarunit turned her head and shifted her gaze toward Moro, who stood upright on the broken wall with his sword drawn.

-And your name?

“I am Moro van Kaijar.”

Guard Captain Moro said that.

At that, Aiarunit lifted her head and looked up at the full moon once more.

Then a strange current of air pushed in.

Wind?

-I will not forget your names. Farewell.