Chapter 635 – Bravery and Bravery

000

In front of the corrupted dragon, Cleon was thinking of his childhood self.

In the days when he was receiving various training from Talchek so that he could live as a single adventurer, he had two opponents he wanted to defeat no matter what.

The first is, of course, the demonic gorilla of violence against children.

The gorilla, also called Talchek by another name, usually stays by Cleon’s side and shouts for him to come with the force to kill him.

And then, when you come in with the momentum to actually kill-

[Do you think you can kill me with that! Haha!]

—While shouting, he swung his wooden sword as hard as he could and threw Cleon into the wall.

Repeatedly repeating it throughout the day, carrying the tattered man on his shoulders and roughly throwing him into the medicine bath.

Rubbing his sore skin, Cleon must have thought not once or twice that he wanted to beat the gorilla with all his might someday.

No matter how much I think about it, in order to win against Talchek, I think I need to be at least the same height as him.

For now, I thought I would leave things about gorillas to my future self, and I decided to put up with it for now.

Absolutely, being beaten by Talchek didn’t break my heart.

Huh.

Then, after passing the gorilla, if there was a second opponent I wanted to win, it would be the dragon.

Why a dragon all of a sudden? May come out, but for Cleon, ‘Lesia’ was the object he longed for, and for him, it was a role model.

And if it were an achievement as great as defeating the demonic sword emperor in Lesia’s adventure story, it would be defeating the evil dragon called the Storm of Annihilation.

Dragon hunting – For adventurers, it is probably the greatest achievement of their lives, and if successful, it will forever leave their name in history.

Along with legends such as Beowulf, the King of Bones, and Siegfried, the Dragon Slayer.

“…Do you talk like that in front of yourself?”

Listening to Cleon clenching his fists and babbling from his seat, Lutios clenched his chin in amazement as he spoke.

“Since Lecia did it, I will do it too. Certainly someday!”

To Cleon, who wielded a wooden sword and spoke eloquently, Lutios replied with a voice that seemed to be interested or not.

“There are only five dragons left in this world, including me. Hunting such a dragon… Cleon doesn’t know about the concept of an endangered species. We are rather a species that needs to be protected.”

“So, give up,” He added, while watching Lutios lying on a chair reading a book, Cleon looked amused.

“You don’t necessarily have to kill it, do you? Luti didn’t die from Lecia, and only got beaten. Did he say you just need to break the horns?”

“You… Don’t know what it means to break the dragon’s horn. If I say I’m going to break your dick- yup!”

Kong! As if to block Luti’s mouth with a loud noise, her fist landed on her head.

Then, there was Lesia clenching her fists while making her pretend to be angry.

“What are you talking about?”

“Lesia!”

Cleon’s face brightens at once, but on the contrary, Luti talks to Lesia while rubbing the top of her head with both hands in her tearful pain.

“Listen, Lesia. I’m not practicing the swing that Cleon told me to do~”

“Th, stop talking nonsense, pink lizard!”

“Who is the lizard, kid!”

If you shout that to Ruti to block Ruti’s mouth, who is about to tell you right away, Ruti quickly gets angry and replies.

It immediately becomes a verbal fight and they shout at each other, but the proper result does not come out, as if their mental age is similar, and they stop talking because they are tired of each other.

Lesia would always wait until that happens, but today, swordsmanship training with Lesia only once a week.

When Lesia stops the bickering between the two of her by clapping her ‘mate!’, Cleon flinches at her, shakes her body, and looks at her.

“Okay, the fight ends there. Cleon doesn’t have much time to train with me, so you’d better start early, right?”

“What. That’s true… Uh, if I continue to train with Lecia, I’ll be able to win against a dragon like Luti someday.”

“It’s that sound again.”

Luti reacts as if she is dumbfounded by Cleon’s words, but Lesia lets out her breath and talks to Cleon.

“Cleon. Dragons and wyverns are different.”

“…”

Then, Cleon flinched and looked at Lesia while her body trembled.

He just didn’t say anything as if he had been hit on the spot, but Luti looked at Cleon and Lesia in turn, then said ‘Ah’ and opened his mouth as if he knew something.

“Of course, it might not be a problem to defeat the wyvern once you can defeat the dragon. If you want to win against a wyvern, you’d better learn a bow or magic than a sword.”

“But I…”

It was clear why Cleon wanted to defeat the wyvern.

Because they were the beings who ruled the sky and pushed everything on the ground into despair in the dragon’s gorge where he originally lived.

Even now, after leaving the dragon’s gorge, it must be a nightmare sometimes.

The figure of the people being dragged up from the top of the ground and serving as food for them.

However, Cleon immediately shook his head and hit both of his cheeks with his hands enough to make a bang!

“Of course I want to defeat the wyvern! But…”

Then, while straightening the sword, I talked to Lesia.

“As Lesia said, if you become strong enough to defeat the dragon, then the wyvern is not a problem, right? And if that happens, I think I’ll be able to immobilize Luti.”

“What?”
To Cleon’s voice, where she speaks as if she is clearing away her own anxiety, Luti reacts as if she is dumbfounded, but Lesia herself pulls out her wooden sword as she sees Cleon.

“It is not such a good thing to develop more power than to achieve a purpose.”

“My purpose is to become like Lesia.”

“…Okay? If so, can you teach me? How to deal with dragons.”

When Lesia said that, Cleon opened his eyes wide and his irises lit up.

“Really!?”

“Wow. The dark horse clan can also have twinkling eyes.”

When Ruti said that as if she was surprised, Lesia smiled and talked to Ruti.

“Rutie. Can you help me I want to explain to Cleon how to defeat the dragon.”

“Eh.”

When Luti’s voice and expression seemed to be serious, Lesia nodded her head as if of course.

Letty says she can’t help it and uses the magic of the wind to expand the small area.

In the empty lot used for training, no one visits at this time, but once the outside and the inside are disconnected, no one will reach this place, and even if you look this way from the outside, you won’t know what’s going on.

After that, Luti let out a big sigh and dispelled the Polymorph spell from his body.

Then, her body glowed and changed—and soon, her original form.

It was to return in the form of a beautiful dragon with huge pink scales.

Cleon collapsed into his seat at the overwhelming size, the massive amount of wind mana created just by existing and breathing.

Climbing all over her body was the fear he felt overpowered by her.

[How do you catch a dragon when you’re so scared?]

When only Luti’s pupils turn round and look at Cleon, Cleon is unable to respond to her remarks that seem to disrespect her.

However, Lecia, with Luti in front of her, took it easy as if she wasn’t weighed down by her intimidation at all.

As I undid the string that had tied her hair up, I poured a tiny amount of magical energy into her wooden sword.

And—she turns to Cleon with a smile on her lips, as if she were enjoying the situation itself.

“Yeah, that’s right. Cleon. The weapon needed to defeat the dragon is neither a sword with powerful magic nor an armor that can block everything.”

She raised her wooden sword and pointed the end at Luti while talking.

“Standing in front of the dragon and not breaking your heart. That is the first preparation to defeat the dragon.”

001

A slash filled with divine magic flies.

The chain of flames and the spikes of wind sealed the movement of the two gigantic forelimbs.

The decayed skin was mashed as if it were melting, but it was still able to stick together and move the body.

And when a slash of holy magic power reached such a bridge, body tissues were quickly burned from that part, and a terrible stench arose.

“Haaaaa!”

With Cleon’s cheering sound, he swung the sword fully, and eventually the golden blade slashed his foreleg from the middle—

As the front leg is severed, the giant’s body loses balance and falls down with a loud noise.

“It’s because my heart doesn’t break… Now that I think about it, that’s not a very helpful explanation…”

Seeing intense organs sprouting from the wound, Cleon sighed.

If I inadvertently inhaled it, all the internal organs in my body would melt at that moment.

Thinking so, Cleon stepped back and widened the distance.

Wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, Laila, Kuondo, and Tokoyo standing next to him looked very tired.

The dragon in front of me was in such a mess that I couldn’t even recognize what had changed compared to when it first appeared, so the battle that continued without a sense of achievement in the progress of the goal was slowly eating away at the spirit of the party.

“What the heck did you get a dragon like this and put it down…!”

Lyla’s tired of it, she exhaled her breath, suppressing the amount of her mana consumed to maintain the Avatar magic to a minimum.

“Ra, Lila… Are you okay…?”

And, Quon, who opened his mouth as if worried about Layla, couldn’t summon the holy sword in an isolated space, so after a long time fighting in the style of a priest, he seemed to be out of breath.

“Because I’m more worried about Quon than I am! Her face is so blue that she looks like a zombie this way!”

“Hmm… It’s difficult. No matter how much sorcery and magic I pour into it, it doesn’t seem like the magic power in his body will diminish. On the contrary, since the mana on this side is only diminishing, I have to save some mana to prepare for the mana of the rift in the other dimension.”

At Tokoyo’s words, Cleon nodded and took a deep breath.

If they drag on for a while, even if they don’t get knocked down or hurt by direct attacks, they will eventually be eroded by magic from another dimension and their bodies will mutate.

If that happens, it is doubtful whether he will be able to maintain his reason.

“Fortunately, the opponent is an undead without reason. …If he had excellent intelligence like the original dragon and used magic freely, he certainly wouldn’t have been so safe.”

And speaking out a cold-heartedly analyzing voice while watching such a party-

It is a fairy Mumeur that only avoids attacks while flying while hiding behind the party.

Then, Cleon and his party looked at him for a moment, were silent, and then turned their eyes to the dragon.

“Uh, what?”

As if the party’s reaction was unexpected, Meumur gave a panicked voice.

“Um, am I on your side too?”

“First of all, it is not an enemy. But you’re just avoiding it.”

“That’s too much~!”

When Lyla tried to cling to her cold words, Lyla, whether on purpose or by accident, increased the flames that made up her body.

“Oh hot!”

“If you’ve been with Gaios for a long time, don’t you know what kind of dragon that dragon is?”

When Cleon, who is not as good as Mew Mur, asks him, Mu Mur speaks to Cleon with his eyes twinkling.

“That dragon is the same kind that Gaius-nim had to kill each other in childhood, but I don’t know why, but it sided with Adam and betrayed the dragon-“

“No, it’s not about talking about weaknesses, or how to defeat them!”

“Mi, sorry! I don’t know! Gaios-sama did that to me…!”

And the next moment, when the undead dragon, whose forelimbs had been regenerated, stood up again, its mouth opened wide, and magic power gathered in the center of its mouth.

“!”

Cleon saw it, and he immediately moved close to her quon and hugged her.

“Cleon!?”

Embarrassed Quon opens his mouth, but Cleon lifts up Quon’s slightly heavy body while making a grunting sound.

Oh, of course it was relatively so.

“Lyla! Magic barrier!”

“It’s unfolding…! Tokoyo help me!”

When Cleon calls out to Layla and Layla to Toko Yo, Toko Yo nods his head and deploys the amulet in front of Layla’s barrier.

As expected, among the dragon’s attacks, the breath is the most threatening, so even if you stand still and use only the breath, if you get swept away by it, you won’t be able to pull yourself together.

Recalling the fight against the Gaius illusion he had seen at Kanon’s house not long ago, Cleon moved his legs and tried to get out of there for a moment.

The memory of ‘beating the dragon – that is, aiming for the timing of the breath’ suddenly resonated in Cleon’s head, in Lesia’s voice from the flashback earlier.

Then, Cleon stops the bridge he was about to move and stares at the dragon with his mouth wide open in a daze.

“…Tokoyo.”

Then, she calls out Tokoyo’s name, unfolds her talisman, and hands her kuon to her with a worried look on her face, wondering if this will be enough.

“…Cleon? What are you going to do?”

“I remembered. …In order to win against the dragon, you must not keep dodging its attacks.”

The skin of the dragon has the skin of the strongest creature on earth called dragon scale, and if you get close, it will attack with a huge and massive body.

Also, if you spread the distance, magic and breath will attack you, and if you are at a disadvantage, you will fly into the sky and inspect the battlefield.

Dragons are non-standard life forms both on the ground and in the sky.

But- there was the biggest gap that such a dragon had.

It is the time to use the ‘breath’, which is the strongest weapon for dragons.

Breath is to concentrate ‘mana’ and resonate with organs in the body, creating an intense radial flow of attribute mana.

For this reason, it was necessary to open the mouth to resonate with the internal organs, and in the dragon, the magic power of the whole body was gathered around the mouth with the organs as the center.

And when the breath was fired, it generated such intense momentum that it was difficult to even turn one’s head.

If it is an entity that is hostile to a dragon, it must try to avoid its breath.

It was natural, since there would have been no existence that was still intact after receiving the Dragon Breath from the front.

But- unable to turn head + open mouth to see relatively fragile interior + and concentrated magic power in one place.

——The reason why it created a situation where it would be an unmistakable weakness for any other life form was that the existence of a dragon was out of the norm.

[If.]

With Lesia’s voice ringing in Cleon’s head, he stood behind the magic barrier Laila and Tokoyo had created.

[If you really want to defeat the dragon. You have to be brave and step forward.]

That courage is not to be defeated by the dignity and fear of the dragon.

And- the courage to step forward without hesitation for a visible chance.

It was the conviction that it was possible to throw one’s body at the breath and slash the enemy’s throat.

“Caliburn.”

[Yes, yes~ I’m overdoing it, really.]

After receiving Cleon’s call, Caliburn drew out the maximum amount of mana from his holy sword and covered Cleon’s body.

It’s a little bit, but it’ll be helpful when breaking through the breath.

“Whoa…”

And, at the same time as confirming that the breath was completely prepared from his mouth, Cleon saw that the other party had secured a safe distance.

“Let’s go. …Having courage, stepping out…!”

The next moment, with a deafening explosion, a swirling breath strikes the place where Cleon is standing.

The purple breath was made from the element of polluted water, so it tried to break through Layla’s magic barrier and Tokoyo’s amulet wall that guarded Cleon.

Then, Cleon, with the holy sword in his hand-

It was to throw oneself into the breath!