Chapter 51: Pray and Pray Again (9)

Chapter 51: Pray and Pray Again (9)

Instead of the expected chill of seawater, Windhand felt himself colliding with something terribly hard and exhaled.

Damn, what happened just now? I was holding onto the rudder, and then something suddenly hit me. It was cold and hard, but it was definitely wet...

“Oh, almighty God.”

Windhand returned to his senses as he felt a brilliant light driving away the wind and rain and enveloping him in warmth. The pain, like every bone in his body was broken, gradually lessened, and his head cleared.

“The ground I stand on shall be your land.”

After quickly opening his eyes, he could see a pillar of light right before the Inquisitor who had accompanied the Demon Knight.

The bright light emitted from the pillar flooded in all directions, forcing the ship to stay afloat and burning everything that didn’t belong in the sea.

“Please be with me.”

There were even tears of blood falling from the Inquisitor’s eyes.

“...Is he even real?”

“...The dragon.”

Ah, there was no time for this now.

With his mind becoming clearer, he finally managed to recall what he had last seen.

『Get back on the ship.』

Their reversed positions, his breath colder than one would expect from a living person, a hand violently grabbing him by the collar, and those few whispered words.

That person threw him back onto the boat and was swallowed by the sea instead...

His uncovered gray eyes showed no hesitation to the very end.

He felt saddened, as the man seemed to resemble his father, who gave his own life to save him.

“Demon Knight, Demon Kniiight?!”

He somehow shook off the arm of the silent vice-captain and lifted his upper body. At that moment, he was stunned, completely speechless.

“...Hey, hey.”

It wasn’t that the vice-captain wasn’t worried for him, nor was he unwilling to help. Instead, something so intense was happening that he just completely forgot.

“If he’s going to do that, we’d better get out of here before our ship breaks!”

Would he never again witness a single person going against a dragon alone? Would anyone believe him that a warrior fought a corrupted dragon on even footing within tsunamis, storms, thunder, and lightning?

“Shit, the sun is about to set! You’d better keep your promise, you Demon Knight bastard!”

Despite how hopeless the situation looked, Windhand became cheerful for no apparent reason.

He couldn’t help it.

“...Pion, if I return alive to our homeland, you will have to listen to my stories about this day a dozen times over.”

No one in this world, not even the Gods of Heaven, would have ever witnessed such a scene.

* * *

I should have just stuck my sword in the middle of its forehead.

I quickly moved my feet, thinking of the opportunity I had barely missed earlier. I ran along the dragon’s body, trampling its scales with my military boots.

Thanks to the rain and seawater, it was incredibly slippery, so I had to be careful with each and every step.

Kiyaaargh!

At that moment, the black dragon began targeting me, trying to strike my body with its head. I quickly stood and dodged its attack.

The dragon, twisted into the form of the proportional sign (∝), swiftly plunged its head into the sea. It was a tactic it had learned after doing something similar and almost getting its forehead pierced through.

“Tsk!”

I never thought missing a single opportunity could hurt this much.

Instead of coming down near the head that just passed me by, I landed where I had been originally standing.

With its head underwater, the only way I could stay out of the sea was by leaping to the dragon’s other end. It was an inevitable choice.

Since my defeat would be inevitable if I fell into the water, I had to somehow remain in the sky while using its body as a springboard.

I ran up the dragon’s form all the way to its severed tail. When I finally reached the end of its body, I focused my Arcane Power into my legs and jumped as high as I could.

Blood poured over my body.

Paaang!

Before I completely fell, the sea parted and the black dragon, mouth gaping, rose up.

However, it was up to me where I would fall.

I narrowly avoided its maw, sinking my sword into its cheek.

My Longsword, filled with my black energy, tore through the creature’s skin, widening its mouth in the process. In human terms, it was as if I had torn the corner of its mouth right up to the bottom of its ear.

Grrrrrind!

I hurriedly jumped up and, luckily, stomped on a Spartoi that stuck out its head out of the sea—actually, it seemed it was trying to attack me. The Spartoi I had used as a foothold sank to the bottom of the sea, and I clung onto the Sea Dragon.

Perhaps because I was just clinging to its scales without sinking my sword into it, the Sea Dragon didn’t attack me. However, it also didn’t show me any consideration, such as putting me on its stomach or head.

The Sea Dragon stuck its head underwater and began to move, seemingly trying to dive. The part I held went straight up into the sky, making me feel like I had just boarded a roller coaster.

“Haah, hah.”

It was around then that I noticed I was having some trouble breathing.

I guessed I was a little, no, very tired.

It wasn’t incomprehensible. My HP, which had decreased a lot due to the Divine Power, had now reached its halfway point, and my Arcane Power was almost completely exhausted from my fight against the dragon.

Even if I wasn’t afraid of heights, fighting that high in the air with the looming risk of plunging into the sea was something I couldn’t help but feel nervous about.

Also, my body hadn’t started out in good condition, either.

The seasickness I had been suffering from because of the few hours spent sailing hadn’t gone away yet. I was merely suppressing it through sheer willpower. Now that I could finally take a breather, it wasn’t surprising that it all came rushing back in.

Uwaargh.

Still, I didn’t want to do this again.

Just thinking about having to do this twice if I failed naturally boosted my strength. It felt similar to what had happened in the underground passages in Tatara.

I wasn’t very confident that I could do that again. I didn’t even want to do it again, to begin with.

No matter whether it was going through sewers and fighting a huge boss battle with maxed-out fatigue or sailing around for several hours while enduring extreme seasickness, both were horrifically terrible!

I forced myself to keep it together and tried to think of ways to handle this. I had made a plan before the dragon I was now standing on completely submerged itself under the water.

“...?”

However, I saw a pitch-black shadow beneath the water’s surface. It wasn’t anything unfamiliar. Since both dragons were in the process of diving, it was only natural that there was movement in the sea.

However, the location was off. That thing shouldn’t appear there.

It looked like it was aiming for the ship and not me.

“That fucking dragon!”

Hey! Was that guy actually targeting the main base that couldn’t avoid its attack just because it couldn’t hit me? Was it actually trying to rob an empty house here? This game was really fucking great, yeah!

I urgently looked for something I could use as a springboard.

Of course, there was nothing suitable around. The remaining mast fragments were too few to cross over on, and the strong waves had already swallowed almost everything else.

The Dragon? It didn’t care about me. That I could jump on it from time to time until now was probably just a lucky coincidence.

I couldn’t really do anything unless the dragon decided to reemerge. Even now, I was in tremendous danger of falling into the sea again.

Wh-What should I do now? How could I stop it from attacking the boat? How could I attack that shitty dragon...?

「[Life Force Conversion] │ Consumes life force to recover Arcane Power.

Effect: Recovers Arcane Power in proportion to the HP consumed.」

A Window suddenly appeared before me, blocking part of my view. Inside, a skill I had never seen or particularly imagined or desired was described.

“...This is ridiculous.”

All of a sudden? Right now? A new skill? They were giving it to me for free?

Wow. If that was how it was going to be, they should have lowered the difficulty level or at least made it more reasonable.

They only ever threw me these kinds of things as if saying, ‘Hey, just use this,’ when this sort of shit happened.

“What the hell...”

Or had they given up on hiding this bug now?

“This isn’t even a beta test!”

However, my dissatisfaction was one thing, and my current situation was another.

They hadn’t even fixed this damn log-out bug yet, so why should a balance patch take priority? Well, I should just use what I had been given when I already knew these kinds of things were impossible.

I quickly read over the skill’s explanation again and racked my brain on how to use it.

It consumed HP to recover Arcane Power. Yes, Arcane Power recovery.

“...Are they telling me to pour all my Arcane Power into this attack?”

[Slash] was the only long-distance skill I could use, and from what I noticed, its range was proportional to the Arcane Power consumed.

Although, I hadn’t confirmed yet how far it could maximally go... Since I had no other choice, I could only do that, though. The Sea Dragon only had its tail above the sea, so I had no more room to retreat, either.

I raised my sword, believing the system wouldn’t just give me skills for no reason. Since using my Zweihänder was more advantageous when attempting to create a long, massive [Slash] than my Longsword, I changed weapons quickly.

And when the foothold I was standing on reached its limit, I sprung forward as much as possible and swung my Zweihänder sideways.

Energy far beyond anything I had let out before split apart the ocean and reached the dragon, which was readying to capsize the ship.

‘Got it.’

With absolute certainty in my heart, my vision filled with the blackness of the sea.