Chapter 362: Fugitives, Usurpers (1)
“The pursuit is fine, but I’m worried about those家伙 causing trouble.”
Even as his body burned from the dragon’s blood, Eugene was concerned about the cavalry that had given chase.
The centauresses would focus on wearing down the dragon’s stamina without overcommitting, but the knights were likely to charge in first, as they always did.
“There’s no need to worry. Everyone witnessed Your Majesty fighting the dragon.”
“It was a dragon that fought evenly against a giant golem and Your Majesty. After seeing that battle with the earth overturning and storms raging, would they charge in recklessly?”
The summoners’ advice drew quiet laughs from the listening elves. Normally, one would say “the one who faced the dragon was XX” in that order, not the other way around. Yet it felt completely natural.
‘So the rumors about the King of Britainia were all true.’
He had banished a foreign god descended to the mortal world. He made trophies of the dark god’s champions as a hobby. He had defeated four death knights. No matter how generously one interpreted it, there were far too many extravagant descriptions.
But watching today’s battle, one couldn’t help but think it was all true. No matter how dangerous those aforementioned beings were, none could dare compare to a dragon.
“As expected of the princess.”
“A half-fey family is a half-fey family, after all.”
There was a saying: elven marriages were decided by families, but human-elven unions were ordained by heaven.
The Avarim felt that their long-dreamed-of expansion to the outside world was finally within reach. Their princess’s chosen human would guide that path.
Around them, the Lantzheim artillery had deployed in a circular formation.
“This is enemy territory. Though the fields may look peaceful, do not let your guard down.”
“After the dragon passes through an area, follow-up monsters always converge. This time too, scavengers will come seeking scraps.”
Those who could handle familiars took turns surveying the surroundings, the artillery positioned ballistas in a circle, and the engineers assembled field scythes to cut the barley in front of their positions.
The engineers, who handled their scythes with the same skill as someone who had weeded before, quickly secured a clear field of view.
Specialists in different fields working together organically. This was a fresh sight for elves accustomed to a tribal society where a single warrior handled every task simultaneously.
“Five riders aren’t enough. Assign five more…”
“Right now, please tend to Your Majesty’s body first.”
Maria stopped Eugene, who was trying to issue nonstop orders to messengers.
“I’ll go.”
Homi took Eugene’s banner, mounted a horse in his stead, and chased after the pursuit force.
Maria skillfully removed Eugene’s upper garments. As his personal physician who regularly examined his body, she still couldn’t help but marvel.
‘How can a human maintain a body to this degree?’
This was separate from the inhuman strength he possessed. It was harder and more beautifully sculpted than the idealized bodies that stonemasons carved unrealistically.
As always, her slightly trembling small hand reached for Eugene’s heart. Maria, checking his pulse, suddenly startled.
“What is it?”
“There’s heat in your body…”
Eugene’s skin was like that of someone who had just stepped out of a sauna. And there was one more thing.
“Has my body absorbed the dragon’s blood?”
Eugene scanned his arms and torso, but all he saw was clean skin. The red stains from being splattered with dragon blood multiple times had vanished.
“Your pulse is elevated, but given the intense battle you’ve just finished, it’s actually calming faster than expected. But this heat…”
Maria, of a race with naturally cool body temperature, merely touching Eugene’s chest made her feel like an ordinary human rather than a dampir.
“I don’t feel hot at all. In fact, I feel great. I almost regret getting off Mite.”
He regretted not staying mounted and pursuing the fleeing dragon. Naturally, such hindsight didn’t work with his strict physician.
“I can feel violent mystique flowing through Your Majesty’s body. This is unmistakably the dragon’s energy.”
Maria was one of Varcia’s finest physicians. Such prestige couldn’t be earned through medical knowledge alone.
In an era where most believed diseases were the tricks of evil spirits or divine punishment, most of that was superstition, but occasionally illness truly did have magical causes.
-Everything was perfectly normal! But why?!
If one tried to diagnose a curse-ridden patient through purely medical means, all that remained was to dispose of the corpse. Maria wasn’t a mage, but she could perceive and understand mystique to some degree.
“I can feel it too. A violent energy wandering throughout my body.”
“It doesn’t hurt?”
“Not at all. It’s moving around, but it’s not causing trouble—it seems to be tentatively looking for a place to settle, unable to decide.”
Eugene himself was also a wielder of magic. In this regard, his self-diagnosis was sometimes more accurate than Maria the physician’s.
“Your… voice?”
Valda, watching with concern from behind, spoke. As someone who intimately heard his whispered words during their most private moments, she was the first to notice the change.
His tone was its usual calm self. But the breath carrying his words seemed to hold a faint aftertumble—like the breathing of a massive creature coiled and sleeping in an underground cavern.
Apparently, it was difficult for the person himself to notice the difference.
“The heat has subsided. Heart rate and pulse are normal, and there’s no rash on the skin.”
Maria removed the wooden stethoscope from his neck—a device Eugene had invented—and sighed.
“Then I’m fine. I should join the pursuit.”
“Even without symptoms now, we don’t know what will happen later.”
“Are there no cases involving dragon blood?”
“There are too many contradictory or fanciful stories. It’s such a rare monster, and the people who’ve stabbed it with a blade exist only in legends.”
Maria hesitated, biting her thumbnail. It didn’t suit her usual composure, but it indicated her brain was working at full speed.
Even the blood of large monsters like hydras came with all sorts of nonsense, but with a dragon, it was already the realm of mythology.
Stepping in for Maria were the elves. As physicians, they felt no such mission to convey only accurate information.
“I’ve heard that dragon blood grants the power of eternal youth.”
“That’s a rumor attached to hydra, troll, and even ogre blood. Your Majesty, please listen to me.”
An elf elder refuted, and another elf spoke confidently.
“The accurate tradition regarding dragon blood concerns wound recovery. In the first era, there is a case of knights who sought dragon blood to save a gravely ill king. I read this in the Elenost palace library, so it should be reliable.”
“Isn’t that book a collection of legends from various regions? The one with the story about receiving a baby from heaven after sleeping with a god in a dream?”
The elf who had just been refuted returned the favor.
“Do you know something as well? You seem eager to speak.”
“Well, you see…”
The elf Eugene pointed to looked around awkwardly.
“I’ve heard that dragon blood is a curse.”
“Now where did such ominous talk come from?”
Eugene waved his hand to stop the elves from scolding.
“That’s enough. When discussing health, we can’t only listen to what we want to hear.”
Encouraged by Eugene’s defense, the elf continued.
“The dragon’s body is formed from condensed natural power, and its blood is said to be lava given living form. If you consume it carelessly, thinking it a precious elixir, you’ll be swallowed by the heat.”
“But His Majesty bathed in its blood and is fine?”
“Well, if one has the proper qualifications, it’s apparently acceptable…”
“That’s like saying it fits your ear if it’s an earring and your nose if it’s a nose!”
Other elves scolded, but to Eugene, they all looked the same.
Medium-sized monsters had been captured so often that the uses of their parts were well established. But from large monsters upward, people of this era tended to treat everything as precious.
Grip.
Eugene repeatedly clenched and unclenched both fists.
‘I don’t feel like my strength has increased or anything.’
With each exertion, the dragon’s mystique that permeated his entire body flowed with it. Down to the tips of his fingers.
“You there!”
“Can’t you sit still?!”
A short distance away, the war dogs had become agitated. Despite Eugene never having fed them once, they normally never dared bark at him.
But that was as far as it went. Unlike when Mite passed and they cowered of their own accord, nothing like that happened.
Grrrr.
Whine.
But starting now, that seemed to change. The war dogs showed a reaction similar to when they had smelled the dragon’s urine during the pursuit. They couldn’t even meet Eugene’s eyes, whimpering in terror.
Just as snakes with pit organs could see heat, dogs could perceive something that had taken root in Eugene through their own sensitive senses.
The most plausible explanation came from the summoners.
“Your Majesty’s mystique use is closer to that of summoners than mages. The special thing about Your Majesty is that you can wield power without preparing catalysts or paying the price.”
In other words, Eugene bore all the backlash alone.
“I’ve heard that among the Samur, there is training to periodically ingest small amounts of poison to strengthen resistance. Similarly, summoners train by gradually reducing the price of summoning to build resistance.”
“I heard several people died trying that.”
It was far more dangerous than poison ingestion. There was no safety net like an antidote.
“But the temptation is difficult to resist. The more the summoner can bear, the greater the mystique they can wield.”
“In our view, the dragon’s blood seems to be of a similar nature. Less a physical poison in the mortal world and more a backlash similar to summoning—mystique condensed in the form of blood.”
The summoners looked at Eugene’s body with scholarly eyes.
“If someone like us had taken dragon blood, we likely would have experienced symptoms similar to Lord Marbas. Our body and mind would have been burned by the mystique and heat beyond our capacity. Or crushed.”
“Hmm.”
This was something Eugene could relate to. No matter how great the burden of dragon blood, it couldn’t compare to the heat or pressure of hell.
‘So that’s why it liked it?’
Unlike the Aether-forged sword that had reacted with immediate evaporation upon contact, Blackout had consumed the dragon blood like a delicacy. The spirit dwelling within it came from a place where even dragon blood would feel lukewarm.
“Perhaps, as a summoner, Your Majesty’s innate talent is the driving force behind that extraordinary physical ability.”
Knights attributed Eugene’s inhuman strength to divine blessing, but some summoners disagreed. Their knowledge was not limited to the mortal world.
They could acquire knowledge even beyond what science had reached—through experience or intuition. They were the first to understand and expound the concept of gravity, after all.
-Kyaah!
-M-Master?! My leg!
Like what happened to Marbas. Summoners who had overly synchronized with a high-gravity other world sometimes suffered broken legs as backlash.
Unlike heat or cold, which could be blocked with relative ease, gravity was extremely difficult to counter.
“I’ve heard that training to build resistance by reducing catalysts also changes the physical body. Most give up or die before reaching that point, though…”
“Your Majesty, this friend is merely lost in theory—don’t take it too seriously. To think that a physical body like Your Majesty’s could be achieved through such training… The astronomical pressure the soul would need to endure is beyond imagination. Even a dragon would be reduced to a puddle of blood under that kind of burden.”
The pragmatic summoners’ rebuke deflated those preaching the pressure adaptation theory.
Even they couldn’t calculate the pressure required to achieve Eugene’s level of physical ability. Simply attributing it to destiny or divine love was actually more persuasive.
“Still, it was an interesting opinion. Please continue—I won’t lose anything by broadening my perspective.”
“We are deeply honored.”
The summoners bowed deeply at Eugene’s generosity in even entertaining their nonsense.
“…”
However, Eugene didn’t dismiss the pressure adaptation theory entirely. He gazed at Blackout’s axe blade.
His own body and Blackout’s blade were clearly composed of different materials—one was protein, the other metal.
But in some ways, they might be the most similar existence in the world. In the manner they had been shaped into their current forms.
*
Meanwhile, the centauresses and knights were tenaciously pursuing the dragon. For its massive size, it moved with surprising agility.
“We must keep pursuing! It was hit head to toe!”
“Just keeping up like this is causing enormous stamina drain.”
Occasionally the dragon would stop, turn, and roar—a warning that “if you follow, you’ll die”—but few in the pursuit force were frightened.
“You beast! If you’re going to threaten, at least do something about that tail first!”
Its tail had been so thoroughly severed by Eugene that it looked pathetic. Of course, that didn’t mean the knights charged recklessly.
Continuing to drain its stamina before attacking wasn’t a bad approach. This was a common tactic used even in hunting medium-sized monsters like bugbears or trolls.
“Does it never get tired? I heard lizard-type monsters like basilisks can’t run for long.”
The dragon’s endurance far exceeded their expectations, and the knights clicked their tongues.
“That applies to creatures with legs on either side that move on four legs. Those bodies can’t breathe properly when moving fast because the legs compress the lungs.”
“Keep chasing and it’ll collapse on its own, making it easy to deal with. But creatures with chicken-like legs don’t have that problem.”
As the centauresses corrected, pterosaur-type monsters had no weakness in endurance.
“It’s coming!”
“Dodge!”
As if deciding this couldn’t continue, the dragon wheeled and charged. The pursuit force, which had been maintaining distance, immediately split left and right to flee, leaving the dragon to snap at empty air.
A roar steeped in frustration and fury shook the world.
“Let it roar all it wants!”
“What are you going to do to us? Huh?!”
The pursuit force laughed, watching the dragon’s reaction. Making the prey angry was more enjoyable than capturing it—a peculiar experience.
They had already left the barley field and entered the forest, but the dragon’s enormous size meant there was no risk of losing it. Rather, as the dragon fled in haste and crashed through trees with its body, small cuts were accumulating.
The dragon turned again. The terrain was far more obstructed than their previous pursuit route. Here, this annoying pack of rats would find it harder to escape.
“Waaaaah!”
But a tremendous roar from behind the pursuit force made the dragon’s vertical pupils contract.
Thud thud thud thud!
Eugene had appeared on Mite, holding the massive axe that had severed the dragon’s tail. The split pursuit force cheered wildly for the knight passing through their midst.
KHAAAAA!!!
The dragon, which had been prepared to fight to the death, panicked and turned to flee. The pursuit force’s morale soared to the heavens.
But that cheering stopped before an enormous dark opening. Before a cave of immense size, Eugene raised his fist high.
Mite’s size was always convenient. Any army below a certain scale could be controlled instantly by the commander’s hand signals alone, without banners.
“We… we’ve never seen anything like this either. That the Great Forest held a cave of this magnitude…”
Even if a legendary titan had gaped its mouth, it couldn’t have been larger. Eugene recalled an article he had read long ago about the world’s largest caves. It bore a strong resemblance to the Son Doong Cave he had seen there.
“Was this originally its lair? A worthy home for a dragon.”
Even the neighborhood stray dog knew its own territory. Pursuing into an unknown cave with only a hasty pursuit force was not a wise decision.
But with the dragon gravely wounded, this was a rare chance to finish it. He planned to regroup as reinforcements arrived and pursue again.
‘What are the cave’s depth and internal terrain? With the dragon lurking, I can’t send scouts in carelessly.’
Eugene’s eyes trembled as he stared into the deep darkness.
“…What?”
Eugene instinctively rubbed his eyes. The pitch-black darkness beyond the cave was beginning to reveal itself, one scene at a time. An unknown vision that pierced the darkness was feeding information to his brain.
Though he shared vision with Mite—a mystique that allowed them to see over distances like a hawk or ostrich—it was specialized for seeing far, not for piercing darkness like this.
“What’s wrong? Are you hurting somewhere?”
Valda approached with a worried expression.
“No. It’s not that…”
Eugene’s eyes trembled even more as he looked at his wife. He could perceive the heat flowing through her physical body just as he always could—her beautiful exterior notwithstanding.