Ch.194Hero (3)

Viola Ordina did not tie her hair.

With her black hair flowing loose, she swung her sword.

Violet wore her hair in a single ponytail.

With her snow-white hair tied back, she tapped on the keyboard.

Najin looked at Violet standing before him, or perhaps Viola Ordina. Her hair wasn’t a single color. Half black, half snow-white. With her hair tied in a single ponytail, she held a sword.

“Well, it doesn’t matter which one I am, does it?”

As if saying it didn’t matter, that it was a trivial issue, she shrugged. Seeing this, Najin nodded in agreement.

“I’ll take the left side.”

“I’ll take the right.”

No further words were needed. Najin positioned himself diagonally toward Radon’s half-severed left wing, while Viola gripped her sword facing the right wing.

A moment of silence.

As if breaking that silence, the blue sky rippled. The already deep blue sky was now tinted a shade bluer. When a single raindrop fell from the sky rippling like a lake, Merlin’s magic was complete.

Swoooooosh!

A downpour began. The moment the heavy rain touched Radon, it froze with a crackling sound. Raindrops seeped into the wounds Najin had created and froze, widening the injuries. Ice stained red with blood bloomed across Radon’s body.

——————!

As Radon’s agonized scream echoed, Najin and Viola kicked off the ground.

The Morning Star, made of four stars.

The Lonely Star, made of six stars.

The two constellations shone with their own colors.

2.

Najin and Viola are swordsmen.

They both knew how to cut what couldn’t be cut by ordinary means, and they had the skill to put that knowledge into practice.

Najin used the Triumphant Sword he learned from the Helm Knight.

Viola used a sword energy resembling shattered glass.

While Merlin’s magic held Radon in place, they persistently targeted the dragon’s wings. The most orthodox method of hunting a dragon was to take away its wings.

Slash!

Blood sprayed. Though the amount of bleeding was insignificant compared to Radon’s size, to bring down something massive, one must start with the small parts.

Crack!

When Viola and Najin slashed at the wings creating wounds, Merlin widened those wounds. The frozen injuries wouldn’t heal, rendering Radon’s vaunted regenerative abilities useless. Though Radon thrashed about with terrible cries, they were not slow enough to be caught by the sluggish movements of the half-frozen dragon.

They peeled off scales, thrust in their swords to widen wounds, and sawed through bone and muscle.

When Radon’s tattered wings went limp, the two didn’t miss their chance. Najin slid in and thrust his sword into Radon’s left wing. Almost simultaneously, Viola swung her sword from the right. The two sword strikes were completed almost at the same time.

On one side, sword energy resembling a constellation flashed, and on the other, sword energy reminiscent of a glass window shattered into pieces.

With a ripping sound, the left wing was severed.

With a shattering sound, the right wing was destroyed.

Crimson blood sprayed. With a booming sound, Radon’s wings fell along with the gushing blood. As the two wings hit the ground, Radon screamed in agony.

“Now.”

And.

“Now, Merlin.”

The iceberg began to collapse.

With a rumbling sound, the iceberg where Viola, Najin, and Radon stood crumbled. Merlin had destroyed it because such a foothold was no longer needed.

Without wings, Radon could not fly. It meant he was not free from falling. The dragon, once called the master of the skies, had lost its wings and was reduced to a mere beast.

The iceberg shattered and collapsed.

From hundreds of meters in the air, Radon fell. Watching the falling dragon, Viola burst into laughter.

That dragon she had feared so much.

That monster she thought would torment her forever.

Seeing it plummet to the ground, Viola felt elation. She saw Radon’s eyes trembling. She saw fear settling in those yellow eyes. Indeed, it seemed afraid of falling.

But Viola was not.

Though she too was falling, she wasn’t afraid. Having experienced countless falls already. Having fallen again and again, she felt familiarity rather than fear in this situation.

And that familiarity allowed Viola to take a step forward.

With a tap, Viola kicked off a falling ice fragment and accelerated. Using fragments as stepping stones, she leaped repeatedly toward Radon. Instead of resisting the fall, she simply accepted it. She accepted gravity not as a fearsome force pulling her down, but as a hand pushing her forward.

CRASH!

Radon hit the ground first. When the massive dragon crashed, the earth shook like an earthquake. Dust rose high into the sky, and a sound like an exploding arsenal of bombs echoed.

And through it all, with a tap.

Viola kicked off the last ice platform and leaped. Without reducing her speed at all, she swung her sword at the fallen Radon. Like swinging a blunt weapon rather than a sword.

Slash.

Viola struck Radon’s spine. The dragon’s back caved in, and with a shattering sound, cracks spread. Blood spurted and scales peeled off, flying high into the air.

Radon convulsed violently. The dragon’s body, trying to recover from the impact of the fall, stiffened.

“Najin!”

Shouting this, Viola distanced herself from Radon. Leaping greatly, she looked up at the sky.

Stars were shining.

Challenge, Penetration, Unyielding, and.

Dragonslayer.

Not in the night sky, but in the sword held by a human, stars were shining.

“……”

Najin, who had been hanging upside down from a falling ice fragment, kicked off the ice. With a boom, the ice shattered from the impact. Amidst the flying snow powder, Najin shot toward Radon like a meteor.

The First Horn.

The scales Viola had peeled off. The exposed spine of Radon. Najin swung his sword at the thick bone.

Triumphant.

The strike, imbued with the starlight of Dragonslayer, bisected Radon.

3.

The sword strike that tore through flesh and muscle and cut through the spine.

As if not satisfied with bisecting Radon, a line was carved into the ground with a ripping sound. Spewing blood from the cut surface, Radon let out a final groan.

In his final moment, what Radon felt was fear. The fear of facing eternal death rather than reviving with the passage of time. The dragon, who had been far removed from death, groaned in terror as death approached.

Groooooo…

The continuing groan was suddenly cut off. Radon met his death.

“Huff, huff…”

Najin, still in the posture of having swung his sword on Radon’s back, gasped for breath. His breathing was rough. The backlash of imitating transcendence with a body that hadn’t reached transcendence hit Najin. His body collapsed and fell beneath the dragon.

Viola caught Najin’s falling body.

“My goodness, my goodness!”

She hugged Najin and cheered. Jumping up and down in place, she smiled brightly.

“We really caught it. Really! How did you? How on earth did you do that? Really…”

“Ah!” Belatedly releasing Najin, Viola stepped back and smoothed her hair. As if feeling embarrassed, she slightly averted her gaze.

“……”

As she turned her gaze, Viola unintentionally met Merlin’s eyes, who was glaring at her with wide eyes. Still in the posture of having spread his arms to catch the falling Najin.

Staaaare.

The resentful gaze of a guide whose role had been stolen. Finding that gaze quite burdensome, Viola turned her head again.

“I told you. I’m confident in dragon hunting.”

Najin, staggering as he composed himself, said.

“How was it?”

“Are you asking because you don’t know?”

Viola laughed incredulously.

How was it, are you asking because you don’t know? It was magnificent. The word “cool” couldn’t fully express it. Embarrassing words rose to Viola’s throat, but unable to utter them, she burst into laughter.

“Really.”

Now that the nightmarish existence that had tormented her for years was gone, Viola could smile more brightly than ever.

“Really, Najin. Thank y—”

Just as Viola was about to say “thank you.”

She felt something off.

‘A nightmare that had tormented her for years.’

It was a sense of dissonance she felt the moment she recalled that sentence. Though she had faced Radon for 67 years, Viola felt as if she had done so for a much longer time, more than ten times that.

Radon’s death. The resolution of lingering attachment. And the inflection point.

Suddenly she realized.

That this was a dream.

And she realized that she had been repeating such dreams for hundreds of years.

Memories she had forgotten every month crashed over her like waves. The repeated dreams flashed before her eyes like a kaleidoscope. Viola’s brightly smiling expression hardened.

Her expression contorted, her eyes trembled, her breathing became irregular, and then…

“Ah…”

Viola Ordina sighed.

Violet smiled bitterly.

“I see.”

Viola’s eyes, beginning to wake from the dream, were somewhat hazy.

“So that’s how it was.”

But that was only momentary.

Viola closed her eyes and exhaled deeply. When she opened her eyes again after slowly taking a deep breath, she was smiling. A smile that was somehow comfortable and also lighthearted.

“Well, come to think of it, it was too much like a fairy tale. When I’m pushed to my limits, a hero appears just in time to save me? Reality wouldn’t be like that.”

“Ah,” Violet sighed.

What a pity. Muttering so, Violet lowered her head. When she raised her head again, she looked as if she might cry at any moment.

“…You.”

“It’s okay. Really, it’s okay. Really.”

Violet shook her head.

Then, after exhaling repeatedly, she rubbed the corners of her eyes with her sleeve.

“You know, Najin?”

“Yes, Violet.”

“What’s this? Now that the hero has retired, you call me Violet? I like that. Anyway, Najin…”

Violet turned to look at Najin.

“Do you like getting rained on?”

The moment she said that, rain suddenly began to fall with a swoosh. It wasn’t rain created by Merlin. For Violet, rain had always been a sanctuary, and the sound of rain was a song that calmed her heart.

Because she desired sanctuary, it rained.

With Radon gone, this dream had become entirely Violet’s possession.

“Well, I don’t dislike it.”

Najin, looking at her with a faint smile that seemed about to disappear at any moment, nodded.

“Then shall we walk for a bit?”

Violet forced a smile.

“I have a lot to talk about.”