Hard Carried by My Sword

Chapter 253

The Holy Sword was probably able to open the barrier right away because its power is also rooted in the natural order, Leon thought.

There were other matching points as well: a long-lived kind, a personal lair, and the habit of collecting precious metals. Cold sweat slid down the back of his neck. Anyone would react like that. Who could stay calm with a dragon, the strongest race in the world, standing right in front of them?

“Three hundred years, and you still had the audacity to show your face again. Reincarnated? Possession? Whichever it is, I won’t let you get away.” Albion leaned in until her face was nearly touching Leon’s.

The face she formed through her polymorph was flawless to the point of eeriness, without the slightest distortion, but Leon had no space in his mind to be captivated by her beauty. A few drops of cold sweat rolled down his temple.

I can’t move. So this is the legendary Dragon Fear... he thought, feeling a mix of awe and fear.

He wanted to step back, but the pressure pouring from her vertically slit eyes refused to allow even that. When faced at close range, Dragon Fear could pin even an Aura Master in place.

Then, the Holy Sword vibrated. “Hey! Over here, not the kid. Three hundred years later, and you’re still the same airheaded lizard.”

The voice from the Holy Sword made Albion blink and look down. Leon finally regained control of his body and stepped back. If she had meant to kill him, that moment alone might have been enough. A suppression skill like Dragon Fear could end a battle in a heartbeat unless the opponent was prepared.

“Rodrick? Don’t tell me you were sealed inside that sword.” Albion stared at the blade as if she couldn’t believe it. “There is no one in this world who could seal you. Not even the Goddess could do it without your consent.”

“Duh,” El-Cid answered flatly.

Albion paused, thinking, and then reached the answer. “So it was your own will. You sealed your soul inside the sword to guide the next generation’s hero?”

“Correct. Didn’t expect to see you again after three hundred years, though.”

“What?” Her brow twitched sharply. “You knew perfectly well what my circumstances were, and you didn’t think you’d ever see me again? If your situation wasn’t desperate, you wouldn’t even have bothered coming, is that what you’re saying?”

“Hold on, you’re making it sound like you and I were a thing, or something. What would I come looking for you for, stuck inside this sword?”

“What did you just say...?”

Something cracked—audibly—from Albion’s direction. The air grew several times heavier, and she stood with her head lowered, hair rising like quills, a dragon’s avatar steeped in fury.

Seeing that, Leon, and presumably the others present as well, thought, No way... But judging from this vibe, it’s almost certain.

Those listening to the exchange felt the oppressive tension creeping into their lungs. At first, they dismissed the idea as absurd. Then, they wondered if it might be possible. Now, Leon was sure, and he stared between Albion and the sword in disbelief.

The guy who always complained I was dense... is pulling this with someone who’s been waiting three hundred years? A dragon, at that?

If this went on, Albion’s rage would fall on all of them. For gossipmongers, the secret affair between a hidden dragon and an ancient hero would be fascinating. For the people stuck in the middle of the actual exchange, it was a catastrophe. A mere krill stuck between two fighting whales would have a better chance of making it out alive.

“P-please wait.” Leon forced out, and Albion’s unfocused eyes snapped toward him. Sensing his only chance, he rushed to shift the topic. “We only learned about this place because Rodrick told us about you recently!”

As Albion flinched at the name and narrowed her eyes instead of exploding, Leon thought, Thank goodness. She still has reason left.

“And...?” Albion prodded.

“We were supposed to come much earlier. A few months ago—half a year, even.”

“Then why are you half a year late?”

This is where the work would begin for Leon. His words up to now had been to steer her attention toward this line of conversation. None of it was a lie, but they were bits of El-Cid’s words twisted together to soothe her. Sloppily constructed, sure, but people in heightened emotion responded far better to emotion than logic.

“When we last visited Jugend, you were in deep sleep,” Leon explained.

“Oh?” Albion’s hair twitched like startled rabbit ears.

“Rodrick said he didn’t want to disturb you over trivial matters. From what I’ve heard, dragons become unstable if they’re forced awake during hibernation. Is that correct?”

“Mm, it isn’t a huge issue, but it’s not wrong. And for me, it’s a bit more dangerous.”

“Rodrick’s distinct blatantly rude mannerism is... a chronic condition of his.”

“Yes, yes, I know that well! You, child, are quite clever, I see!”

Every time Leon scratched right where her irritation sat, Albion’s ears perked, and her stiff hair visibly relaxed. El-Cid vibrated angrily in his grip, ready to argue back with every sentence, but Leon’s control over the sword won out.

Please shut up! Can’t you see I’m trying to clean up the mess you made?

—What do you mean by ‘cleaning up’? Why are you babying that lizard? Don’t tell me you like her! You’ve already got a bunch of girls chasing you, how could you!

Where the hell have you put your senses? Just shut up!

Inside, Leon fought El-Cid. Outside, he coaxed Albion. His lonely two-front war dragged on for nearly an hour, and his throat stung by the end of it. But it paid off.

“You’re a pleasant one! I like you!” Albion laughed, ruffling Leon’s hair with rough affection. The earlier demand—prove your worth and face my trial—felt like a lie now that she’d warmed to him.

“Thank you...” Leon muttered, exhausted.

People say the fastest way to build rapport is to badmouth someone together. It seemed to be true.

“Now that I think about it, if Rodrick approves of you, it’d be silly for me to test you again. Come inside. If I show poor hospitality to the first guests I’ve had in decades, that would be a disgrace to the dragon hospitality.” Albion turned, and a long tail swayed lazily from her hip as she walked.

The way her tail swayed left and right said everything about how good her mood was. Karen nearly burst out laughing at the sight, but she barely held it in. Elahan clamped a hand over her own mouth and swallowed down the half-escaped breath. Irexana kept his usual stern expression, though the slight twitch at the corner of his lips betrayed him.

“There’s nothing to eat or drink, but if it’s only conversation, this should do,” Albion said. “Sit.”

The four of them took seats around the table exactly as she gestured. It wasn’t just solid gold; gemstones had been embedded every three centimeters, making the table so ostentatious it bordered on garish. It really was a dragon’s hoard.

Treasures rarer than anything from the golden age were piled everywhere. Elahan, raised on thrift and restraint, looked uncomfortable, though she seemed to understand this was simply the nature of the species.

“So, Albion,” Leon called, drawing Albion’s eyes.

“Yes, Hero of this era. Speak freely.”

“Before we get to the main point, there’s something I’d like to ask.”

“What is it?”

“According to Rodrick, dragons all migrated to a higher dimension—the Upper Heavens. In that case...”

“You’re asking why I remained,” Albion said, her eyes widening in a way that felt almost threatening.

“Y-yes, but if you don’t want to answer...”

“Haha, I’m just being a bully,” she said, letting her expression soften. “Three hundred years ago, I might have snapped at the question, but not anymore.”

She closed her eyes briefly as if recalling something far away, then opened them again. “I could not leave this dimension.”

“Pardon...?”

“It’s not that I chose to remain. I was unable to leave.”

There was bitterness in her expression, a grief that ran deeper than her words. Leon realized he had brushed against something painful, but once spoken, his question couldn’t be taken back. Even if three centuries had blurred the memory, the moment someone prodded it, it resurfaced like silt stirred from the bottom of a lake.

Albion continued, “I suppose Rodrick never told you. I can’t tell if he was being considerate or if he simply forgot. Either way, it’s cruel in its own way.”

Leon felt the sword tremble faintly in his grip and thought, You just forgot, didn’t you.

The shaking didn’t ease, but Leon had no intention of loosening his hold. If it were such an important story, Rodrick should have told him long before they flew headfirst into a dragon’s den.

“Well, it’s an old story,” Albion said. “If you insist on hearing it, I’ll tell it.”

Her voice dropped to a quiet murmur as she began recalling the distant past, the day she first met Rodrick over three centuries ago.

***

A beam of light, a golden Breath, streaked across the sky. It gathered an immense mass of mana and light into a single point and fired it at ultra-high pressure, and the result was nothing short of terrifying. With a deafening roar, the ground split open for several kilometers as if an earthquake had torn it apart, magma bursting upward.

Anything caught directly in the path of it evaporated without a trace, and even the residual heat turned the land around it into a scorched hellscape. This was the true power of the dragon’s signature ultimate attack. The only reason why other species were able to live to tell stories of it was that there was always an inhibitor restricting its overwhelming destructive power.

But the Gold Dragon, Albion, who had half of her body dyed pitch black and her mind drowned in madness, didn’t have anything holding her back. She didn’t have the clarity to use magic, which required higher cognition, but she could still fire a breath as long as she had time to draw out the force of her dragon heart. After a single blast that devastated land the size of a small territory, Albion drew in mana again, the suction so strong the air spiraled into a vortex.

Deep inside her consciousness, the rampaging Gold Dragon screamed. Someone... anyone... please... kill me...!

Where had it all gone wrong? With the last scraps of her mind, she retraced her memories. Her pride and arrogance as a dragon had always been exceptional. She had wanted to slay the Demon King before any hero could, to prove the supremacy and greatness of her kind over gods and warriors alike. It had been a catastrophic miscalculation.

Albion was strong, yes, but she had only ever fought the weak. She had never faced someone truly stronger.

To someone like her, the Demon King was a nightmare. With a gesture, he dispersed her breath. With a single exertion of power, he made it feel like her dragon heart was being crushed.

Her defeat had been inevitable. Overpowered without resistance, she was ultimately corrupted by the Demon King’s power. Her body and soul had been tainted until she became an Evil Dragon, a beast of indiscriminate destruction.

Even so, a dragon’s soul was strong. Any other race would have been completely corrupted to the core by now, but she held out, though only barely. She was close to her limit.

Not... yet... I can still... resist... but... I don’t know... how long...

As she waited for someone to end her before she lost herself entirely, someone appeared.

“Hey. So you’re the brainless lizard who stirred up all this trouble? Why bother picking a fight you can’t win and drag me all the way out here?”

He was more arrogant than a dragon, more unreasonable than a demon king. A beautiful young man whose looks were so flawless that even the aesthetic sense of a transcendental race could find no flaw. He looked annoyed, as if her very existence inconvenienced him. Even in front of a dragon gone mad, he showed not a sliver of fear. This was Rodrick in his prime.

“Thirty seconds,” he said, drawing his holy sword with a lazy motion as it erupted into blinding light. “That’s how long it’ll take me to finish you.”

Albion’s instincts screamed danger. She fired her Breath with enough output and a roar that made her dragon heart throb in pain.