I knew this feeling well.
Its name was despair.
The foul-dragon calmly drew himself up. He had a slight cut on his side, nothing more.
“Now…”
We were at an overwhelming disadvantage. I tightened my grip on Pale
Moon’s shaft. I thought despair would swallow me if I didn’t.
“Faraway Paladin, you fought admirably and with bravery.”
Surprisingly, Valacirca hadn’t tried to kill me right away. But I had too much on my mind to consider a response. I glanced around. The others didn’t seem to be dead yet. Wait, how was that possible? It was a complete surprise attack with the striking power of a dragon and he’d failed to kill any of us? That was impossible. He had chosen not to kill them. Which had to mean…
“In light of you fighting so hard, I will make you an offer. What do you
think of becoming my servants?”
It was just as I thought.
“I see you understand. I have provided you an excuse.”
Valacirca smiled. He looked as though he was enjoying this, and in fact, he probably was.
“If you turn me down, I will burn your allies to cinders. Bones, souls, and all. There. Now that your allies’ lives are in need of protection, you have a noble justification to submit to me.”
I couldn’t cover everyone at the same time. They had collapsed in different places, Menel and Al on the left and Reystov and Ghelreis on the right. In the first place, I had no more plays to use against this dragon, no more ways to bring a quick end to this battle.
“I have seen many with eyes like yours. You will not be swayed or intimidated just because I threaten to incinerate you. Even now, you are stubbornly searching for a way to cut through this situation.”
He was right. Even at this moment, I was silently holding off on answering while my mind worked desperately to come up with some kind of an out.
“But you have nothing. Am I right? Even with time to analyze the
situation.”
I had to admit that it was just as the foul-dragon said. I had no more convenient breakthrough ideas.
“Oh… no, not exactly nothing. You do have one move, one way not to yield to me.”
His words caused me to frown. A move? I still had a move, in this situation?
“You can kill yourself. ”
The idea had never even occurred to me.
“You are adored by the goddess of flux, are you not? All you need to do
is cut off your own head.”
There was no hint of laughter in Valacirca’s voice.
“There will be a next world, won’t there? And one after that. And one after that. As many as you please. If you think winning is impossible, toss out the game board and hang yourself. If you want to reject tragedy, simply
say, ‘Not yet. There will be a next world. This isn’t where I’m meant to fight,’ and drive a dagger into your own chest.”
His words were a hideous caricature of the truth. Everyone knows that things can’t actually be simplified that way. But that probably wasn’t the dragon’s point.
I shook my head. “I won’t take that choice.”
“Good. If you saw that little value in your own life, you wouldn’t even be
worth subjugating.”
To Valacirca, who had an attachment to this world and had lived in it since the age of the gods, whether or not I had the will to make the most of my own life was a crucial point he couldn’t budge on.
“Then choose. Join me, or resist and be eradicated.”
My allies had been severely wounded to the point that they couldn’t do anything to help. I myself wasn’t uninjured, and my game-winning moves had already failed. I didn’t even know how many thousands of successful attacks would be needed to win by ordinary methods. I was completely checkmated. The situation now was even more desperate than it had been in my battle against the god of undeath. However—
“If I join you, I can easily imagine how you’ll use me.”
“I imagine so.”
He would spread war, stir up chaos, and continue to create the kinds of situations that a dragon preferred. My dialogue with him so far had told me loud and clear that he couldn’t live any other way.
“Then I can’t go along with you.”
“Your allies will die.”
“That isn’t how I see it.”
Valacirca tilted his head.
“How do you see it?”
“We came resolved. No matter how many of us we lose, as long as just one of us can stick our blade into your throat, we’ll have achieved our goal.”
We were warriors. Throwing away the opportunity to win the battle in order to protect an ally wasn’t what any of us wanted.
“But you no longer have any prospect of victory.”
“I do.” I steeled myself and looked up at Valacirca. “If I drive this blade into you thousands or maybe millions of times, I will win. Am I wrong?”
My response seemed to take Valacirca off guard. His eyes went wide. Then he chuckled, amused.
“A prospect that lies at the far end of thousands of miracles.”
“Thousands, millions, billions, I don’t care. If there’s a chance of victory, a possibility of fulfilling my oath, then that’s what I’m going to bet on.”
That was the path I had chosen.
— So when you get hit, put up with it and move in. You’re dead if you step
back anyway, so you go for broke. You keep your attacks coming, and bury your sword or spear or fist, whatever you’ve got, in there over and over.
That was one of the fundamentals of battle I had learned from Blood. When you’re hurt, move in. Step forward and give back what you were given.
“You’re about to find out how stubborn I can be.”
I probably couldn’t win. I was probably going to die. But I forced a fierce grin onto my face. The foul-dragon followed suit, baring his fangs.
“Foul-dragon Valacirca…”
“Faraway Paladin…”
Gripping my familiar spear, I assumed a battle stance.
“I will slay you!”
“You will die trying!”
I ran ahead towards my final battle.
The period that followed felt like being caught up in a flood and swimming as hard as I could to save myself from drowning.
During the battle’s opening stages, I used all the Words and tactics I could to move us away from the place where Menel and the others had collapsed. It was possible they would still die in the heatwave, but I wanted to do as much as I could for them. If Valacirca had stubbornly resisted, it would probably have been impossible to move battlegrounds, but the dragon didn’t do that. Perhaps he’d decided it wasn’t worth concerning himself with defeated foes, or perhaps he was arranging things to make it easier for me as his enemy to give him my all.
I sprinted. Attacks flew at me from his sharp claws, thick tail, trampling feet, and at times body slams and deadly breath. I accelerated and dodged, hitting him with both Words and my spear with carefully judged timing. The dragon, speaking in a raspy voice, hammered me with many brutal Words, including several I had never even heard of. I summoned all of my knowledge and all the
Words I could muster to counter them. Sometimes, he howled at me with an intensity that shook the mountain.
I stacked blessing upon blessing to protect myself from ruptured eardrums and the grip of fear. Several times, I was late to react and got injured by flying stones and the heatwave from his breath. Each time, I healed myself with a blessing and got back to my feet. I avoided immediate death by inches several times. My large shield had long been buckled and broken. I gave a long and frenzied scream as I continued fighting, covered in my own blood.