Chapter 301

With a thunderous crash, the massive body tipped sideways and went down.

[Hngh!]

Sneak attack or not, Minerva couldn't recover her footing at all.

I rode the momentum and pounded her again and again until I had driven her flat into the ground.

It was almost ridiculous—every strike landed clean, with barely any resistance from her at all.

'Well, fair enough.'

I'd have been just as rattled if an ant suddenly leapt up at me and threw a hard uppercut.

Sensing my chance, I reached into the shadow to draw my spear and sword—

But the only thing my hand closed on was the hilt of the sword.

[Only this one and the bow remain. It seems you dropped the others back then.]

I nodded slightly at Minerva's words.

Come to think of it, I'd never recovered the spear and dagger during the fight with Milited.

Grumbling inwardly that Milited was a useless piece of shit in the present timeline and three hundred years ago alike, I drew the sword without delay.

The Smith of Yado had forged me four weapons in all: sword, spear, bow, and dagger.

Each of the four had a property pushed to its extreme. The sword in my hand was the one that 'never breaks' and 'never loses its edge.'

In other words, no matter how recklessly I gripped it or how roughly I swung it, there was nothing to worry about.

[Kraaaaagh!!!]

The moment I drove the blade down in a reverse grip and tore it across her, Minerva's scream of pain ripped through the air.

[H-how could a mere human wound my body—!?]

[Beats me.]

This version of Minerva hadn't yet had her 'Perfect' characteristic broken.

That was probably why being wounded by anything other than a fellow Seven Calamity hadn't even crossed her mind. And since I carried the power of a Seven Calamity, I could shrug off her Perfect trait and strike her freely.

[Y-you insolent—!]

[Nope. Stay down.]

With that, I kicked her again, and at the same time used the World Tree branches I'd already planted around her to throw off her balance.

When she slammed into the ground a second time, she twisted her body and let out a roar thick with fury.

Then, from inside my shadow, Minerva quietly offered some advice.

[Stop attacking and hide yourself inside the shadow.]

She sounded certain.

[From the look of things, she means to spew venom into the surrounding air to corner you. That venom was originally crafted to bind Milited—it's incredibly wide-ranging and viscous. More than that, it's heavy and hardens almost the instant it lands. If any of it sticks to your body, your movements will be severely hampered.]

I had already slipped into the shadow before she finished speaking.

Then, just as she'd warned, a thick gray cloud of venomous smoke billowed out across the area.

Apparently past-Minerva only realized I'd vanished after she'd already vomited out the venom.

[That little rat bastard—! Again—!]

Minerva—inside my shadow—burst into delighted laughter at the sight of her past self snarling with rage, then offered another piece of advice.

[But because it's so heavy, it sinks quickly. Attack from directly above and the venom won't touch you. …Still, my past self isn't a fool, and I doubt she'll fall for the same trick twice. How about a feint to draw her out?]

[Sounds like the better play, Minerva.]

Following her instructions, I pulled out branches of the World Tree and wove them into a decoy roughly in my shape. Then I hurled it through the shadow over her head, and past-Minerva—who had been scanning her surroundings—snapped her head up as if she'd been waiting for that exact moment.

[Got you, you fool!]

A torrent of flame erupted from her mouth, so searing that even through the shadow I felt the heat. As the woven branch decoy blazed up and crumbled to ash, she let out a satisfied breath, as if her chest had finally cleared.

[Insolent thing! How dare you pull such a base trick on me—!]

She thought I was dead. I was just starting to think maybe I should stay hidden like this when—

[Now that I think of it, there was a red-haired wench at his side… How dare he embarrass me. A hundred deaths wouldn't pay for that sin. I'll burn that wench alive myself.]

That muttering made me drop the idea of running.

Instead, I decided to draw on a small piece of another authority alongside King of Thorns.

[! Authority 'Dragon Blood' activated. !]

[! Your heart pumps the blood of a dragon, and dragon's blood begins to flow through your veins. !]

[! 'Health' and 'Strength' temporarily increase exponentially. !]

Power surged through me.

If I wanted to, I felt like I could uproot a whole building and hurl it.

I was about to leap out and charge at Minerva when a voice held me back.

[Wait a moment, you.]

[Hey, cool your head for a second.]

Minerva and Sbeungali had spoken almost in unison. They seemed to glance at each other, then—again, almost in unison—laid out what they were thinking. And astonishingly, their ideas were nearly identical. Their plan sounded simple but ridiculous, and I asked back, uncertain.

[Will that really work? What if it fails?]

[Do you truly not know who this Sbeungali is?]

Sbeungali sounded exasperated.

[Among the Seven Calamities, when it came to sensing things, not a single one of them could keep up with me. And this is the same me telling you he's certain—who else are you going to trust?]

[I'm not saying I don't trust you, but—]

[Come on, just give it a shot. You've spent days scouting around here yourself—you know there's a sea right next to us.]

His tone made me snap back.

[I can't move properly in water either, dumbass. You think I'm a fish?]

[With King of Thorns on, you'll survive just fine and then some.]

[You haven't forgotten this thing wears off after a while, have you?]

[Hardly. I tore it out of my own flesh and bone—how could I forget?]

The two of us were still bickering and sniping at each other when Minerva, who had stayed quiet, gently put forward her own suggestion.

[You—just this once, will you do it my way…? My thinking isn't very different from Sbeungali's. There's a real chance it'll work.]

I nodded as if convinced.

[Alright… let's go with your plan, then, Minerva.]

[…Are you serious?]

Sbeungali huffed in disbelief.

I ignored him and rolled out my shoulders, then asked Minerva:

[So the gist is… I just have to piss off your three-hundred-years-ago self until she's out of her mind, right?]

[Mm, that's right. Furious enough that her eyes roll back. Furious enough that she can't think of anything but chasing you down.]

[How should I do it? Grab her tail and slam her into the ground?]

[That… is actually a rather appealing idea.]

Minerva murmured this, then glanced briefly at my right arm and shook her head.

[But let's save that for another time.]

She smiled faintly and gave her tail a small swish.

[Besides, I don't believe even you could throw me down when I'm in my true form.]

[Then how?]

[There's a simple way.]

Minerva tapped her own horn lightly.

[The horn.]

[The horn?]

[Yes. Not just for me, but for every dragon, the horns—along with the reverse scale—are the most sensitive parts of the body. They are pride itself, dignity itself. And my past self, in the days when my arrogance pierced the heavens, would surely settle that debt with her own life rather than let it stand—!?]

Mid-explanation, Minerva flinched and broke off.

I tilted my head, puzzled.

I'd taken dragon form before, so I knew exactly how harrowing it was to have someone touch the reverse scale.

But the horns were on the same level?

Still, surely…

'Surely Minerva once asked me to help her groom her horns.'

In the end, I'd sat across from her inside the shadow and trimmed and polished them for her.

When that memory surfaced and I looked at her, puzzled, she was avoiding my eyes for some reason.

Then, without a word, she raised her index finger to her lips.

The message was: keep this between us. Her face was flushed bright red, and her body was trembling.

She looked as though she truly couldn't go on living if Sbeungali ever found out, so all I could do was nod.

[…So they've slipped away.]

Standing proudly amid the wreckage of the building from which Milited and all of its underlings had vanished, Minerva muttered to herself. She was just thinking, This is going to be a nuisance, when—

Suddenly, something shot out of a shadow and lunged at her.

[—!?]

A man loosed what looked like an arrow aimed at her eyes, and Minerva jerked her head aside. But it had been a feint from the start—he'd drawn the bowstring without notching anything at all. He flung the bow away and immediately swung his sword.

There was a wet shearing sound as something was cut.

A heavy thud followed as something hit the ground, and the moment the swordsman confirmed it, he sheathed his blade and tore off in a desperate sprint.

[…….]

And Minerva—the dragon whose horn had been partly severed—simply stared, dazed, at the piece of her own horn lying on the dirt.

[…You—]

Even if only a small piece, severed was severed.

It was her very pride—a pride that had never once been chipped or cracked, not in her clashes with the other Seven Calamities, not with Venus or Juno, not with Milited or Sbeungali, not even in petty quarrels with the likes of Margo.

In fact, the other Seven Calamities had all deliberately avoided ever touching her horns.

They knew, instinctively, that if anyone laid a hand on her horns she would throw herself into the fight with the intent to settle it for good, and that it would not end until one of them was dead.

[Kill…]

And now those horns had been cut.

By a mere human, no less.

[…I'll kill him.]

That was all Minerva said. She didn't bother to shout or roar.

She simply turned her head, dazed, and looked toward the direction the man who had cut her horn had fled.

A moment later, her enormous wings unfurled.

The rage-blinded dragon kicked off the ground and shot into the sky.

She had only one target on her mind.

"I think I'm fucked."

I had been doing the same thing over and over—diving into the shadow, popping back out every so often to keep her attention pinned on me, then running again—and finally I let out just one line.

"Seriously. I'm fucked."

[I said graze it. Who told you to cut the damn thing off?]

Sbeungali muttered in genuine disbelief.

Even Minerva, who had been the one to suggest I attack her past self's horn, sounded a little caught off guard.

[I knew she'd be angry, but I didn't expect this…]

Right behind me, past-Minerva was charging with her eyes literally rolled back in fury.

She would launch into the air, then crash back into the ground; then she'd run forward on all fours like a lizard, trip, and do it all over again—and through every bit of it, she was bearing down on me, only me, completely out of her mind.

Watching her, present-Minerva muttered uncomfortably.

[At least it's going to plan, but…]

[If she catches you, you'd be better off taking your own life. Let me know if you can't manage it. I'd be happy to lend a hand.]

I made a mental note to settle accounts with Sbeungali later for sneering at me even now, and clad myself in King of Thorns again. Using it back-to-back like this, the penalty afterward would be brutal, but this was no time to weigh that.

[…It's right there. Hold on just a little longer.]

Sbeungali tossed the words off as though throwing them away.

Sure enough, the senses King of Thorns had sharpened were picking up the briny smell of the sea, thick on the air.

[Smear your blood—your blood, carrying the World Tree, my own essence, and Sbeungali's—on an arrow and loose it far out. That alone should be enough.]

[And then I dive into the sea?]

[Yes.]

Doing as Minerva said, I drew a World Tree arrow, coated it with my blood, and loosed it far out toward the ocean. Maybe it was thanks to King of Thorns—the arrow, fired with nothing on my mind but distance, sailed clean over the horizon and out of sight in an instant.

The problem was that, while I was busy firing the arrow, I couldn't dodge past-Minerva's tail sweeping in from behind.

[Gah—!]

It hurt so much I couldn't even scream properly. I was sent hurtling toward the sea, and only after skipping across the surface several times like a stone did I finally lose enough momentum to slow.

…Or so I assumed.

The instant the tail struck me, I'd blacked out for a moment.

[…You in one piece?]

I bobbed on the water and lifted one hand at Sbeungali's question.

When I folded down every finger except the middle one, he muttered as if reassured.

[Guess you're fine.]

I couldn't even bite back with does this look fine to your damn eyes?

The first wave of pain had crashed down on me like a thunderbolt, and the second wave that followed had latched onto me like sticky bog mud, with no intention of letting go.

It struck me all over again that Minerva had really gone easy on me all this time, and I was grateful that her past self was out of her mind right now. If she'd attacked even a little more shrewdly, more relentlessly, it wouldn't have ended at just this.

I had only just managed to claw my way out of the pain and pull myself into some kind of stance when—

[Kraaaaagh!!!]

At some point, she had taken to the air, and she let out a roar from on high with everything she had.

Even from this distance, I could see her sucking in every last bit of breath she could, as if she was about to spew her breath weapon down on me.

I watched the scene from where I floated on the water, my face blank.

[Listen.]

Sbeungali whispered quietly.

[It's here.]

I gave a small nod.

Even before he'd said it, a large notification window had already appeared clearly in front of my eyes.

[! Quest 'The Fifth Evil' begins. !]

[! Seven Calamity 'Venus' awakens at last from his long stupor and recovers his sharp consciousness. !]

[! Take care not to be caught up in his idle thrashing. !]

• Booo—ooo—ooo—ooo—ooo—ooo—ooo

A deep roaring tremor rolled out through the sea.

It was so violent that the water itself shook and waves swelled across the surface. The source of that sound was drawing closer.

[Been a while.]

[…….]

Sbeungali murmured. Minerva said nothing.

A moment later, an enormous whale—nearly two or three times the size of Minerva—rose into view from deep beneath the ocean.

• Booo—ooo—ooo—ooo—ooo—ooo—ooo

And without a flicker of hesitation, it rammed its body straight into Minerva.

The fifth Seven Calamity, Venus, enraged at the invasion of his territory, had arrived.