Dragonlord

Ep 112. Long Time No See. (2)

Ep 112. Long Time No See. (2)

Few hours ago, at Telberk…

“What the…?”

A sentry narrowed his gaze above the keep’s tower. After checking over and again to ascertain what he was seeing through the scope, he began shouting down to the ramparts below.

“Someone’s approaching from the west!”

The stationed soldiers stirred in unison as they turned towards the sentry’s direction. Following suit, those stationed atop the ramparts scanned the stretching plains to make out their supposed enemy.

And among them was the hooded figure, narrowing his eyes onto the speck in the distance.

“That’s…”

A strange girl was approaching from afar with shaky steps, orange hair dragging along the ground.

But soon, her slow advance came to a stop. The girl painfully gripped at her chest as her legs gave away, collapsing onto her knees in a seemingly paralyzed state.

“…!”

Confirming what they’d seen, the surrounding soldiers began to move about. Some began to form squadrons to investigate outside the keep, while some retreated into the keep’s interior to report to their emperor.

But the hooded figure stepped off the rampart alone, disregarding the others and their regulations.

“Wait, what’s up with him?! Heritch forbade us from moving on our own!”

“Leave ‘em be. That fella ain’t got nothin’ to do with us, he’s directly under the emperor’s command. Ye ain’t turning him ‘round.”

“Ha! He’s still a soldier, isn’t he? Acting alone’s just asking for an arrow to the head.”

“…That ain’t where you’re aimin’, is it?”

Leaving the soldiers’ scrutiny behind, the hooded figure swiftly made his way towards the girl in lightened steps. A pair of golden eyes stared down from within the hood’s shadow, noting the two horns protruding from the girl’s head.

“…Aymeia.”

“…”

‘It hurts.’

In the last few hours, the star deity had struggled to even breathe from the excruciating pain radiating within her chest. Even though she wasn’t hurt anywhere, she could scarce keep herself from gasping for air.

And when she’d come to, Aymeia found herself in the middle of nowhere, far outside of the safety of her cavern.

‘…Where…am I going…?’

The deity looked up with raspy breaths to meet the hooded figure’s gaze. It wasn’t exactly warm, to say the least.

“Mo…ve…”

“…”

At first, the hooded figure stepped to the side – as if he really would. But as he stretched out his hand, a broadsword shimmered into existence within his grip.

Unlike his puppet state, there was no mistaking it this time. The girl in front of him was Aymeia.

For centuries, the deity of stars had never shown face outside like this. But somehow, she’d come right onto where he was – somehow, in an extremely weakened state.

‘There’s no reason to hesitate.’

 After raising his blade high into the air, the figure struck down towards Aymeia’s neck.

And, just as the blade was about to touch the girl’s skin, a weak voice slithered out of her lips once more.

“…Move.”

She had to go forth.

Although she didn’t know why, she had to go – if only to know the source of her torment, of what was even making her move in the first place. The answer surely lied somewhere out there, far into the distance.

She couldn’t waste time at a place like this.

When the blade touched Aymeia’s throat, the molten steel powerlessly bounced off of her. Its keen edge had disappeared, reduced to a heap of scrap junk.

And when the hooded figure met the star deity’s gaze again, her eyes were no longer that of a human.

“…!”

An explosion of heat engulfed the surrounding environment. Blazing lights swallowed Aymeia whole, forcing the hooded figure to retreat back several steps.

An ephemeral deity floated some ways above, watching every detail unfold from the sky.

“…Ah…haha. Hahaha. Hahahaha!”

Felicir let out a mocking laughter, watching the firestorm grow into a blazing sphere. Although he lacked a physical body to feel the heat, it wasn’t difficult to imagine what it would feel like.

The sun above was beginning to wane. But the sun below clearly had no intention of setting just yet.

Beaming an amused grin, Felicir watched on as the hooded figure clawed at his burning cloak. He swiftly tore the cloth off of himself, revealing a bleak white aura buzzing about his figure.

“Let’s see if you deserve your title, ‘hero.’”

✧   ✧   ✧

“Karas?”

“Yeah. He probably knows the emperor through and through.”

“Hm…”

“I don’t know if he told you, but he’s got a really strong tie to this empire. I guarantee you that he knows things.”

Hearing Raizel’s input, Serenis briefly closed her eyes to reminisce the crow-like professor.

Admittedly, Karas had been quite knowledgeable in the field of history; it was the area he specialized in, at least according to his own words. Although the professor had often omitted certain details in his lectures due to being in a public schooling environment, there was every possibility that he’d know something useful regarding the Akeian emperor.

But…

“While I agree he may be of help…Karas is in Partivine at the moment. It’d take quite some time for us to return.”

Even for Serenis and Raizel, the trip would take them two days, if not three. It was ample time for the emperor to hear about what’d happened in Zeria. If he were to choose to hide away, then there was no telling how difficult it’d become to find him; at least right now, they had quite a specific location to look for him in.

But in that moment, Eline poked out her head with Theolus, eyes gleaming with hope.

“Um, actually…if you use the machine downstairs, it won’t take long at all…!”

“? Machine?”

When the dragons’ gaze fell on Eline, the herbalist delightfully nodded her head.

“Yes! Just one floor below us. It’s, um…it’s a portal the emperor made.”

“A portal? That’s a spell, is it not?”

“Um…the machine’s based on the spell! Since traveling far takes too much mana from the caster, he designed a machine that could use an external mana source instead. Or so I’ve heard…”

Raizel frowned upon hearing Eline’s explanation. She briefly glanced towards the window, but the rest of the kin were already long gone.

“Why didn’t you say that earlier? The others could’ve used it.”

“I…did…”

“Huh? When?”

“I’ve…been saying it…for a while…”

“…”

“Nobody listened…”

Raizel hurriedly avoided the herbalist’s gaze. As did the others.

After letting out a quiet sigh, Serenis shook her head before continuing the conversation.

“…I apologize in their stead. The floor beneath, you say?”

“…Mhm. I can take you there.”

“Good. Let’s be off, then.”

✧   ✧   ✧

After a while…

“Hm.”

“How is it, lord? Are you getting it?”

Serenis continued to scan around the small room. At the room’s centre, a large, silver-like ring was standing upwards, supported by metal arches to each of its sides; translucent wires coiled around the ring and stretched out onto the chamber’s corners. The floor the structure stood on was engraved with giant runes, unmistakably of human magic.

Despite the number of heads present, Serenis was the only one who recognized and understood the engraved symbols. The dragons knew next to nothing about human spell formulas, and Eline only knew the machine’s foundation based on what she’d heard, not because she was a mage. The herbalist knew as much as Theolus did regarding the machine’s actual workings.

Thankfully, the dragonlord glanced back at the youngling after scanning the runes on the floor, nodding her head firm. Although she was still no expert with mankind’s magic, Serenis thankfully found this particular spell circle just barely readable. And…though she didn’t quite understand machinery all too well either, she’d seen her fair share of oddities in Partivine during her time with Patrick. He’d had shown her stranger contraptions in their kitchen that functioned on magical foundations.

Putting the two together, it wasn’t difficult to deduce the ring’s functioning.

“I can’t say I fully understand it, but…it seems the portal’s been installed in the form of a large spell circle. It should work with a simple destination coordinate without requiring calculation or mana. As Eline said, it draws its energy from an external source. However…”

Serenis’ gaze followed the other end of the coiled wires. They ultimately led to one of the chamber’s corners, connected to a heap of assorted kirium boxes.

The problem was, all of the stones were dull yellow. Had they been filled with mana, the stones should’ve been emitting a bluish glow.

“There doesn’t seem to be much mana left to take from. Perhaps the device has been used recently.”

“...So we can’t use it?”

“We still could.”

Serenis then approached the boxes of kirium. She collected the numerous wires that had been tied to the stone surfaces, holding them in her own hand before continuing to answer Raizel.

“I can replace the supply. But if I were to leave afterwards, the device will shut itself off, and there wouldn’t be any way to return. Hence…someone else will have to enter the portal and call Karas.”

“…Uh…”

When the dragonlord’s expectant gaze fell on Raizel, the youngling glanced left and right for an out.

Not that there was one.

Two elders, and neither had a clue who ‘Karas’ was. A human who’d never stepped foot in Wayla, and…a hatchling who could barely even speak.

After confirming the available candidates, Raizel kicked her tongue before reluctantly stepping forth. Her expression crumpled into a vexed scowl.

The ‘someone else’ Serenis spoke of was clearly referring to her.

“…Tch. Damnit all.”

On the other hand, Serenis beamed a proud smile at the sight of Raizel taking the initiative. She then began to channel her mana through the wires in her hands.

“Thank you, child.”

“…You’re welcome.”

A low whirring noise echoed throughout the room. A violet portal soon flared to life within the centre’s ring, and Raizel swiftly disappeared into it.

And the two elders who watched it all happen – especially Aether – could not believe what she was seeing. She lightly shook her husband’s shoulder, eyes still glued to the glowing portal before them.

“Dear? Was Raizel always this…attentive?”

“She’s grown tame, hasn’t she?”

“Grown tame?! That’s not just on a level of ‘growing tame’! Where’s the Raizel who went around breaking everything? She’d never do something for someone else, that’s crazy!”

“Well…for one, I’m not against the change…”

Serenis merely blinked in confusion, listening to the elders conversing across the room.

‘…Were things truly that bad before? Our first meeting wasn’t exactly ideal, but I still thought she listened rather well…’

Although maintaining the portal was immensely draining, the dragonlord’s expansive mana pool offset the cost significantly. And standing still like this, she could draw more from the star at will.

Hence, Serenis lost herself in thought as she waited for Raizel’s return, her mind jumping from one random topic to another. Like how she should ask Iris to teach her portal spells during their next meeting, or how many pieces she should tear the emperor into.

Meanwhile, Eline was also lost in thought – a very different one.

‘…Wasn’t this machine…one-way…?’

The further the travelling distance, the more it cost to maintain a portal spell. Maintaining a portal connecting continental distances was…well, pure insanity.

Hence, even the emperor himself only ever used this machine as a way to quickly leave the royal palace, not return to it. Because its upkeep would be a huge waste of resources, he hadn’t even considered maintaining it for his return.

But right now, the dragonlord was casually maintaining the spell. As if she was planning to keep it this way until the youngling’s return.

In fact, that’s exactly what was going on.

‘Do I…remember it wrong? Was it always this way…? Should I say something?’

In the far future, a day does come where Eline is able to speak to dragons without fear of being eaten alive.

That day is not today.