小嫂子的味道

As if fighting an ancient dragon wasn't enough, I was now going to get sealed along with Req and the sword, if I didn't make it out of the labyrinth before the span of thirty minutes was over.

How much time has even passed since I unsealed her?

[Twelve minutes.]

'Huh?'

[I said twelve minutes have passed since you unsealed me.]

This was strange. I didn't mean to ask her, I was just thinking about it in my mind…

It was at this moment I realized that I had to be careful about what I think and how I think. If I don't do that, then I can't blame Req for hearing everything I say to wonder in my mind.

[Are you scared? … By the fact that you can get sealed?]

'No. I asked because I had to calculate how much time we have to defeat our big guy.'

[I see. Do you have any way to defeat him? I don't think normal methods will work.]

'I have, actually.'

[Oh? I'd very much like to hear. Since I'm also not in the mood to celebrate my freedom in the belly of a dragon.]

'You said its heart is the weakness. So going by that…'

I told her the basics of what we had to do, how we will attack, take turns, the positions, and what strategy we will use. My main motive here was to go inside the dragon's mouth and stab its heart from the inside. Since attacking it from the outside was practically impossible due to its hard skin and scales.

Going in was the tricky part, as we were dealing with a dragon, and dragons breathed fire. Meaning, you could turn into someone's morning toast if you went unprepared.

'How strong is this sword? … Physically?'

I didn't get a reply. A second later, I realized why.

'Sorry, that was a strange thing to ask. I should've known.'

This was THE REQUIEM. The sword of the warrior who—if I go along the few lines that described her in the novel—was the destroyer who wandered continent to continent and, at one point, was feared by every army in the world. The sword had slain thousands of humans and millions of monsters; there was no doubt about its strength.

​ 'You ready to go?' I asked, noticing that the dragon was now moving toward us.

[As soon as you are.]

I held the sword tightly in my hands, tightly but gently; as I knew, the sword was also alive.

The ocean-blue blade reflected the crimson that shone in the eyes of the Kloth, the fire was thrown back at it in the form of a mirror image.

The dragon rotated, and twisted its body, moving in the air in a circular motion as if dancing. Then its path turned straight, straight toward us.

I was face to face with it, even though it was a mile or two away from me. I could see directly into its eyes, then burned crimson. I felt a subtle chill go down my spine.

Was I nervous? A bit, it was a big ass dragon we are talking about. Was I scared? No.

I was ready to move but took a few steps back instead when I noticed that the Kloth opened its mouth and started sucking the air. It was like a vortex in the sea, the air itself burned as it got near the edges of its mouth.

It closed its mouth, I took even more steps back. The dragon's speed didn't decrease in the least, in fact, it only increased. Down from the high air, the Kloth came close to what seemed to be the ground and hovered above it at great velocity.

It was not just a mile away from me, I could tell, and distance was rapidly coming short.

As it came toward me, with visible fire dwelling inside its mouth, I realized that I took almost ten steps back. My feet were working on their own, I didn't mean to walk back, but I was.

Before I knew it, I was running away. I tried to get outside from the door we entered, but it was nowhere to be found. And I am not referring to the door being closed, the whole door frame and the wall on which it was mounted had just disappeared into nowhere.

All I had behind me was endless plains of black ground, soon I noticed that it was not just behind me. In all directions, as soon as the human eye could see, there was nothing but black ground covered with ash mist.

Nonetheless, I ran. I ran and ran and ran and ran. You can't blame me for me. I was not some hero out of a fantasy book made to please people and help them escape reality. Sure, I was inside one of those books, but I was certainly not the hero. The world didn't revolve around me. I had no plot armor. Therefore, I had to survive on my own, then it doesn't matter if I use the dirtiest and most underhanded tricks. Even if I ran with my back against my enemy.

… I was ready to do it. If that helped me survive.

The dragon breathed fire, I felt the temperature behind me increase. Yet I didn't turn to look at what it was like, I didn't see that a firestorm was raging behind me, I didn't know what the fire looked like, I didn't know that the firestorm was a horizontal tornado that was chasing me like a cat chasing a mouse.

I stumbled, and fell, face-down. I used elemental magic and formed a thick sheet of ice above myself in the shape of a slope, with the lower side facing the dragon. Then I waited, and braced myself, sticking to the ground as close as I could.

Soon the heat enveloped me, flares of hungry flames licked the surrounding ground, and the slope of ice I'd made. They went around me, above me, but not touched me. But I won't say it helped, since despite I was not physically in contact with the fire I was still feeling like I was burning…such as the temperature of a klauth's breath.

The storm raged for a few seconds, it usurped my ice slope. I didn't dare stop decreasing the temperature of the ice as I knew that if I stopped, it won't take even a second for it to melt down, and I'll bathe under gallons of steaming hot water.

Then the flames were extinguished through the wind produced by the klauth's wings, instead of the flames the dragon itself flew past and above me. Just when its legs passed over my head, I stopped the magic on the ice slope and crawled out.

Below the dragon, running alongside its tail, I took a good long and high jump. Planted my sword as deep as I could on the side of its tail, it didn't go all the way in but was enough for now.

I held the hilt with both hands as I ran with the dragon, it stroked its tail left and right and took off, gliding up in the air. I jumped again, clenched the sword more tightly, and worked my way up on its tail.

It wasn't as easy as you might guess. The resistance of the air was so rough I was barely able to stand my ground. Plus, the Kloth was constantly moving its tail, hence it was even hard to not get tossed to the ground.

I pulled out the sword from the side of the tail, it was only for a moment that I was up there without anything to hold on to, and that was enough to hurl me back. I flew back, pushed by the slap of the air, then before I could fall completely, I again stabbed the sword in the Kloth's tail.

The resistance forced me back even after the sword was in, thus a long gush opened on top of its tail. Yet the dragon did not react, maybe a wound this small was not enough to gain its attention.

I planted my feet to the tail and pushed down to not allow the wind to slap me again. I raised my head and looked forward, my hair fluttering due to the intense wind.

By now the dragon was up in the clouds again, driving through the mist; it was like a scene straight out of a movie. I thought to look down, but my mind advised against it.

Then I used my elemental magic again, using the earth element I formed patches of rock around my legs. I used the rock to glue and bind my feet to the flesh of the dragon's tail.

When I was sure that the wind could no longer blow me away, I took out the sword and held it straight. Then I waited, waited until the dragon flew as high as it could, turned, and took a drive down.

'You up?'

[Hell yeah]

A grin spread across my face.