BXBX NOVEL Chapter 76 - A Dragon Approaching
76 – A Dragon Approaching
A certain room of the royal palace.
In this room, there was nothing but a large table, many chairs, and a stone wall void of any decor.
Even though the room was inside the palace, it was only used for war councils. All useless and distracting decorations were depensed of in the construction of the room.
The people of authority in the Largofiely Kingdom were now gathered in such a bleak area.
The King, Berlaed Rezo Largofiely; the commander-in-chief; and the cabinet ministers were all present. Even Tatsumi and Taülorde Chrysophrase, Calcedonia’s brother, were there.
Of course, the four leaders of the great churches were included. Bugarak Ishukan of the Church of Golaiva, Grugnard Armart of the Church of Dalagarvae, Mayalina Kisscalt of the Church of Glavavy, and Giuseppe Chrysoprase of the Church of Savaiv.
These powerful people all had seriousness written on their faces.
“────Earlier today, a messenger bird brought us an emergency message.”
Hearing the words of the leader that just spoke, each person in the audience grew tense, their breath growing heavier.
“...It’s only in the border regions, but two villages have already fell...”
“The discovery of the situation was delayed because everyone in the villages were eaten.”
“Sorry for the rough words, but we should focus on what to do now instead of what happened in the past.”
At the nods of everyone present, the topic switched to how to deal with this situation.
This situation.
Yes. According to the lord that owned the two villages, the village-eating monster─the giant dragon─was heading towards the royal capital.
“...A dragon is hard to deal with.”
King Berlaed, seated at the head of the table, sighed deeply while crossing his arms.
“Our enemy is a dragon, but above all, it can fly. That greatly limits our options in dealing with the menace.”
Mayalina Kisscalt, Matriarch of the Moon God’s Church, replied to the king’s words. Everyone nodded in agreement.
A flying opponent cannot be hit by a sword or a spear. Arrows and magic have that range, but a normal arrow won’t penetrate a dragon’s scales, and it’s hard to hit a fast dragon with magic.
“Sir, currently, there are ten-odd giant crossbows perched on Levantes’ outer walls... However, they’re hard to handle, and are unlikely to hit the dragon. Although they will do a lot of damage if it does hit,” Taülorde added.
Giant crossbows need an entire team of soldiers to operate.
Despite its immense power, it was hard to handle like Taülorde said. It wouldn’t matter if they were shooting at large armies or castles, but hitting an agile flying dragon was a different matter altogether.
“Can’t we just ground the dragon?”
“We wouldn’t be talking here if that was possible.”
Bugarak Ishukan, Patriarch of the Sun God’s Church, rebuked Grugnard Armart, Patriarch of the Sea God’s Church.
Several more people presented their ideas, but none of them were decisive.
Nevertheless, there were some people here that would call out the others for that indecisiveness.
King Berlaed was silently watching those people.
No, he was watching the single person he trusted out of all the kingdom’s authorities.
That one person that he was watching opened his mouth.
“Hey, Berlaed. You’ve been staring at more for a while now... You’re not thinking of something evil, are you?”
1
The person to question the king was none other than Giuseppe.
At Giuseppe’s words, all the bickering people fell quiet and turned their attention to the king and the Harvest God’s Patriarch.
It was then when King Berlaed told Giuseppe what he’d been thinking all this time.
“Giuseppe. Is it possible for your favorite disciple... the Heaven system user to deal with the dragon?”
“Why does my husband have to face the brunt of the dragon’s attack!?”
2
In the patriarch’s office of the Church of Savaiv, an angry voice resounded.
To almost yell at the person whose influence matched that of a king, it’d have to be Calcedonia.
With her eyes burning with the flames of anger, this Calcedonia was completely different than the normal “Holy Maiden” Calcedonia.
“Calm down. You seem to always go overboard when it comes to your husband.”
Bitterly smiling at his raging granddaughter, Giuseppe gave her forehead a flick.
“Ah!?”
She cutely shrieked in surprise and guarded her forehead with her hands while backing up in reflex.
“I also don’t want to send my son-in-law to fight the dragon. However, there aren’t any other people capable of doing it.”
Saying that, he turned his attention to Tatsumi once again.
“Of course, we’re not forcing you. But, you’ll have the full force of the kingdom’s armies and the four great churches helping you. There’ll also be a reward from the king if you succeed.”
He didn’t change from his normal tone of voice, but his facial expression showed complete seriousness. Tatsumi knew that Giuseppe wasn’t joking.
Tatsumi replied, “I understand. However, why would the king choose me? Furthermore, didn’t you say that dragons hardly ever attack human villages?”
Tatsumi wasn’t the strongest person in the world; there were others who were better than him. It might not be a lot, but the experienced mages and beast-hunters would easily trump him in dragon-killing prowess.
Also, Giuseppe had earlier taught that dragons lived in deep forests and high mountains far from human habitation. And, dragons rarely leave their territory, so they don’t usually come near humans.”
“About that... According to the report, the dragon’s eyes were glowing red.”
The report of the destruction of the two villages came from a messenger bird from the lord who owned the said villages.
A messenger bird is like a carrier pigeon. In this world, pigeons aren’t used to convey messages. Instead, a faster bird called the “pialy” was employed to send urgent mail. It looked like a falcon, except smaller.
It was first discovered when a peddler who stumbled upon a village with all its inhabitants and livestock completely gone when making his yearly rounds.
After the lord heard of this, he sent soldiers to investigate, and discovered that a large number of demonic beasts and wild animals were killed in the forests around the area.
Everything was completely eaten, without even the bones remaining. The only reason that the eatings were discovered was the absence of animals.
The soldiers later found another village in ruins and witnessed the giant dragon flying quickly away.
The lord immediately sent a messenger bird to the royal capital when he heard that. He also included that the dragon was heading towards the capital and its eyes were dyed a deep crimson.
“Glowing red eyes, you say... that is...”
“Yep. It’s probably possessed by a devil.”
“B-But, you said that devils do not approach villages either?”
“I did, and it’s true. Our most likely theory is that the dragon was possessed by the devil, but there was a turn-around.”
Giuseppe had told Tatsumi that if the possessed creature is too strong and the devil is too weak, it’s possible for the devil to lose control.
In those situations, the possessed creature loses conscious thought and only follows its desire.
It seemed that the nation’s leaders believe that was the case here.
“...I understand why the dragon is coming here. However, are there no other mages that can use flight magic?”
“There’s a magic called ‘flight’ that lets you fly in the sky in the Wind system, but it’s not very fast. And without being able to match the dragon’s speed, they’ll just end up being eaten.”
Among the six beastmen races, the Cait Sith have the ability to walk in the air, but it was only to the limits of walking and running. They can’t even get close to a dragon’s speeds.
In the first place, the Cait Sith are a species that’s much better at escaping than fighting, so they couldn’t battle the dragon even if they could fly at its speed.
“We were thinking for you to teleport to the dragon and use Mana Strike then teleport back out. Rinse and repeat.”
They’d also bring Calcedonia and some other healers to assist Tatsumi.
“Like I said before, you won’t have to do it all alone. The kingdom’s army, each church’s exorcists, the templars, and this city’s beast-hunters have all been requested to help. We’re in the middle of preparing to attack the dragon. But, there’s the problem of the dragon being in the sky.”
As it would be expected, the dragon having wings was the greatest problem. There wouldn’t be such troubles if it was a land dragon.
Currently, Tatsumi was the only one who could approach the dragon.
“Husband...”
Calcedonia, having heard the talks between Tatsumi and Giuseppe, called out to him with worry in her heart.
“...Has husband...already...decided on what to do?”
She knew. She knew what her husband would decide to do in these situations. And this quality in him was one of the things that attracted her.
Even if they had no connection from her previous life, she’d still fall in love without a doubt.
“Yeah. I’ll do it. I don’t know how far I can get, fighting against something like a dragon... Still, I’ll do it. In the first place, this city will be destroyed if I don’t. That’s why I have to protect this place...I have to protect our home.”
He laughed.
Yes. The city of Levantes was already extremely precious to Tatsumi. And, the precious friends he’d made since he came to this world also lived in this city.
His fellow templars, Verse and Neez. His party members, Eru, Jadokh, and Miloulle. His neighbors and everyone he’s met. They all called Levantes their home.
And above all, in this city was the person he treasured the most.
There was no reason for Tatsumi to decline in protecting this city.
“So...help me.Give me your hand. Together...we will kill the dragon.”
“Yes! Of course! If Husband is going to fight the dragon, I will fight it with you!”
They shared a smile.
To protect each other no matter what difficulties they may face, and to surmount them. Those feelings could be felt even from a third party.
Giuseppe was, of course, happily watching the two.
As both their family member and a leader in the church of the marriage god, seeing them like this was not something he didn’t like.
But, it had to wait for later. The menace was drawing near.
“Fortunately, the dragon’s being delayed by all the animals that it’s eating along the way according to the scouts.”
As soon as the king received the message, he sent out people to investigate.
And a branch of those scouts sent discovered the dragon on its approach to the capital.
“We have a few more days before the dragon arrives. I’ll be making a more concrete plan. Say, Tatsumi”
“What is it?”
“There’s a person called Jaydo in your party who’s pretty strong, right?”
“Do you mean Jadokh?”
“Yeah, that sounds about right. Can you get him to come?”
“That’s possible, but...”
Tatsumi tilted his head, confused. Next to him, Calcedonia was doing the same thing.
Couples that have been together for a number of years tend to have similar gestures when reacting to something. Perhaps it already applied to the two of them.
“I have a few demon sealing tools that most people can’t use. But, Jaydo, with his good physical strength, could be able to use some of them.”
Tatsumi knew that Giuseppe had a hobby of collecting demon sealing tools. There was probably at least something that could help in fighting the dragon.
“I understand. I will ask Jadokh as soon as I am able to.”
Giuseppe called out to Tatsumi just when he was about to leave the room.
“Hey, wait. Calsey can go get Jadokh. While she does that, there’s something I need to show you.”
“Something you need to...show me?”
“That’s right. Let’s go the the Church of Golaiva.”
The two of them speak really casually to each other. The other patriarchs also speak pretty casually, but Giuseppe and the king speak to each other like friends, or at least people who’ve spent a number of years together.
Calcedonia is speaking less formally than usual