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.CHAPTER 09.
“Ah… Aah…”
Even after looking again, the truth didn’t change.
Karl was dead.
“Ah…!”
“Salvia! Get a hold of yourself!”
Something yanked me violently backward.
When I looked up, I saw Plato standing in front of me, swinging his sword.
“Damn it!”
The massive dragon had already closed the distance.
It had broken through the gap in First Squad’s formation and was thrashing its body violently with something clamped in its jaws.
ROOOAAARRR—!
The dragon let out an earth-shaking roar.
“Second Squad! We’re engaging immediately! First Squad, fall back behind us and regroup! Move!”
“What the hell?! Why is its hide so hard?!”
Plato, his sword coated in aura, slashed at the dragon’s left leg while Yuri attacked its right.
But its scales were unbelievably hard.
Their swords barely left a mark.
The dragon lowered its head, trying to swallow Plato whole.
Plato desperately braced his sword against its jaws, barely managing to keep its mouth open long enough to dodge aside.
Apparently the blade had injured the inside of its mouth.
The dragon screamed in fury once more.
“Ah…”
Even then, I couldn’t erase the horrifying scene I’d just witnessed from my mind.
“What is…”
“Focus! The dragon’s scales are too hard for ordinary blades, but its eyes and the inside of its mouth are vulnerable! Aim there!”
The platoon leader’s voice rang out from somewhere in the distance.
Their swords bounced harmlessly off the dragon’s rock-like hide.
Even so, they kept swinging without stopping.
“Men of the 18th Company! Stay calm!”
“Hey! If that thing reaches the village, we’re all dead! Don’t you remember what happened to the neighboring company last time?!”
They had no choice.
Even if they couldn’t hurt it, they had to slow the dragon down before it reached the village.
Why… all of a sudden…
Then something from the original novel surfaced in my memory.
Right.
The heroine had fought a Black Dragon.
In most fantasy romance novels, dragons were ancient beings that had lived for ages beyond human comprehension and were revered as legendary creatures.
But in this novel…
They were simply monsters that had to be killed.
Still, just like every other fantasy story, dragons were unimaginably powerful.
Normally, a soldier could serve all eight years of military duty without ever seeing one.
Yet the heroine, Dallin, had encountered not just any dragon, but the strongest of them all—the Black Dragon.
Which meant…
Aquila.
Winter.
Ishina.
The original male leads had fought dragons twice.
“Eek! A-A dragon!”
Right…
When the heroine screamed like that in the novel…
How had they defeated it?
“Ah… Winter.”
I remembered.
Winter had slashed the dragon with an ice-attribute aura blade.
Unlike everyone else’s attacks, his ice aura could actually wound a dragon.
Then Aquila had followed up with his fire-attribute aura.
And…
If I remembered correctly…
Ishina had fired her gun.
“Salvia, snap out of it!”
“Ah!”
Only then did I break free from my memories.
Reality slowly returned.
Apparently Linia had been protecting me while I’d stood there in shock.
She was gripping my arm tightly.
Since she’d originally been standing to Karl’s right, she must have stepped into the space his death had left behind.
Karl’s death…?
The words alone made bile rise in my throat.
I grimaced.
Linia glared at me with her one visible eye and shouted,
“We have to live! We stop that thing—and we survive!”
I’d just watched a fellow recruit die before my eyes.
My mind kept whispering for me to deny everything.
To hide inside unconsciousness.
To pretend none of this was real.
But I desperately clung to the last thread of reason I had left.
If I refused to accept reality now…
I’d simply be running away.
If you lose your head… you die.
“Recruits, get yourselves together! Focus! Do you actually want to die?!”
At that moment, April’s sharp voice echoed across the battlefield.
Oddly enough…
Hearing the voice of the woman who tormented me every single day shocked me back to my senses like a bolt of lightning.
Just a little while ago, I thought the seniors were scarier than monsters…
But now…
April’s voice felt reassuring.
“Hey! More light! Bring more fire!”
At April’s shrill command, someone rushed over carrying torches.
Only then did the battlefield brighten enough for us to distinguish shapes.
The greatest reason I couldn’t regain my composure until now…
Was the darkness.
The mountain was pitch-black.
Not even moonlight penetrated the dense forest.
We could barely see a foot in front of us.
We were practically fighting with our eyes closed, relying only on sound and instinct.
The only light came from the aura radiating off each soldier’s sword.
But every aura glowed a different color.
The battlefield shimmered with countless hues, making everything even harder to see.
I, too, was using the coral-colored aura of my own sword as a flashlight.
The problem was…
The dragon looked even more terrifying under that eerie coral glow.
Just like Karl’s corpse had.
“Look properly! If you can’t see, then at least listen!”
April shouted again.
I gritted my teeth and desperately tried to keep the dragon within sight using the torchlight.
ROOOAAARRR!!
Suddenly…
The dragon let out another deafening scream.
Its right leg had been wounded.
Standing before it…
Was Aquila.
While I’d been too shaken to even see what was happening, his fire-attribute aura blade had successfully cut through the dragon.
Despite bleeding from wounds all over their bodies, the soldiers continued striking at the dragon.
I tightened my trembling grip on my sword.
Then I ran toward it.
Being killed by the dragon would be horrifying.
But if it reached the village…
The higher-ups would make sure every last one of us paid for it.
“Look out! Get back!”
“Huh?”
I’d just begun to think things were finally turning around—
Then I heard April’s warning.
“AAAHHH!”
“AAAAAGH!”
My shaking sword turned instinctively toward the source of the screams.
Through the coral glow of my aura…
I saw exactly what had happened.
Two mangled torsos.
They had been bitten apart by the dragon and thrown onto the ground.
“No!”
They were…
Johan.
And Billy.
My fellow recruits.
“Damn it! Keep visual contact! Don’t lose sight of the dragon!”
Three soldiers were already dead.
Yet the others reacted as though death in battle was routine.
They simply raised their swords and blocked the dragon’s next attacks.
Aquila, who had wounded the dragon’s leg and drawn its wrath…
Stood frozen.
His arms trembled as he stared at the bodies of his fallen comrades.
It was the first time I’d ever seen genuine emotion appear on Aquila’s face.
…Though to be fair…
I was just as incapable of thinking.
“All squads! Rotate!”
“Second Squad, fall back and switch with First Squad! Third and Fourth Squads, rotate as well!”
When the company commander and platoon leader issued their orders, Linia practically dragged my unresponsive body away.
My legs refused to work from the shock.
But there was nowhere safe on this mountain while the dragon still lived.
Every time it charged, soldiers were sent flying.
Then they staggered back to their feet and chased after it again, determined to slow it down even for a moment.
The dragon’s terrifying roars…
The flashes of aura erupting everywhere…
I could barely hear anything.
I could barely see anything.
The battlefield had descended into complete chaos.
And I knew…
I wasn’t the only one whose mind had gone numb.
“Hippo!”
The darkness caused another moment of carelessness.
The dragon disappeared from sight—
Then reappeared.
Hippo, one of my fellow recruits…
Was caught in its jaws.
“No… no…”
In the flickering torchlight, I could see that the dragon’s wings had been almost completely shredded by countless attacks.
Its legs were badly injured as well.
It could no longer move as swiftly as before.
Even so…
It continued resisting with terrifying ferocity until the very end.
“No… this can’t…”
I wanted to close my eyes.
To escape this nightmare.
But I couldn’t.
If I closed them…
I’d lose sight of the dragon.
The fear…
The despair…
They were unlike anything I’d ever experienced.
Tears streamed down my face even as I forced my eyes to stay open.
Where’s Aquila…?
Someone… anyone… please kill that dragon…
Without thinking, I instinctively searched for the original novel’s male lead.
“Ah…”
But the Aquila I found…
Simply stood there in a daze.
Just like me.
He had witnessed his comrades’ deaths.
He was in complete shock.
…That look…
I recognized the expression in his eyes.
They were the eyes…
Of someone who had completely broken.
Regardless of how deeply the recruits had been traumatized by watching their comrades die…
The veteran soldiers continued attacking the dragon without pause.
It wasn’t just Alpha Platoon that was losing people.
In the scattered firelight, I caught sight of someone in Beta Platoon screaming over the body of a fallen comrade.
Everything was spiraling toward disaster.
“It’s too high!”
The dragon’s weak points were its eyes and mouth.
But its head was far above our reach.
Landing a decisive blow was nearly impossible.
“Damn it! Fighting this thing at night is impossible…!”
Standing directly before the dragon now…
Were April…
And Winter.
April’s golden hair whipped through the air as she charged.
Every swing of her sword released green waves of plant-attribute aura.
Dragon blood splattered with each strike.
The wounds she inflicted refused to regenerate.
Beside her stood a man surrounded by brilliant azure aura.
Winter.
The second male lead of the original novel.
The man described as possessing the greatest combat talent in the story.
His sword blazed with magnificent ice aura.
Using the dragon’s body as a foothold, he launched himself high into the air.
Then…
With every ounce of strength he possessed…
He brought his sword crashing down.
BOOM!
An explosive impact echoed through the mountain.
The dragon let out the most agonized scream it had uttered yet.
Its eyes had frozen solid into pure white ice.
It flailed wildly with its forelegs.
Each time one slammed into the ground, soldiers attacking its legs were hurled through the air.
Even after crashing to the earth, groaning in agony…
They clawed at the ground and struggled to stand again.
ROOOAAARRR!!
Suddenly…
A scorching wave of heat washed over us.
“Get down!”
A massive torrent of fire erupted from the dragon’s mouth…
And came roaring straight toward us.
