Chapter 263 : Chapter 263
Side Story 22. Red Dragon (4)
KRAKANG!
Four pillars of fire shot toward me at staggered intervals, dancing in dazzling patterns.
Each stream of flame held disaster-class power.
SWISH!
After cutting through the first stream, I launched myself upward.
As expected, the remaining three changed their trajectories and flew after me.
They moved like living creatures with free will.
I kicked off the air and rose higher once more.
Of course, I was still nowhere near the dragon’s eye level.
Abner was looking down at me from a layer higher in the sky.
FWOOSH-
The streams of fire pursuing me remained relentless.
Behind my back, searing heat was closing in fiercely.
And the longer a human remained off the ground, the more unstable they inevitably became.
For Abner, this was the perfect moment to make a decisive move.
If he unleashed flames once more here, the chance of hitting me would be much higher.
‘Yet he’s hesitating.’
It was only for the briefest instant, but Abner’s gaze wavered.
He seemed to need at least a moment to consider whether this situation was a trap I had laid or an opening I had been forced to expose.
It did not matter what decision Abner made.
I already had plans for both possibilities.
Of course, there was one outcome I preferred a little more.
KRAKAKAKA!
Abner’s hesitation did not last long.
He immediately unleashed a storm of flames toward me.
And this was the situation I had preferred.
It was time to create an opening.
Because I had not lost my momentum, I could make one more leap.
TAP!
As I flew upward, I entered the heart of the firestorm.
Abner’s eyes made it clear that he had never expected a response like this.
A baffled groan came from above the storm.
Hellish heat swallowed me, but it would only last an instant.
WHOOOSH!
Gale-like acceleration allowed me to escape the hellscape in a flash.
When I broke through the curtain of fire, the sight before me was Abner hurriedly preparing magic.
Without delay, I fired Sword Qi.
PAPAPAPA!
BOOOOM!
It did not matter even if it came to nothing.
I still had enough room to engage in a battle of moves several more times.
I only had to avoid showing an opening first.
BOOOOM!!
The fired Sword Qi fiercely bombarded Abner’s Barrier, and a massive roar filled the nest.
“Lord!”
“You have shown mercy to the human!”
“By the Lord’s mercy, that human will no longer be able to look down on dragons!”
The remaining dragons who had waited outside the nest each spoke the moment our Bimu ended.
Since Abner and I emerged from the nest calm and without any major changes, they spun whatever conclusions they pleased from their imaginations.
But we had agreed beforehand to keep the process and outcome of this Bimu completely secret.
Neither Abner nor I made any comment about what had happened inside the nest.
“Lord! Please say something.”
“Enough. That will do.”
The dragons flinched at Abner’s cold, hard voice.
“Understood, Lord! Even without you saying anything, we can infer enough.”
Of course, Abner still gave no response.
And from that moment onward, this Bimu would never be mentioned again.
“Then return to your respective nests and await orders.”
“At your command, Lord.”
The eight dragons vanished in an instant, leaving only Abner and me once again.
A brief silence followed.
We both likely knew what the other was thinking.
“……Should I call this fortunate?”
Abner was the first to break the silence.
“What?”
“That the result of my Bimu with you, human, was not made public.”
Then Abner gave a bitter smile.
“Putting it that way makes it sound as though you lost.”
“If I did not win, it is no different from losing. I am the Dragon Lord.”
“You live a tiring life.”
To be honest, I had also received no small shock.
Abner’s full strength was beyond imagination.
Throughout Bimu, I had been the one walking a precarious tightrope.
It had been a situation where even a single mistake would directly lead to defeat.
It had been called Bimu, but it was more intense, desperate, and violent than any fight to the death.
It was an undeniable fact that Abner had led the battle.
I had only responded swiftly to his moves. Not once had I driven Abner into a corner.
But there had been one move.
In the decisive move we exchanged at the end, my sword had been sharper and more lethal.
We had not decided a victor, but that final moment was why Abner’s expression had remained dark.
“Still, it was a valuable experience thanks to you. I never dreamed that I would be able to have a contest like this with a human. And I was able to confirm that the proposal I made to you was by no means unreasonable.”
“The Demon King of Silence?”
“Yes. That one is known to hold quite a high position among Demon Kings.”
But before that, there was one thing I had to do—no, wanted to do.
It was something Abner had not only permitted, but promised to help with.
“I’m touched that you agreed to help so readily. I heard that dragons do not grant favors without reason.”
“It is not without reason. Did I not say that we are now bound by a Blood Alliance?”
A Blood Alliance.
It was a very nice phrase.
In any case, what I wanted was to reunite with Diorin.
Perhaps Abner would show me a clue.
“Then shall we return to my shelter?”
Anticipation began to swell within me.
They said that the Archmage Sylvia had researched tracking magic using my possessions in order to find me after I vanished from the world.
An old Sharpening Stone I had once used. She had hoped to find me through the mana trace left on it.
She had not achieved any results yet, but a magical genius like her would not have challenged something that was simply impossible.
‘That means it is possible in theory.’
If so, would a dragon, a progenitor of magic—and among them, the strongest Ancient-grade dragon—be capable of this spell as well?
“An interesting idea. This child you call an Archmage. Can you arrange for me to meet her?”
“I wouldn’t recommend it. With her personality, she’d try to strip every last bit of magic from you down to the marrow. In any case, can you do what I asked?”
At my question, Abner looked triumphant.
“What matters is how deeply the mana trace of the person you seek remains. If it exists beyond a certain level, I believe it should be possible.”
“You can do it right away?”
“Of course. Do you think I am Dragon Lord for no reason?”
For now, it was only words, but his ability was beyond common sense.
This was a spell that the Archmage Sylvia had repeatedly failed at for years.
Yet such a difficult spell could be cast at once.
It was not something possible merely because one’s Dragon Heart overflowed with mana.
It was likely possible because he was a genius who had lived for ten thousand years.
My anticipation grew even greater.
“The person you seek stayed in this shelter?”
“Yes. If what Leviar said is truly correct.”
Abner’s verification did not take long.
The owner of long blue hair.
Diorin.
He immediately replayed the traces of memory she had left behind in this shelter.
‘Amazing.’
The speed was on an entirely different level from a Hatchling’s.
All that remained was to find her mana trace.
If she had left any of her belongings here, it would have been ideal, but we could attempt it with the afterimage she had left if necessary.
It was certainly strange that Diorin, an ordinary mage, had used high-level magic to leave her own afterimage in this place.
I did not know what she had been thinking, or who she had expected to discover it, but I decided to set that question aside for the moment.
What mattered was finding her.
Abner quietly closed his eyes.
“This time, wait for me even if it takes a while.”
I nodded.
And then, true silence continued for quite some time.
For some reason, I did not feel anxious that he would fail.
And as time passed, that certainty only grew stronger.
At a glance, nothing seemed to change, but the minute traces of mana dispersed through the air were gradually being drawn toward him and beginning to create ripples.
‘They must be Diorin’s.’
I did not know how many more mana traces were needed to track her location, but I could not help but admire the Dragon Lord’s astonishing magic once again.
Abner’s eyes snapped open only after even more time had passed.
“I found her.”
“You found her?”
I asked once more because I could not believe it even after hearing it.
“She left a considerable number of afterimages, and very deeply at that. Even if we had attempted this much later, we likely would have succeeded.”
“……Why?”
“She must have wanted to show that she had been here. My magic cannot read the emotions of the person who was here, but there are things that can be learned through the faint silhouette she left behind.”
“What are they?”
“I have only read a few fragmented movements, but there is a strong possibility that she was lost in considerable thought in this shelter. The flow of mana recorded immediately before she left the afterimage was quite unstable. And do you not think it strange that she used such an odd method to leave behind her trace? A much simpler and more certain method would have been to leave a letter. I do not know the reason, but perhaps she felt burdened by delivering a message directly.”
It was astonishing.
Abner’s magic was astonishing, but what was even more impressive was his insight.
‘Is this the power of ten thousand years?’
He had produced a plausible answer from very few clues.
Diorin was certainly the kind of woman who would do that.
In truth, she had always been that way.
She had always been poor at directly expressing her feelings and had been indirect about many things.
Abner’s brief description seemed to recreate her perfectly in my mind.
“But there is something far stranger than the way she left her trace. It is where she is now.”
“Where?”
“Even I find that puzzling and bewildering.”
“Where in the world is she?!”
“In front of our nest. Perhaps she is trying to enter it.”
My thoughts became tangled in an instant.
It was a situation I could never have imagined.
But there was something more important than the question of why.
‘She’s in danger.’
Dragons did not allow those who entered their nests to live.
Today had been a major exception in my case, but there was no chance that exception would apply to her.
A Blood Alliance between dragons and the people of Kalia?
I did not know whether that would be powerful enough to break the dragons’ long-held habit as well.
‘Of all times, our paths crossed.’
Only a short while ago, Abner and I had been having Bimu inside the nest.
In any case, I had to go back there.