Chapter 331 : The Villain’s POV in the Academy
Chapter 331: The Villain’s POV in the Academy
[Are you fucking insane, coming here of all places!]
The moment Dwindrog saw Airi Elisbell climb onto his back, he immediately began hurling curses. He was already out of his mind trying to evade the Sky Dragon’s attacks, and now he suddenly had another passenger.
And of all people, it just had to be Airi Elisbell.
Of course, he personally didn’t care much about who it was. The problem was the one who had just been released from the Black Prison and still hadn’t regained consciousness.
His interactions with Aaron hadn’t been long, but he knew very well just how much Aaron cherished the main characters of the Original Story.
If Airi, the main heroine, were to get caught up in the battle and die or suffer serious injuries, how would Aaron react once he regained consciousness and found out? There was a high chance he would end up in a state wholly unsuitable for fighting.
[Get the hell off me right now!]
“……!”
Whoooom-! Whoooooom-!
Dwindrog shook his body in midair, intending to throw Airi off. Falling from this height would shatter someone’s entire body and kill them, but that was only by the standards of an ‘ordinary human.’
A human capable of climbing onto his back while he was flying wouldn’t die just from falling here. At the very least, she would have a better chance of surviving than if she stayed with him and became a target of the Sky Dragon’s magical bombardment.
“Ugh……!”
Yet surprisingly, Airi didn’t fall. As though anchors had been driven into her feet, she kept herself firmly planted and pushed through the tremendous gale, slowly making her way from around his waist toward his head.
[You little!!]
Dwindrog angrily shook his body even harder, but Airi showed no sign of falling.
Instead, she drew her weapon with practiced movements, wore a determined expression, and continued steadily toward his head.
Only then did Dwindrog realize that Airi’s armaments were far more formidable than he had thought.
What had initially looked like thick clothing was actually a Reinforced Exoskeleton incorporating Nanotechnology, while the enormous shield and shotgun she carried boasted calibers so massive that an ordinary human wouldn’t even have been able to lift them.
On top of that were thick military boots and military gloves.
Below her nape, near her collarbone, traces of a subdermal armor module were faintly visible. Considering that she didn’t even squint despite the fierce wind caused by their high-speed flight, it seemed she had replaced her eyes with mechanical ones as well.
‘Just how high did she raise her Replacement Rate?’
When he had briefly seen her from afar just a few days ago, she hadn’t given off this impression at all. Moreover, Dwindrog and the Sky Dragon had scattered so much magic that the mana concentration in the surrounding atmosphere should have been extremely high, yet she neither struggled to breathe nor showed symptoms of mana poisoning.
‘She came back as a complete cyborg.’
And there was an even bigger problem.
‘……W-Why does something feel off about her?’
An overwhelming murderous intent radiated from her gaze.
Regardless of the actual amount of power she possessed, she was giving off enough pressure to make her opponent instinctively shrink back.
……And it was directed at him.
‘Huh……?’
Clack.
Airi loaded the enormous shotgun and aimed it at one of the weakest parts of Dwindrog’s body, the flight membrane of his wing.
“Let Mr. Chairman…… go……!”
[No, wait, you’ve got it wrong, it’s a misunderstanding!]
“What? A misunderstanding?”
Only then did Dwindrog realize what was happening.
Come to think of it, the situation certainly was easy to misunderstand.
He had never been introduced to Aaron’s students, and even if he had, he had never shown them his Dragon form.
Moreover, he was currently holding an unconscious Aaron in both hands, and on top of that, he was the same race as the Sky Dragon playing the role of a gigantic monster over there. A misunderstanding was inevitable.
[Damn it, there’s no time to explain everything verbally!]
Dwindrog attempted to extract his memories through magic and share them directly with Airi. A cluster of grayish-white light emerged from his mind and began to seep into hers…… only to disappear before it could.
[…… Huh?]
“……What did you just try to do to me?”
[I wasn’t trying to hurt you, so lower the gun!]
Apparently, Airi’s magic resistance had increased so much that the memory transfer failed. After all, no matter how one looked at it, memory transfer was still mental magic.
In the end, only after Airi suspiciously deactivated her modules temporarily did the magic work properly. After receiving the shared memories, Airi finally lowered her guard.
“Y-You weren’t an enemy?”
[Shut up! Now that you know, stop getting in my way and get off my back right-!]
At that moment, another barrage of the Sky Dragon’s magic began raining down from the heavens. The shadow summons that had temporarily stopped their pursuit thanks to the humans’ interference also resumed chasing them.
And then.
“Damn it!”
Kwoaaaaaang-!
Dwindrog failed to evade one of the countless magical bombardments. A pillar of light measuring two meters in diameter came crashing down directly onto them.
Yet immediately afterward, Dwindrog realized that his body had suffered no injuries whatsoever. Instead, at the point where the bombardment had struck, Airi had unfolded a shield shaped like a black umbrella enlarged several times over.
Sssssssss-!
A massive amount of smoke rose from the shield, and some sections had completely lost their shape, melting down into molten metal. Yet no matter what anyone said, there was no denying that Airi had blocked the Sky Dragon’s magic.
[Girl……!]
“You’re trying to wake Mr. Chairman up, right? Focus on that! I can block a few more shots!”
Airi immediately removed the melted and destroyed sections of the shield, inserted new components, and restored it to its original state. Dwindrog couldn’t hide his shock at the sight.
‘That reaction speed is absurd……!’
No, her Dynamic Vision itself was probably similar to his, or perhaps slightly inferior.
But while standing on an unstable foothold during flight, she had accurately picked out the single bombardment among countless others that would hit him and then defended against it perfectly.
The fact that she could execute that entire sequence so cleanly was astonishing. Dwindrog had never imagined there could be anyone else in this city besides Aaron Stingray capable of defending with such precision.
And what about the durability of that shield?
If he had taken that magic directly with his body, it would have pierced even a Dragon’s scales.
Yet whatever material it was made from, and whatever bizarre structure it possessed, that shield had successfully blocked the Sky Dragon’s magic despite being half-destroyed in the process.
‘S-She really is the main heroine of the Original Story.’
What truly absurd talent…….
“What are you doing? Hurry!”
[……Tch!]
Being ordered around by a human was extremely unpleasant, but just as Airi said, they had no time to waste. Dwindrog quickly began repairing the spell formula that had been disrupted once by the Sky Dragon’s interference.
[How many more can you block?]
“I don’t know! Two? Three?”
[That will be enough.]
Whenever he had to fill in the more complicated portions of the spell formula, he inevitably had to slow his flight speed, but if Airi covered him during those moments, he could afford to feel slightly reassured.
[Recovnias Aclevtia……!]
The spell formula rapidly took shape while a vast swarm of shadows pursued them closely from behind. Likewise, the humans’ fighter jets and countless high-level Adaptees were fighting desperate battles against the shadows in their own ways.
[How dare these things defy their master-!!]
As the Sky Dragon regarded humans as his livestock, it was difficult for him to act recklessly.
If he massacred the humans opposing him, the already damaged human-farm system would suffer even further, but if he simply left them alone, they would continue pestering him.
Having already expended his strength in various ways and lost his Thoughtform state, the methods available to him were limited, and that presented the opposing force with an opportunity they could hardly have asked for.
Airi kept the shadows chasing Dwindrog’s back in check by blasting them with her super-large-caliber shotgun, while occasionally blocking incoming bombardments with her shield to buy time.
How much time passed like that?
“I can’t hold out any longer!”
[Magnus QX Loop!]
Just as Airi exhausted even the last spare components for her shield, the spell formula was completed. A brilliant white light, as though the sun itself had been compressed, appeared and seeped into Aaron’s body.
[Open your eyes! You fool!]
Along with Dwindrog’s irritated shout, Aaron abruptly opened his eyes.
The first things that entered his vision upon regaining consciousness were the enormous face of a Dragon and the gigantic Sky Dragon struggling to sweep away the humans’ fly-like weapons of war.
“D-Don’t tell me I lost consciousness……?”
“Mr. Chairman! Thank goodness!”
“Airi……!”
Airi poked her head out over Dwindrog’s shoulder. The moment Aaron met her eyes, he succeeded in grasping the entire situation.
“Damn it.”
Aaron irritably clutched his forehead.
Dwindrog grumbled at him.
[Get a hold of yourself already. Did we not form an alliance? That bastard is too much for me to handle alone…….]
“No, we absolutely can’t win.”
Aaron shook his head as he answered.
Dwindrog narrowed his eyes at those words.
[You bastard, are you scared right now?]
“No, I’m not scared. It’s a fact.”
Aaron extended his threads, moved from Dwindrog’s hand onto his back, and continued.
“Dragon, we have to get out of here.”
[You……!]
Dwindrog flew into a rage.
[After I went through all that trouble to revive you, the first thing you say is that we have to run away? This goes beyond disappointing—it’s downright pathetic. I’d feel better killing you first right here.]
Just as Dwindrog was about to construct a new offensive magic formula to attack Aaron, Aaron shook his head.
“No, I didn’t explain enough. Sorry. It’s because I only just regained consciousness.”
[What?]
“What I meant was that we absolutely can’t win ‘here.’ I’d been gradually sensing it while fighting before you arrived, but I became certain when that bastard summoned something like the ‘prison’ he trapped me in.”
[What are you talking about?]
“…….”
Aaron thought for a moment before speaking again.
“It would be best to ask an expert like Miyu if we wanted certainty, but we don’t have the luxury right now. For now, this is my hypothesis.”
“A hypothesis?”
“Normally, [Mystics] emit mana simply by existing. And when the mana concentration rises above a certain level, Otherworld Transformation occurs. You know that, right?”
[And what of it?]
“Within an Otherworld Transformation zone, [Mystics] become even stronger. Not just their physical strength and regenerative ability, but even aspects that can’t be quantified.”
[Stop dragging this out and get to the point.]
“This is the key.”
Aaron spoke while catching his breath.
“Why isn’t the Sky Dragon causing an Otherworld Transformation?”
At that moment, silence descended.
Even though a war was clearly still raging around them, for that single instant, everything became so quiet that it felt as though the very concept of sound had been erased from the world.
“Think about it. Even a bastard like you, who’s incomparably weaker than the Sky Dragon, causes an Otherworld Transformation and alters the terrain just by breathing. So why is there not even the slightest sign of an Otherworld Transformation despite that bastard rampaging like this?”
[T-That’s…….]
“This is what I think. Two hundred years ago, before Chairman Stingray built this city here, this place had already completed its Otherworld Transformation.”
“W-What does that mean?”
“This city was built inside an Otherworld Transformation zone.”
Aaron continued with a grim expression.
“Chairman Stingray said he traveled across the continent in search of a place where humanity could settle. The place he finally found after all that hardship was supposedly the only sanctuary that had not yet been taken by the [Mystics]…… but that wasn’t the reality.”
Humanity from two hundred years ago.
They had bowed their heads to a Dragon of their own accord.
“The humans willingly bowed their heads to the ‘Sky Dragon’ and entered the Dragon’s nest. This entire area was already territory under that bastard’s dominion. So there’s no way we can win.”
[Then that means…….]
“It’s a troublesome problem. It might even become harder than it is now, when he’s effectively holding the city hostage. But…… we don’t have a choice.”
Aaron furrowed his brow as he spoke.
“We have to lure the Sky Dragon out of here.”
Only then would they have even the slightest chance.