Kays Translations

Chapter 45: Within the Inferno [Part 2]

Even now, with only an instant left to act, Ren found himself worrying about Fiona.

But that instant was all he needed.

Asval’s breath surged toward him once more. The heat was powerful enough to vaporize everything it touched and erase Ren before he could even feel pain.

(Hold on. I only need one moment.)

If he endured for that single moment, he could fight back. He could bare his fangs at the legendary red dragon.

Ren prepared to stake everything on his next attack.

The approaching heat made every instinct in his body scream at him to run. His strength was exhausted, his clothes were already burning, and the thought of surrender flickered again and again through his mind.

Yet he refused to give Asval another chance.

“Burn away, weakling.”

Asval unleashed its breath.

Ren thrust the Shield Magic Sword forward.

For less than a second – a span that seemed to stretch into minutes – the shield endured the spreading hellfire. Then its edge began to dissolve into particles of light. Anything the flames touched was reduced to ash.

Ren did not need longer.

(Either my body burns first, or I reach it.)

He accelerated straight into the blast. Asval tried to track him with its breath, but the angle of the attack changed a fraction too slowly.

Ren raced up the broken ground and launched himself into the air until he was level with the dragon’s eyes.

Then he hurled the Iron Magic Sword with every bit of strength remaining in his body.

The blade flew like a comet through the crimson light and buried itself in Asval’s remaining horn.

The dragon’s cry was unlike any it had made before.

“That crude weapon… wounded my horn!”

The red wind surrounding Asval trembled. Scales crumbled from its enormous body as it twisted violently, sweeping its tail from side to side.

Ren used a falling slab of rock as a foothold and leapt again. He landed beside the embedded sword, seized the hilt with both hands, and dragged the blade deeper with the full weight of his body.

“More…!”

The wound in the horn disrupted the heat and crimson wind surrounding the dragon. The temperature was still agonizing, and flames were eating through Ren’s clothes, but the instant death that had threatened him moments before was gone.

He could endure this.

Asval stretched out a rigid forelimb to seize him, but the pain from the sword made the dragon recoil. Ren forced the blade deeper.

The horn was not as hard as he had expected. Perhaps undeath had weakened it, or perhaps Asval no longer possessed enough power to maintain its body. Had the dragon been whole, Ren doubted he could have scratched it.

Asval whipped its head from side to side. Ren clung to the sword, knowing that the slightest mistake would send him flying.

A crack appeared.

Reddish-black blood burst from inside the horn.

Asval howled and slammed its neck toward the lava below, trying to drag Ren into certain death.

Ren still refused to let go.

(Just a little more.)

The lava rushed closer. Heat swallowed his vision.

Then the crack raced around the base of the horn.

With a flash of crimson and a spray of blood, the horn tore free at the root. Ren was flung through the air with it while Asval crashed to the ground, the impact shaking the entire underground passage.

Broken scales scattered across the floor. Black mist and blood poured from the dragon’s ruined head.

Asval tried to rise, driven by rage, but Ren had already seen what the broken horn had exposed.

The magic stone.

His legs nearly failed when he landed. His vision blurred, and every part of his body had reached its limit. Even so, he staggered toward the stone and raised the Iron Magic Sword.

“I told you. I’m serious.”

He struck.

The first blow carried everything he had left.

The second was aimed solely at destroying the magic stone.

On the third, he saw that the figure of Fiona trapped within it was still alive.

The fourth fell while Asval screamed behind him.

With the fifth, Ren roared and brought the sword down one last time.

The Iron Magic Sword shattered.

So did Asval’s magic stone.

Asval’s howl shook the Star Agate Underground Passage. Lava surged, the ground convulsed, and rocks rained from the ceiling.

The mana that had been contained in the stone had nowhere to go. It poured over Ren, coiled around his bracelet, and flooded the arm wearing it.

Pain exploded through him.

The skin of his arm burned reddish-black. Merely trying to move it sent another wave of agony through his body.

The crystal on the bracelet glowed.

Flame Magic Sword (Level 1: 1/1)

Under any other circumstances, gaining a new magic sword might have thrilled him. At that moment, however, one of his arms had been rendered nearly useless.

There was no time to dwell on it.

Ren forced himself forward, pulled Fiona free from the remains of the stone, and lifted her into his arms.

Her eyes opened weakly.

“Adventurer…san?”

“I’m sorry I took so long.”

He carried her away from Asval, sweat running down his face despite the heat. For a moment he considered finishing the dragon, which had gone unnaturally still with its neck stretched upward.

Then instinct warned him that it was not dead.

He chose escape.

“I’m sorry…” Fiona whispered against his chest.

“It’s all right. None of this is your fault. No one could have known what was waiting here.”

“But you protected me…”

Her tears came again.

Using the small amount of mana left to her, Fiona placed a hand over Ren’s burned arm. Cool air wrapped around the injury and eased the pain enough for him to move.

She then forced herself to stand.

Ren thanked her and looked toward the passage ahead. The haze had thinned enough for him to make out a route leading outside.

Asval’s horn and magic stone were gone. The lava fed by its power was beginning to settle.

They might still escape.

Ren supported Fiona with his good arm and started forward.

Behind them came a wet, rasping sound.

Asval was moving.

With its horn broken and its magic stone destroyed, the dragon had lost the intelligence it had displayed before. Its body decayed by the second. Blue light burned in its empty eyes, and the flames leaking from its mouth had become poisonous miasma.

Each step scattered rotting flesh and black vapor across the ground.

Even an undead monster should have died when its magic stone was destroyed. Yet Asval continued forward, sustained by the same impossible vitality that had made it legendary in life.

Eventually it would collapse into a sleep from which it could never awaken.

Ren did not know how long that would take.

(We have to get out before then.)

He no longer had the strength to fight. Fiona had been drained inside the stone and could barely walk.

His only objective was the promise he had made: leave the Baldor Mountains with Fiona alive and return her safely.

His feet grew heavier with every step. Darkness crept across the edges of his sight.

Then his foot missed the ground.

“Adventurer-san!”

Fiona caught him before he fell. Until then, Ren had been supporting her; now she placed his good arm over her shoulders and held him upright.

“Please… run,” Ren muttered as consciousness began to slip away.

Fiona did not answer. She simply kept walking, slowly but stubbornly.

The sickening sound behind them grew louder.

She looked back.

Asval was charging through the passage, its rotting body scattering miasma.

“Don’t come any closer!”

Fiona raised a wall of ice.

Asval smashed through it without slowing.

Its rigid forelimbs struck the floor again and again. Chunks of Star Agate became deadly projectiles. Fiona formed another barrier to shield them, but the dragon kept closing the distance.

At last one of its arms came down directly above them.

Fiona threw them both to the ground and encased them in thick crystalline ice, the same defense she had used against the dragon’s breath.

The impact hurled her face against the floor. Blood ran from a cut on her cheek.

When a drop touched Ren, it changed from red to black.

Fiona did not notice.

“Adventurer-san…”

She pulled Ren’s head onto her lap and apologized again and again while Asval battered the outside of the ice.

“When it breaks, I’ll surround you with ice one more time. I’ll stop that dragon, and you can return to Clausel alone.”

Her voice shook.

“I’m sorry I dragged you into this. I’m sorry I made you keep that promise.”

She gently wiped the sweat from his cheek.

A great crack spread through the barrier.

Fiona understood that the end had come.

“Thank you for taking care of me at the fort.”

She wiped away another tear.

“It was only a short time, but because of you, my last hours felt like a normal person’s life.”

The ice fractured again.

“Goodbye, Ren-sama.”

◇ ◇ ◇

Was it a dream, or had he entered the afterlife?

When Ren came to himself, he was walking alone through an unfamiliar corridor.

He should have been beneath the Baldor Mountains, trapped with Fiona and the rampaging Asval. Instead, black marble stretched beneath his feet. Magnificent chandeliers hung from a high ceiling, and stained-glass windows lined both walls. Beyond them lay only darkness.

His senses were too sharp for a dream, yet he felt no immediate pain.

At the end of the corridor stood an enormous door covered in intricate carvings. Ren pushed against it, but it would not move.

Then Fiona’s distant voice reached him.

“I’m sorry I made you keep that promise…”

A lock clicked on the other side.

The door opened by itself.

Ren entered a circular chamber. Its walls were covered in stained glass depicting a majestic battle. At the center stood a pedestal, and upon it rested a jet-black longsword.

His footsteps echoed as he approached.

“Thank you for taking care of me at the fort.”

Fiona’s voice sounded both beside him and impossibly far away.

“Because of you, my last hours felt like a normal person’s life.”

She was not dead yet.

The sorrow in her voice made Ren desperate to return.

His gaze settled on the black sword.

The bracelet shone.

???? (Level 1: 1/1)

It resembled the phenomenon that had occurred when Licia’s power caused a special magic sword to manifest during the battle with Yelquq. For a moment Ren wondered whether Fiona also carried a magic stone inside her body.

But this felt different.

The door had opened in response to Fiona’s voice, yet the sword seemed to have been waiting inside Ren from the beginning.

He did not understand it.

At that moment, understanding did not matter.

“If you can save her, lend me your strength.”

Ren took the jet-black sword.

Dense mana poured from it into his body. Strength unlike anything he had ever experienced filled him, restoring enough vitality for him to stand and move.

When the flow ended, the black sword vanished.

The door behind him opened once more, revealing a world of dazzling light.

Ren thought of the Flame Magic Sword.

He had been unable to use it before because the attempt had produced an unbearable headache. Now the power given to him by the black sword made that concern disappear.

“Come forth, Flame Magic Sword.”

A straight sword wrapped in fire appeared in his uninjured hand.

Flame Magic Sword (Level 1: ■/1)

As Ren walked toward the light, the weapon changed.

Its flames shifted in color. The blade lengthened. The silver hilt and steel took on an untarnished golden hue.

Flame Sword: Asval (Level: ■■/1)

The power he had received from the black sword flowed into the Flame Magic Sword until it became a golden longsword nearly as tall as Ren.

The bracelet displayed its new name.

Flame Sword: Asval.

Pain returned as he reached the doorway. His wounds, exhaustion, depleted mana, and burned arm all asserted themselves at once.

Yet he could move, and he held the golden sword.

Whatever the black weapon had been, and whatever connection Fiona’s power had to this transformation, he could ask her after he saved her.

Ren stepped into the light.

◇ ◇ ◇

Fiona had continued protecting Ren after saying goodbye. Again and again she raised ice against Asval’s attacks.

The dragon’s arm descended.

This time, she knew she could not stop it.

But the blow never reached her.

Ren pulled her backward. A surge of golden flame from the sword in his hand knocked Asval’s arm aside.

“R-Ren…sama?”

Fiona looked up in disbelief, a single tear still running down her cheek.

Ren smiled gently.

“I’m sorry for introducing myself so late. My name is Ren Ashton.”

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