Kays Translations
Just another Isekai Lover~
Chapter 46: The End of the Red Heat
Introducing himself in the middle of a battle might have seemed absurd.
Yet Fiona already knew his name.
Ren kept the golden sword trained on Asval and asked without looking back, “How long have you known?”
The tear on Fiona’s cheek remained, but her expression softened into a natural smile.
“You mentioned that my medicine was made from monster materials,” she said. “But I never told you that.”
She meant the night at the fort, when she had drunk the tea Ren brewed.
Only someone who knew how she had been cured could have made that remark.
“I thought it might be you, so I asked a Clausel knight who happened to pass nearby.”
Ren gave a quiet, rueful laugh.
Of course. Clausel knights had been present, and Fiona had every reason to ask them.
“The knight also told me that you were worried about revealing yourself and that you intended to speak to me after we descended the mountain,” Fiona continued. “So I asked him to pretend he had said nothing. I wanted to respect your decision.”
Ren exhaled. He had believed he was being considerate of Fiona, only to discover that she had been considerate of him.
There was much he wanted to say, but the rotting dragon before them left no room for conversation.
“I’m sorry,” Ren said. “There are many things I want to discuss with you.”
Asval’s roar shook the passage.
The undead dragon raised its head and spread its wings, scattering miasma. The golden fire around Ren purified the poisonous vapor it touched, but Asval’s decaying body released still more.
The dragon unleashed a fan-shaped breath from above.
“First,” Ren said, “I’ll deal with the red dragon.”
There was neither bravado nor hesitation in his voice. Only certainty.
He did not evade. He did not summon the Shield Magic Sword, nor did he ask Fiona to defend them with ice.
Ren swung Flame Sword: Asval in a horizontal arc.
Golden fire collided with the dragon’s breath.
Crimson ripples spread from the impact across the Star Agate Underground Passage. Pressure and wind tore at the ground, but Fiona remained unharmed behind Ren.
She stared at him, unable to look away.
The boy before her had saved her life twice. Now he stood against a legendary dragon with power that should never have belonged to someone his age.
“Amazing…” she whispered.
Then, almost without intending to speak aloud, she asked, “How can you be so strong, Ren-sama?”
The flames from Ren’s sword overwhelmed Asval’s breath and drove the dragon into a writhing retreat.
“Because I made a promise.”
He spoke without turning.
It was the promise he had made to her after the suspension bridge fell, while they searched for another path through the mountains.
“I promised I would get you out of the Baldor Mountains. That’s why I’ll win, no matter what it takes.”
He glanced over his shoulder and smiled.
Fiona’s eyes widened.
Asval shrieked and hurled itself upward. Its enormous body smashed through the ceiling of the passage, opening a hole to the sky.
Snow began to fall into the underground chamber.
Crimson light spread through the center of the dragon’s body. Asval stretched its neck high and spread its wings to their full span.
Snow, heat, and mana from across the mountain were drawn toward a sphere forming at its jaws.
The Baldor Mountains began to shake.
“Ren-sama…”
“Yes,” he replied. “It seems we’ve passed the point where running is possible.”
The mindless dragon was gathering the last of its power. Though far weaker than it had been in life, a final attack made with everything remaining in its body would still be catastrophic.
If the sphere erupted, Asval would perish.
So would the mountain, Ren, and Fiona.
There was only one answer.
“I’ll end this battle.”
The sphere descended from Asval’s mouth in unnatural silence. Ren needed no prophecy to understand what would happen if it detonated.
He raised Flame Sword: Asval overhead and prepared to strike first.
His arm trembled.
Exhaustion had sunk too deeply into his body. The golden sword suddenly seemed impossibly heavy.
Then a pale hand rested over his.
Ren looked beside him.
“I’m sorry, Ignat-sama,” he said.
Fiona smiled faintly and shook her head.
“Fiona,” she corrected him. “Please call me Fiona from now on, Ren-sama.”
To make that future possible, they had to survive the present.
Asval roared.
The crimson sphere expanded, and the sound that had vanished returned all at once in a thunderous explosion.
Neither Ren nor Fiona flinched.
With Fiona’s hand strengthening his, Ren fixed his eyes on the dragon.
“You said that body could not be burned without a flame greater than your own.”
The crimson power began to burst free.
Ren swung the golden blade.
“Sleep, Asval – and never wake again.”
A wave of fire greater than the dragon’s final attack engulfed the sphere before it could reveal its true power.
The golden inferno swallowed Asval.
Dragon, miasma, and crimson light disappeared together, erased from the world.
“The mass of Asval’s power —- which had finally taken away even the sound, left Asval’s body and quietly descended.” This is a perfect description of Safi’jiiva’s supernova from Monster Hunter World Iceborne, even the sound going away. I hope Im right and that was the inspiration.