Chapter 09
“Ah, ah….”
Even after checking again, the fact that Kal was dead hadn’t changed.
“Ah…!”
“Salvia! Snap out of it!”
My body was forcefully pulled backward, and when I regained my senses and looked forward, Plato was swinging his sword right in front of me.
“Damn it!”
A massive dragon had come close without me noticing.
It barreled through the space separating the first squad, holding something in its mouth and violently shaking its body.
Roaaarrr!
The dragon let out an intense roar.
“Second squad! Engage immediately! First squad, regroup at the rear of the second squad! Hurry!”
“What the hell! Why is it so hard?!”
Plato, with his sword enveloped in aura, was trying to cut the dragon’s left leg, while Yura aimed for the right leg—but the dragon’s body was so hard that their swords had no effect at all.
The dragon lowered its head, attempting to swallow Plato whole, but Plato barely managed to block its mouth with his sword and dodged.
The dragon, seemingly hurt in the mouth by the sword, roared fiercely again.
“Ah….”
Meanwhile, I couldn’t shake off the horrific image I had just witnessed from my mind.
“What is this….”
“Focus! The dragon’s surface is tough and impervious to swords, but its eyes and the skin inside its mouth are weak! Aim there!”
The platoon leader’s voice came from afar.
Although their swords couldn’t pierce the dragon’s rocky exterior, they kept swinging at it relentlessly.
“18th squad, stay calm, everyone!”
“Hey! If it reaches the village, we’re all screwed! Don’t you remember how much damage the neighboring squad took last time?!”
That was the only way to slow the dragon moving toward the village even slightly.
‘Why… all of a sudden…?’
At that moment, memories from the original story started surfacing in my mind.
Right, in the original, the heroine had faced a Black Dragon. In most fantasy romance stories, dragons live unimaginably long lives and are revered, but in this world, they were just monsters to be defeated.
Still, like in other fantasy romances, dragons were insanely strong.
Normally, dragons are things you wouldn’t see even during an eight-year military service. Yet the heroine, Dalin, had faced the strongest of them all, the Black Dragon.
That meant that the original male leads—Aquila, Winter, Ishina—had each fought dragons twice.
“Kyah! D-Dragon!”
Right, in the original, when the heroine screamed like that… how did they defeat the dragon again?
“Ah, Winter.”
In the original, Winter had struck the dragon with his sword imbued with ice aura. Unlike other squad members, his aura blade could actually harm the dragon.
Next, Aquila attacked with a sword infused with fire aura… and finally, if I recall correctly, Ishina used a gun.
“Salvia, focus!”
“Ah…!”
Finally, I snapped out of my reverie. Reality slowly came back.
While I was lost in thought, Linia had been protecting me—holding my arm tightly. He had likely filled the gap left by Kal’s death on the right side.
‘Kal’s death…?’
The thought made me want to vomit, but Linia glared at me with one eye and shouted:
“You have to survive! Stop that thing and live!”
Seeing my comrade die right before my eyes, my mind kept urging me to hide in unconsciousness, but I struggled to cling to the last thread of reason. Avoiding reality now would be meaningless.
‘If I lose focus… I’ll die….’
“Rookies, get a grip! Focus! Do you really want to die?!”
At that moment, April’s loud voice rang out. The voice of someone who had tormented me daily somehow snapped me back to reality like a lightning strike.
‘I thought monsters were less scary than my seniors…’
April’s voice, in this moment, felt reassuring.
“Hey, fire! Light it up more!”
Following April’s shrill command, someone hurried in with a torch. Light began to illuminate the scene, allowing objects to be discerned.
The main reason I couldn’t focus before had been the darkness.
A pitch-black night in the mountains, where not a sliver of moonlight penetrated. It was like fighting blind, relying only on sound and senses.
The only thing helping us see was the aura glowing from each sword—but each aura was a different color, making the vision chaotic.
I was using my coral-colored aura as a makeshift flashlight, but the coral hue made the dragon look even more terrifying.
Likewise, my fallen comrades, tinged in the same coral aura, looked horrifying.
“Look properly! If you can’t see, at least listen!”
April shouted again, and I gritted my teeth, trying to keep the dragon in sight with the torchlight.
Roaaarrr!
Suddenly, the dragon let out a loud, piercing scream.
It seemed injured on its right leg, raising its head as it shrieked.
Standing before it was Aquila, his sword wrapped in fire aura. While I struggled to even secure my vision, he had successfully wounded the dragon.
Despite being injured, the soldiers pressed on, swinging their swords to stop the dragon. I gripped my trembling sword and ran toward the dragon.
Dying to the dragon would be horrifying—but if it reached the village, our squad would be obliterated by higher-ups…
“No, dodge!”
“Huh?”
I thought everything was finally going well—then, as soon as April’s voice rang out:
“Ah! Aaaah!”
“Ahhh!”
I ran toward the screams, and through my coral aura, I clearly saw two bodies ripped apart by the dragon’s jaws and thrown to the ground.
“No!”
They were my comrades, Johan and Billy.
“Damn it! Keep your sight! Don’t lose the dragon’s location!”
Even though three comrades had already died, the others fought on as if used to death in battle, raising their swords to block attacks.
Aquila, who had provoked the dragon’s wrath by attacking its legs, trembled as he stared at the corpses of our fallen comrades.
For the first time, I saw emotion in Aquila’s expression.
…Of course, I was just as shocked and unable to focus.
“Squads! Rotate by team!”
“Second squad, fall back and switch with the first! Third and fourth squads do the same!”
As the captain and platoon leader gave orders, Linia guided my frozen body so I could move.
My legs felt weak from the shock, but in these mountains with a roaring dragon, there was no safe place.
Every time the dragon charged, soldiers fell, only to chase after it to slow it down even slightly.
The dragon’s horrific roars and flashing auras made it hard to hear or see clearly. It was total chaos.
I wasn’t the only one feeling disoriented.
“Hippo!”
Due to the dark vision, my comrade Hippo was bitten as he momentarily lost track of the dragon.
“No, no….”
The dragon, partially wingless and injured in both legs from our attacks, couldn’t move as fast, yet it resisted fiercely in the darkness.
“No, this can’t be happening…”
I wanted to close my eyes and escape, but I had to keep them open to track the dragon’s movements.
Yet the sheer terror and despair made me cry as I stared wide-eyed.
‘Where’s Aquila?’
I hoped anyone would just kill that dragon. Reflexively, I looked for the original male lead.
“Ah….”
But Aquila, witnessing the deaths of our comrades, stood frozen in shock beside me.
‘…He’s…’
I read something in his eyes: the look of a completely broken person.
Despite the shock, the soldiers continued to attack the dragon.
The deaths weren’t just ours—through the faint light, I could see other squad members crying for fallen comrades.
The situation was escalating to the worst.
“Too high!”
The dragon’s weak points were its eyes and mouth, but its head was too high to reach, making effective strikes difficult.
“Damn, it’s hard to handle at night…!”
Standing directly in front of the dragon were April and Winter.
April, her golden hair flying, charged the dragon. As a plant-aura user, every swing of her sword scattered green energy, and the dragon’s wounds did not regenerate.
Next to her was a man with striking blue aura—Winter.
The second original male lead, described as exceptionally skilled in the original story.
His sword, imbued with ice aura, struck the dragon with all his strength, sending it into the air.
Bang!
A deafening noise sounded as the dragon cried in agony, with eyes frozen white.
Every time its forelimbs hit the ground, soldiers attacking its legs were thrown away, groaning in pain yet struggling to get up.
Roaaarrr!
A sudden wave of heat hit us.
“Dodge!”
A massive flame shot straight from the dragon’s mouth toward us.
