Ishura - Volume 2 - Chapter 22

Chapter 22: Lucunoca the Winter

Everyone knew the name Igania Ice Lake. However, though knowledge of it was widespread, accounts of people actually stepping out onto the frozen surface were few indeed.

At the very least, currently, there were two. The footprints of their iron-cleated boots left behind two lines, straight and true, stretching out across the endless ocean of ice.

“Fwah-ha-ha-ha! Man, it’s cold! Really, really cold! So much colder than I thought it’d be!”

Always walking out in front, he was a giant of a man, muscular and strong, with his upper body bare in the air.

Despite shouldering a massive sword nearly as tall as himself and carrying both men’s belongings, his energy showed practically no sign of fading.

“But I can’t give up! This sort of winter march wouldn’t be enough to make Rosclay give up! In that case, I’ve got to be even better! Isn’t that right, Master General?”

“Whaat…?”

The other man walked along feebly, gasping for air.

Only saddled with less than a quarter of the other man’s load, and wrapped head to toe in cold-weather gear, he still was out of breath.

“Like hell… I would know! More than that, though, comparing the Second General and myself like that… You should be more considerate! You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?!”

“Considerate, huh? But, Master General, your inferiority to Rosclay’s just a fact! Why, everyone and his mother knows something like that!”

“Haah, haaah… That’s what I mean…by being inconsiderate!”

The giant man’s name was Lagrex the Butchering Landslide.

As his exaggerated second name suggested, he was a young swordsman bubbling over with enormous ambition and initiative.

Meanwhile, there was no question that the man following behind him was also being propelled forward by his enormous ambition.

He was Aureatia’s Sixth General, Harghent the Still.

“Though, look! Beasts, beasts! Even in cold land like this! I’m amazed they can survive. Not only that, but they’re even bigger than the beasts of the desert! Did you see that silver bear just now?!”

“…Hm. You see, Lagrex, that’s all related to body surface area. To put it another way, small mice and such animals quickly freeze in low-temperature environments, so—”

“Okay, okay, stop right there. Explaining it to me won’t do a lick of good! The main point’s that she’s got plenty of food around her!”

Everyone knew the name Igania Ice Lake. Though the exact meaning behind that statement was slightly different.

It was more accurate to say that everyone knew the name of the divine dragon that lived at Igania Ice Lake.

“You really intend to challenge Lucunoca the Winter, then?”

“Of course! If there’s a single opponent out there who can stand up against Rosclay…then it can’t possibly be anyone else besides Lucunoca the Winter! And, if I were actually Rosclay—”

“If I were Rosclay…” was a turn of phrase that Lagrex repeated time and time again.

“…there’s no way I’d lose. He’s the only minia who’s ever killed a dragon by himself.”

“…Well.”

To those who knew the truth, it was easy to declare Lagrex’s goal as absolutely ludicrous.

However, no matter how eccentric…and to go one step further, how terribly his personality clashed with Harghent’s own, there was no one other than Lagrex he could rely on to guide him through the unforgiving snowscape.

If Harghent hadn’t lost his own troops, he could’ve advanced through the region with a flawless tundra march.

This was the case no longer. Without Lagrex’s masterful sword skills with him, it was impossible to guess how many times Harghent would have been killed by the giant beasts of the ice lake.

To go even further, among the world’s adventurers who dreamed about challenging Lucunoca the Winter, it was extremely rare to see someone like Lagrex, who worked so tirelessly to hone his abilities.

“What sort of general is Rosclay anyway?! Have you ever crossed swords with him?!”

“H-Hmm? Well…”

“He must’ve hit really hard, right?! At the very least, he has to be able to shatter his opponent’s sword, and slice through their whole torso in a single slash. Not only that, but with speed, too, like a flash of lightning!”

“Hrm… I haven’t a clue, but how can you talk so confidently about Rosclay’s skills when you’ve never even seen him fight before…?”

Harghent heard that he was a native of the Hakeena Microregion, on the southern frontier, far away from Aureatia.

Lagrex had simply focused on training with his own self-taught sword style and was here now because he believed that would be enough against Lucunoca the Winter. Feeling the harshness of the Igania Ice Lake, Harghent felt that the man’s challenge appeared incorrigibly reckless.

In the middle of their march, a bare rock pierced through the ice, requiring them to scale it with ropes and hooks.

Lagrex, ever in high spirits, grabbed the rugged rock surface with his bare hands, of all things, and raced up it like a monkey. Harghent could only look up at him in utter amazement.

Praying that his fingers, numbed with cold, stayed true, he used a rope Lagrex dropped down to climb up.

“…Hngh… Wait… This is nothing…! Gwaaugh…compared to…my exploits…during the sixth wyvern sweep…the eighth wyvern sweep…and the twenty-second sweep… Nothing at all…!”

“Nothing but wyverns with you, huh?”

“Don’t say it!”

“I’d go one step further and say you’re weak, Master General!”

He wanted to shout that he was growing old, but realizing hearing them would only make himself more miserable, Harghent held back his words— On top of everything else, now he had lost all of his troops, too. A majority of his elite soldiers were lost in the expedition to put down Vikeon the Smoldering.

Disgracing himself with a miserable defeat, the only reason there hadn’t been a reshuffling of the Twenty-Nine Officials was entirely because with the upcoming royal games ahead, there was simply no time to hold a meeting to elect a new Sixth General.

Harghent the Still was incompetent.

A bit-player devoted to maintaining his authority and power, he asserted his merits out of habit by reiterating his wyvern hunts, to the extent that he received the mocking nickname of Wing-Plucker. Naturally, even during the war with the New Principality of Lithia—ostensibly burned to the ground in a fire—his reckless charge attack had not been regarded highly.

Therefore, this was his final chance.

A play that is guaranteed to win— Lucunoca the Winter, as a Hero candidate.

The strongest race in the land. The one among such dragons, each one wielding calamitous power, who was strongest of them all. There was little doubt that when they heard about the competition among the world’s strongest fighters, every single one of the Twenty-Nine Officials searching for candidates had thought the same themselves.

—If they sponsored Lucunoca the Winter, victory was almost guaranteed.

In reality, it wasn’t so simple.

None of them had made the long trip out to visit Igania Ice Lake, far, far away from Aureatia.

None of them acted foolish enough to abandon all their main governmental duties to bet everything they had on the royal games.

None of them had thought that the form-unknown dragon could be negotiated with…or if they could pay the dragon’s asking price.

And not a single one among them had located a reckless man like Lagrex.

As he walked, Harghent sung quietly to himself.

“… Rain, rain, rain is falling,

Up above the tall mountains of Onuma,

White wings smoothly caress,

After that falls thorns, thorns, thorns—”

“What’s that, Master General? A nursery rhyme?”

“…Indeed. Enoz Heem’s Thousand Songs and Verses. The song’s called ‘Frozen Plains, Frozen Fields.’ The ‘thorns’ refer to snow. Back then, Igania was a tropical region… No one had ever even touched snow before.”

“……”

“It’s been sung for three hundred years.”

Lagrex seemed to gather the deeper meaning behind Harghent’s words.

Lucunoca the Winter didn’t attack any human settlements, simply wandering about the vast ice lake and preying on the giant beasts to survive. Thus, no country had launched an expedition to take her down. Unlike normal dragons, she didn’t hoard treasure either. On top of being respected as the strongest being in the whole world, there was no treasure to obtain from defeating her.

“…Young Lagrex. Assuming you do indeed face off with Lucunoca. How will you survive her claws?”

“C’mon now. I’ve already hypothesized what defensive skills she’ll use against my far superior swordsmanship. When it’s time to take on a dragon… Well, obviously, it’s not about strength. I have this technique, where I sort of angle my sword to parry and ward off attacks. The vital part’s pushing the attack off to the side.”

“In that case, what will you do if she takes to the sky? That sword of yours won’t be able to reach.”

“Bwah-ha-ha! You’re absolutely right! But dragons can’t stay flying up in the air forever! She’ll get exhausted eventually, and I can just cut her down while she’s resting her wings! I’ll have you know, I’ve been stringent with my basic stamina training, too!”

“You can’t forget about the dragon’s breath, either. Have you thought of a way to deal with it?”

“For that? Well…”

Advancing through the ice ahead of Harghent, he saw Lagrex’s back stop moving for a brief moment.

Too brief, of course, for Harghent to catch up to his companion.

“Fighting spirit.”

“…Fighting spirit…?”

“That’s right. As long as I put my fighting spirit into it, it’ll work out! I’m sure that’s how Rosclay would handle it, Master General! Minia can beat dragons! I’m absolutely positive, given that fact. Without a doubt, there’s a chance for victory! That’s for certain!”

His way of thinking was utterly beyond comprehension to Harghent. The fact he believed the story that a minia could claim victory over a dragon was idiotic to begin with.

Lagrex was indeed strong. He had seen him to cut the giant beasts, looming far taller than Harghent, in two with a single, instantaneous flash of his sword. He had confidence if nothing else.

Still, he’s going to die.

These thoughts came to Harghent’s mind, hazy and vague from the biting cold seeping into his skin.

To him, Lagrex was only necessary on the first half of the trip to establish relations with the dragon.

This reckless man would brashly challenge the strongest of the ancient dragons and have his life end meaninglessly.

After that, Harghent would then… How would things play out after that?

…Perhaps I’m trying something just as reckless as this young man.

Negotiate with a legendary dragon no one had ever seen before, and make them agree to appear in the royal games… Moreover, did he really expect to be protected on his journey home?

No one among the Twenty-Nine Officials had tried anything so foolish.

Perhaps his crushing defeat to Vikeon the Smoldering, and watching Curte of the Fair Skies’ final moments, had turned him desperate.

The cold was dulling his thoughts. The sun’s glimmer was reflected back off the snow, glaringly bright.

His legs were only getting more and more exhausted, and from time to time, Lagrex out in front would need to stop and wait for him.

The vast ice lake. A land of death, spreading out as far as the eye could see.

No one had ever laid eyes on her. Everyone knew the name of the Igania Ice Lake, but no one had ever stepped foot within it.

Lucunoca the Winter. A legend that had stopped concerning herself with minia long, long ago.

Did something like that truly, actually, exist…?

“—neral! Master General!”

“…! What’s wrong, young Lagrex?”

“I should be the one asking that! You can’t collapse now. I need you to live, and bear witness to my battle.”

“O-oh, is that so…? I…collapsed, did I?”

It was too pitiful to bear. Before them was yet another bluff.

His mind was heavy. Did he have any stamina left to climb it? He felt the numbing cold seeping in through his many layers of clothes. Even if they continued on, they would need to traverse the same distance on the way back…

“…Lagrex. This is, well, a bit difficult to say, but…”

“What is it?”

“Lucunoca the Winter, well… Hrm.”

“Yes…?”

“I think that she doesn’t actually exist.”

The giant man cocked his head to the side at the words and laughed.

“Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Well, if she doesn’t exist, that’s just fine, too! Of course, you’ll need to testify that I was indeed stronger than this nonexistent dragon. We’ll still need a thorough search to prove it! The sun’s still high, and the day’s still long!”

“Wait… Hold on… Don’t pull the rope. I-I’m at my limit!”

In front of the bluff, the fruitless verbal tug-of-war continued for some time.

In this terrifying and merciless land, Lagrex, full of tireless confidence and vigor, was wholly beyond his comprehension.

“You should just resign, Master General! Are you not one of the Twenty-Nine Officials, just like Rosclay?!”

“Stop! Enough of that…! Do not compare me…with the Second General!”

A natural end result left Harghent outmatched. At this rate, he might need to be suspended by his chest, and pulled up the bluff. Considering how overbearing Lagrex was, he seemed able to make a horrible nightmare like that into reality.

It was then, thinking about such a future, he looked up to the top of the bluff.

He couldn’t see the sun.

Harghent realized a dark shadow had descended on the area.

“…L-Lagrex.”

“Bwah-ha-ha-ha! Move first, whine later, Master General!”

“No. Up there…”

They were the only words Harghent could get out of his mouth.

The sight was enough to make him forget to breathe.

On top of the bluff.

It simply looked down over them with cold eyes, without a hint of violent power or desire to kill.

Sparkling dragon scales, white and smooth, different enough from Vikeon the Smoldering to believe they were of a different species entirely.

Outstretched, symmetrical wings. An elegantly curved neck.

More beautiful than even the most detailed divine idol, she was the strongest of the ancient dragons.

Lucunoca the Winter. She did exist.

“You must—”

Shockingly, Lagrex readied his sword, not stunned to silence for a single moment.

Harghent was seeing for the first time, looking beside the man, Lagrex’s expression filled with bloodlust, focusing everything on his enemy.

“—be Lucunoca the Winter, then. My name is Lagrex the Butchering Landslide. I’ve come here on this day to take your head and become a champion!”

Lucunoca the Winter was silent.

Thinking her breath attack could come at any moment, Harghent, without any regard for how it may have looked, crawled under the bluff and hid. The size of the shadow cast over the ground shifted, signaling that she had taken flight and landed down below.

He saw from up close the legendary dragon no one had laid eyes on before.

The small-time man, only ever focused on maintaining his authority, was before the world’s strongest dragon.

“Answer me!”

Lagrex vigilantly kept his sword raised.

Was there any meaning to the action? If she swiped at him with those claws, what sort of resistance could a minia’s sword even manage to offer?

The strongest of all dragons spoke.

“My, my, my. Well now. It must have been quite the hard journey indeed to come out all this way.”

“……”

In her clear blue eyes, there was none of the coldness Harghent had glimpsed during his first sight of her.

The snowy ancient dragon cocked her head to the side, her gentleness wholly out of place with their surroundings.

“Indeed, as you said, I am Lucunoca the Winter. Allow me to welcome you…though, in a barren land such as this, I’m afraid I can’t offer much hospitality, uhoo, hoo, hoo!”

“A-are you…toying with me?”

“Not at all. Is there something strange about welcoming in guests from afar? Did your parents not teach you to do the same?”

“……”

“I have not seen minia in truly quite some time. Would you be kind enough to tell me about the outside world? Though I am afraid I may not understand the language of the day, uhoo, hoo, hoo!”

Getting killed instantly by a single swipe of her claws might have been an easier outcome for Lagrex to accept. Harghent agreed.

This dragon didn’t even consider the two minia as enemies.

“W-wait!”

Harghent jumped out from his hiding spot without a second thought. His feet stumbled on the ice, and he once again clumsily tumbled to the ground.

“Lucunoca… Lucunoca the Winter! Will you not fight this man?! You don’t…mean to tell me…”

The next words he spoke demanded a great deal of courage.

He wondered why he was summoning so much unnecessary courage for the sake of someone he so thoroughly did not get along with, for such an overbearing, reckless, and foolish man.

“…You are afraid of a mere minia! Is this how you protected your unbeatable reputation for a hundred years, Lucunoca?! Right now you are both warriors, mutually connected across races with Word Arts! Or else your refusal of your opponent today shall brand you the loser for all eternity! What say you?!”

The white dragon glanced at the pitiful intruder to her lands.

She then let out a chortling sigh.

“Why, yes, I don’t have a problem with that at all.”

“What did you say…?”

The world’s strongest dragon did exist here, right before their eyes.

She avoided people. No one had ever encountered Lucunoca the Winter.

“If the reputation of a doting old crone like mine is what pleases you, go ahead and boast to your heart’s desire, then.”

“L-Lucunoca the Winter… How dare…!”

The strongest race in the land. The strongest individual among them.

If he was able to back her as the hero, his victory would be decided on the spot.

“Yes, yes. Let us acknowledge it. Victory is yours, Lagrex, Butchering Landslide.”

…However.

“Congratulations.”

“When I was little, I learned to read and write. I attended this church that I had absolutely no interest in…and really all I learned was the simple Order script, but…”

The man explained, stepping on the small remaining piece of grassland among the vast ice.

He was a minian spearman. She remembered his name. Yushid the Firmament.

“It’s so I can etch the final words of the enemies I’ve defeated. Everyone all laughed, but I ended up being right.”

He threw aside the bundle of parchment hanging from his waist. It was unnecessary weight for the battle to come.

Lucunoca laughed in delight at the figure he cut, standing in front of her without showing the slightest trepidation.

“Uhoo-hoo-hoo! Is that spear supposed to pierce through my scales, then? Pitiful human, haughty with false success. Even the smallest babe understands how far apart the heavens are from the earth.”

“Save the fancy affect, dragon. When the end comes, you’ll be singing a different tune.”

The spear flashed, like a brutal lightning crack. Leaving only that light behind, the scenery grew hazy—

The shape of the landscape changed, like the moon reflecting on the water’s surface.

“…In some ways, you and I were friends, weren’t we, Lucunoca the Winter?” Atop a sheer bluff, an elderly elf stretched out both his arms.

She knew just how far this one elf had pushed himself to the limits of his studies to arrive at where he was now.

Eswilda the Boundary of Tragic Dream. She could never forget.

“Only if I, too, were a dragon. I have had such thoughts before. Or…better yet, if I were a minia. With such a limited lifespan, could I have studied Word Arts with more fervor? At this point, I do not know.”

“…Eswilda. You are no match for me. Just this once, I shall forgive your hopeless insolence. If you do not wish to know how futile your life is, then stay your wand.”

“No, Lucunoca. You were my dream. The one burning start within a pitiful elf’s life that knew only death and battle. Or perhaps—you were the only part within me that wasn’t a tragic nightmare. Let us begin.”

Eswilda’s voice incanted Word Arts. Dazzling light from his Thermal Arts sparkled like a cluster of stars.

Ahh. How wonderful it was to see the pinnacle of a person’s training.

Thinking about the life the man had lived, surely none could deride his ardent fervor as less than the minia’s.

She needed to respond to his resolve in kind. Lucunoca took in a deep breath—

“…There’s some cheeky enough to say you’re nothing but a fairy tale.”

The scenery had changed. Amid the mirrorlike surface of silvery white, a leprechaun laughed in front of a colossal steel structure. He was Amgusa the Left Fetter, a weapons merchant.

That time was the first Lucunoca had ever seen a machine that ran on fuel traverse the frozen wastes.

“Just awful, isn’t it? That’s why I’m gonna teach ’em, see. That you really do exist. Then that’ll turn into real value, the kind that even those chumps’ll understand—money for this guy right here.”

“.…Amgusa the Left Fetter. Enough of this foolish endeavor. Just how long did you keep searching during this past big month? And you claim you still have enough power left over to cross swords with me?”

“Keh, keh, keh, keh. You’re a funny old hag. Don’t act so prim and proper. Dragons’re supposed to be more brutal. Compared to the brutality of my weapons here, well, with that kinda attitude, it’ll be child’s play.”

The world was advancing. Now they were capable of creating such mechanical contraptions.

Perhaps there was a sliver of a chance within this power that she had never laid eyes on before.

She looked at Amgusa’s weapon. The gunpowder mechanism opening it up, countless incendiary arrows—

“I’ve found you, Lucunoca the Winter! My mom…and my grandpa weren’t…liars after all. I did it… I finally found you…”

“Oh my. Those are some terrible wounds. Bandage those up right away. I’ll return you to the entrance of the ice lake.”

The young boy had crossed the land swarming with beasts and appeared before her. His left arm had nearly been torn off his body.

His name was Lalaky the Unattainable Knoll. As though to say even the time spent wiping the blood spilling from his wound would be time wasted, he passionately shouted.

“…No! I did not come…all the way here…just to run away now… That silver head of yours…is mine!”

“Don’t you understand? It’s a fool’s errand. With that wound, you couldn’t even best a silver bear. If you have a glorious life ahead of you…will you listen to these old bones, and not throw it away in a moment of excitement?”

“What…what would you know of my life?! This body, given to me by my mother and father, my desires—it would be impossible to want for anything more! Don’t you dare… don’t you dare disgrace the honor of being the strongest in the land, Lucunoca the Winter!”

Lucunoca was more than able to ignore the small and enfeebled warrior.

In truth, that was what she wanted to do.

The young boy showed no such hesitance. With his remaining courage and leftover arm, he slashed at the white dragon.

“Hyaaaaaah!”

With a courageous shout, Lagrex plunged toward her, but his sword once again simply cut through thin air.

His various sword techniques, the source of his enormous amount of self-confidence, didn’t result in single effective blow.

“My, my, now. Fool about too much, and you’re going to tire yourself out, dear. Why don’t you take a break?”

“I’m not…fooling…around!”

Stepping hard into the ice with his cleated boot, he cleaved with a spinning slash. Lucunoca slightly brought her forefoot down, and with it, the slash was out of reach.

“Victory and prestige are already yours to claim; what else could you be unsatisfied about? Perhaps it’s my mind growing dull in old age—uhoo, hoo, hoo! I simply cannot understand.”

Lagrex was using all of his might. Looking on from the side, Harghent could clearly tell.

This was everything he had. Keeping himself braced against a sudden swipe of Lucunoca’s claws, he never took his eyes off her head, wary of her breath, and aiming for her legs and wings, tried to immobilize her.

He also understood exactly how ridiculous these attempts appeared to be.

“Gaaaaaah… Hrnaaaaah!”

“…Enough! Enough, young Lagrex! Do you think you have any chance of winning!? She’s right!”

He also understood clearly how foolhardy his own aims were.

If she really intended to fight, she should have instantly killed them both with her breath the moment they saw her. From the very beginning, establishing communication and negotiating with a true dragon was impossible.

She was able to end things whenever she wanted. Including now.

The rise and fall of the three kingdoms beyond this ice lake, and perhaps, even the terror of the True Demon King itself, was of no concern to her.

To a being at such an apex that any comparisons to others were ultimately meaningless, even the very prestige of being at such heights…was nothing more than junk she could pass off to others.

“I-I’ll be sure to tell everyone…! Winning is plenty good enough, isn’t it?! You’ll be a true dragon-slaying champion, free of any shame or obligation! Lagrex!”

“…Master, General…”

Panting, he wiped his sweat.

A man who had dedicated his life to a fool’s endeavor, dreamed a fool’s dream, and was dying a fool’s death.

Everything about the man was incomprehensible to Harghent.

“Would you be satisfied with that, Master General? Should my words be nothing but thoughtless lies?!”

“…Well, that is, um—”

“I believed that I could slay a dragon with this sword. Ever since I was a child, the opponent I always thought about in the back of my head was a true dragon. It was just four years ago. I was told about Rosclay’s heroic exploits… I understood then that the thing always in the back of my mind wasn’t meaningless nonsense after all.”

He was wrong. No such thing ever happened.

He wanted to shout it out loud. The truth that no one outside of Aureatia’s Twenty-Nine Officials could ever know.

“No matter how many people ridiculed me. Even if I was disparaged as reckless. Minia… I could kill dragons.”

If I was Rosclay.

Had these words been sincere? Did he sincerely think he could become someone like that?

Was he thinking about how, across the land, there were much stronger players all vying for the same thing?

…This man will die.

If she took his challenge even slightly more seriously, one attack from her claws would end his life.

When Lagrex realized the reality for the first time, that the dream he squandered his whole life on had been entirely futile, it would end with his idle death.

“Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Master General. I was so happy! No one besides you would believe my story! Sure, you’re weak, cantankerous, and constantly whining, but! Nothing could make me happier than having you stand here and support me in my fight!”

It was natural cause and effect. Foolishness needed to be met with equivalent punishment and reproach.

“…Ah, I understand. Indeed, without proving you can kill me, your heart will remain unsatisfied. That is quite a shame. Well then.”

Lucunoca the Winter’s claws moved. She held back as much as she could, but nevertheless, minia were like insects to her.

Lagrex the Butchering Landslide readied his sword. He believed in his own power.

Harghent’s thoughts rapidly rushed around his head. His own life was in no danger at all, and it was nothing more than a single fool’s death, but still his mind raced.

His chief of staff Peke died. Unlike Lagrex, he was a capable adviser. Killed effortlessly by a dragon.

Truly the strongest of all races, needing neither victory nor prestige.

Hidden away from the people of the world, so none had managed to slay her.

When did this strongest of all beings begin to be called the strongest?

Harghent was the only one to see her at first. Those cold, unfriendly eyes, looking down from the top of the bluff.

That was as far as he got.

His racing thoughts out of time, the claws, superior to any sword the world had to offer, stroked Lagrex.

There was an atrocious cracking sound.

“Lagrex…!”

“…Oh, what do we have here?”

Blood was dripping. The stout great sword was shattered halfway up, and the glittering fragments were scattered across the icy wastes.

“…I blocked those claws… Lucunoca…the Winter…!”

Lagrex was standing.

The one attack had broken the joints in his sword arm, and it lifelessly drooped from his shoulder.

One of the flying sword fragments had cut deep into his upper arm, and a vast amount of blood poured out of it.

Nevertheless, he had endured the strongest’s attack.

—I have this technique, where I sort of angle my sword to parry and ward off attacks.

“…Lucunoca the Winter!”

Harghent rushed out to try to come between Lagrex and the dragon.

Frail, old, and without a soldier to his name. It was the only thing the incompetent man could come up with.

“I figured it out… Now, I know…know what you’re afraid of.”

“…Afraid of, you say? You think I have anything to be afraid of?”

The strongest of the dragons was in front of him.

Throughout his long life, he wondered if he had ever dreamed of the sight before his eyes.

Harghent tried to stop his trembling lips, gone purple in the cold. He couldn’t. The man who had so desperately and ravenously lusted after power was confronted by a being every bit his opposite. She was wholly beyond his comprehension.

“You’re disappointed, aren’t you?”

“……”

Her tranquil demeanor unchanged, the white dragon listened to his words.

“…That’s it. That has to be it. Before these past hundred years, you did fight, didn’t you? A number of champions seeking glory challenged you and died doing so.”

Why would this creature who had long ago hidden herself away from the world still be called the strongest being in the world?

One needed to fight in order to be named the strongest.

There had to have been times where she used that power to contend with strong foes, times where she had enjoyed combat like any other dragon.

“But you’re too strong. Those with resolve, full of promise…like bubbles, they appeared and disappeared before you. Am I wrong?”

How bright must the fruits of their training have been? Or rather, how lofty was their will, that made them able to challenge the strongest race above all? A weakling like him couldn’t imagine.

On top of that… If she was in despair, stuck watching opponents crumbling beneath her, without inflicting a single wound, just how deep did such despair run?

…Those cold, unfriendly eyes that Harghent first saw.

He was sure that in those eyes was Lucunoca the Winter’s truest soul.

“The inside of your heart is the same as this landscape around us. An endlessly blizzard raging wildly within…!”

“Uhoo-hoo-hoo-hoo…! Well, who is to say?”

The colossal white dragon cocked her head, just as she had when they first encountered her.

Harghent himself wasn’t entirely sure whether or not his assumption was correct.

With such insolent comments, it wouldn’t have been strange for her to immediately crush him where he stood.

Nevertheless, there was nothing else to gamble on.

No one among the Twenty-Nine Officials had tried anything so foolish.

“They are in Aureatia.”

“……?”

“The true champions you’ve longed for… They are gathered in Aureatia. Did you know? The twelve dungeons that have existed as long as you have—they’ve all been traversed by a single wyvern.”

Of course. He knew every single one of his legendary feats.

“He killed the Grim Reaper, Toroa the Awful, feared by people the world over…! Do you know the name of the one who claimed Hillensingen, the Luminous Blade?! The one who, wielding that sword, slayed Vikeon the Smoldering right before my very eyes…! He lives now, in this very age! Lucunoca the Winter!”

The all-powerful white dragon stopped moving and peered down at the weak, aging general.

“…Foolish minia.”

It was as if she was a young girl lost in a story.

“I have never in my time seen another like you before.”

“Eep… I… I am… I am! Aureatia’s Sixth General! Harghent the Still!”

“Very well. Harghent. I shall remember your name… Much like the courageous champion, Lagrex.”

Champion. He looked at the man bestowed the title by world’s strongest dragon.

The tenacious man who had endured the long march through the snow without giving in had exhausted all his strength after getting hit with the weakest possible hit she could give. The extreme situation meant that Harghent didn’t have the composure to pay any heed to man he was trying to save.

“Lagrex…”

Lucunoca the Winter said something utterly beyond belief.

“Out of respect for such bravery, I shall escort him back whence he came. Then, we’ll make for Aureatia. Those comments of yours… As with Lagrex, I’ll trust that they are true.”

“……”

Harghent’s strength left his body, and he fell to his knees.

If he was able to back her as the hero, his victory would be decided on the spot, truly the strongest being of all.

In coming to grips with such a preposterous outcome becoming reality, Harghent’s world grew faint, his entire body spent.

Nevertheless, he was able to answer the dragon’s next question.

“What is this champion’s name?”

“…………Alus the Star Runner.”

He was an enemy he had to best. It had been a distant and far-off dream.

In this same far-off dream, he would fight against his only friend.

“I see. Alus, is it? He’s strong, then?”

The strongest race in the land, the dragons. Among them, she stood even higher, the strongest among them all.

Standing before Lucunoca the Winter, who could reply with such a short answer?

For Harghent, he was able to do just that.

“The strongest.”

In her slumber, she always saw dreams like these.

Amid the remnants of the past, flowing and dissolving in her mind, they always gave her faint hope.

If they possessed strength undefeated. If it was somewhere within their long years of devoted study.

Or perhaps, the flow of time would overtake her. If there was some miracle to bring brilliance to her apathetic and wanting spirit, perhaps then, finally.

Finally. Maybe, she believed, it would become a worthy fight.

The minia spearman threw his spear with unmatched speed.

The elf’s tremendous fireball closed in to reduce everything to ash.

The leprechaun’s endless arrows covered her entire field of vision like a wall.

Or the brave young warrior putting his entire life on the line to slash at her.

She blew her breath over them.

A dragon’s breath represented Word Arts that went against the world itself.

Fire, electricity, and light. Thermal Arts were arts that produced energy.

However, she alone… Her breath alone evoked a totally opposite and different phenomenon, the only one like it among all the living creatures in the world.

Everyone who challenged her knew about her breath and tried to overcome its violent force.

Plains with sparse greenery, various bluffs and cliffs, lakes sparkling with ice—there were many scenes laid out before her eyes.

Yet, with a single breath, the scenery all became the same.

First, it was white. The white, freezing the very air itself, covered everything as far as the eye could see.

Then, the color would change to black. The bare rock and ice would warp and creak, under the sudden change to their world, and would be warped into black crystals. She watched as every possible worldly structure would break and begin to crumble away.

Everything was annihilated. The broken fragments would float up in the still air, before drifting down to the ground.

Nothing of her beloved champions would be left behind.

It was said the Beyond, where visitors came from, was a world where the seasons changed based on the passage of time, not changes in the soil.

Among the four sections that they divide their years into, one season was given just such a name.

A time would come when everything would become still, sealed in beautiful ice; a time when the whole world, plants and animals alike, would momentarily die.

Winter, they called it.

She, for several hundreds of years, was acknowledged as the absolute strongest among the land’s strongest race of all.

She possessed a chilling breath, changing climate and topography, and instantly ending any life caught within.

She was the only confirmed user of ice Word Arts in all of history.

Without even allowing for any fight, she was a sight of desolation and waste.

Silencer. Dragon.

Lucunoca the Winter.