Log Horizon - Volume 9 - Chapter 4.3

3 
In the midst of a wind that seemed liable to tear his ears off, Leonardo shouted. There was a hardness in the passing air, and he couldn’t talk to KR without yelling. 
“Hey!” 
“What, Leonardo?” 
“Where are we going?! The ravine’s right over there!” 
“I thought we might as well go scout out those ruins or whatever they are.” 
The back of the red dragon wasn’t all that big. 
It was probably over fifteen meters in length, but its long, elegant neck and slender tail took up two-thirds of that. Besides, although KR was securely straddling it in what seemed to be his usual place, Leonardo was clinging to its neck. 
However, this was Leonardo’s first time flying, and he was completely fascinated by the wide land of Aorsoi as it streamed below them at high speed. The wasteland, the wind, the light: Everything raced past him, and the speed captivated him. 
The membrane of air held a violent pressure, and there was a primal joy in blasting through it. 
In just ten minutes, black spires came into view on the horizon. 
Leonardo and KR knew in an instant that they were the ruins in question: the Ruined Colonnade Tonnesgrave. 
For one thing, they were bizarre structures sticking up out of empty wasteland with nothing else around them. The other reason was that a jet-black dragon launched itself from the base, snapping off the structures with one sweep of its powerful tail. 
“Hold the phone!! Hey!” 
“Wow, that’s really something. Is that a raid enemy?” 
“Why are you being so laid-back about this?!” 
“You think it’s a full-raid monster for twenty-four players, or a double-raid rank for forty-eight?” 
It looked as though the visual scale had been skewed. 
When KR had summoned the dragon, Leonardo had thought, Now we’ll be able to win this! but the mere sight of the destruction on the distant horizon made it clear to him that he’d only been dazzled by how cool the crimson dragon looked. 
Even though both were dragons, there was an overwhelming difference between the Black Dragon on the horizon and the red dragon the two of them rode. To begin with, their sizes didn’t match. Because of the distance, they couldn’t compare the two properly, but that dragon was easily twice as big as the crimson dragon. 
“What’re we gonna do about that thing?!” 
“We’ll use, you know…that thing you wanted to show off. The hero’s new power.” 
“Don’t be an idiot! That’s a Raid-rank monster!! How are we supposed to take it down with just the two of us?! Or, what, is this dragon small but high-performance, like a Honda?!” 
“Gar-gar’s a Minion rank.” 
“So?” 
“That means she’s cute.” 
This was hopeless. Leonardo squeezed his eyes shut. 
In Elder Tales, there were two axes that showed monster strength. One was level. Each monster had its own individual level value, as Adventurers did. 
The other was rank, and it showed a monster’s strength by stating how many people it was best to fight it with. 
The rank for ordinary monsters was Normal. 
At that rank, Adventurers on the same level as the monster could fight it one-on-one. For example, it was optimal for Leonardo, who was level 90, to fight a Normal rank monster on the same level. 
Of course, even among Adventurers at level 90, strength varied depending on equipment and how well they’d mastered their special skills. Normal rank monsters of a certain level were designed so that an average Adventurer on that level could beat them without trouble. For an experienced Adventurer like Leonardo, hunting Normal monsters that were a few levels above him wasn’t all that difficult. 
The next most common rank was Party. These were divided into subcategories such as “x 2” and “x 4,” and the maximum was “x 6.” “Party x 3” meant that three Adventurers on the same level could fight it on equal terms. These enemies were mainly fought in dungeons and similar places by Adventurers who’d formed a party. They were characterized by having HP and attack power that differed from Normal rank monsters, even if their levels were the same. 
Above these was Raid rank. In order to subjugate Raid rank monsters, you needed a large-scale unit on the same level as the monster, so “x 1” meant a full raid, or twenty-four people, and “x 4,” the highest rank, required a legion raid of ninety-six members. 
Since monsters of these ranks tended to show up on high-difficulty quests or be found lurking in the depths of megadungeons, even encountering them was hard to do. 
On the other hand, there was a rank that was weaker than Normal. 
This was the rank known as Minion, and it was seen mainly among the monsters Summoners could call with servant summonings. If a Summoner had been able to summon a Normal rank monster on their own level, it would have given them twice the combat strength of other Adventurers on that level. As far as the game balance was concerned, that wouldn’t be a good idea. 
That was why the Minion rank had been created. Minion rank monsters were one-third as strong as Normal rank monsters. Since Summoners had only two-thirds of the abilities of other classes on the same level, they weren’t balanced until they’d summoned a servant—or that had been intentional design of the Elder Tales game, at least. 
The red dragon the two of them were riding was apparently a Minion rank. 
“You mean it’s weak!” 
“Did you hear what he just said about you, Gar-gar?” 
“Why are you talking like this is somebody else’s problem?! You’re such a— Aaaaaaaah!” 
While the two of them squabbled pointlessly, the dragon they rode had sketched an arc across the Aorsoi sky, drawing closer and closer to the Ruined Colonnade. Naturally, the Black Dragon and the two figures on its back had spotted them. With a great flap of its wings, the jet-black dragon spat several gnolls it had had in its mouth onto the ground. The wind from its wings sent the gnolls nearby scurrying this way and that, but it didn’t even glance at them. In the space of a single breath, it closed in on Leonardo’s group. 
“Whoa!” 
“You’re going to bite your tongue.” 
Heaven and earth flipped for Leonardo. 
The crimson dragon they rode folded its shining, garnet-colored wings tightly so that its body was dagger-shaped and dove rapidly, spinning as it went. It was traveling faster than a fall, heading for the ground like a bullet shot from a gun. 
As it turned out, that speed saved them. 
A thunderclap boomed. 
Pitch-black smoke charged with lightning blew through the space where Leonardo and the others had been just a moment before. It was Dragon Breath, a legendary attack belonging to the tremendously powerful monsters classified as dragons. 
As an experienced player, Leonardo had seen that attack many times, but it had been nothing more than well-rendered computer graphics on a wide, liquid-crystal monitor. 
Children often draw pictures of cars and airplanes with crayons, but it’s not like they comprehend the terror of a crashing airplane or of having a car plow into them just from looking at those pictures. Now, Leonardo felt the impact from the depths of his soul. 
Electricity and black smoke streaked through the air not three meters away, and he felt a trembling as though the air had spasmed. His nose caught the burned stench of ions. Those past game experiences were a total lie, Leonardo thought. Hey now, hey, hey, hey. The air just got broken down. He’d known that was where the rumble of thunder came from, but he hadn’t thought it possible to sense these things with his nose. 
Okay. He’d admit it— 
This might be a game world, but he’d temporarily retract that knowledge. 
If they got hit by that lightning, it seemed as though that philosophical doubt would evaporate, too. 
There are tons of things city geeks don’t know! Oh my God! 
Still carrying them on its back, the crimson dragon fell in a tailspin, but when they got close to the ground, it opened its wings wide and beat at the wind. It glided to maximize aerodynamic lift, then used the layers of air generated by the slope of the hill to shoot up into the sky again as if launched from a catapult. 
“What is that?!” 
“Judging by its appearance, probably a Black Dragon, right?” 
“Not that! Those two on its back!!” 
Even in the midst of their tailspin plunge, Leonardo’s excellent eyesight had burned the two figures’ shapes into his eyes. A thin, mage-like figure in a hood and a golden-haired girl as delicate as a bisque doll. 
“Considering where they are, they’re probably not allies of justice.” 
“Just looking at them, I can tell they’re bad guys.” 
“The masterminds behind this incident, I presume?” 
Even as Leonardo and KR conversed in shouts, several bolts of lightning skimmed by them. The electrical bolts’ trajectories were straight lines, but they reached a long way, and although the black, smoky gas that clung to them only went partway, it spread out and was hard to avoid. 

The red dragon was smaller than the black one, but it was agile, and at this point, it was managing to evade through dramatic trajectory changes that didn’t give a thought to its riders. That said, the red dragon was a Minion rank at level 90. 
Even though the Black Dragon was level 85, and therefore lower in the hierarchy, it was a Raid-rank monster. One solid attack from it would probably be fatal. 
The red dragon probably knew this as well. Either that, or KR had given it instructions in a way Leonardo hadn’t been able to see. As it evaded several bolts of deadly light, the red dragon circled around behind and above the Black Dragon, capturing its back. 
Dragon Breath was a range attack and a powerful threat, but it had a weakness as well: 
Since it was emitted from the dragon’s mouth, the directions in which attacks could be made were naturally limited. On top of that, the Black Dragon was currently airborne. If it bent that long neck carelessly, it would end up turning. If it had been braced on the ground like a gun battery, things might have been different, but its build made it incapable of attacking behind itself. 
“Great, good position!” 
“It looks like we’re better at accelerating.” 
“We’ve got its back. Attack with Breath!” 
“We don’t have Breath.” 
“Huh?!” 
“Gar-gar doesn’t have Dragon Breath. I told you, she’s a Minion.” 
“What, seriously?! Talk about useless!” 
As if protesting Leonardo’s abuse, the red dragon gave a deafening roar. The only way Leonardo could handle the sudden howl was by clinging to its neck and riding it out. 
“If you’re going to go that far, why don’t you attack?” 
“Don’t be an idiot. We’re in midair!” 
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way. ‘Yes, we can.’” 
“That’s old. Whoa!” 
Leonardo ducked, avoiding a tentacle that stank like sewage. 
It wasn’t the Black Dragon. 
The Black Dragon was flapping and twisting left and right, up and down, trying to chase the red dragon out of its blind spot. However, like a well-made trace macro, the small, elegant red dragon was sticking close to it, right behind and above it. 
The attack had come from the hooded figure on the Black Dragon’s back. 
Still standing on the dragon’s back, the hooded shape had pointed a hand up at Leonardo. Even if the Black Dragon’s back was broad, that attitude was absurd, and—unusually for him—KR swore. The threads that poured from the man’s finger were clearly tracking Leonardo and the others, and a thoroughly scorched, acidic stench hung about them. 
“Cut them down!” 
KR hadn’t needed to tell him that. 
Having registered that threads wouldn’t work, the tentacles had morphed into something like exposed animal viscera and were stretching out toward the red dragon. The black and red dragons were about ten meters apart. Their objective was clear. 
If the villains damaged the red-dragon team with the attack, fine. Even if they didn’t, if Leonardo and company retreated to avoid an attack from the tentacles, their pursuers were probably intending to switch to a Breath attack. 
“Don’t screw with me!” 
Leonardo drew his Ninja Twin Flames and lopped off the tip of a tentacle. The additional effect activated, drawing tracks of flame, and the tentacle burned down, streaming backward. 
To the right, to the left. Straddling the dragon’s neck, Leonardo slashed down the tentacles that stretched up one after another. Fortunately, the tentacles seemed pretty fragile. One slash was enough to shred them and send them flying. 
However, they were also pipes that carried acid. 
When the red dragon failed to avoid one of the slashed remains and the acid landed upon its scales, there was a sound like meat sizzling on an iron griddle, and white smoke erupted. 
The red dragon forced down a low moan, but it managed to stick to its current position, and Leonardo felt a huge respect for it. The structure of dragon wings was similar to bat wings; they were made up of a thin membrane. If acid struck its body or neck, it could probably tough it out to some extent, but if the membranes burned away, its evasive abilities would diminish. In the worst-case scenario, it would go crashing to the ground. 
The red dragon knew this, and in order to protect its wings, it had intentionally taken the acid on its neck. 
Responding to that spirit, Leonardo stepped up the ferocity of his slashes, trying to deal damage to the owner of the tentacles as well. 
Whizzing into a rolling scissors maneuver, the two dragons raced across the Aorsoi sky, sketching complicated trajectories. As he swung his swords from the dragon’s back, Leonardo forgot about the shredded, speeding clouds and the distant earth and became one with the battle in front of him. 
Leonardo saw the two figures on the dragon’s back clearly. 
The beautiful girl with the derisive smile was Rasfia. She was a level 89 of Normal rank. The hooded being who was tenaciously attacking with the tentacles, over and over, was Papus. He was also a level 89 of Normal rank. Neither of them had a main class or were affiliated with a guild. They had human shapes, but monster displays. 
If they’d been on the ground, fighting one-on-one, he wouldn’t have lost to stats like theirs. However, under these circumstances, when they were teamed up with a Raid-rank monster, they couldn’t have been more of a problem. 
Inversion. 
In the midst of an intersection that switched the positions of heaven and earth, Leonardo cut the pursuing tentacles away again. Even the scattered acid was evaporated by the flame attack he thrust out. 
The battlefield had shifted, and before they knew it, the wide earth had been exchanged for a valley like a thin green path. The single great river that crossed this wasteland had carved the ground away, forming a ravine. Dense, vivid green forests grew on either side of the water at the bottom of the canyon. 
Attempting to shake off the red dragon, the Black Dragon skimmed just above the treetops. 
The trees were flooded with light and gleamed as if they were wet, and small, startled rainbow-colored birds burst from them all at once. The flock of birds filled the sky, and the two dragons shot through it like arrows. 
The banks of the river were littered with countless gnoll corpses. When he saw them, Leonardo lowered his gaze. As if being guided by some miracle, his eyes met Coppélia’s, who happened to be looking up at him from the midst of the gnoll horde. 
Coppélia’s clear, calm eyes reflected the red dragon, soaring against a background of blue sky. 
A sound echoed in Leonardo’s heart, and he cemented his resolve. 
“If those two are gone, can you draw that Black Dragon away?” 
“What are you talking about?” 
“I’m asking, if that overblown pair gets off the Black Dragon’s back, can you tow the dragon over the horizon?!” 
For a moment, Leonardo’s yell seemed to render KR speechless. 
“Leonardo.” 
“What?!” 
“I just got to Aorsoi a little bit ago.” 
KR spoke carefully, spacing his words out so that their meaning was sure to get across. 
“That means, if I die, my body will resurrect in a temple in Yamato, aka Japan. Whether we win or lose—this is probably good-bye.” 
“Bring it on!!” 
Leonardo turned back, thumping KR’s chest with a fist that still held a sword. KR coughed, then struck Leonardo’s chest with his slender magic-user’s hand. 
It was an exchange of war cries, and encouragement, and friendship. It wasn’t the sort of thing that belonged to a New York geek. It was a promise between heroes. 
They went through a series of steep climbs and sharp dives. Irritated by the red dragon, who stayed stuck to its back no matter how it twisted, the black one tumbled through the sky, sometimes scraping its wings against the trees of the forest, sometimes trying to fling itself into the sun. 
Before long, spotting a moment’s opening in those movements, Leonardo bent down onto the red dragon’s neck, storing up strength. 
“KR!” 
“I know!” 
There was no time to say more. 
Taking advantage of the moment when the Black Dragon’s unfurled wings hid him from the grotesque pair of adversaries, Leonardo leapt into space. 
“Cowabungaaaa!!” 
Mimicking the legendary hero’s yell… 
Leonardo slammed into the two on the Black Dragon’s back, clinging to them, and then, according to plan, as the acid burned him, he plummeted toward the ground.