Thunder Dragon

 

It is the incarnation of destruction.

Black clouds for its bed, thunder for its kin,

its breath pierces and shatters all things.

 

"Emergency! A dragon is approaching Scarlet! Direction: south-southeast, five o'clock! Ara, handle the evacuation of the Swordsaints and villagers! Rin, Yuuka, sorry, but I need your help!"

I barked out orders through the communication magic carried by my scales. I couldn't single out one specific scale from those I'd distributed to the village's key figures, but in an emergency like this, broadcasting to everyone was actually more convenient.

"What are you going to do?"

Nina's calm voice echoed through my mind.

"First, I'll try talking to it. If that doesn't work… I'll fight."

I didn't know what kind of dragon it was or what it wanted. Dialogue or combat. I had to be ready for both.

"… Understood. Then I'll—"

"Nina, stay with Chryse."

I'd anticipated what she was about to say and cut her off with the answer I'd already prepared.

If Chryse was with her, Nina wouldn't do anything reckless. And the reverse was equally true.

"… You'll pay for this later."

Nina's bitter words were the last thing I heard before the connection cut out. I'd have to brace myself for quite the scolding. But that was only if I made it back alive.

"Right, I'm heading out. Make sure you evacuate too, Innis."

"You don't have to tell me… Well, be careful out there."

I waved goodbye to Innis, whose typical tone made it impossible to tell how worried she actually was, and flew out the window with Flight sorcery.

"Big bro!"

"Mentorrr!"

I met up with Yuuka and Rin on my way south. I didn't want to put either of them in danger if I could help it. But if the dragon turned out to be more than I could handle alone, they were the only ones who stood a chance against one. Starting as a group of three was the safest bet.

"Sorry, but lend me your strength."

"Sure! I've always wanted to fight a dragon."

When I bowed my head, Yuuka hefted her stone sword onto her shoulder and declared something equal parts reassuring and alarming.

 

＊　＊　＊

 

Its blue scales shimmered with a metallic sheen under the sunlight.

A thunder dragon.

The second strongest of the five types.

Every scale radiated power, and the electric charge crackling over its body popped and snapped audibly. Where fire dragons had a quintessentially draconic appearance, this thunder dragon had a feral, almost wolfish look to it.

Fifteen meters long, I'd estimate. Thick, powerfully built forelegs tipped with razor-sharp claws. A pair of horns jutting forward from its skull. And set above a massive jaw lined with rows of fangs was a face every bit as vicious as one might expect.

When I soared into its path with Flight sorcery to block its way, the thunder dragon spotted me and pulled up, hovering in midair.

"The hell… are you…?"

It fixed me with a glare and spoke in a low, guttural growl. The words were the same dragon tongue Mother had used, and I felt a small measure of relief. At the very least, we could communicate.

"You ain't… human. Don't tell me you're a dragon, lookin' like that?"

Its tone was mocking, though it didn't actually laugh.

"I am. I'm the fire dragon who protects this land. What business do you have here?"

Speaking dragon tongue in human form took a bit of finesse. Now that I thought about it, this was my first time doing it, but the words came more smoothly than I'd expected.

"Isn't it obvious? I've come… to take your territory."

The thunder dragon's voice dripped menace. But something about the perfectly predictable answer made me tilt my head.

No, it wasn't just the answer. Something felt off in several ways.

"Then why—"

A long, sinuous body coiled around me as its owner spoke up.

Rin, transformed into an Eastern dragon.

Her transformation magic didn't simply change her appearance; it granted the abilities of whatever form she took as well. As a dragon, she could understand dragon tongue.

"—aren't you just attacking instead of standing around chatting?"

She'd put her finger on exactly what had been bothering me, in one clean shot.

The next instant, both dragons opened their mouths and unleashed their breath. The thunder dragon's lightning against Rin's mist. The two collided between us, crackling violently before canceling each other out.

Rin's mist breath looked weak at a glance, but it was remarkably troublesome in practice. The dense fog swallowed flame, ice, and lightning alike, snuffing them all out, and anything that entered it was rendered completely blind.

"Magic Bullet times one hundred!"

In the opening that created, I drew the long staff from my back and let my sorcery fly. A hundred orbs of light traced diverging arcs before slamming into the thunder dragon's wings, riddling the membranes with holes in an instant.

A dragon doesn't fly on wing power alone, true, but shredded membranes and searing pain made staying airborne impossible. The thunder dragon screamed as it plummeted and crashed into the ground.

"Guh…!"

As it staggered to rise, a small shadow darted toward it. Yuuka was tiny against the dragon's massive frame, barely the size of a bean, yet the thunder dragon must have sensed the threat, because it reflexively swung its claw-tipped arm at her.

In the next instant, the thunder dragon stared wide-eyed at its own cleanly severed claws.

It leapt backward to dodge Yuuka's follow-up swing, and at the same time, its horns crackled and discharged a bolt of lightning straight at her.

"Hup."

Yuuka sliced it apart with her stone sword, easy as anything. She cut lightning. With a stone sword. That was the only way to describe what had just happened before my eyes.

"Haaah!"

In the next moment, both of the thunder dragon's horns had been lopped off at the midpoint. Yuuka drove her bare left fist into its jaw. That massive head, several meters across, snapped upward from the blow. As the dragon stumbled, Yuuka leapt into the air and brought her heel crashing down on its snout.

"Hey, big bro."

She pressed her stone sword against the thunder dragon's neck, bewilderment coloring her voice.

"… This dragon is ridiculously weak."

 

＊　＊　＊

 

"I'm not weak!"

Thoroughly beaten, the thunder dragon insisted on this even as all the fight had clearly left it.

"I mean, you say that, but…"

We couldn't help exchanging glances. The unease I'd felt… was that this thunder dragon gave off none of the overwhelming pressure I'd felt facing Mother.

At first I'd chalked it up to thunder dragons being smaller than fire dragons, but even Yuuka, who had never met Mother, hadn't found it the least bit intimidating. Come to think of it, I'd never even considered reverting to dragon form. I'd faced it in my human shape the entire time.

"Don't you dare compare me to monsters like you! I'm strong for a thunder dragon!"

"… Monsters?"

I couldn't help exchanging a look with Rin.

"You really are a genuine fire dragon, aren't you? And you've been alive… for a very long time."

"Well, yes, but not that long. Only a thousand… no, if you count in dragon years, about eleven."

Ninety-eight cycles of the seasons make one year. That's what Mother had told me, I was fairly sure. By that reckoning, I was still practically a child.

"There it is, fire dragon years… Let me tell you, you fire dragons are the only ones who count that way! One cycle of the seasons is one year, period. Any dragon besides a fire dragon that lives past a thousand is a full-fledged elder dragon!"

The words hit me like a blow. E-elder dragon…

Honestly, I'd still thought of myself as young. Yes, I knew for a fact that I was the oldest in the village aside from Nina, but a dragon's body doesn't deteriorate with age. Any real awareness of having grown old was vanishingly thin.

"Other dragons besides fire dragons have such short lifespans…?"

When I murmured that, the thunder dragon twisted its face as if to say "Are you sane?" Quite expressive, for a dragon.

"You serious?"

"What do you mean?"

The thunder dragon hesitated, as if unsure whether to answer, before finally speaking.

"Most dragons… at least those that aren't fire dragons… don't live to see five hundred years. They're killed by other dragons. Usually by fire dragons."

The way he was about to be, right here and now. That was probably what he meant to imply.

"But we wouldn't have beaten you up if you hadn't come to us first."

Sensing the awkward atmosphere, Rin answered in a slightly defensive tone.

"I didn't come here because I wanted to. I was driven out of my old home. By a fire dragon that showed up out of nowhere."

"A fire dragon…?"

Something about that nagged at me, and I pressed further.

"This fire dragon… do you happen to know its name? Or how big it was…?"

"No idea about the name. But…"

The thunder dragon thought for a moment, then answered.

"That female fire dragon came to my mountain humming a tune."

That sounded incredibly, unmistakably familiar.