(Rudeus POV)
Returning to my room within my inn, I flopped down on my bed without taking off my clothes.
The smell of burning corpses was still lingering on me, but I couldn't fathom any more strength.
After Randolph's burial, I flew over to Sara and Soldat who were already heading towards Rosenburg.
Once I caught up to them, I turned back right before their eyes, but they haven't asked me about my curse the whole trip. It was an overall silent one anyway.
Sara went to meet the other members of [Counter Arrow] and Soldat headed for the guild to report the death of the other members and extermination of the two monsters.
I wanted to go with Soldat to hand over the carcasses I have, but he insisted on me taking a rest.
Honestly, getting any kind of distraction right now would be better than just lying around. Which would also be another distraction from my actual goal.
Once the extermination has been called concluded, my work as an adventurer will start all over again. I need to get up and resume work.
But when I got up, I sensed Sara approaching my door. This wasn't her inn, so she could be here for me.
I got up and went in front of my door before Sara would knock on it. She was startled at first but soon enough calmed.
With the highest of effort still reserved in me, I tried to look as normal as possible.
"Is there something you need?"
"Gosh, you look terrible."
Effort for facial expression must've been low. Or there weren't any to begin with.
"Can I come in?"
"… Sure."
The effort of retaliating into an argument wasn't there either, so I complied.
Once I allowed her inside, I looked for anything besides the chair I have in my room, but Sara just went and sat on my bed.
"Wait, Sara, I haven't cleaned that."
"It's… it's fine."
I was actually… kind of surprised. She is being… considerate? She even defended me against Soldat scolding me the other time.
Just putting it into the category of her being exhausted as well, I sat next to her. The tension was making the awkward silence more uncomfortable than it was.
"I never told you why I hate Philemon."
'Oh, thank Roxy, she is speaking.'
"You don't have to if you don't want."
"Just listen."
"…"
Why is she so serious about it? I have the feeling that she will tell me something important.
Only one way to find out. Shut up and listen diligently.
"My home was in the Milbotts region, the one that Philemon rules over. But then, my village, it was attacked by monsters. The nobles… they didn't do anything. And in the end, my parents died in that incident, and I was orphaned. Susanne and Timothy took me into their group after that."
Now her behavior towards me makes more sense. I don't know what he looks like, but since we are blood related, I should have some resemblance with him. Well, if you exclude the eyes and hair color.
"I hated the nobles ever since then and had a narrow-minded perspective about them. There was even that one time when a young noble joined us on a mission but ran away at the sight of danger. That day just further proved to me how cowardly nobles actually are.
And with you, I already knew how arrogant you were gonna be, so I put you in the same box. But I was only half wrong at first when you kept refusing to take in any help from Susanne.
In the evening, when the assassin attack happened, I never would have thought that you would show up to save us. You looked terrible when you came back to the guild. Still, you could've been less like a ruffian when healing the others."
Part of me wanted to tell her:'I want to see you get through such a night when already being exhausted and sleep-deprived!', but I kept my mouth shut.
"Getting attacked by men hired by a relative you never met, desperately searching for your mother? The amount of stress must've been tough. And because of the loss of my parents and those noble's actions, I ignored that at first. I feel stupid for doing so."
"What made you change your perspective?"
I was honestly curious. She went through a lot, just as much as Eris, but she decided to change her insight. What was it?
"When those dragons went after us instead of hunting you, you didn't run away. Instead, you blocked their attack for us, and even went through the trouble of carrying us away from them despite being at death's door yourself."
Back then, it was more of instinctual reflexes. Still, at this point, I don't know what drove me to protect them so much. The only thing that came to my mind would be Paul's teaching. Strength isn't meant to brag around, it is meant to protect the weak. In my perspective, he didn't follow the former part himself in front of me when this body was younger. But, he may have wanted to show me how you shouldn't be doing it... Naaah, Paul is too much of a muscle had to intentionally do that.
"When I saw you get enraged over Soldat's injury, or the concentrating yet struggling expression when you saved us from that Sea Dragon's attacks, I couldn't help but feel guilty for judging you that much.
I won't ask what your deal is with Death God, or about that strange appearance of yours.
But I wanted to say…"
I looked at her, a strange smile plastered on her face.
"Thank you for saving us."
Those words… they… they made me feel…
"That strange form you saw, it's a curse I have gotten myself inflicted with two years ago."
Her smile dropped, and she had a bit of concern on her face instead.
"Wait, Rudeus, you don't need to-"
"No, please, now you listen to me."
After her being so honest about her past, I feel compelled to do the same in return. I am not sure if it's that or simply wanting to let out this burden weighing on me.
I looked down at the floor and carefully chose the words I'll speak.
"That curse is turning me into a Demon Dragon hybrid, boosting all of my abilities. Ever since I have been inflicted by it, my Magic made leaps and bounds in the last two years. I even awakened my Touki which I couldn't use my whole life before."
"But, that doesn't sound like a curse. It sounds more like a blessing to me."
"Sure, those perks make it sound like that, but every power has its downsides."
I started to remove my bandages and showed her my lavender purple scars.
"For being a Human, my body breaks under the massive use of magic I exposed myself to. The scars on my forehead, my eyes, they are also the result of leashing my anger out with magic.
And it's not just that. People I was close to said that I changed ever since then. That I was getting too aggressive and short-tempered. Until I would have nearly killed them with me in a fit of rage against a different Great World Power, I realized just how uncontrollable I have become."
I looked at my hand again to see the damage I had done to myself. Not even my King class Healing Magic was able to remove those scars from me. But that just shows how much damage I have done to this body.
"When I saved you guys from those assassins, I killed them instead of simply knocking them out. Even with Jester, I was merciless. Only when I saw with a more clear mind what I had done did I realize how many lives I had taken."
At this point, my hand started to tremble again, but I continued speaking.
"I'm not even sure if it were me or the curse that did that. My own powers are terrifying me, but they are all I have left, since they are the reason I endangered my friends in the first place."
Clenching my hands into a fist. In the next moment, Sara held one of them.
I was startled that she would even consider staying with me at this point.
"But they ARE doing some good."
As I was speechless, she started holding my left hand, which I now released from clenching with both hands.
"When Timothy lost his arm, and Patris got exposed to that deadly poison, I had thought it was over for our party. But you, albeit rudely, have saved them. And even after that, you helped people gain some hope by healing them with your high-class magic.
You even put so much effort into saving everyone, even looking distraught at those you couldn't save."
She then removed her left hand from mine and came closer to put it on the side of my face.
I looked her in her blue eyes and noticed kindness coming from them.
"How about it? I stop looking at you negatively, and you start seeing past your wrongdoings."
I was utterly speechless. When I first met her, she was nothing but a rude girl who looked down on me the moment she laid eyes on me.
And now, the same girl is attempting to comfort me from my depressive episode.
Being listened to and given words of kindness like this were enough to form a warm feeling inside me.
I started holding her hand tightly in my own, my entire body practically relaxing all over.
"Sara, I-"
That moment, however, was short existing.
A sense of danger overwhelmed me, higher than that of all three dragons before.
I stiffly jumped up, sweat already pouring down from me.
"Rudeus?"
"No. No, no, no, no, how could I forget?"
I ran out of my room as I continued sensing this threat.
"Wait, where are you going?"
I had to ignore her yelling at me, and that was understandable since I just up and walked away from her.
On the way, I bumped into Soldat too, but I paid him no mind as well.
Once I was outside, on a more open field, I looked at the direction the monster was coming from.
The thing didn't move from the area in the sky since I sensed it. But it wasn't just staying there for no reason.
Holding up my hand, I conjured a giant block of ice and then shot it.
After about three meters of its launching point, it collided with a massive ball of fire.
The two attacks caused an explosion up in the air, blocks of heated ice falling all over the place. It took a few seconds before the explosion subsided again.
"Rudeus, what the heck is going on?"
Soldat came outside as well, demanding me to explain.
"We forgot about the fire attributed monster. The thing followed us here!" I yelled.
"What?!"
There was no time to further explain this now. The thing is coming here at tremendous speed.
Above Rosenburg, something like a rocket was flying circles above the city. After three circling flights, it smashed into the ground right in front of me.
Smoke hid the monster's appearance for a while before it cleared.
Before me was what, I think, is called a Red Dragon, but with more features like the Blizzard Dragon.
It had the basic build of a dragon in fantasy mythology, two legs with two wings, a tail, and a long neck.
I only ever heard of them since they are considered the strongest monsters on the Central continent, but the one before me has added features unfitting to it.
Feathers decorated most of its body, together with its scales. These feathers were mostly red but transitioned into orange, then yellow and finally a light green. They almost seem like gems at this point.
With its golden slit eyes, it redirected them directly at me. Then it widely opened its mouth, hot air fuming within it. I readied a [Water Canon] in return to the incoming breath attack.
As our attacks collided with each other, the air went into a foggy state, blinding anyone in a large radius.
I thought I could use this opportunity to give it a [Stone Canon] in the face, but the dragon was more nimble than I thought, despite its size.
"EVERYONE, RUN! RED DRAGON ATTACK!"
Quick to their action, people who have sighted the monster up close, screamed out in horror.
Meanwhile, I was busy dodging this monster's tail and wings swipe attacks.
I can only sense its presence, not the precise movements, so all I can do is rely on sight and danger sensing.
The fog cleared and we both found ourselves face to face with a roughly 20 meters distance between us. For some reason, we ended up at the large and open plaza.
What bugged me the most wasn't the people still scattered at the edges, it was the emotion sensing from the dragon.
Thrill. It was getting excited to fight against me. This thing has the same battle-attitude as Randolph.
Could it be that it followed us solely because of me?
There was no more time, though, as it began again to use a breath attack. This is bad. People are still around us.
Putting my hands on the ground, I conjured not just [Stone Wall] but [Ice Wall] as well to protect everyone, including me.
The intense heat that thing emitted was absurd. This may be at the level of a Saint class spell here.
Once the attack stopped, another one was launched, solely for me.
When I dodged out of the way, a blade of fire went through the wall. All this fire caused some serious damage to these buildings.
It attacked me again with a giant ball of fire, which I gladly returned with a [Water Canon].
That turned out to be a feint, as it launched itself towards me in a garment of fire like a phoenix.
It was so fast, I had no other option but to use Touki and Barrier Magic. The crazy part of it was that the flames almost consumed them both, as if the mana they were being made from was beings burned away.
The trajectory of the dragon's flight went uphill quick, pushing me up to the sky.
I managed to get out of its intense fire by shifting my body slightly to the side and escape getting up too high. The landing was done smoothly through Gravity Magic.
But the dragon, still in the phoenix like attack, came back down.
The place I was at had already been cleared, so I conjured a massive [Quagmire] for the thing to fly into.
Splashes of mud went flying all around the place and the dragon got dried mud sticking all over its body.
That didn't bother it, and it went back to swiping at me in a blink of an eye.
That's when I noticed other Magicians use spells to attack the dragon. None worked, as their magic wasn't even worth being bothered by.
They just made it clear the dried mud from its surface, which it only then needed to shake off a bit.
The feathers started to flare up again, and all the Magicians took that as a sign to run for their lives.
I was about to run as well but was stopped by a single problem. There was a kid, hiding behind a broken wall. If he doesn't run now, the amount of damage will be deadly.
Instead of running away from the attack, I ran towards the kid and took him into my arms and rushed to get away soon enough.
A blast of fire exploded, and I protected the kid from the fire by sending him away with [Specter Force] and attempting to protect myself from the heat.
Burning sensations ran all over my back and I got the urge to scream.
The heat subsided, but the pain was still lingering. As I was kneeling, I healed myself with my magic and stood back up.
The Red Dragon was again looking at, curiosity evident. It was seeing for itself how much I can show for it at this point.
The tips of its feathers started glowing, mana being concentrated from them.
I raised my hand and charged a [Stone Canon], stronger than the one I used against Orsted.
A great black drill shaped stone spun at immaculate speed.
This time, it took me less time to conjure this, as I had enough time to create it.
Ready with our preparations, we both were about to launch our attacks at each other.
*Ba-dump*
An excruciating pain ran through my body like a wave, starting from my heart, leaving no fiber unharmed.
It has been a while since I've last felt this, but this is what happens when I transform back into a human.
My own spell crumbles, while the Red Dragon's hits me with full force.
I was sent flying away, crashing through what I could only tell were walls from buildings behind me.
About six walls got broken before the seventh one lessened my flight.
On the fact that I was sliding a bit, I concluded that I was laying on a roof with my back touching it.
The right side of my body was deprived of pain and my right eye was permanently closed.
Breathing became almost impossible, something that actually kills you when getting engulfed in fire. Airways get smolder together before the wounds all over your body could kill you.
Looking up at what might be the sky, smoke clouds rising all over it.
Due to the lack of air, I didn't have much power or time to think of what to do next and ended up getting my mind swallowed away.
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