The dragon growled at the two who were not its summoner. Its belly swelled and it raised its chin.
"A breath attack!"
Rika and Yuma scattered.
Fafnir turned its neck. The flames chased Yuma as he skipped across the floor. He burst toward the dragon and summoned two large dirk-like daggers.
He struck Fafnir. The blades shattered on contact.
(It's big since it's a dragon. Of course, its scales are going to be tough. Half-baked weapons won't work.)
Fafnir swung his arm at Yuma. The blades of the daggers repaired themselves only to be broken once more.
"Rika!"
"Sniper Variant. Lightning Ammo, loaded. Caliber, set. About 55 percent."
Rika was crouched on the ground behind Fafnir with a heavy sniper on her leg. Fafnir snapped its tail at her.
"Boom."
She pulled the trigger. A large chunk of its tail fell off. The bullet knocked some scales off of the dragon.
The dragon swiped at Rika. She transformed her sniper into a pistol and rolled away, running around like Yuma.
"Hm. Fafnir. Don't entertain these two. Destroy the city."
Daren ordered the dragon. It stopped and laid its wings bare. With a single flap, Fafnir launched itself into the air.
"Shit! Rika! Shoot at the dragon! I'll call for backup!"
"Right! Hurry it up though!"
Fafnir flew around the Trust Tower as Rika repositioned herself to get a clear shot.
·———·
"What was that?"
The three of them felt rumbling from the bottom floor as the giant magic circle shone.
"Do you have the luxury to look away? Ice Lair."
With a click of their fingers, urchins of ice formed in the car park. Verglas stood still while the other three leapt back.
The urchins of black ice pierced outwards. Isla destroyed the spikes with aether. Some pierced her foot and grazed her forehead. Aria curled up into a ball, using her scales to protect herself. Shou tanked every spike, causing him to be covered in cuts.
"Don't mock us, Fiend!"
Aria shouted in a fit of rage.
"You could've killed us with that if you intended to, and yet, you lowered the mana put into that spell. Why? What's your purpose?"
Aria's pride was wounded. She was the type to believe that evil was what it was. Evil, nothing more or less. No evil was less evil than another, only more. Being given 'mercy' by said evil was bound to hurt her.
"My purpose? You probably believe that I'm messing around. So, I'll show you my resolve."
Verglas said.
Verglas then proceeded to remove their mask.
The three of them watched silently. Verglas was a man. His eyelashes were long and his hair was mid-length coloured in a gentle shade of blue. He was handsome, although, his gentle face—specifically the bottom half—was covered in scars.
"That's how..."
"Verglas looks like?"
"Showing us your face is your resolve? You're a Fiend, so what does it matter?"
"You know about the World Origin, right?"
Shou furrowed his brow.
"The World Origin marks those who are deemed Fiends with Stigmata. However, that's only if it knows someone's face and name. Me, I've never been included in the system, meaning that I'm technically not a Fiend."
There was a single thought that ran through Isla's mind.
"That's contradictory."
Aria voiced her thoughts.
"If so, then why don't you simply live without a mask? You would have a normal life and freedom, if so. So, why?"
"Exactly."
"Huh?"
"I would live an ordinary life. But why would I? That would simply be the coward's way out."
All three of them knew at that moment that Verglas was a lunatic. He declared it with a smile.
"I hate idealists. They talk about bringing about a perfect world for everyone despite ruining it for others. Why do they get to decide what is good and evil? Why is their sense of justice the correct one?"
A flash of light.
Aria punched Verglas with a blaze in her hand. He had blocked it swiftly with a black wall of ice. He leaned in and punched Aria's waist.
"Can't you wait until I finish talking?"
"No!"
The punch had not affected her. She had accumulated scales around her waist.
The girl breathed in and laid out her chest.
"Oh shit."
She exhaled flames, completely engulfing Verglas. He leapt out of the flames with a wall of ice. Verglas had been burnt on his forearm.
"You're not going anywhere."
Shou appeared in his blind spot. His magic circuits glistened as he attacked Verglas. He hit Verglas solid, in the back, with two mana-enhanced punches.
(What the hell? They feel like blows from a giant.)
The basics of mana was Shou's weapon. Being blessed with a superhuman physical constitution, even among Streia.
"This won't do."
Verglas redirected Shou's punch and kneed him in the face. Blood poured out his nose. He felt shaken.
"No matter how strong your body is, your mind cannot be trained. Even a god's mind is as feeble as ours."
Aria picked up Shou and flew upwards, leaving a path for Isla's next attack.
"Too slo—"
"Python!"
The large orb of aether split into a multitude of lasers.
"Oh!"
It was too late for him to dodge. Python bombarded Verglas. It hurt him more than Shou's punches. All of the lasers had converged on a single spot.
"Heroes sure are tough. I'll leave you three incapacitated and head up to the rooftop."
A menacing cloud of mana accumulated in the basement. It gathered around Verglas' hand.
"That's bad. Run for it! We can't intercept this!"
Shou warned them.
It was too late.
"Lacunae Stiriaqu—"
BOOM!
A wall of flames descended, piercing through the building. The flames shocked Verglas and stopped his attack.
"Huh? This purity... God, Daren is so fucked. Neither he nor I can deal with something like this."
Isla looked up in awe before holding her mouth. Her insides stirred. She vomited from the feeling of the mana.
"Oi, Isla! What happened, you idiot!"
Aria flew over to her and carried Isla on her shoulder.
"Do you not feel that...?"
"Yeah, but still! Why are you vomiting over it?!"
Verglas smiled.
"You need to take care of that one. She seems to be the most mana sensitive out of you three. I've also slightly taken a liking to her."
"Mana sensitive?! What's up on the roof?!"
Verglas faded into the darkness of the basement, leaving the three of them. He did not answer her question.
·———·
"Good, the patriarch should condone this."
A section of the Aoba ward was engulfed in flames. The casualties would be unimaginable. Yuma and Rika did their best to hold Fafnir back but their attacks were not enough to deal a damaging blow.
Rika would often snipe Fafnir with her sniper, which would knock scales off of it, and Yuma would slice it there.
Of course, Fafnir would not fall. The Magi of the JMF attempted to help stop it but got in the way.
"This experiment has proven to be useful. He'll be content with me and I'll move up the rankings. Oh, hm?"
A row of flames descended, burrowing through the Trust Tower down to the base.
"Crap. I was expecting this but this is too early."
The being that Daren wanted to avoid the most appeared on the same rooftop as him. Although they oversee the world, they would also interfere when irregular events happened.
Deities—the ones who held the power in this world.
It was a woman clad in armour who greeted Daren on the rooftop.
"Greetings, child of the Khine Family."
Daren backed away in an offensive stance, ready for the woman to pounce.
"Although you are the nexus of this problem, I shan't deal with you yet."
She decided to use older language since she admired the speech of knights from the Medieval Period.
The dragon stayed mobile in the air, turning its head over to the Sendai Trust Tower. When it saw the faint silhouette on the building, it roared at the top of its lungs in abhor.
"Oh, you recognise me, Fáfnir? Well, it was the one I loved who vanquished you."
The woman was Brynhildr.