"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.