Chapter 51 - Beg and Beg Again (9)

Windhand exhaled, feeling a terrible hardness instead of the coldness he had expected.

‘Damn it, what just happened? The wheel, I was holding the wheel, and then something suddenly hit my body. Because of that cold, hard thing soaking my body, I definitely...’

"Oh God."

Windhand snapped to his senses at the brilliance driving away the storm and the warmth wrapping around him. The pain that made it feel as though every bone in his body had been broken gradually faded, clearing his head.

"May the land I tread upon become your land."

Opening his eyes in a hurry, he could see a pillar of light striking down upon the Inquisitor who traveled with the Demon Knight.

The radiance spilling from that pillar flooded in all directions, forcibly keeping the ship afloat and burning away all the wicked things of the sea.

"Please be with me."

Even the Inquisitor's tears of blood.

"... Is he really human?"

"... The dragon."

'Ah, this is no time for this.'

With his newly cleared mind, he succeeded in recalling the last thing he had seen.

["Go back to the ship."]

The breath that was too cold for a living person, the hand that violently grabbed his collar, and their positions reversing with that single whispered phrase.

Throwing him toward the ship before being swallowed by the sea instead...

Those gray eyes that hadn't wavered once until the very end.

It looked so much like his father, who had sacrificed his life to save him, that it only made his heart ache with sorrow.

"The Demon Knight! What about the Demon Knight?!"

He shook off the arm of his first mate, who had inexplicably trailed off, and pushed his upper body up. The next moment, he was at a loss for words.

"... Hey, look."

It wasn't that the first mate didn't care or had no intention of helping him. It was just that there was something far more compelling happening right in front of them.

"If he was going to do this, he should have stepped up before the ship was torn apart!"

Would anyone ever witness a living human standing alone against a dragon? Would anyone even believe that a warrior fighting on equal footing against a corrupted dragon amidst a tsunami, a storm, and lightning actually existed?

"Damn it, the sun is going to set soon! Keep your promise, you damn Demon Knight!"

Despite the desperate situation, Windhand inexplicably found himself feeling cheerful.

He couldn't help it.

"... Piuon, if I make it back to land alive, you're going to have to hear about today dozens of times over."

This was a sight that no one in the world, not even the gods in the heavens, had ever laid eyes on.

* * *

'I should've driven my sword into its brow earlier.'

I dwelled on the opportunity I had missed by a hair's breadth earlier while quickly moving my feet. Stomping on the scales with my combat boots, I sprinted along the dragon's massive body.

It was extremely slippery thanks to the seawater and rain, so I had to pay careful attention to every single step.

ROAR!

Just then, the black dragon aimed for me, snapping its head up over its own body. I frantically kicked off the scales and dodged its charge.

The dragon, twisted up like a proportionality symbol (∝), rapidly plunged its head into the sea. It was a learned behavior after doing something similar a minute ago and nearly getting its brow pierced by me.

"Tch!"

'To think missing a single opportunity would hurt this much.'

Instead of stepping onto the head that had just swept past me, I landed back on the section of the body I was originally standing on.

Since its head had already burrowed beneath the surface, jumping over there would just mean a one-way ticket into the ocean, so it was my only choice.

Since being submerged would guarantee my defeat, I had to somehow use the bastard's body as my ground to stay above water.

I sprinted up the dragon's body all the way to its severed tail. And when I finally reached the edge, I channeled my mana to leap as high as I possibly could.

Streams of blood splattered against my body.

SWOOSH!

Before I could even begin to fall back down, the ocean parted as the black dragon's gaping maw shot up toward me.

However, I was the one who controlled where I fell.

I narrowly slipped past the inside of its mouth and slid down, hooking my blade onto the corner of its jaws.

The longsword, coated in black energy, tore through its flesh and forcibly expanded its smile. If it were a human, it would be the equivalent of slicing the corner of their mouth all the way to the bottom of their ear.

SHRRRKK!

However, due to the friction and the sheer toughness of its scales and flesh, I couldn't slice all the way down its body.

I tore the corner of its mouth exactly the length of its snout and stopped. It felt like I was the protagonist of an action movie.

You know, the kind who slips while rock climbing, slams an ice axe or pickaxe into the cliff face, and comes to a precarious, dangling stop.

ROAR!!

The only difference between them and me was this.

Their cliff faces weren't alive, so they could just slowly climb back up, but my cliff face was a dragon actively thrashing to shake me off.

My sword was inevitably wrenched free, and my body began to plummet.

"Sir Knight!"

But I was not alone. From the ship that hadn't sunk yet—wait, what is that light?—a wooden plank came spinning through the air.

SPLASH!

As a bonus, the plank landed right near where I was falling. I had a foothold.

CRASH!

Immediately upon impact, the plank plunged downward under my weight, violently displacing the seawater before splitting cleanly in half.

But right before it lost its function as a foothold, I launched myself back into the air. My next stepping stone was the dragon's body, exposed now that its head was out of the water.

It was positioned almost completely vertically, making it difficult to stand on, but fortunately, I had my sword. I channeled mana into my longsword.

CREAK. A bizarre metallic sound shrieked from the longsword.

CRACK!

Still, the mana-infused longsword easily pierced through the scales and embedded itself firmly. It gave me something to hold onto and brace myself with.

ROAR!

However, the dragon flexibly twisted its head around again to try and swallow me whole. Jumping was difficult in this position, but I wasn't particularly worried.

The black dragon's body wasn't the only thing squirming beneath the surface.

SCREECH!

With a piercing roar, the Sea Dragon that had temporarily vanished reemerged.

The black dragon's nape was caught in its jaws, violently jerking the head that had been aiming for me away. The near-vertical body instantly slanted into a slope.

I grabbed the bumpy scales and scrambled up the body like I was rock climbing. It was incredibly slippery, but the sheer thought of having to do this all over again gave me strength I didn't even know I had.

SHRRRKK.

I crawled forward, then walked, and finally just broke into a sprint. My sword, naturally wrenched free in the process, came with me.

My mana-infused legs bounded up the black dragon's body. However, there were sections that were far too steep to leap across, so I gained altitude by transferring over to the Sea Dragon instead.

A brief glance down at the ocean made it look so distant that I felt like I was standing on the edge of a bungee jumping platform.

But I didn't have a fear of heights. Something like this didn't scare me at all.

Leaping over the Sea Dragon's head, I came face-to-face with the black dragon that had just broken free from its grip.

Due to a slight timing issue, I failed to land on the black dragon and ended up floating in midair, but there was no use crying over spilled milk. First things first, time to deal some damage.

SCREEECH!

Accompanied by a terrible metallic shriek, I unleashed the mana I had loaded into my sword.

A half-moon-shaped slash sliced diagonally across the black dragon's nape. It looked a lot like the scores you make in a fish before cooking it.

ROAR!

The black dragon writhed in pain and immediately tried to drop its body back into the ocean.

I had no idea if it was dead yet, but my own survival took priority right now.

After all, what was going to happen to my midair body in a few seconds? I was going to plummet straight into the seawater.

That absolutely could not happen.

I hurriedly braced my body, desperately trying to land back on the black dragon. I figured that using it as a shield would at least cushion the impact of my fall.

Fortunately, perhaps because the black dragon's massive body created more wind resistance, it was falling slower than I was.

Thanks to that, I barely managed to land on the black dragon's belly and ride it on the way down.

CRASH!

Just as I expected, the black dragon's massive body absorbed almost the entire impact of hitting the water.

TWITCH.

Unfortunately, the bastard was still alive. It immediately flipped over and tried to sink beneath the surface.

I hurriedly sprang up and stomped on a Dragon Tooth Warrior that had luckily poked its head above the sea—though honestly, it was probably aiming for me. As my impromptu stepping stone sank beneath the water, I launched myself and latched onto the Sea Dragon's body.

Perhaps because I was just clinging to its scales instead of stabbing my sword into it, the Sea Dragon didn't attack me. That being said, it wasn't kind enough to drop me off on the ship or let me ride on its head, either.

As if intending to dive right back down, the Sea Dragon plunged its head into the sea and began to move. The section I was clinging to slowly rose upward, like a roller coaster that had just left the station.

"Haa, hah."

It was around then that I realized how heavily I was panting.

I guess I was a little—no, a lot exhausted.

It wasn't unreasonable. My HP, which had plummeted due to the divine power, had only just recovered to half, and my mana was practically empty after fighting the dragon.

Even without a fear of heights, fighting a precarious midair battle with the constant threat of falling into the ocean would make anyone nervous.

On top of that, it wasn't like I was in peak condition to begin with.

The seasickness from hours of sailing hadn't completely vanished; I had merely been suppressing it through sheer willpower. Now that I finally had a second to catch my breath, it was no wonder everything was catching up to me at once.

SQUEEZE.

Still, I absolutely didn't want to do this again.

Just the thought of having to repeat this ordeal made my strength surge on its own. It was a lot like the time in the Tatara sewers.

'I have zero confidence in doing a retry. More importantly, I just don't want to.'

'Whether it was clearing a sewer dungeon and fighting a boss with my fatigue maxed at 100, or enduring seasickness for hours on a ship all over again. Both were the absolute worst!'

I forcibly sharpened my focus and calculated my options for transferring. I had to come up with a plan quickly, before the body I was standing on fully submerged.

"...?"

But right then, I spotted a pitch-black shadow beneath the water. That wasn't too surprising on its own. Now that the dragons had submerged, it was only natural for something to be sloshing around down there.

But the location was all wrong. That shouldn't be appearing over there.

It shouldn't be targeting the ship instead of me.

"You damn dragon!"

'Hey! Just because I'm jumping around and dodging, you're going after the main base since it can't move?! Are you seriously backdooring right now?! What a shitty way to play the game!!'

I frantically scanned the area for anything I could use as a stepping stone.

Of course, there was nothing. The fragments of the mast were far too sparse to fill this vast ocean, and the violent swells had swallowed them up long ago.

The dragons? They didn't give a damn about my convenience. The only reason I had been able to leap across their bodies up until now was purely thanks to a massive stroke of luck.

I was completely powerless if the dragons refused to surface. Case in point: I was currently one step away from plunging right into the ocean.

'Then... then what do I do? How do I stop that thing rushing up toward the bottom of the ship? How am I supposed to land a hit on that damn dragon...'

「Life Force Conversion | Consume HP to recover mana.

Effect: Recovers mana proportional to the amount of HP consumed.」

Suddenly, a window popped up, obscuring part of my vision. Written inside was a brand-new skill—one I had never seen in my skill window, nor ever specifically imagined or asked for.

"... Unbelievable."

'Out of nowhere? Right here? A new skill? For free?'

'Ha. If you're going to do this, then just lower the difficulty or balance the game properly.'

'Are you seriously just tossing this at me and saying, "Hey, use this," only after everything goes to shit?'

"What kind of..."

'Or does this mean you've just given up on hiding it?'

"This isn't even a beta test!"

But complaints were one thing, and reality was another.

They wouldn't even fix the logout bug, so a balance patch was out of the question anyway. Knowing nothing else was going to change, I just had to make the most of what I was given.

I hurriedly reread the description and racked my brain.

'Consume HP to recover mana. Right, mana recovery.'

"... So I just need to dump all my mana into it, right?"

The only ranged skill I had access to was my slash, and based on my tests, its range was directly proportional to the amount of mana consumed.

'I haven't tested if it can actually fly this far, but... I don't have a choice. I just have to bet on it. Especially since I'm almost out of Sea Dragon to stand on; there's nowhere left to retreat.'

Trusting that the system wouldn't have handed me this skill for no reason, I raised my sword. Because a two-hander was better suited for launching massive, wide slashes than a longsword, I naturally swapped out my weapon.

And right as the platform I was standing on reached its absolute limit, I leapt forward as far as I could and swung the two-hander horizontally.

An aura more intense than ever before cleaved through the ocean, finally reaching the black dragon just as it was about to capsize the ship.

'I cut it.'

With that sharp certainty lingering at my fingertips, my vision was swallowed by the pitch-black sea.