Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou (LN) - Volume 12 - Chapter SS3

The White Dragon’s Hope

*This short story contains spoilers, so it is recommended that you read it after finishing the volume.

The first time I laid eyes on him, all I felt was fear. He had bloodred hair, dark skin, and dull yellow eyes. However, despite his youth, the demon man was lacking in vigor and seemed weary of life. And yet, my instincts screamed at me that he was too strong to beat.

“Are you alone?” he’d asked. Of course, at the time, I had no way of understanding speech, so I’d simply growled at him to try to make him back off. It was all bluster, though. I wouldn’t have been able to beat him even at my full strength, but at the time, I was sorely injured.

I’d been born as a wyvern in the frozen, mountainous forests of the south. Among monsters, I was one of the stronger ones. My parents, my siblings, and the rest of my flock were all brown with bark-colored scales, but mine alone were white. Perhaps because of that, I had abilities my fellows didn’t, and my body was much sturdier than theirs. The world was a vast place, however, and I’d learned that for the first time that day.

I was only a few months old at the time, and our flock had encountered a group of monsters so strong that we’d all been forced to flee. My parents had stayed back to buy us time, but they hadn’t lasted long, so I’d stayed back instead to try to hold them off for my siblings.

In the end, I hadn’t been able to do anything either, which wasn’t too surprising, since my tiny body was only as large as a human’s. Because of the natural poison that coursed through my veins, the monsters that had attacked us hadn’t eaten me, but because they hadn’t stopped to do so, they had been able to catch up to my siblings and were likely killing them right now.

I realized I wasn’t strong enough to protect my turf or my flock. However, that was no reason to give up. Even though I knew I stood no chance against this man, I wouldn’t go down without a fight. The man held his hand out toward me. Expecting a magic attack, I charged at him with what little strength I had left.

“Do you plan to fight, even with those injuries?” he asked as he pinned me down with chains of light before my claws could even approach him.

“I haven’t seen scales like yours before. They’re quite interesting.” The man muttered something and once again held his hand out toward me. But then, he lowered it and slumped his shoulders in defeat. “What’s even the point? What good will it do to make you my familiar now, when it’s too late?”

The man looked defeated, as though he’d given up on everything and despised himself. In fact, it even looked like he was crying. It made me feel like a fool for preparing myself for a life-and-death struggle. Seeing that I’d also lost the will to fight, the man looked tiredly up at me. After a moment’s hesitation, he turned his back and dispelled the chains holding me down. He reminded me of the old wyverns in my flock.

A moment later, I heard a scream coming from deeper inside the forest. It was one of my brothers!

“Uwooooooooooooh!”

Ignoring the fresh blood spilling from my wounds, I rose to my feet and howled. I had to let him know I was still alive, and that I was coming to rescue him. I rushed forward, even though I could feel my body growing colder with each step I took. Through sheer force of will, I made it to where I’d heard my brother scream. I found a few other members of my flock frozen either in fear or because their wounds were so severe they couldn’t move. My brother was dead, and I could tell by how mangled his corpse was that he’d fought until the bitter end.

“Graaaaaaaaah!”

Not caring if it cost me my life, I unleashed the strongest breath attack I could at the monsters that had eviscerated my flock—a swarm of giant eight-eyed spiders. My breath slammed into the spiders’ leader, gouging out a chunk of its abdomen. However, that was all it did, and it was far from a fatal injury. All the strength left my limbs, and I collapsed to the ground. I couldn’t move even the tip of my tail anymore. The spider let out a bloodcurdling scream and turned to look at me. The other spiders surrounded the rest of my flock to ensure they couldn’t escape, while the spider boss slowly skittered over to me.

I let out a roar to signal that I was the angrier one. Even if there was no hope for my comrades to survive, so long as they were still alive, I had to keep fighting for as long as I could. After all, I was the future leader of the flock!

“What a surprise. So that’s what drives you to fight, eh?”

I turned around in surprise and saw the man from earlier standing next to me.

“You know you can’t win. Why didn’t you run?” the man asked in confusion. The spiders seemed to be able to tell he was much stronger than they were as well, so they kept a wary distance from him. “That’s what a true monster is like. You may possess special magic, but you still don’t stand a chance against those things.”

The man placed his hand on my forehead. I couldn’t move, so I had no way of avoiding it, but even if I could have, I probably wouldn’t have shied away from his hand. I didn’t feel any malice coming from him. Instead, I felt a strange power surge through me as a series of images flowed from the man’s mind into mine.

I saw him lamenting the endless war with the humans and the fact that their rapidly growing population meant that the demons were doomed to eventually lose. I saw that he was born into a military family and had watched his parents and siblings fight and die on the front lines. I saw that the demon empire’s grand general had taken him in after he was orphaned and loved him as though he were his own son. I saw the man grow up, join the army, and hone his skills in order to repay his foster father for everything he’d done for him and to uphold his family’s motto, “Protect the lives of our citizens.”

I saw his foster father fall ill and the grief it caused him. I saw the Demon Lord tell him about the seven labyrinths that could grant miraculous powers to those who conquered them and that the Frost Caverns were one of those seven. The man seemed to believe that he could save his foster father with that miraculous power. I saw the man brave the labyrinth, nearly dying dozens of times and facing off against the ugliest parts of himself. He nearly lost his sanity multiple times, but his burning desire to save his foster father continued driving him onward.

Unfortunately, in the end, clearing the labyrinth only granted him the power to create familiars and the knowledge that God was evil. I saw that the man hadn’t even managed to make it back home in time to be there when his foster father died, and was simply handed a will upon his return. Beaten down by the harshness of reality, I saw the man come here to the south to get some time alone for himself.

I heard another bloodcurdling scream from the spider, which snapped me back to my senses. I’d just been shown visions of the man’s memories. The spider seemed to have run out of patience, so it fired a strand of web at me and the man. The web covered us entirely, but the man neither moved nor seemed to care. He was crying as if he’d finally accepted that the man he’d cared about was truly gone.

“I see...so you’re the same as me...but you haven’t given up.”

I still couldn’t understand the man’s words, but it suddenly felt like I got the gist of what he was saying. It seemed he’d glimpsed through my memories as well.

“You’re going to keep fighting as long as you have people to protect, aren’t you? Even if it costs you your life.”

I growled softly in assent. The spider’s thread wrapped around us, restricting our movements. It then started closing in on us, clacking its fangs menacingly. The man and I ignored it, looking only at each other.

“I’m going to make you my very first familiar...no, my ultimate partner!”

The light returned to the man’s eyes, and I could feel energy welling up within me. He gave me a questioning look, as if wondering whether or not I was okay with that, and I growled my assent immediately. A fearless smile appeared on the man’s face, and I had no doubt I was making a similar expression.

Suddenly, a pillar of light enveloped me, and I was reborn. Naturally, the spiders stood no chance against the two of us.

“I want to become the guardian of my people, to make a country where they can live in peace.”

The man transformed the surviving members of my flock into familiars as well, then held a burial ceremony for my dead brother.

“Thank you for reminding me of the promise I made to my family, and to my foster father. My name is Freid Bagwa...and I name you Uranos. It means ‘protector of the skies’ in the old tongue. Let’s do our best to protect the people we care about, together.”

“Uranos, it looks like the Irregular made it into the Sanctuary. The time to get our revenge has finally come.”

Freid’s words snapped me out of my reminiscing. Ever since he’d returned to the Demon Lord’s castle, he’d been slowly growing crazier and crazier. I’d noticed the transformation too late, so now he’d been completely dominated by his new master. He couldn’t even hear my thoughts properly anymore.

I’m sorry, partner. I couldn’t protect your soul or your ideals. Still, even if you’ve forgotten about everything you once held dear, I’ll protect your life until the very end. If... If somehow, these people actually manage to kill God and we’re still alive, then maybe... Or if reincarnation truly does exist, I hope we can fly together under a sky free of this tyrannical God. When that day comes, I promise I’ll take you anywhere you want with these wings.