3
Holy Dragon Volcanica, left alone for so many long years, had died in spirit.
More practically speaking, after being isolated for so long, it had forgotten its role.
“But it’s a problem if you’re like Puck! Hey, Volcanica!” Emilia shouted and hit the dragon’s front leg.
“—Thou who hath reached the tower’s peak, petitioner of omnipotence who treads upon the first floor.”
“Argh! It’s no good!”
But all she got in return was the feeling of tough scales and the wall of dementia that seemed even tougher to break than those scales.
The second floor’s examination had been troublesome, but this made Reid’s test almost seem cute. Though the idea of that violent man seeming cute felt like a terrible joke…
“Ugh…what do I do, what do I do…? It’s not like it’s the same as Reid, where I have to beat up Volcanica, either…”
They were both challenging, but the examinations for the second and third floors were completely different.
The challenge put to them on Taygeta was one they had to use their heads to solve. Fortunately, they had solved it, thanks to Subaru’s knowledge from beyond the Great Waterfalls, but it would have been terrible without it.
And Electra’s challenge was, of course, the obstacle of Reid Astrea. With a lot of hard work, Emilia had somehow managed to smack him upside the head and win, but it had also only worked because it was her first attempt.
Either way, both the challenges had been difficult, and they had just barely scraped by.
So even facing it normally should have been difficult enough, and yet…
“Not even telling me the challenge…”
“—I am Volcanica. By ancient oath, I ask thy will.”
“Argh! I get it already! Tell me the next line already, please!”
There was a faint hope that if she waited even a bit, she might hear the next part, but she didn’t have the time to waste testing it.
She resisted the urge to stamp her foot in frustration as she looked around her.
The third floor’s examination had been given by a black stone slab that Subaru and Julius had had fun calling a monolith. Maybe there was something like that hidden around the first floor.
With Volcanica not being any help, the best bet was to search for the challenge herself.
“I have to do all I can right now…!”
While always keeping an eye on Volcanica’s movements, Emilia peeled her eyes, examining the layout of the first floor.
This was the top floor of the Pleaides Watchtower, so high up that it couldn’t be seen from below. There were six pillars spaced around the circular area, and a single giant pillar in the center, where Volcanica was crouching. The circular area had a radius of around 328 feet.
The most suspicious place would be…
“…That big pillar in the middle that Volcanica is clinging to.”
At a glance, that big pillar was the thing that stood out the most in the area. Unlike the other six pillars, it was the only one that seemed to extend farther up beyond the first floor. As if there was something like another floor up there—a level zero.
“—Thou who hath reached the tower’s peak, petitioner of omnipotence who treads upon the first floor.”
Volcanica’s response was unchanged.
For Emilia, more than feeling despair or disappointment, she felt relieved. If Volcanica’s response was unchanged, then it was disinterested, like when she had touched its front leg.
Emilia put her faith in that initial finding and moved around behind Volcanica to examine the thick pillar…
“…Eh?”
The moment she touched it, she heard the sound of wind.
Before she could check what it was, she instinctively created an ice barrier over her head. The next instant, the impact hit her through the ice wall, knocking her slender body back.
“Kagh.”
The impact struck her from chest to back, and she crumpled to the floor with a cough. Putting her hands on the floor to stop herself, she managed to get control of her body again.
Wondering just what had happened, Emilia slowly looked up and noticed.
The tail of the Holy Dragon clinging to the pillar gradually sank back to the ground.
“…I got swatted by its tail?”
Put that way, it was actually a very simple attack.
She had seen a different dragon use her tail to express her emotions more than once while watching Subaru interact with Patrasche. Whenever Subaru was playing around a little too much, Ram or Patrasche would both try to smack him like it was a race.
But the blow from Volcanica’s tail was incomparable to the love taps that Patrasche gave Subaru. It was only because of her instant defense that she had gotten off this easily. If she was a little slower, her neck might have been snapped, or her head knocked clean off.
With that realization, she felt a cold sweat trickle down the back of her neck. But at the same time, it highlighted a possibility.
“There must be something with that pillar.”
“ ”
“You’re here for an examination. Even if you’ve forgotten that, you still haven’t lost it. That’s why you keep repeating the same thing.”
Volcanica seemed like it had forgotten what it was supposed to do. But even so, the Holy Dragon still sitting here was proof of just how unyielding its resolve was to keep the promise it made before its mental death.
The Sage, the Sword Saint, and the Holy Dragon testing their knowledge, strength, and will.
In which case…
“Half-hearted commitment isn’t enough. I’m going to be serious, too.”
Accepting that Volcanica would block her way, Emilia let it know that she was going to use force.
The air around her cracked, and the world slowly began to freeze over. Warriors of ice began to form, like attendants to a queen—the newest possibility that Emilia had developed through her Icebrand Arts.
She had not been able to test it inside the narrow confines of the tower, but in a space like this, with an opponent like this, there was no need to hold back.
She had not told Subaru about this one, so he had not given it a name.
Meaning Emilia was the one to do it.
“Mr. Soldiers and Icebrand Arts…!”
She created seven warriors of ice, humanoid in form but each with their own weapons. Brave companions who would accompany Emilia in her dangerous battle…
“I’m coming, sleepyhead! If you can wake up, then hurry up and do it!”
Emilia raised her own ice weapon and closed in on Volcanica together with her soldiers of ice.
With an unreadable gaze, Volcanica opened its mouth:
“—I am Volcanica. By ancient oath, I ask thy will.”
Its consciousness was still buried in the great beyond.
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