The Hero King, Reincarnate to Master the Art of War (LN) - Volume 12 - Chapter 4

Chapter IV: Inglis, Age 16—Corpse Dragon Aulglora

It had been two days since Inglis’s group had split from Rafael’s main force, and now they were surveying the surroundings from the deck of the Flygear Port.

Rafinha pointed to a hill. “That damaged stretch must be where the Prismer came through, huh? It’s absolutely wrecked. It looks like the thing gouged half the hill away.”

It was indeed a misshapen lump, its soil carved away from the middle out. The road itself had been repaired, but anything unused had been left as is.

Inglis nodded in agreement. “Yeah, you’re right. This is even worse than I expected.”

“We don’t know when the Prism Flow will make another Prismer that can do things like this, so this is no time for people to be fighting each other. Mr. Rochefort comes first, but we need to stop the war!”

“That’s right,” Inglis agreed. “Let’s do our best, Rani.” The two nodded to each other.

But undercutting the serious moment...

Grrrrrrrgl!

Their stomachs rumbled loudly.

Leone sighed, bemused. “That doesn’t match your expressions or your words at all.”

“I-It’s not like I can help it! In fact, I was trying to distract myself from how hungry I am by being serious!” Rafinha protested.

“They couldn’t give us that much food for a group going off on their own,” Inglis said.

“You still got double the amount we normally would have,” Leone pointed out.

“And it still isn’t enough!” Inglis and Rafinha insisted in unison.

Myce laughed wryly. “Ha ha ha ha... You two sure don’t have it easy at times like this.”

“We’d thought we could make up for what was missing by hunting in the mountains on the way up...” Inglis said.

“But we were wrong. There weren’t many animals at all...”

Both let out drained sighs.

“There probably weren’t that many to begin with, and those that had been there must have fled in fear from the resurrected Prismer. It might take some time before they return. Wild animals are sensitive and timid, after all,” Arles said, looking down at the mountains.

“I’m not trying to sound like Meltina here, but are you sure we can’t have some of the mechanical dragon?” Rafinha asked.

“Some of it is still flesh, right? Could we cut a little bit of that off?” Inglis pondered.

They looked back at the mechanical dragon which was flying behind the Flygear Port. Said Flygear Port was making much better speed toward its destination than usual, as a result of the mechanical dragon pushing it.

“I’d really appreciate it if you’d stop asking that...” Myce said.

The dragon seemed to grimace as Inglis and Rafinha looked at it.

“Things can’t go on like this! We need to do something, fast!” Rafinha insisted.

“That’s right, Rani!”

“Oh? Like what?” Arles asked.

“Like getting some dragon meat, for starters!” Rafinha said.

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Inglis said.

And so they brought out the Star Princess, which had been stored aboard the Flygear Port, and climbed in. The outer sides of the Flygear Port had recessed bays for securely mooring the aircraft, which kept the Flygears charged and ready to go while stored there.

“Leone, we’re going on ahead!” Inglis announced.

“From here, we should be able to get to our destination with just a Flygear,” Rafinha explained.

Even with the mechanical dragon providing the added thrust, a Flygear would travel faster than a Flygear Port—the Star Princess, even more so. Any other Flygear would’ve had trouble topping its speed.

“Got it,” Leone replied. “We’re fairly close, so now would be a good time for you to go.”

“Then I’ll come along too! We don’t know if there might be a fight.” Arles hopped aboard the Star Princess. Since they were close to the area where the dragon was sealed, both Inglis and Arles had already changed into the gold-accented priestess outfits Rafinha had made for them.

“Be careful, you three!” Leone and Myce sent them off, and the Star Princess separated from the Flygear Port to fly ahead of it.

“All right, let’s go! Booster mode!” Inglis called out. Even though the Star Princess had been rebuilt, its boosters remained intact. It rocketed away from the Flygear Port, quickly turning into a speck in the distance.

◆◇◆

Just as the Star Princess’s power reserves were running low, it arrived at its destination.

“Over there! Those four peaks! The dragon was between those on the map, right?!” Rafinha pointed to a space between four quiet mountains, each aligned in a cardinal direction. The mountains were each close enough in size and at precise enough distance from the others to seem to have been placed deliberately. The road to Venefic weaved through a steep pass on the east before snaking through another pass on the other side. The space between the passes was narrow, and blocking it would complete one of their objectives.

“Look how the mountains line up... It almost seems like someone built them there,” Arles said pensively.

“Yeah, it does,” Inglis agreed. “But even if someone did, it must have been a very long time ago. Each one is weathered differently, and the trees and grass differ as well.”

Even though the mountains were the same size, the one most exposed to the north wind was weathered and faded, while the sunny south had more greenery both at its base and on its slopes than the others. It must have taken eons for these changes to occur.

As they approached the mountains, Inglis snapped alert. “Ah! Aether...”

She could feel the flow of aether from each of the peaks. It was flowing toward the depression which lay between them, and seemed to sink from there into the earth where it acted as some sort of net or membrane. In other words, there was something underneath that it was sealing away—and if their information was correct, that something was the ancient dragon Aulglora.

“Hey, Chris, I kinda feel like there’s something breathtaking here... I mean, it just definitely doesn’t feel normal. Do you feel it too?” Rafinha asked.

“Yeah, I do. There is something—and it’s probably the ancient dragon.”

Inglis had heard that Rafinha had fired an aether arrow during the fighting in Illuminas. She had assumed that their being inseparable since they were infants had meant some of her own aether had rubbed off on the other girl, and now she was also able to, at least vaguely, sense the flow of aether here. If Inglis, a divine knight, was something half human and half divine, did that make Rafinha now three-quarters human and one-quarter divine?

“I don’t sense anything unusual, but I certainly hope the ancient dragon is there,” Arles said. “We can’t accomplish much without it.” Hieral menaces could not sense aether, so she didn’t sense anything out of the ordinary.

“In any case, let’s check it out,” Inglis said.

“Of course, but how? Shall we dig in the center?” Arles pointed to a small basin between the peaks.

“That would normally work, but... If we blast it away all at once, we would probably injure the ancient dragon if it’s there, and we don’t have the time to waste digging slowly and carefully. Preferably, I’d like it to come to us.”

“You want to draw it out? Is that possible?”

“Yes. If we remove whatever’s shackling it, I believe we can.” Inglis could see aether flowing from the four peaks, forming some kind of seal. She didn’t know if it was the work of another divine knight or one of the gods themselves, but it had to be something of that nature.

“Shackles? What do you mean by that?” Rafinha asked.

“Those peaks. The power comes from the peaks.”

The peaks could be described as akin to a holy sword or the liminal sepulcher which formed the basis of the Greyfrier sarcophagus—sacred relics in themselves. While hieral menaces had the side effect of bleeding away their wielder’s life force, their endurance to aether perhaps marked them as well as something of the same sort.

Rafinha followed along. “And because it’s coming from there...”

“Yeah. We blast ’em, right?” Inglis replied with a grin. The rubble from destroying the peaks could also be used as a source of rock to block the road through the pass—two birds with one stone.

“Ha ha ha... Wow, that handles things nice and quick.”

“Doesn’t it? Then let’s get going!” Inglis released the controls and thrust her palm toward the nearest peak.

Aether Strike!

Blammmmmm!

A gigantic blast of aether pierced straight through the mountain. Its top half, gutted by the hole left behind, collapsed in on itself, leaving only a small hill.

“That’s incredible!” Arles gasped in amazement, and Inglis leaped from the Star Princess.

“Rani! Take the controls!”

“Whoa! Wait, Chris?!” Rafinha hurriedly grabbed the stick.

“I have to use my power efficiently!” As she fell, Inglis activated Aether Shell.

As soon as she landed, she jumped up again, chasing after the Aether Strike blast that had pierced through the peak. Rafinha and Arles barely had time to blink before she had caught up with it.

“Haaaah!”

She changed the wavelength of her Aether Shell to one that would repel the blast, like two magnets repelling each other, then punched the Aether Strike as hard as she could. It changed direction and shot straight toward another peak, piercing it and causing its collapse just like before. When it emerged on the other side, Inglis was already waiting.

“Again!” The path of the Aether Strike suddenly twisted, and it pierced and destroyed a third peak. “And the last!”

Once again, she got ahead of the Aether Strike and struck it. One last change of course sent it bringing down the fourth peak before it faded away, its power dissipating. All that remained were the crumbled ruins of the four peaks and a scar gouged between them in one continuous stroke.

This was Aether Reflector. It was a combat technique that struck away a previous Aether Strike using a wavelength of aether which would repel it, manipulating its trajectory as desired. That way, she could make full use of the power behind an Aether Strike, which could otherwise only travel in a single straight line.

“Ha ha ha, you wiped them all out in one shot... It must have taken a lot of work to put those mountains there too.” Rafinha laughed bitterly from the Star Princess, which had arrived overhead.

“Yeah. Firing off too many Aether Strikes would drain my energy, so it’s more efficient to finish them off with one. I need to save some for later.”

An Aether Strike for each peak would have meant four of them, and that wasteful sort of expenditure of aether wasn’t something she could casually overlook. Ideally, of course, she’d have been able to guide the Aether Strike itself, but when faced with the inability to exert such skilled control, she’d turned to brute force. And if it got the job done, that was good enough.

“Ah, that’s what Ross couldn’t beat, even wielding me. Our regular practice has given me an idea of Inglis’s strength, but it’s really amazing to watch from the sidelines,” Arles remarked.

“You don’t need to praise her like that, Miss Arles,” Rafinha said. “It’ll just make her cocky.”

Arles chuckled in amusement. “It’s okay, Rafinha. As long as you’re here, at least...” She, too, jumped from the Star Princess. “Now, this should...”

As Arles, who had landed beside Inglis, spoke, the ground itself shook to interrupt her. “Ah! Something’s happening.” She wondered if this was what Inglis had planned. It would certainly be convenient if the dragon came to them. “There’s something under us!” Her expression became tense.

“Chris! Miss Arles!”

“Rani! Handle the Star Princess!” Inglis said.

“We’ll be in trouble without a vehicle!” Arles agreed.

Just then, something leaped up out of the ground.

Booom!

The earth beneath their feet cracked, sending up clumps of dirt and clouds of dust, and the tip of a jaw lined with exceedingly sharp bladelike fangs emerged.

Arles gasped. “A gigantic mouth right under us?!”

Upper and lower jaws emerged from below on either side of them, then began to swing shut, threatening to consume both them and the ground they stood on.

Inglis chucked. “Looks like it’s trying to swallow us whole!”

“We need to get out of here!”

“No, Miss Arles. I’ll take this one head-on!” Inglis wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to experience the jaw strength that crushed an ancient dragon’s prey. “Haaah!”

Planting her feet firmly, she activated Aether Shell, grabbed an approaching fang, and tried to hold it back.

“Then I’ll help too!” Arles stood back-to-back with Inglis, facing the jaw approaching from the left. A large golden shield, big enough to cover her completely, appeared in her hands. Inglis had seen this shield before when Arles had transformed; now the hieral menace was calling it forth for herself to wield.

Inglis blocked the fangs coming from the right, and Arles those from the left.

“I see...! This one’s every bit as powerful as Fufailbane! It’s incredible!” Inglis felt a comforting weight press against her hand. A real fight was truly better than any training. She would have loved to continue enjoying it for a while, but her top priority was to get some of the ancient dragon’s meat. First negotiations, then combat.

“I-It really is incredibly strong!” Arles said.

Her shield was holding back the dragon’s fangs, but her back leg was forced almost to a kneel. Even a hieral menace was having a hard time in the brute force department.