Vol 1 Chapter 19 – SPIRITS

My combat method is simple: I defend myself with barrier magic and attack with Spell Cannons.

That’s all there is to it… but I do have other cards in my hand.

This world has High Poison Snakes, dragons, all sorts of monsters. There are demi-humans like elves. A world packed with diverse races and fantastical beings.

“Thanks, you two.”

My trump card.

Summoning spirits—beings that embody everything fantastical. That’s my ace. The spirit that governs the earth moves the ground to trap the dragon, while the spirit that governs the sky hurls lightning at it.

Together with these two powerful spirits, I wield my Spell Cannon.

“GAAAAAAAAAA!”

The dragon, caught by the earth and struck by lightning from above, still thrashes wildly, charging toward me.

The earth spirit is giving it their all, but they can’t stop the dragon’s raw power.

“Spell Cannon.”

I dodge the dragon’s frenzied movements in mid-air while unleashing Spell Cannons in rapid succession. The blasts shatter the dragon’s scales, pierce its flesh, and send blood spraying. The dragon’s once-brilliant scales are now tattered, its entire body drenched in blood.

Still, the dragon doesn’t stop.

It bears down on me, breathing fire continuously.

“…Heavy.”

Even as I deflect those breaths, I keep attacking.

I’ll take my time, but I’ll finish this for certain. That’s my resolve as I fight on. The dragon, meanwhile, is going all-out. Realizing it can’t win with normal tactics, it suddenly spits blood from its mouth, hurling it toward me.

“Tch…”

I didn’t anticipate blood as a projectile.

The barrier I’d been maintaining gets covered, my vision blocked. To clear my sight, I’d have to drop the barrier… but I have no choice—I can’t let it escape.

Sensing the dragon’s head moving away, I discard my doubts and drop the barrier.

“Guh!?”

Almost simultaneously, the dragon’s tail strikes my body.

“GAAAAAAAAAA!”

I’m slammed toward the ground as the dragon closes in, breathing fire.

“…Damn!”

I counter the breath with a Spell Cannon.

But as long as my Spell Cannon and its breath collide at the same point, our positions don’t change. I’m below, it’s above. It charges forward while breathing, about to swallow me whole.

The clearest option left is to run.

I ask the earth spirit to lower the ground and escape from the dragon.

“Got it!”

I fall deeper and deeper until I reach the massive underground cavern where the dragon first emerged.

I illuminate it with light magic and change trajectory in mid-air, slipping away from the dragon.

“GAAAAAAAAAA!”

The dragon tears through the ground and descends back into the depths.

“It really is a failure, isn’t it?”

But by then, the dragon’s magical power had nearly depleted.

If it had been complete, it would’ve been able to absorb ambient magic, generate its own, and sustain the cost of breaths and such. But this incomplete one lacks those functions. The magic it expended doesn’t regenerate. It’s completely out.

“GAAAAAAAAAA!”

Still, the dragon charges at me with its mouth open.

But no breath emerges from its jaws anymore.

“Spell Cannon.”

The dragon wrapped its body in magic to soften my attacks.

But now it doesn’t even have enough magical power left to do that properly.

“AAAAAAAAAAAA───”

The dragon takes my Spell Cannon head-on, its body disintegrating.

Vol 1 Chapter 20 – RETURN

“Ugh, worst. That was seriously rough.”

Killing that dragon was genuinely exhausting.

Reflecting on my life, that fight ranks in my top three worst battles.

And reflecting further, every other fight in my top three involved the Witch Cult.

That organization really is the worst.

I can’t forgive them. How many times are they gonna get in my way?

“And they had to make the dragon incomplete too. After I blew its head off, its whole body just crumbled to pieces. Unbelievable. I couldn’t even recover any materials.”

“…As for me, I couldn’t believe I was the only one pulled from the battlefield.”

Ryshia, beside me as I air my grievances about the fight, speaks up with frustration in her voice.

“I got suddenly thrown away from the forest… and all I could do was watch the flashy dragon fight… Do you have any idea how worried I was!?”

“It’s fine. We won.”

“Is that so!? Well… I’m just glad you came to pick me up. I was terrified about what would happen.”

“You worry too much. Even I know to run if things look bad.”

Honestly, when I took one of the dragon’s hits without a barrier, I did think it might be dangerous. I got a real scare, and it hurt like hell.

If I didn’t have healing magic, I wouldn’t be standing right now.

“Promise me you won’t do anything dangerous like that again.”

“I mean, I didn’t think it would get this dangerous. If I’d known it was a Witch Cult job from the start, I wouldn’t have taken it.”

“Really, please do that. You can leave dangerous things to us women. Or better yet, we should’ve just run together when the dragon appeared.”

“If I’d run back then, everyone around us would’ve suffered. I couldn’t just ignore that.”

I’m aware my ethics are a bit off by modern standards in some ways, but I’m not callous enough to do nothing when clearly my intervention would prevent massive casualties.

I do have a basic sense of responsibility.

“I don’t know any woman who’d want to live by sacrificing a man.”

“That’s intense enough to be scary. Look, since we made it back to town safely, let’s call it even, yeah?”

Anticipating her complaints would drag on, I try to change the subject as we enter the city.

“M-man…!?”

“Huh!?”

“A m-man… Is this a real man!?”

But there’s no need for me to change the subject. The topic shifts the moment we step into the city.

“Tch.”

“…I forgot. We shouldn’t just walk through town normally.”

The instant the citizens spot me, their gazes lock onto me with lustful intent.

“I’m gonna get raped.”

“Don’t say such stupid things!?”

As someone who’s enjoyed being raped before, it’s not a stupid statement.

“Well.”

I can’t get raped right now, though. If Ryshia kills everyone who tries, it’ll be a bloodbath.

I resign myself to being targeted and pull out a nobleman’s cloak from my separate dimension, draping it over myself while releasing magical pressure to intimidate the surrounding crowd.

“With this much intimidation, nobody should be brazen enough to drag me into an alley and assault me.”

“…Just the fact that people are sending me those vile looks is unforgivable.”

“Don’t be so harsh. Come on, let’s just head back to the mansion.”

“Idiot!? Don’t wave at everyone like that!?”

“This is fine. Building up my reputation, and as a noble, it’s not a bad thing.”

I wave at the surrounding people and stride confidently down the main road toward home.