Chapter 545: Arrival of reinforcements
“I hold my grandchildren in my arms”
Old man Bonaparte, his big back turned, his short-cropped hair blowing in the wilderness wind, said in a soft voice.
“Compared to my fast-moving peers, my son is about the same age as their grandchildren. ……So, as I interact with my children, I always think that this is what grandchildren are like. ……But they are different. When my blood son matured, fell in love himself and was born, and he……held my finger and smiled, I was grateful from the bottom of my heart to have met him alive”
“……Old man”
“So”
When the old man was about to look at me, Corti and Leyla simultaneously manifested the huge body of a silver dragon on the other side, Leyla stretched out her hand as if to protect Rainer and Corti and the entire Sword Saint Brigade took over us. I see her backswing her arm to mow it down.
“You’re in my way!!”
As her arm moves to cleave sideways with great force, old man Bonaparte pulls his large sword out of the ground with a jerk and with a weightless movement, he steps toward Corti and flashes it at her.
“……Hi, aaaaaaaa!?”
And I don’t know what happened for a moment. The screams echoing from the crowd were Corti’s. And then, the blood that was spraying like a fountain all around me. A few seconds later, one of the giant dragon’s arms fell with an earth-shaking crash a dozen meters behind us.
“You’re the one in the way. I’m sorry, but we’re in the middle of a conversation. Could you please stop being so rude?”
Old man Bonaparte leaps back over the rocks to us, keeping a light distance so as not to draw blood. ……Did he smash the dragon’s arm off? With an ordinary sword, albeit a workhorse. No, the first time he met Maia, he smashed a flat into her neck and buzzed her off.
“Where were we?”
“Commander. Can we talk about this later? He seems to be in pain”
“But……no, I’m not the Commander in the first place, Joseph”
“Then who is the Commander?”
“……Not you?”
“I have no such memory”
“Muu”
The old man Bonaparte and the knight next to him were both thinking about it. A huge blue dragon landed in front of us as if to protect us and the last remaining rider was lowered down on its back.
“Oh dear, it’s not a very nice thing to show off. Well, now you’ve said it. Why don’t you run for office, Randall?”
“Of course not!”
The last rider was none other than the former king Ulysses III himself and Ector Randall. Ector, who was dismounting with great care so that the former king would not fall, was strangely agitated and his eyes turned to a bewildered angle.
“But we can’t leave it without control. It can’t be helped. Grants, you’ll have to do something about it”
“……I don’t like it when this kind of work is left to me”
“You can complain to Arthur later when you’re done”
“……Cough. Now, without being too presumptuous. ……I’m going to form two squads, Dean and Bay, on the left and right. Bay’s team will be on offense, while Dean’s team will follow at a distance. Bay´s team will intercept a group of infantry coming from the front. Only Sir Gold will join with Sir Bonaparte to intercept the dragon! Any objections!”
No voices were raised and the knights quickly formed up.
“I’d like to say, leave the dragons to the dragons……”
The blue dragon that was walled off in front of them echoed a man’s voice. ……I couldn’t tell him apart, but I guess that’s Broll-san.
“Well, I guess discretion prevails among dragons too. Let us do it. You, protect my friend”
“……Umm”
Sir Bonaparte and another knight stepped forward from the feet of Broll-san, who stepped back with a thud.
“You……think you’re a match for us, you mere mortal……!!”
“Corti, pull back! Now that Shario has been defeated……we’re even in terms of number of dragons, we’re not at a disadvantage!”
“I can’t listen!”
Corti howled, regenerating her arm with a creaking sound. Sir Bonaparte carried his sword on his shoulder and looked up.
‘Don’t you have to fly?”
“What!”
“Breath or fly? As for the breath, I’ll use Broll-dono as a shield, but if you fly, you’ll have an advantage. If you just walk on the ground, it’ll be the same as before”
“Don’t be so churlish……naa!!”
Corti spins around and tries to hit and kill Sir Bonaparte and the other one with her tail. But Sir Bonaparte cut off the tail with a single swing of his arm. Corti’s tail flying through the air. And again, blood was sprayed in a powerful spray.
“Gugaaaa!!”
“It’s not worth talking about. ……Ah, I forgot to mention that”
Sir Bonaparte shouldered his sword again and looked up at the writhing silver dragon.
“Even though it looks like this, I don’t like being too careful. I don’t like things that are too much trouble. ……Next time, I’ll have to cut your dragon heart in half”
Overwhelming. While in human form, even dragons are no problem. Sir Bonaparte was warning of death without any qualms in front of the dragon that looked up at him, in a tone as if he was dealing with a senseless thug.
“Hi……”
“Corti!!!”
Leyla, who had grabbed Rainer and Shario, called out Corti’s name as she floated up into the sky. Knowing it was her last chance, Corti stopped the bleeding with force and ran away from Sir Bonaparte with a thud. After gaining some distance, she took off, exhaling her breath backward to avoid being chased and the cold air was stopped by the dragonized Maia and Broll-san, who spread their wings.
“Are you sure you want to let them get away, Commander?”
“I told you, I am not the Commander. ……There’s no need to panic now. I’ve got to take care of him. We’ll have to slay the dragon another time”
“I didn’t get my turn”
“I’m sorry about that. ……Gilbert, shall we join you?”
“I think we’re done. But from what I heard, there were only five heroes and the rest were not allowed to fight”
Under the command of 100-man commander Grants, the attacking band of heroes was quickly overpowered. There’s no way the boys with attached blades can match the veteran swordsmen. Especially since they don’t have enough weapons. The dragons were taken out by Sir Bonaparte. The fact that Sir Bonaparte easily overwhelmed the dragons was a sight enough to disturb their morale.
“The situation has changed. I am sorry. ……Before explaining that, Smithson-san! Does anyone have any medical knowledge, we can only to a certain extent……?”
Neia appealed to the Sword Saints.
“I can do it if it’s just a bone graft”
“But he’s in great shape. He seems to be a lot more mischievous than I heard from Grants-sensei and the previous king”
“What’s wrong with this arm? Did it fall off?”
The sword saints rushed over to work on my injuries and stopped when they noticed Broll-san coughing.
“I have the advantage of seniority. I’m not a doctor, but could you leave me in charge of this situation?”
Broll-san (in his human body) came forward and said.
“It looks like you’ve been very reckless. I can manage to put your left arm back, but I can’t help you with the right one”
“Could you cover my lower part?”
My penis was fully exposed.
While Broll-san was treating me, Apple and Brian, who had been taking care of the villagers in the valley, came up.
“Andy-sannn! Y, You’re alive……!”
“Ah……I managed to survive. Thank you, you two”
“Not thank you!”
Apple cried and tried to hug me, but Tetes stopped her. I was being treated for a broken bone. I had the bone put back in place and was being forcefully connected with a medical light technique that utilized the dragon’s physical strength. It’s inefficient, but there’s no other way to do it.
“……I, I really thought this time I was going to die……”
“……You wont die. You seem to have been blessed with such a star”
The former king came out of the circle around him and shook his head.
“It’s not a star. ……You’re going to have a hard time down the road if you keep blaming it on the stars”
“King”
“It is the eyes you have. You have the eyes to see what’s underneath. It is also the eyes that understand what you can do without making the slightest mistake. ……It is not often that any great man can read it without desire or pessimism at the best of times”
“……Ha, Haa”
The former king says so, but if you ask me, it’s just that I wasn’t wrong in reading the depths of the opponent’s bottom and I don’t think it’s a little bit inevitable. I’m the one who bet on it.
“It should be alright for the time being”
Broll-san tapped my arm. I moved my left hand and found that it felt almost completely different. But it’s not my dominant arm and I can’t do anything reckless with this arm.
“Now, shall we fight back? We’ve broken their cause and all we have to do now is to hunt them down”
Sir Bonaparte looked downstream. Most of the heroes have been beaten and captured and are being watched by several sword saints who are unable to move. Far beyond that is the royal palace of Kalwin. If we could attack that far, we would win. We were the first to make a move, but it was Rainer’s side that had broken the pact. We can no longer allow the dragons to interfere with our nation. Whether we seize the palace or make peace in some other way, now that the war has begun, there is no point in remaining silent. It would be best to end this battle quickly and prevent any damage to the population. ……But.
“I do have a few concerns”
“Tetes?”
“The plot is too vivid. Now that Shario has messed with us, if they stay alive, they will be treated as evil dragons and if we don’t do something wrong, they won’t even have to wait for rider’s judgment before being hunted down by their own people……isn’t it a rule that you can do it?”
“Ah……yes”
“Even though I know that, no matter how much Corti was defeated by a human opponent……there’s no way she would back down so easily. I managed to outwit her……at least, Broll-san had just arrived and I wasn’t ready. While you have to fight while protecting us, you should at least make Maia-san unable to recover. Otherwise, there will be no future prospects”
“Is there any hope for one side or the other?”
“After they get the injured Shario and the weaponless Rainer back to safety, they can re-attack with the two of them safe and sound once again. Fighting while defending comes with limitations. If you don’t need to protect your allies, you can attack with all your might. You can take out the Sword Saint Brigade on the surface of the earth by spitting all the breath you want if you don’t care to and it is two against one against Broll-san as long as you keep Maia-san crushed. If they eliminate the dragons and rider, there will be no one left to speak convincingly against the dragons and they can pretend that the pact-breaking never happened”
“……And yet they pulled back. ……I think they were too beaten down and confused”
“I wish that were the case. ……I do have one thing in mind, though and that’s their gut feelings”
“Don’t be stingy”
Tetes pointed to the flash sword that I had dropped and that Neia was now holding.
“Just now, Master……Neia-san attacked with her talking sword, right?”
“Ah”
“……It looked just like the dragon slayer’s light”
“Ah……emm, it seems to be based on the same principle”
“……I don’t know much about the dragons around here, but there was an exchange between dragons and then there was an agreement and then the Fire Dragon War broke out as a counterattack against mankind, right?”
“Ah”
……In other words. If there is a widespread taboo in Crystal Palace about the Fire Dragon War = Dragon Slayer. If the Palace makes a strong case for using the dragon slayer and makes us the bad guys……they can cover up Shario’s fault for messing with it. Which one is higher in the rider agreement? I don’t know the details, but it wouldn’t be strange to think that protecting Rainer from taboo’s attack was a legitimate act.
“Certainly……there is room for interpretation, but it’s bad”
Broll-san makes a grim face.
“If we continue to advance poorly, we may find ourselves plunging into the midst of an agitated and angry silver dragons”
“……How many silver dragons are here?”
“I would say there are dozens of them”
“……Dragons should be moving as much as possible, but will there be enough……? But we can’t let Smithson-dono confront them again”
Broll-san and Tetes roar. But Sir Bonaparte, who must have been listening, didn’t seem troubled in the least and tapped me lightly on the shoulder as if to reassure me.
“……Old man”
“Don’t worry. We won’t be the only ones on your side”
“……That’s true, though. ……Worst-case scenario, we’ll have to give up on getting Kalwin and Neia’s homeland back from him after all this time……”
“You won’t have to”
“……?”
“It’s time”
Sir Bonaparte points to the southern sky. In the distance, I see a dragon flapping its wings. Not one, but four. There are four of them, just four that I can see clearly. There may be more beyond that.
“Your allies are reliable
“……Yes, but……”
“Andy-san! Over there!”
Apple shouts in the opposite direction, looking north into the sky. ……On that side, the scenery is a bit hard to believe. At least a dozen, maybe more, dragons are appearing in the sky one after another.
“This is not good……”
“I’ll fly first. In case of emergency, Smithson-dono, prepare to fall back with Maia”
Broll-san strikes a pose with his arms outstretched and transforms into his dragon body. But.
“That’s not how it works. There are people down there we need to protect”
“……If you die, we’ll be wiped out anyway”
“But!”
“Maia, you’re in charge”
Broll-san took off and stayed in the air to protect us. The black dragon……Laila flew in from the southern sky alongside him, spoke a few words and landed with Broll-san. The blue dragons……who came with her, probably Asti and Airi (it’s a little hard to tell them apart), unload the large carriage they were carrying and all the reinforcements jump out from inside.
“Andy!”
“Andy-kun! Alright……it doesn’t look like”
“Andy-san!”
“Tetes-chan! 10-man captain Smithson is so gyawa――what, what, what is that!!”
“Calm down, Naris. You knew what was going to happen”
Anzeros, Hilda, Aurora, Naris and Almeida. There are also Sharon and Irina. And a dozen silver dragons that landed intimidatingly and confronted me in the face of Laila and Broll-san. I know everyone rushing toward me gasps. It was about to be the most terrifying situation I had ever experienced in my life. However, Dianne, who came out of the carriage a little later than everyone else, folded her arms and faced these silver dragons with a fearless smile on her face.
“Dianne”
“Well you’re safe and sound Andy. ……Bonaparte-dono, thank you for taking care of it”
“Now what do you say, War God?”
Sir Bonaparte whispered in amusement. Dianne kept smiling.
“It depends on the other person. It doesn’t seem like they’re friendly”
“Ah
“That’s the thing……”
As Tetes was about to explain, one of the silver dragons spoke up, perhaps on behalf of the others.
“We have heard complaints from Shario that an undesirable weapon was used by the outsider rider, Andy Smithson, in the sacred battle of dragon riders. If this is true, what is your intention and do you understand that it is a provocation to use it openly in our presence? Depending on the circumstances, I will question your qualifications as a rider……”
“Lizards. I will not ask you twice”
Dianne-san raised her voice, interrupting the silver dragon’s speech.
“You can either lose your life or you can die here. Choose”
“Wh……”
And I just realized that the presence of Dianne-san is the most nervous I’ve ever felt. Not at night in that forest territory. Many times more anger than that was emanating from her whole body. She’s not smiling because she’s happy to see me again. The murderous intent within her had gone too far and she was simply rejoicing in the moment that had already been decided. The moment when you slam down someone you can’t forgive.
“If it’s a fight, by all means I’ll buy it. I’ve prepared that much for you. I’ll wait for you for a dozen more years. If you want to live, turn your back and run back”