Book Eater

Chapter 152: Along with the Dragon (5)

Splash!

The moment Pride sensed that this was an opponent it couldn’t face, it chose to run away without any hesitation. As part of the Seven Sins, Pride aimed to be the culmination of all living things. For someone who pursued the peak of life, survival was the first and last priority. Which meant, it could throw away every ounce of pride if it had to.

As someone said, one’s will to survive was always strong.

While Pride flew through the water, it muttered in order to soothe its wounded pride.

- Don’t think that this is enough to win, Gluttony’s monkey! You can’t keep it summoned for long! As soon as the dragon disappears, I’ll kill you!

Surprisingly, Pride’s prediction was reasonable. Tens of thousands of years of battle experience against other grimoires, knights, and magicians had given it a sharp intuition. Charlotte’s Necklace, which contained the souls of an entire kingdom, had only allowed the primordial dragon to be summoned for seven seconds.

Now, Fafnir only had four seconds left.

- Kuhuhu, let’s see if you can catch me with that huge body!

Pride’s speed was staggeringly fast as he optimized his form for underwater speed, moving hundreds of meters in a matter of seconds. But Fafnir just glanced at the blur beneath the water and chuckled dryly.

Speed, strategy, special abilities, everything was meaningless before it.

『Obliterate.』

The fire dragon took a deep breath.

It took one second for the endless heat to converge. It took another second to compress the heat into a ray. Lastly, it took one second to check the position of the target and aim.

In the Age of Mythology, this breath had incinerated the original world trees, and even transcendents were reluctant to face it. The light that exploded out of Fafnir’s mouth was a laser that erased everything before it. Fafnir, Muspelheim’s incarnation, used its ultimate attack.

―――――――――――――!

It was like a small supernova that pierced the surface of the sea faster than lightning. The seawater in its immediate path evaporated, stirring up a small tsunami as the steam pushed the water away. But this was merely the aftermath of its passing...

And it only targeted one being.

- N-No...! This attack...!

As it split into hundreds, no, thousands of pieces in a second, Pride’s senses warned it of absolute death. It had stockpiled countless lives worth of energy, but this ray eclipsed anything it had ever expected. The destructive power overwhelmed both its regeneration speed and its accumulated energy.

Pride realized that it couldn’t survive and screamed.

- I, how can a monkey do this to me-!

It continued to scream as it fought to regenerate and survive.

- Kua... A... Ahh... Hhhhhh...!

Kukukukukung...!

However, the ray that burned Pride didn’t stop there. It pierced down to the sea floor, and tore through a sleeping undersea volcano, sending seismic waves rippling outward and destroying the ecosystem of the distant ocean. If the ecosystem had been a delicately balanced chessboard, someone had just broken the board with a hammer.

The monstrous dragon resolved Theo’s crisis with one attack and declared languidly.

『Extermination complete, returning.』

It disappeared just as quickly as it appeared. The darkness started to creep over the horizon as air rushed back in to fill the vacuum. The heat in the atmosphere lingered, but the sea breeze was quickly sweeping it away.

“You did it, Senior.”

As his ragged clothes flapped, Theo stared up at the sky with a weary look. There was no voice to reply to him as Satomer’s soul had become part of him. Theo found a small sense of comfort knowing that a part of Satomer would travel with him.

But now that he allowed himself to relax, Theo’s consciousness snapped like a taut violin string.

Huuk-

The young man plummeted down from the sky. The winner of the great battle was gently caught by the sea dragon, Aquilo.

She murmured, “... Huh, you went and did something ridiculous.”

Aquilo exerted her will to cool off the area, but it would take a few more days for things to return to normal. She would also have to deal with the increased salinity due to evaporation and the sea currents that would be affected by the seismic shifts.

She felt a chill run down her neck as she looked down at the sleeping Theo.

Boy, did you prepare this for me?

There was no way he had come up with this spell on the fly. She considered snapping his neck for a moment before sighing to herself. Regardless of the circumstances, these two had saved her, and she owed them a life debt. She had a dragon’s pride, and it wouldn’t tolerate such a cowardly act. In the end, Aquilo laughed as she looked at the brightening horizon.

“Doesn’t this mean I almost died twice in one day? What a fun day. It’s been a thousand years of boredom.”

This struggle had involved a being from the Age of Mythology, which had ended before she was born. Today’s fight was memorable even for the dragon who had lived for close to a millennium. Aquilo, who ruled the sea, laughed pleasantly and turned away from the sun.

Three shadows were cast under the light of the rising sun.

***

Theo felt relieved the moment he woke up from a deep sleep. A magician could threaten a dragon, so he had considered the possibility of being killed by the vigilant Aquilo. Fortunately, she had decided to leave him alive.

... Where am I?

The bed was so comfortable and luxurious that he couldn’t help feeling drowsy again. He still hadn’t recovered completely, so he wanted to fall asleep. However, Theo had to check something beforehand.

“Gluttony.”

- You woke up, User.?

As always, a blunt voice welcomed him.

“You don’t need to give a greeting. Rather, what happened with Pride?”

Theo had been able to see its annihilation since he had shared Fafnir’s senses, but he didn’t know Pride’s fate. A Seven Sins grimoire had extraordinary and bizarre abilities, so there was a possibility it could survive after being hit by Fafnir’s laser.

However, Gluttony dispelled Theo’s worries.

- Totally destroyed.

“Are you sure?”

- Not even one cell remains as it was completely incinerated. At the very least, it will take a thousand years for Pride to reappear in this world.

Theo was only more puzzled.

“This world? No, if Pride was completely destroyed, how can it appear again?”

- Hrmm, a lock has been released. I will explain within the allowable limits.

Gluttony made a dubious sound before explaining.

- First, the grimoires don’t exist in this world. Both Pride and my bodies don’t exist in this lower dimension. In order to enter this lower dimension, we need a control unit that minimizes our features and size.

“So… is there a separate body?”

- That’s right.

Theo didn’t fully understand some of the specifics, but he got the gist of it. The bodies of the Seven Sins lived outside this dimension in a place where no life lived. They dispatched separate bodies to a number of dimensional systems. This world’s Gluttony was just one of the many scattered separate bodies.

Then a question suddenly popped into Theo’s head.

“Why will it take a thousand years to come back? It can just send another separate body.”

- Simple. There are a finite number of separate bodies. The number of dimensions the Seven Sins populated is indefinite, and the number of bodies sent was also close to limitless. In the rare case that a separate body is destroyed like it is now, it will take around a thousand years to restore it.

Theo asked again, “Then is it impossible to completely block it from this dimension?”

- That’s impossible.

Gluttony replied immediately, without any hesitation.

- The body that lives in the outer dimension is a?7th?stage divine entity which draws information and power from the inexhaustible dimensional system. You will only become part of the mountain of dead bodies.

“So, it isn’t an area that I can touch.”

- That’s right. User did well as a resident of this world. As of now, focus on your own work.

Theo shook his head at the strange method of praising him, but he sensed someone was approaching. Unlike Randolph’s sharp presence, she stood in front of the door with the magnificent presence of a tsunami.

Aquilo didn’t knock on the door as she spoke in a loud voice, “Are you awake, boy?”

“Lady Aquilo.” Theo’s nervous reaction was funny.

Aquilo couldn’t help smiling. “You called me by name last time, so what’s with the ‘Lady’?”

“... Aquilo.”

“Now, doesn’t that feel friendlier?”

Theo felt tense leaving off the honorific, but Aquilo was pleased.

She drew on the pipe as always, then after taking a breath, she continued, “By the way, boy, how is your stomach?”

Theo frowned. “Stomach? Why all of a sudde-”

She raised an elegant eyebrow. “You know, you were sleeping for three days.”

Grrr.?

Theo’s stomach answered her loudly enough to be heard beyond the door.

Theo blushed and dropped his gaze. “......”

“Ahaha! Don’t be shy. Isn’t this natural for humans?” Aquilo laughed and turned around. She left a few words hanging in the air as she sashayed away. “Your companion has woken up as well. Bring him down to the dining room. Tell him to dress appropriately.”

“... I understand.”

“Kilkil.”

As the sound of Aquilo’s laughter faded into the distance, Theo sighed with relief. Randolph was also safe, and Aquilo had no hostility toward him. Theo’s knees weakened, and he sank back into the bed as he realized he had escaped from a major crisis.

He had won against Pride.

“I paid back your enemy, Seniors.”

Theo closed his eyes in a moment of silence for the members of the Magic Tower convoy who had sacrificed themselves so that he and Ellenoa could escape. The scars left behind on his body and the throbbing of his circles were part of his mourning.

Once he was done, he got up.

Let’s go.

It was time to experience a dragon’s grace, which he had only ever read about in legends.