第十二回：天氣晴朗大獲全勝，天龍降雷瑪蒂快跑！
"That will keep her still until we get back."
Neko-chan scrounged up an extra-large burlap sack from somewhere in the room, stuffing the unconscious Cultivator Ying into the bag body-first, sans her head which droops downwards, deep in dreamland. Her hazel front ponytail falls to the side of her face, brushing against the small stream of blood which has now stopped flowing from the side of her lips.
"Shouldn't we just 『hakai』[1] her, like Daju wants?"
"Is that Ayano or [Reckless Ayaya] speaking...?"
Obviously its ME, Neko-chan! Goodness, whenever I do someone a slight unkindness these days everyone goes "Haha, Ayaya go boom!!!" No! Clearly I am in control here! I said it from the start, we should have just beat her head in with a stick for sneak damage and ended the fight, right there and then! That's what I did, I used my intellect to WIN! That's all that...
Neko-chan finishes putting on a blindfold for our captive, then tugs at a long string attached to the burlap sack, causing the sack, body and all to fall horizontally on the ground like a sleeping bag. Satisfied that it will be a long and uncomfortable drag to the outside, Neko-chan motions that we should leave.
"[Trono Palido] doesn't kill humans, you know that."
I can see that [Hentai Bird] has got you [Trono Palido] people brainwashed well and good! Doesn't kill people, indeed! More like, beats them half to death, THEN drag them into some underground [FILTERED] [FILTERED], am I right? Right?! Don't think I don't know, Annalie is definitely the most vicious one out of you bunch of sadistic ducks, for all your 'hurr durr, we don't kill people' like you're straight outta a shounen battle manga, you're all h...
Neko-chan stops dead in her tracks.
"Ayaya, come here for a moment."
"『hai』?"
Turning her body sideways for me, she puts a single finger to the top of my left eyelid, forcing it shut.
"What are you...?!"
"Feeling better, Ayano?"
"Ah... I do feel... AHHHH DEAD BODY!!!" I point to the (still alive, maybe?) cultist now being dragged along the rocky mine shaft interior.
Having had one of my eyes closed, the adrenaline surge and emotional high from [Reckless Ayaya] tapered off immediately, and I realized the gravity of what I had just done.
Neko-chan snorts, doubling up with a small "nyahaha".
"Your [Mennifest] [2]... makes zero sense. It's weird, and that's even counting the [Exposer's]."
I'm sorry for being weird! I'm terribly sorry, I can't really control [Reckless Ayaya], its a 『doujutsu』[3] of some sort! Unless I start walking around with really cool shades, its just something that comes out every so often! Come to think about it, that's what my glasses were for, but I have 20/20 eyesight you see, so I didn't need them in the first place...
"... you've always been a trickster.
No wonder the [Exposer] picked you to be her accomplice."
I... I think that's praise?
For (me)?
Perhaps this day isn't starting off so bad, after all!
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Rather than go back the way we came from, Neko-chan and (me) felt around the mine shaft until we found a suspicious lever, which opened up a secret door to the ground floor outside.
There, leaning against the battered chariot is Madi-san, not a single scratch on her body, arms folded like the smuggest king in the world. The bodies of NPCs are strewn in a circle, a memorial to countless warriors who simply cannot learn how to 'just delay your inputs lol'.
"Hmm hmm! I lost count along the way, but I am pretty sure that's more than fifty!"
Rather than marvel at the superhuman feat of beating fifty armed NPCs with a simple sword and shield combo, Neko-chan deposits the still-sleeping cultist near the chariot and just passes by Madi-san without speaking a word to her.
Moving to the front gate not that far away, she removes the wooden horizontal beam blocking the door off with both hands, pushing the gates open.
"... yet you still failed to open the front gates."
Outside, the NPCs from our topside camp were already waiting for us. Riding chariots like ours in groups of five, it seems like they were unable to come in and have been there waiting for an order all this time.
Madi-san doesn't seem to have gotten this slight, and is too busy poking at the cheek of the napping cultivator.
"Wow, Neko-chan took out a Greater Boss solo? That's hard to believe, maybe Oracion was the weakest link after all!
"Just load her on the back. These NPCs need to be told to retake the mines..."
Before she could finish that sentence, a sudden darkness overtakes the skies.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
All three of us felt it.
The immense pressure that was coming from the sky now piling up in fast-gathering dark clouds. Sand, dirt and rocks kick up in a foul cyclonic pattern. I had just pushed the body bag over onto the chariot (which landed Cultivator Ying on her head, sorry!), when my eyes caught a glimpse of impending danger.
"Is that... a dragon...!!?"
Something long, scaled and luminous is sliding through the overcast clouds above us. A grey sky-ceiling unpleasantly blotting out the sun, all of the surrounding land is blotted in shadow, as far as the eye can see. It traverses through the sky, slithering through the clouds as the sole source of yellow-citrine light, this aspect of the sky moves closer and closer to our insignificant mining operation, before a spirit-like manifestation bursts out of the clouds directly above us---
There can be no doubt in my mind that the luminous face-thing that exited the clouds just now is a dragon. Its draco-like features brim with power, a pair of long whiskers adorn its savage face, bottom jaw exposing glistening fang-like teeth. A floaty shawl-like film covers the back of its head like a semi-transparent mountain range. A pair of antler-like horns adorn the top of its reptilian-scaled head, crackling with lucent energy.
Opening a gigantic mouth, its speech bursts forth like violent winds, threatening to upend anything not pinned down in our immediate vicinity!
Know this, 【Hereticate】!
Your actions threaten this world's stability,
Should you continue to meddle,
a thousand misfortunes shall commence!
Words, short, simple, violent and true.
How could I refute that? Were these words directed at Neko-chan? Or me? Or more likely...
... the only person scoffing at this gigantic light show right now?
"Nanda? I asked to kill a dragon.
What is this [Project Bluebeam] sheeto?"
At this point, I had already collapsed to my knees from the sheer sensory overload laying eyes upon this skyward visage, limply hanging on to the side of the chariot wheel, I can only laugh in sobs because my mind has stopped thinking already.
Apparently, dragon-kun's pressure is not very effective on brainless people, for Madi-san undoes the belt strap holding her small steel sword, takes a couple of running steps forward...
... and flings it, scabbard at all at the apparition covering the sky above us!
Madi-san has always been an idiot, but this is taking it a bit too far! As expected, the foreign object goes straight through the dragon overhead. Of course it would! How are you expecting to hurt something that big with something that small! It makes zero logical sense! At the very least bring a barrage of ship cannons for a weapons test! This is just tickling it at this point!
The complete miss gives Madi-san some pause.
What is that strange buzzing sound in the air?
"Well, Neko-chan? What do you think?"
Neko-chan is still standing frozen at the gate; her greatsword's tip is buried deep into the ground, which helped stabilize her stance against the incoming winds. Compared to Madi-san, small trickles of sweat slide down her face, despite her heroic posture.
"If we get to survive this, one of us tells 【taisho】."
"Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing!"
Madi-san and Neko-chan agreeing?
What sorcery is this?
Neko-chan turns around running just
as Madi-san parkours into the chariot,
""WE'RE (RUN)NING!""
There must have been some intense latency up there in the celestial palace, because the giant glowing yellow reptile in the sky only just registered the slight against it from below.
A great bellow echoes from the belly of the beast, and clouds start to shift in imperceptible ways. The dragon's antlers now clearly sizzling the air with electrical energy, it took mere seconds before great thunderbolts smash down in the area around us! Upon contact, ground is torn asunder into mere rock and rubble.
Clearly insulted, the dragon ascends even higher into the clouds, dipping into convenient cloud patterns above that we cannot keep track of...
"... dumbass! Get a grip, Aya-chan!"
I am pulled up by the shoulders onto the chariot and dumped with zero courtesy onto the still-sleeping cultie. Neko-chan is shouting something to the NPCs on chariots which are wheeling away from white-gold bolts striking down from above.
Everything is so noisy right now.
My ears are ringing something really hard too.
Didn't you keep saying that you wanted to kill a dragon?
You got your wish, Madi-san.
And so! The monkey's paw curled!
What a wonderful day this is turning out to be!
Ahahahaha...!
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NEXT: Draconic Rain Falls Over The Ci-Byss, Oracion Are You Jobbing Again Its Gotta Be A Fetish At This Point!
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Terminology
[2] [Mennifest] - [Vespana's] basic method of using magick. It pulls from other worlds to create impossibilities in ours. That's what I understand from how [Sachiko-senpai] explained it anyway.
Go Go And Learn Moonrunes With Aya-chan!
[1]『hakai』- To destroy completely. Used here as a euphemism for... well you get it!
[3]『doujutsu』- Eye-based technique. Seriously, stop asking how I know!