Chapter 26
In the gray-shrouded Gilie Valley, cries like metal scraping against metal echoed off the bare rock faces.
A dragon with enormous claws leapt onto a rock, opened its vertically slit reptilian eyes wide, and opened its mouth as far as it could to let out a threatening cry.
Theropod dragons. They belonged to the medium-sized class of dragons. Their forelegs were small, and they supported their entire weight on the huge hind legs that gave them their name.
Their hind legs bore huge, curved claws, and they were agile and ferocious. They could climb sheer rock faces with ease and leap to nearly twice their own height, making them some of the most powerful monsters on the continent. Even trained soldiers were warned against fighting one alone.
More than a dozen theropod dragons were scattered across the rocky slopes, looking down at us and crying out.
"Remain calm and act accordingly. You there, don't break formation. If you leave a gap, they'll leap through it."
I raised my voice to encourage the soldiers.
Fifty soldiers held their spears together and formed a square formation.
Faced with the leveled spears, the theropod dragons did not recklessly charge. They took up positions on the rocks and continued to issue warning cries, but never came down.
Dragons were cunning. They were not as stupid as they looked. If anything, they were probably more intelligent than other monsters.
Monsters were extremely aggressive toward humans and tried to kill them for no reason. Dragons were ferocious, but they could suppress that aggression and sometimes even tried to deceive humans.
The dragons living here had recognized that we were dangerous opponents and would no longer approach the fortress. They understood the range of spears and bows, so they took up safe high ground and threatened us without coming down.
This made exterminating them difficult, but I continued to command without panicking.
Suddenly, I felt someone's gaze and looked up to see a theropod dragon staring down at me with its vertically slit eyes.
The color of the theropod dragons' scales varied from one individual to another. The scales of the dragon watching me gave off a reddish glow. It was probably the leader of the pack. It glared at me intently without looking away.
It seemed to understand that I was the commander. It also seemed to understand that I was the weakest person here.
I met its gaze and smiled.
You are certainly intelligent. You recognize dangerous enemies, understand their range, and possess the caution to remain on guard.
But even so, you are beasts. And if you are beasts, then I have nothing to fear.
"All soldiers, retreat slowly."
At my command, the soldiers holding their spears retreated inch by inch. Two large rocks stood behind us, with a narrow path running between them. I slowly retreated toward it.
Seeing the soldiers slowly retreat, the pack of dragons reacted and leaned forward slightly.
I had the soldiers retreat slowly, drawing the dragons in as far as possible. When we reached the entrance to the narrow path, I spun around and turned my back on them.
"All soldiers, retreat."
The soldiers raised their spears, turned their backs, and began to flee.
Seeing us flee with our backs turned, the theropod dragons watching from the rocks all leapt down at once and attacked.
The dragons chased us down the narrow path, but at the far end were the points of numerous spears thrust out to meet them.
We had stationed an ambush force there beforehand and had them wait.
The dragons were impaled by the ambush unit lying in wait and cried out.
"Stop retreating. Assemble."
The soldiers who had fled halted their retreat as planned, gathered together, and reformed their ranks.
"Turn around and advance. Form a cordon."
We turned around and joined the ambush force, further reinforcing our formation.
The dragons realized they had fallen into our trap and tried to turn back, but as they changed direction, numerous arrows rained down upon them.
We had also stationed an ambush unit atop the huge rocks and equipped them with bows. With arrows raining down from above, the dragons could not even escape.
Seeing the dragons cry out, I felt relieved that the plan had worked.
A feigned retreat followed by an ambush. These creatures always fell for it.
Even dragons were still beasts. They possessed the intelligence to remain wary of their enemies, but when faced with an enemy fleeing with its back turned, their bestial instincts inevitably won out, and they could not help chasing after it.
However, repeated use of this strategy had steadily improved our proficiency. I did not expect it to work this well against the Demon King's army, but I wanted to try it in a real battle someday.
"Romelia-sama, are you all right?"
As I considered the challenges we would face when testing this in real battle, Ray, who had been commanding the ambush unit, came running over.
Yet he must have been able to tell just by looking that I was uninjured.
"Yes. I don't have even a scratch."
We had kept a sufficient distance, and the soldiers were protecting me, so our defenses were secure.
But Ray still seemed unable to relax, and he was always telling me to stay farther back.
"No, the dragons are not opponents to be underestimated. Please stay a little farther back."
"Don't worry. Besides, there are things I can grasp only from the front lines."
Even when fighting monsters, a battlefield was full of subtle nuances. Changes in the terrain, the soldiers' tension, and where the enemy's attention was focused—there were many things one could understand only from the front lines. I had no ability to fight and could rely only on my wits, so I wanted to experience the nuances and atmosphere of the battlefield firsthand, even if it meant taking a little risk.
I looked up at the archers stationed on the rocks. Al was commanding the unit with a spear in hand. Things seemed to be going smoothly up there as well. Recently, it was not only the Rome Unit that had been gaining experience and growing stronger; the soldiers stationed at the fortress had been doing so too.
A month had passed since we began the full-scale extermination of the monsters in Gilie Valley. We had cleared out roughly half the monsters living in the area, and the end was finally in sight.
Looking ahead, it seemed we had defeated the dragon we had lured into the narrow passage. The cries that had echoed moments ago had ceased. The dragons' corpses were piled up in the passage, forming a small mountain.
"Deliver the finishing blows. They may be pretending to be dead, so be careful."
I instructed the soldiers to cautiously finish off the dragons. Just as they approached, the pile of corpses burst apart, and two dragons suddenly leapt into the air.
They had been hiding among the corpses of their companions!
As the soldiers cried out in surprise, the two dragons kicked off the rocks with astonishing jumping power and flew over the heads of the soldiers holding their spears together.
The soldiers hurriedly raised their spears, but the dragons' leaps cleared even the long spears. They landed outside the cordon and sprang toward me.
One of the two was the red-scaled leader of the pack. Hatred for the companions we had killed burned in its eyes as it leapt at me.
Its enormous mouth opened and filled my vision. At that moment, a spear suddenly shot in from the side with a roar, pierced the dragon's neck, and pinned it to the rock with all its momentum.
The spear's blow was like that of a battering ram, and the pinned dragon died instantly.
The other dragon thrust its enormous clawed feet at me, trying to impale me and kick me to death. But just before its claws reached me, a red line flashed across its body. Its legs and neck were severed, and its body came apart in midair as its head and feet bounced through the air.
Its torso fell to the ground and thrashed its limbs, as though it had not realized it had lost its head. Soon, however, it stopped moving and died.
"Are you all right, Romelia-sama?"
Ray hurried over to me.
Death had come within arm's reach, but the danger was eliminated in an instant.
Blood spray—whose, I could not tell—splashed across my cheek, and a droplet ran down it.
Only a single drop of blood had reached me.
"See? It was dangerous. You really should stay farther back."
Ray insisted that I had been in danger.
Al was the one who threw the spear that pinned the dragon to the rock. Ray was the one who severed its neck and legs in midair.
Although Al had been quite far away, he threw the spear with enough force to make it look as though he had hurled a log. Ray had been right in front of me, yet I had not even seen him draw his sword.
"I would say it was extremely safe."
I wiped the blood from my face with a handkerchief and retorted to Ray.
Since they began fighting here, the two of them had hunted countless dragons and repeatedly awakened, growing stronger each time. Dragons were no longer a match for them, and they could probably hold their own against, or even defeat, the Demon King's army commander they had fought before.
The other soldiers had also grown stronger through battling powerful enemies, but the two of them were in a league of their own.
Moreover, even after continuing to grow this much, neither of them seemed to have reached their limits. They still had not fully mastered their magic, and they had plenty of room to improve. Their growth would likely be the key to what lay ahead.
"I can't let you two outdo me, either. Let's move on. I want to hunt at least ten more."
Watching the two of them grow stronger by the day made me feel reassured, but I renewed my determination to grow as well.
I had continued training during the three years I traveled with the prince, and I was still training now, but I simply could not improve at fighting. It seemed I just did not possess any talent for combat.
Then I should focus on the areas besides combat. As a commander, I could still be useful on the battlefield.
Ignoring Ray's worried protests, I headed off to exterminate more dragons.