v2c2- 3

Dominica Škoda.  

She was reportedly a knight granted Ratison City and several other towns as a fief by the king, in recognition of her distinguished service during the Gaz Empire’s capital siege at the end of the great war.  

Though her rank was that of the lowest tier of knighthood, in terms of the breadth of her territory alone, she could rival barons or viscounts. That’s how significant her achievements must have been.  

However…  

“About Dominica Škoda,” Akari said inside the moving Svetlana. “She’s a knight, sure but apparently a dragoon cavalier.”  

“Dragoon cavalier…” Toru furrowed his brow irritably. “That sounds like a tough opponent.”  

“Indeed.” Akari nodded in agreement.  

“—Tough?”  

Turning back from the driver’s seat, Chaika asked with a blank expression.  

“Tough doesn’t even begin to cover it.”  

Toru said with a sigh.  

That proper knight, Alberic Gillette, was already a troublesome enemy in his own right, but he was nothing compared to a dragoon cavalier. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call them just about the worst possible adversary imaginable.  

“…”  

Chaika blinked her eyes rapidly.  

Her face showed neither fear nor gloom,it was as if—  

“…No way.” Toru squinted at Chaika. “You don’t actually not know what a dragoin cavalier is, do you?”  

“…”  Chaika blinked a few more times, then with a “…Teehee,” she gave a shy—or rather, evasive smile, sticking out her tongue.  

“Teehee, my ass!” Half-exasperated, Toru shouted.  “There’s a limit to being clueless—you’re a mage, aren’t you!?”  

“Affirmative.”  

“You should know about Feyra, right?”  

“Affirmative.”  

Chaika nodded.  

“And among them, dragoons are—… I mean, Oi...look forward while you’re driving, it’s dangerous!”  

“Ai.”  

Nodding obediently, Chaika turned her gaze back to the front.  

Toru let out a sigh, staring at her silver hair as he continued.  

“Among Feyra, dragon like creature called Dragoon—are clearly in a league of their own, absolute monsters.”  

Commonly known as Feyra, six species of creatures have been identified.  

Orthrus.  

Kraken.  

Unicorn.  

Griffin.  

Leviathan.  

And—Dragoon.  

All Feyra possess their own unique forms of magic, but both the scale and potency of that magic vary tremendously, just as their levels of intelligence differ widely from one species to another. In essence, the word “Feyra” is little more than a convenient label—an umbrella term used to group together all creatures capable of using magic, despite the fact that they share few traits beyond that. For instance, while Toru and Chaika might have been able to defeat a Unicorn, that doesn’t mean the same tactics would work against far more powerful beings like a Leviathan or an dragoon. Each species stands on a completely different level. And when it comes to the question of whether they can even be defeated at all, the dragoon stands at the pinnacle—a truly overwhelming presence said to be the most formidable creature on the entire Felbist Continent. To put it bluntly, it's practically immortal.

“Dragoons?....Understood. Superior defense. Body-altering magic.”  

An armored dragon’s magic is unique in that it transforms its own body. The very name “Dragoon” comes from its fearsome appearance—its flesh hardens into plates of armor, encasing the beast in a shell that looks forged rather than grown. This armor possesses a strength far beyond what any living creature should have, utterly impervious to swords, arrows, or even half-formed spells, which can’t so much as scratch its surface.

And even if, by some miracle, you manage to wound it, the dragon’s body altering magic allows it to seal its own wounds or reconnect shattered bones as easily as taking a breath. Nearly impossible to injure, and even when injured, it recovers in an instant.

That’s the kind of creature an armored dragon is.

“A dragoon cavalier is a human who’s formed a ‘contract’ with one of these dragons.”

“Contract?”  

Chaika tilted her head, pointing to herself and Toru.  

“I told you to look forward! It’s not that kind of contract. ‘Bond’ might be the better word. They perform some kind of ritual, apparently.”  

“…Bond.”  

Chaika repeated the word, as if it were something curious.  

“The details are some closely guarded secret, so I don’t know much about it myself.”  

“Toru. Clueless.”  

Chaika shot back, as if getting revenge.  

“Don’t you call me clueless!” Retorting, Toru sighed. “Anyway, if our opponent’s a dragoon cavalier…”  

A dragoon cavalier, bound to an dragon through a “contract” as if they were one, is, frankly, no longer human. At the very least, they cease to be something you can categorize as human. In terms of single-combat prowess, they’re likely the strongest on the Felbist Continent—that’s what a dragon knight is.  

That said, despite their strength, dragoon cavalier tend to be disliked by orthodox knights and warriors, often slandered as “heretics” or “monsters.”  

“Unlike with the lord of Del Solant, we can’t just pick fight and take it…”  

“Impossible?”  

“Pretty damn close to impossible.”  

Toru admitted readily.  

He had no interest in obsessing over personal wins or losses, strength or weakness.  

Since a human’s condition changes greatly depending on circumstances, fighting under “identical conditions” is near impossible. An opponent you beat today might not lose tomorrow, and vice versa—thus, finding superiority in such things was, to a saboteur like Toru, utterly childish thinking.  

A saboteur’s pride lies in achieving their objective.  

They don’t care about the means. They aren’t bound by methods. Combat is just one of many tools for Toru and his kind and if there’s an easier way, combat, with its many uncertainties, is something to avoid. That’s Toru’s thinking, and the fundamental mindset of a saboteur.  

“Now that I think about it, Chaika, isn’t there a way to get it peacefully?”  

“…?”  

Chaika turned back with a blank expression.  

“Look forward while driving, I said!”  

“Ui.”  

Hastily turning her gaze back to the front, Chaika complied.  

“I mean—like, instead of fighting or stealing, those aggressive approaches… All you need is to get the remains, right?”  

“Affirmative.”  

“We saboteurs don’t care about the means to achieve our goals.” Toru said with a faint smile. “Pride’s just something we toss aside as needed to get the job done. That’s why we’re often despised. But to us, knights or warriors who make war itself their ‘goal’ are the ones who don’t make sense.”  

Some knights say that winning without fighting honorably is the same as losing.  

To Toru, that’s prioritizing means over ends… or rather, mistaking the means for the goal itself.  

“Anyway, a saboteur’s mindset is more flexible than that of knights or warriors. For example…”  

Toru recalled a metaphor his mentor once taught him.  

“Suppose there’s—let’s say, a huge vase in a lord’s mansion that you need to get. Just a figure of speech.”  

“Understood.”  

Chaika’s silver hair swayed gently. She must have nodded.  

“But it’s too big to sneak out. Someone would definitely notice, and it’s too heavy for one person to carry. Stealing it is probably impossible.”  

“Ui.”  

“So what do you do?”  

“…”  

Chaika tilted her head.  

From behind, her expression wasn’t visible, but she was probably furrowing her brow.  

“—Explode?”  

“That’s extreme right off the bat, huh!”  

“Get noticed. But fine.”  

“Oh… you mean as a diversion. Well, that’s one option.” Toru continued with a wry smile. “But if you accidentally blow up the vase itself, it’s pointless.”  

“Muu…”  

“In that case, another option is to steal a bunch of smaller vases instead.”  

“…Mui?”  

“Don’t turn around!”  

Grabbing Chaika’s head and forcing her to face forward, Toru continued:  

“So, you sell off the stolen small vases to make money. Then, with that money, you ask to buy the big vase.”  

“…”  

Chaika wiggled her shoulders side to side. Apparently, she’d tried to tilt her head, but with Toru holding it, it turned into that gesture.  

“The point is—getting stuck on the idea that you have to steal it limits your options. If the goal is just to get it in your hands, other methods are fine.”  

In fact, for something fragile like a vase, buying it legitimately might be safer and more reliable than stealing.  

“…Understood.”  

“Well…” Releasing Chaika’s head, Toru looked up at the night sky beyond the treetops, speaking wistfully. “They’re not exactly gonna hand it over just because we say ‘please,’ though.”  

The Svetlana had already left the main road, delving deep into the forest where the lord reportedly resided. The vehicle lurched heavily—perhaps a wheel had hit a rock hidden in the leaf mold or a thick tree root.  

Naturally, there were no signs of people around. There wasn’t even a proper path.  

Being a military mechanized vehicle, the Svetlana could force its way through the forest, but a decorative noble’s vehicle, prioritizing aesthetics, would have been immobilized long ago.  

They might end up having to abandon the Svetlana and proceed on foot.  

As Toru was thinking this—  

“—Toru.”  

“I told you to look forward and drive…”  

Starting to scold Chaika for turning again—Toru noticed it too.  

Unlike Chaika, perched atop the driver’s seat and seeing with her eyes, he felt it—an eerie presence creeping in… but then.  

“—Anii-sama.”  

Akari called out in a slightly tense voice.  

She, too, seemed to have sensed the presence.  

“I know.”  

Toru leaned out from the cargo area, moving toward Chaika’s driver’s seat. Beyond the glass windshield—in the dense, daytime-dark forest—several glints of light flickered.  

There were eyes. Beastly ones that were.  

And—  

“—Feyra.”  

Toru growled.  

Not just one or two.  

From what Toru could see, it was a pack of over thirty.  

“Orthrus…!”  

Pale blue lightning crackled with pachipachi sounds, flickering between the trees.  

The excited Feyra were likely leaking magic—thanks to which, the identity of the eyes’ owners lurking in the dark was immediately clear.  

Orthrus. The so-called bizarre beasts.  

In terms of grotesque appearance, they rivaled the Leviathan for the top spot among the six species. After all, while their basic build resembled a large dog or wolf, they had, as the name suggested, two heads.  

To clarify, one head was dominant, while the other was subordinate—more accurately, an organ concentrated with neural cores for wielding magic, lacking eyes, nose, or mouth. However, this smooth, head-like part bore pale blue patterns resembling eyes and a nose, etched like a mask.  

“One by one, they’re not that scary as I imagined…”  

Toru muttered, reaching for the dual short swords hanging at his lower back.  

Orthrus were considered relatively low-threat among the six Feyra species but that’s only when comparing them individually. A pack of Orthrus could be as troublesome as an armored dragon if mishandled. As these Feyra hunt by hurling lightning. In a group, their lightning intertwines like a net, forming a trap that envelops and closes around their prey and once caught in that encirclement, escaping is incredibly difficult.  

“Anii-sama. I forgot to mention earlier, but…” Akari said in a solemn tone. “This area has so many missing persons that even locals rarely venture in.”  

“Say that sooner!”  

Toru shouted, though—knowing wouldn’t have changed much. Since the lord in question lived deep in this forest, they had no choice but to pass through.  

“They didn’t say it was Feyra.”  

“…So, no survivors, huh.”  

Toru groaned.  

That no one knew the true nature of the threat in the forest meant—everyone who encountered it never returned. The number of missing persons just kept growing, their fate unknown.  

“Chaika, can you break through by force?”  

Toru whispered to the girl in the driver’s seat.  

“Try. But—”  

“I know.”  

Unlike horse-drawn carriages, mechanized vehicles have many steel parts.  

That means they conduct electricity—lightning—easily. If they took a direct hit during a forced breakthrough, the shock would reach Toru and the others even inside the vehicle. Worse, Chaika, with part of her nervous system directly linked to the vehicle’s magical engine, was in even greater danger.  

“Count to five. Accelerate as much as you can in that time and then disconnect from the engine.”  

Toru command.  

Thick cloth or leather could block electrical conduction. And even if Chaika disconnected, the vehicle’s weight would keep it moving a fair distance with enough momentum.  

“Go!”  

“U… Ui.”  

The Svetlana surged forward.  

At the same time, Toru glanced at Akari for confirmation.  

Akari nodded, stood from her seat, and pointed to her boots.  

Both Toru and Akari wore long boots with sound-absorbing soft resin soles, which didn’t conduct electricity. As long as they stood without touching anything, they should withstand a lightning strike on the Svetlana.  

That left the remaining issue—  

“One, two, three, four, five—Alright, Chaika, cut the connection!”  

“Ui!”  

Chaika squeezed her eyes shut.  

She must have severed part of the magical circuit constructed in her mind. Next, she yanked the connection cord from her neck, as if tearing it off.  

“—Nya!?”  

Chaika let out a sound somewhere between a scream and something else. Toru had suddenly grabbed her from behind. But without loosening his grip, he whispered in her ear-

“Hold on tight.”  

“—Understood.”  

Surprisingly quickly, Chaika calmed down and responded.  

To Toru, who glanced at her with a puzzled expression, Chaika smiled brightly and said...

“Like when we met. Same.”  

“—Got it.”  

Indeed, when they first met, he’d held her like this.  

“Trust. Strong.”  

“Heh—”  

Chaika looked up at him with eyes free of doubt, not flattery or bravado, and Toru’s cheek twitched.  

He couldn’t help but want to grin.  

(…K-Kinda embarrassing.)  

Thinking this, Toru pulled Chaika back into the vehicle’s interior—when—

—Bashi!

A pale blue net spread through the dim darkness.  

The Orthrus pack’s lightning intertwined, cast toward the Svetlana.  

Bolts danced everywhere, sparks flying from the driver’s seat and various parts of the chassis.  

“Tch—!”  

Shielding his head with his arm, Toru gauged the moment to draw his short swords.  

Magic wasn’t suited for close combat. Human magic required heavy, long Gundo, but even Feyra, who didn’t use Gundo, needed to chant spells, preventing rapid successive attacks.  

In other words, after one attack, there’d be a brief pause before the next magical strike.  

“Akari, take care of Chaika!”  

With that, Toru leapt from the vehicle. He didn’t absorb the impact of the fall, instead rolling across the ground while drawing both short swords from his waist.  

“Sha!”  

With a sharp exhale, he threw the blade in his right hand.  

It struck true, piercing the secondary head of a nearby Orthrus.  

The beast let out a gyan—a yelp no different from an ordinary dog—as it writhed. The secondary head was just a magical organ, so piercing it wouldn’t kill the Orthrus, but with its concentrated nerves, it caused excruciating pain.  

The Orthrus flopped and thrashed like a fish hauled onto land.  

Toru hadn’t aimed for the secondary head out of mercy or restraint. By targeting it, he hoped the sight of their writhing comrade would make the pack hesitate, even slightly. Without their coordination, individually Orthrus weren’t unbeatable.  

How much could he make these Feyra fear him in the gap after their coordinated magical attack? That was the key to surviving this moment.  

Holding the remaining short blades, Toru reeled in the thrown one with its steel thread.  

Using the resistance of the blade pulling free from the Orthrus’s head as leverage, he sprang up, readying himself.  

“Toru!”  

From the Svetlana, passing by on inertia, Chaika poked her head out and called to him. Held tightly by Akari, wrapped in a leather cloak, she was frantically reaching for her coffin—perhaps intending to pull out her Gundo to provide support.  

“Go! Don’t worry about me!”

Toru shouted.  

If he were alone, his agility would make escape not impossible.  

Besides if Chaika carelessly pulled out her Gundo now, it could act like a lightning rod, drawing the Orthrus pack’s lightning straight to it. That would render pointless the effort of having her let go of the Svetlana’s control lever.  

“Don’t use magic either, just go, I’ll be—”  

Fine—he started to yell but.

—Herukurun, unzerun, korukurun, peie, sebue!

“…!?”  

Toru froze in shock.  

The Orthrus’s spell chant. And—it was the final part.  

It was too fast. He’d estimated it would take at least ten more seconds for the Orthrus pack to recover from their confusion and complete another chant—  

“—!?”  

No. Looking closely, some Orthrus were still in disarray.  

But others, ignoring that, were chanting spells—  

“Damn cunning bastards!”  

Toru shouted, almost groaning.  

The Orthrus pack had outsmarted him.  

The pack was split into two groups. The first had attacked earlier. And just before the first group’s attack ended, the second began chanting. This way, they could chain attacks.  

“This is bad—”  

Toru sheathed his short sword, closed the front of his cloak, and shielded his head with both arms.  

He didn’t know how much insulation this would provide, but it was better than nothing.  

And then—

Bashi!

The next instant, a crackling net of lightning enveloped Toru's body.  

“Guoooooah!?”  

Toru screamed as the shock pierced his entire body.  

For a saboteur, who valued silence in both killing and being killed, this was shameful—but the pain was far beyond what willpower could endure.  

His muscles contracted violently on their own, and Toru collapsed, twitching and jerking.  

He couldn’t control his body with will alone. He tried to calm the spasms, but his thoughts wouldn’t even function properly—  

“Gu, gyaaaah…”  

Like the Orthrus whose head he’d pierced earlier, Toru writhed, spasming.  

“Toru!”  

“Anii-sama!”  

From the fleeing Svetlana, the two turned back, their voices nearly screams.  

But—  

“GO…!”  

That shout was all Toru could manage.

Yet, even at the bottom of his pain-ravaged consciousness, his mind hadn’t shut down completely. Somewhere beneath the haze, he was still calculating his odds.

The Orthrus’s lightning was powerful enough to tear through his nerves and leave his muscles spasming, but not necessarily lethal. Its purpose wasn’t to kill. Their magic existed for hunting, designed to immobilize prey rather than finish it off. That alone hinted at something far more terrifying because more than anything, Orthruses had a disturbing tendency—they preferred to eat their prey, especially humans, while they were still alive.

In other words—

(These fuckers will come to finish me with their fangs.)  

Probably a few seconds from now.  

If he could somehow endure the pain until then, in close-quarters combat—especially a chaotic melee—Toru would have a chance. Without their lightning, Orthrus weren’t much different from regular dogs.  

(Guh… shit, calm down, calm down damn it!)  

He commanded his spasming body, but it wouldn’t obey.  

Even trying to chant the keywords for his body-enhancing technique—Iron-Blood Transformation—was impossible as his tongue and lips wouldn’t move. Focusing his mind was equally out of reach. How much he could return to normal in those few seconds would decide life or death.  

“…Gu… hah…”  

The sound of beastly breathing closed in around the spasming Toru.  

In his pain-blurred, reddened vision, multiple Orthrus shapes flickered—  

(…I am done for…)  

He’d be eaten. Alive.  

It was among the most terrifying and cruel ways for a human to die. Saboteurs, who were said to never die cleanly, had long since made their peace with that, and Toru was no exception… but even so, the thought of a beast’s fangs tearing through his guts made him want to puke.  

A shudder raced up Toru’s spine.  

The rancid breath of the beasts brushed his cheek.  

Fangs neared Toru’s throat—  

“—Begone, curs.”  

It came without warning or context.  

A clear, resonant voice rang out over Toru and the Orthrus.  

A calm, composed woman’s voice, utterly out of place in the moment.  

“Leave, or you’ll all lie exposed as corpses.”  

“…!?”  

Enduring the searing pain, Toru tried to think.  

Who the hell was that? Obviously not Chaika’s voice, nor Akari’s.  

Someone completely different—  

“…!”  

A shadow fell over Toru’s head.  

(—A dragon?)  

For a moment, he thought so.  

It was as if a dragon with spread wings had descended but it was merely the fluttering of a cloak, casting a shadow-like illusion leaping from somewhere and landing right beside Toru—astonishingly, barely stirring the leaf mold or fallen leaves there was a slender woman. she was clad in silvery armor and carrying a longsword, she appeared to be a knight, warrior, or swordswoman.

From behind, her appearance wasn’t fully clear to Toru—  

“…”  

Even so, Toru thought she was beautiful.

Her silhouette—her stance.  

It was utterly natural, devoid of any artifice.  

Yet her majestic, imposing figure carried a certain… flair, glamorous, perhaps. In stark contrast to a saboteur who skulks through battlefields under cover of darkness, this was the reliable back of one who strides confidently at the forefront of the battle line, inspiring those who follow to fight with fervor.  

Her long, flaxen hair swayed gently.  

Within it, a small silver hairpiece glinted.  

“Will you fight? Or will you flee? What say you?”  

The woman asked.  

In response, the Feyra—  

(…What the hell.)  

The presence of the Orthrus pack receded.  

This woman with mere intimidation, without even drawing her sword had driven off those ferocious monsters.  

(She’s a fucking monster herself.)  

Indeed, the aura radiating from her entire being was anything but ordinary.  

If Toru had faced her as an enemy first, he’d likely think not “how to defeat her” but “how to escape” first—that’s how overwhelming her presence was.  

But…  

(…Talk about ironic.)  

Toru mused at the bottom of his lingering pain.  

A monstrous female warrior like this couldn’t just be everywhere.  

Which meant—  

“Are you alright, young man?”  

The female warrior finally turned to Toru, asking.  

Backlit by the moon, her face was slightly shadowed but mostly discernible.  

Sharp, almond-shaped blue eyes. A pointed chin. Thin, taut lips.  

Her refined beauty was akin to Akari’s, but—this woman exuded a more mature, feminine allure. Even in armor, her muscular build and the fullness of her chest and hips were unmistakable, those of a fully mature woman.  

“Didn’t you hear in Ratison that this area is dangerous?”  

She asked in a tone of exasperation.  

There was no hint of holding her rescue of Toru from peril over him, nor of boasting her own strength. It was as if she were simply extending a hand to a child who’d fallen—an utterly casual tone. For this female warrior, driving off Orthrus was likely just that trivial an act.  

He’d been saved at the brink of death. Normally, he should be overwhelmed with gratitude.  

But—  

(…We’ve gotta take the remains from someone like this?)  

Toru gazed dully at the hand she offered, a gloomy feeling settling in.  

The lord of this land, a dragoon cavalier—the formidable Dominica Škoda.  

This was… the first encounter of Toru and his group with her.