Explosive force fired out of an enormous frame some ten metres in size.
The Gelu Drake's movements are not visible.
I could only faintly register something like a blurred afterimage.
'My agility is too low.'
Agility did not simply mean quick movement.
Precisely put, it meant 'the ability to transmit commands from the brain through the nervous system.'
The reason high agility produces quick movement lay here as well.
The better the ability to transmit commands from the brain through the nervous system, the faster the speed of interaction between nerves, and by that the faster the body's response.
Conversely, the speed of processing the stimuli obtained through the nervous system also increases.
Reflexes that can respond immediately to an enemy's attack.
Dynamic vision that can track an enemy's movements.
The higher agility rose, the more these abilities improved along with it.
Put simply, 'every act carried out through the nervous system' was related to agility.
In that sense manual dexterity was included in agility too, so raising such an ability through mere physical conditioning was very difficult.
That was the reason I invested all the additional stats gained from levelling into agility.
By which my current Agility stat was 8.
Using Promote Metabolism [E+] for its +10% effect, I could pull it up to 8.8.
But it is not enough.
With only that much I could neither track nor react to the Gelu Drake's movements.
CRUNCH!
My side was torn clean away.
Before pain enough to daze the mind could come rushing in, I blocked the sensory nerves and swallowed it.
And the Gelu Drake?
Its movement is restricted by tearing into my side.
Give up the bone, take the flesh.
I clenched both fists hard. I hammered them down like a mallet on the back of the Gelu Drake as it tore at my side.
CRASH!
The Gelu Drake was driven straight into the snow of the Snowy Mountain.
I do not follow up with another blow.
I opened the distance quickly.
The regeneration ability is not all-powerful.
The strengthened Regeneration [B-] could capably regenerate a severed arm or leg.
But if it reaches 'instant death,' such as losing the heart or the head, it cannot regenerate.
Regeneration is not an ability that brings back the dead.
And had I not twisted my body hurriedly just now, it would not have been my side but my heart that was torn out.
So I must not be hasty.
If I cannot kill it in one stroke, I simply keep landing blows.
◆You may use the skill 'Regeneration [B-]' to regenerate the damaged body.
◆You may use the skill 'Nutrient Synthesis [C+]' to synthesise the required nutrients.
When I activated Regeneration [B-] and Nutrient Synthesis [C+] at once, my torn-away side regenerated in an instant.
An enormous quantity of calories was consumed, but that's fine.
I take monster meat out of the Inventory—
◆The Inventory is empty.
......What did you say?
My mind snapped clear.
At the same moment translucent messages poured down before my eyes.
====
The Inventory is the place where objects the Player owns are stored, and is classified as 'subspace.'
What can be stored in the Inventory is limited strictly to 'objects.'
It is likewise limited to what the Player 'owns.'
If it is an object the Player owns and can store, there is no limit on kind or number.
Only, it cannot be stored beyond the storable weight.
The Inventory's storage weight varies according to the Player's stats, and is applied as [the Player's Strength stat] x [40kg].
====
◆Your currently storable Inventory weight is [880kg].
It was a fact I already knew.
The Inventory had a limit on storage weight.
Which was why, hunting monsters on the Snowy Mountain, I could not carry away every corpse I obtained.
But I had thought 880kg would be enough...
And that was when it happened.
A murmuring.
All at once a murmuring commotion came from lower down the Snowy Mountain.
***
Kai led the soldiers toward the place where the explosions had risen.
And what he faced in the end was, sure enough, the Gelu Drake.
The Gelu Drake is a monster classified in the dragon Family.
If the dragon is the master of the continent and its calamity, the Gelu Drake was the Master of the Snowy Mountain and its calamity.
It rarely comes down from the Snowy Mountain's summit, but once it does, it wrecks a village or two.
The best method is not to provoke a Gelu Drake.
Honestly, even Kai had no confidence.
He had no certainty that he could subjugate a Gelu Drake alone.
Which was why the shock Kai took was close to outright horror.
Because of a certain man currently fighting the Gelu Drake alone, and nothing else.
"It's Lord Adrian!"
"Lord Adrian is fighting the Gelu Drake!"
Adrian was locked in a bloody duel with the Gelu Drake. Over the pure white snow, blood whose owner could not be told was flying everywhere.
And this place is not the Gelu Drake's territory.
There was a considerable distance from the Snowy Mountain's summit where the Gelu Drake dwells.
Therefore Adrian had not lured the Gelu Drake here.
This was the Gelu Drake having come down of its own accord.
He did not know why the Gelu Drake had come down from the summit. But once it has come down, it does not simply go back up.
It will hunt for prey until it is completely full.
And the prey most easily found on the Snowy Mountain is the county's residents.
At least dozens of residents would be sacrificed to the Gelu Drake.
They would have to be prepared for a village or two to be wrecked.
So the Gelu Drake absolutely has to be subjugated.
"All personnel, prepare for battle!!"
At Kai's shout the soldiers formed up as one.
The drill of soldiers who had not been idle in their training.
No less than elite troops.
And even so, deep fear settled over the soldiers' faces.
The Master of the Snowy Mountain, the Gelu Drake.
Casualties would occur, near enough to call it a certainty.
Dozens at the least.
Perhaps annihilation.
Kai drew his sword at the very front. To minimise the soldiers' losses, Kai has to bear all the damage himself.
Even so sacrifice could not be avoided, but the Gelu Drake is a monster that absolutely must be subjugated.
Just as Kai gripped his sword firmly, it happened.
"Pull the soldiers back!!"
Adrian shouted.
Even in that moment the Gelu Drake's attacks continued.
Barely evading them, Adrian shouted again.
"The Gelu Drake is not something soldiers can face!!"
He is right.
The Gelu Drake is the Master of the Snowy Mountain and at the same time the Disaster of the Snowy Mountain.
That renown was not attached to it for nothing.
But even so, this fight—
"Kai! You and I will face the Gelu Drake, the two of us!!"
Adrian's shout came again.
Kai's mind snapped clear.
A strategy in which Adrian and Kai alone face the Gelu Drake.
Then...... the soldiers' losses could be minimised.
Not merely minimised — they could be made none at all.
But he had not expected Adrian to say such a thing.
Honestly, he had thought Adrian would throw the soldiers out as bait to preserve his own life.
And yet it was the opposite.
Adrian was throwing himself out as bait to protect the soldiers.
'Why on earth......?'
He is so utterly different from the Adrian Kai knew.
Contrary to Kai's thinking, Adrian had not been swallowed by madness.
His reason plainly remained.
He was making judgements more coolly than anyone.
Adrian had, right now, been tying the Gelu Drake down so it could not descend the Snowy Mountain, hadn't he?
If Adrian had not tied the Gelu Drake down here... what would have happened?
He could not know for certain, but a great many people of the county would have been sacrificed.
But it amounted, at the end of it, to no more than tying the Gelu Drake down.
Adrian and Kai.
In conclusion, it is a problem solved only if these two subjugate the Gelu Drake.
...But can they do it?
Honestly, the odds are not high.
Kai alone facing a Gelu Drake is difficult as it is. Reckoning the odds, it would be a little over 30%.
The Gelu Drake was that kind of monster.
Add Adrian to that and how much could the win rate be raised?
One thing is certain.
Adrian is no longer the Count's wastrel.
Kai deliberated, and in the end was able to reach a conclusion.
"All personnel. Descend the Snowy Mountain immediately."
"Sir?!"
"B-but...!"
The soldiers cried out in surprise.
Not one of them agreed with Kai's decision.
And no wonder — every one of them is a soldier of House White Wolf.
Soldiers who have trained gruellingly every day to protect the family, friends and lovers living in the county.
If they run away here out of fear, they were not unaware of who the Gelu Drake would sacrifice when it came down from the Snowy Mountain.
Which is why.
Kai was able to add all the more conviction to his thinking.
"It is an order. All personnel descend the Snowy Mountain at once. Then report this to the county and evacuate the residents to safety."
Until then.
"I will hold out somehow."
Even at Kai's order the soldiers did not readily move.
It was not that they did not trust Kai.
It was that they could not trust Adrian.
That was true of Kai as well, but right now there was no choice.
"Go!!"
When Kai finally shouted, the soldiers at last moved reluctantly, one by one.
"We will evacuate the people and come back with reinforcements!"
"You must stay alive until then!!"
And with that the soldiers went quickly down the Snowy Mountain.
Kai confirmed the sight and then immediately kicked off the snow of the Snowy Mountain.
***
The soldiers descending the Snowy Mountain quickly.
My reason for having the soldiers pulled back was simple.
'The heart must not be damaged.'
If the soldiers intervene, the Gelu Drake's 'heart' gets damaged, near enough to call it a certainty.
Because striking the heart was the most certain and fastest method of subduing a Gelu Drake.
'I can't have that.'
I absolutely cannot watch that happen with my eyes open.
The dragon's genetic factors engraved in the Gelu Drake must be devoured intact, without fail.
What kind of genetic factors are those, to be squandered carelessly?
But it was not solely for that reason that I pulled the soldiers back.
The soldiers are no match at all for a Gelu Drake.
In common terms they amount to no more than meat shields.
Of course that does not mean they would be of no help.
Which is why, had it been the old me.
Had it been the Count's wastrel.
I would certainly have sacrificed the soldiers.
But now it was not so.
As the allied forces' Predator, as Covert Operations Captain of the Special Warfare Corps, there was something I always said to the task force operatives.
To survive on a battlefield you have to sell everything you have. You must be able to throw away pride and your soul without hesitation.
But one thing only.
Do not sell your comrades.
Rather than sell a comrade, just die.
I would sooner die myself than throw my comrades out as sacrifices.
Of course the soldiers of the county castle were not comrades of the allied forces.
Soldiers who follow the Monarch of Frost.
Strictly speaking, soldiers in a hostile relationship with me.
But what crime have they committed?
Soldiers are guilty only of doing what those above them tell them to do.
The targets I must kill are limited.
Now that I have decided to hunt the Gelu Drake, the soldiers' sacrifice is unnecessary.
Only, hunting it alone is beyond me.
Which is why I told 'one person' to stay.
Formerly, the Legion Commander of Frost.
Presently, the Head Knight of House White Wolf.
In an instant.
Long golden hair was embroidered across the pure white world.
Movement like a flash of gold.
SLASH—!
Kai became a wolf of gold and tore into the Gelu Drake.