The commander dug in his heels.
Being the younger son of one of the elven dukes, he considered it beneath him to acknowledge the failures of his lowborn subordinates.
That is, he acknowledged their mistake, but not his own.
Needless to say, my darling didn’t like that story at all.
Even if it was as old as the hills.
So in the end, Vaysi asked me to write a report.
After all, I wasn’t present during the conversation and couldn’t have a beneficial influence on the arrogant brat with just my status, which was si-i-ignificantly higher than his, and that’s not even considering the religious aspect of my title-rank.
I was always ready to do such a small favor for my partner, and besides, it was amusing to watch his stunned face when he realized I was backing up my darling.
Well, not mine yet…
But that’s only for now!
“My little sadist.” I smiled broadly as we left the Jaeger headquarters.
“You say that.” this cutie lifted her nose slightly.
“There’s no sadism in me.
I only punish justly.” “Yes, yes.
I saw your satisfied face when that Daedra spawn was bleating and moaning while I was writing the report.” I chuckled, making Vaysi’s ears turn even redder.
I love this feature in elven girls.
Humans, of course, stand out in terms of forms…
But it’s not all about that.
“Don’t talk nonsense.” came from her, very uncertainly, to which I just chuckled.
“So, how shall we celebrate another victory?
I suggest going for ice cream.” I didn’t bother to come up with something original, suggesting a very popular sweet among the Snow Elves.
The local ice cream differed from the one I was used to only by its lower temperature.
An ordinary person eating this would freeze their entire mouth, and probably even die.
Otherwise, it was distinguished by a simply gigantic number of different flavors, and as they joked here, few elves could try every single one.
That’s how inventive the Snow Elves were, channeling their passion for art into food as well.
“Ice cream?
M-m-m…” the girl started to stall for time, as if she didn’t want to dash off for her favorite treat right now.
But under my mocking gaze, Vaysi finally gave in, once again silently admitting that I kne-e-ew her too well.
“Alright.
Alright, let’s go!” …While eating ice cream with local berries, which Skyrim was rich in, we met the attack…
of Them.
Dragons.
As they say in such situations, at first nothing foreshadowed trouble.
The impromptu date was going well, because my level of sociability was always high, and knowing the tastes, habits, and so on of my future paramour allowed me not to blather on about topics that didn’t interest her.
It wasn’t boring, so we were having a good time.
And then…
Bang.
A deafening roar echoed across the entire city, making us both practically reflexively grab our swords and only by miracle not drop our ice cream.
“What…
what is that…” Vaysi’s voice trembled outright as a very clear figure of a flying reptile appeared over the city.
“Something we’re clearly going to have to kill.” I said in a grimly pessimistic tone, no less stunned than my partner.
This was the last thing I expected — dragons!
Not at all…
Although, if you think about it logically…
They had to appear in Tamriel and Skyrim sometime…
So why not now.
Drawing the flamberge from its sheath and biting off a large chunk of the remaining ice cream in one go, I felt the spreading cold sober me up.
…Now I understand how Ysgramor defeated the elves.
I understa-a-and.
Dragons were involved here too, who, unlike humans at their current level of development, are capable of destroying an advanced magical civilization.
“Fus…” Oh, I don’t like this…
“Ro-Dah!” the legendary phrase-cry rang out…
And I was almost knocked over.
Even considering the distance…
Damn it, dragons in reality are going to be more dangerous than in the game.
“What is that?” Vaysi managed to shout to me, clearly preparing something long-range and magical.
“First, we clip this lizard’s wings, then we’ll find out.” I bared my teeth, watching as dozens and hundreds of ice shards began to fly towards the two winged creatures.
Even the ordinary civilians got their bearings and hit them with whatever they had — another advantage of a magically developed race and civilization.
“Right…” I found a suitable path to the creatures descending towards the ground.
“Don’t get close!” I gave the last order to the elf, using the River of Time again.
The world slowed down.
I sped up.
My path began to lead upwards, onto the roofs, which I climbed thanks to the numerous ledges on the walls, giving the white-stone buildings a more graceful and elegant look.
“Gaf?..
Yor?..
Kal?..” the red lizard uttered in a not-so-slowed voice, glaring at me with its eye.
Something pricked in my head at the sight of my opponent’s scarlet scales, but I didn’t pay much attention to it, literally jumping from the building onto the dragon’s neck with a blade in both hands.
The crazy idea worked — the dragon, stunned by such audacity and speed from a mortal, didn’t have time to jerk its head, and my sword plunged right between its scales, securely anchoring itself inside due to its flamberge shape.
A flamberge that I had charged with frost magic along the way, rightly deciding that a red dragon would be less vulnerable to my beloved fire.
Holding tightly to the hilt, I used the dragon’s neck rotation against it.
The more it tried to throw me off, the more it widened its own wound, increasing its own pain.
Due to the structure of its body, its arm-wings couldn’t reach me.
Stunned by the pain, the reptile still hit me with its wing, but fortunately it was a glancing blow — the world was still slow enough for me.
This caused a loss of balance in flight, and the reptile crashed its entire body into one of the buildings.
“Kheh!” escaped my mouth as I was also slammed against the wall.
But that fall allowed me to finally pull the blade out of the wound, fully utilizing the saw effect and cutting the dragon’s flesh even more.
The frost enchantment on the sword wouldn’t let it lose much blood, but I was counting on slowing down the regeneration process.
These creatures surely had something like that.
Their affinity with magic is literally phenomenal…
If elves have about forty percent out of a hundred, then dragons have all eighty.
Even Atronachs have only a little more — about ninety.
Activating the River of Time again, which had been disrupted at the moment of the impact that had bruised half my back and left shoulder.
“Tid!..” the dragon exclaimed, seemingly even stunned, recovering faster than me.
“Dovah!” I threw back in response.
A predatory grin appeared on my face of its own accord, and I launched from my spot, watching the dragon, leaning on its arm-wings, raise its head higher.
I suppose, now will come…
“Yol-Toor!” the flame that flared up in its maw was unexpectedly fast, and it grazed my unfortunate left side.
Nevertheless, gritting my teeth, I survived that too.
Besides, my bruised left arm wouldn’t have been much help in this fight anyway.
My fire magic isn’t very useful against a fire-breathing reptile, and the rest was clearly too weak for a dragon.
I was finally able to get close to the reptile thanks to the volleys from my arriving kin, which meant I didn’t have to destroy the dragon single-handedly.
The latter, by the way, during its breath, had stretched its snout forward and down, so at the cost of the lives of a dozen burned elves, I was able to get close to its head and strike with all my might with the flamberge in the eye area.
Thanks to its shape, my blade managed to cut through the protective brow ridge, and the cold-infused sword destroyed the reptile’s eye.
Roaring painfully at the top of its voice, the scaled one tried to headbutt me, but…
The River of Time was still active, and I managed to duck.
And thrust the flamberge straight into the dragon’s tender chin, protected only by thin scales.
The length of my weapon was enough to reach its brain.
“Heh.” I said with satisfaction, sharply pulling the sword back out, and literally jumping back from a crouch, then doing an acrobatic somersault and landing on my feet.
…Only to dodge the already freezing breath of the second dragon.
Thankfully, it was slower than the fire breath, so I dodged it completely.
For which the partner of the killed scaled one paid with a dozen meter-long icicles flying straight into it.
The ice dragon with white scales clearly didn’t care about frost magic…
But overconfidence let the Dovah down again.
One of the ice bolts, sent, it seemed, by Vaysi, lodged in its eye…
Distracting it and giving me a chance to get close.
“Good afternoon…” I said through the pain echoing in my left arm, darting to the dragon’s belly and cutting the reptile’s right hind leg with the flamberge.
Nothing, we’ll kill you too.
Did I kill you hundreds of times in my previous life for nothing?
Even if reality differs from the game, your appearance hasn’t changed.
Landing on the ground like its comrade, it made a fatal mistake.
Dragons are kings of the sky, but not of the earth.
Dodging a tail strike, I swung at it, feeling the blade clash with strong scales.
The frost enchantment wasn’t helping this time, even hindering a bit; I could only rely on the distracting attacks of the city’s mages, who were pouring all three elements onto this creature.
Fighting on literally several fronts, the dragon was forced to decide what to counter.
The magic of the townspeople, or my constant slashing at its wings.
And for some reason, it didn’t make the only correct choice in its situation — to take off.
…Ah, right, they’re confident in their immortality.
And rightly so, we don’t have a Dragonborn.
If this thing dies, Aldwin can resurrect it.
Kinda sad.
It’s like being Konrad Curze and fighting against Vulkan…
Not that Warhammer should be brought up here.
“Hsss…” I hissed displeasedly as the sharp tip of its tail finally gave me a cut on my long-suffering left arm, which was practically hanging like a whip.
“Yor!” the reptile growled displeasedly when it couldn’t swat me.
But I kept chopping at its tail in counterattacks, significantly damaging the scales and reaching the flesh in some places.
A particularly powerful lightning attack made the creature twitch and shift its attention to the side…
Thereby depriving itself of the ability to see me, and allowing me to slip through to the creature’s hind legs.
The belly was almost entirely covered in hard, poorly penetrable bone plates…
But I was taking a risk and waiting for something else.
For it to use its ice breath again to get rid of the annoying mages.
A-a-and…
Yes!
…And failure.
Clearly having seen its kin’s death and felt the pain in its jaw, the dragon managed to jerk its head before I reached its brain.
Which caused the stuck blade…
To break.
Even the masterpiece of the Chantry smiths couldn’t withstand the numerous distracting blows against the strong scales, accumulating dozens of chips.
And getting stuck in the dragon’s strongest bones was too much for it…
Throwing away the now useless shard, I allowed myself to use…
Magic.
I had hardly used it during the entire fight, so I was full of magical energy.
So the dragon had to be stunned when a powerful fireball hit it right in the neck.
“La!” the dragon managed to growl angrily even with its lower jaw cut, choking in the next second on dozens of magical attacks coming from the mages who had been tormenting its weakening body.
Finally…
Finally this idiot tried to take off!
True, because of my strikes on its wings, it didn’t do it very deftly, which allowed me to realize my plan.
After all, the blade of my sword was glinting, stuck in its mouth.
A fireball formed in my hand…
Pouring literally all my remaining power into it, I launched it vertically upward, straight into the dragon’s chin.
The explosion itself didn’t cause enough harm to the reptile — I wasn’t that strong in magic, but…
It pushed the blade of my sword further into the creature’s head…
And grazed its brain.
Which meant that without the River of Time, in the normal flow of the latter, I had to beat a hasty retreat from the falling scaled carcass.
“Ha-a-ah…
Ha-a-ah…” I exhaled, feeling my heart pounding wildly in my chest.
“That…
Was…
Good.” Holding myself back from collapsing to the ground entirely, I got to both feet, swaying slightly.
Looking at the elves emerging from their hiding places, I noted the expressions of disbelief on their faces.
They couldn’t believe it was finally over.
The City was destroyed…
About a third of it.
Another third was frozen or burning.
But victory was ours.
Hmm…
Interesting.
Would they call me a dragon slayer after what happened?..