Episode 300: Blue Dragon
Hans imbued his longsword with Lightning and charged towards the Sea Serpent.
By channeling “Lightning Magical Power” into his boots, he repelled against the ground, gaining a leaping power that seemed impossible for a human. Hans soared high, closing in on the Great Serpent’s face.
“Eat this!”
The sword unleashed a tremendous flash of Lightning. The sword’s flash slashed across the Great Serpent’s face, cracking its skull.
The gigantic snake writhed in agony, collapsing to the ground and rolling around on the road. Without a moment’s delay, Charlotte ran forward.
With her flame-clad Katana, she slashed open the snake’s belly.
As she ran through, the snake’s belly continued to split open. Unable to endure, the Great Serpent raised its head, causing Charlotte, who had detonated the ground, to fly into the sky.
Spinning, she approached the snake’s head, pouring all her Magical Power into the Katanas in her hands. The Katana in her left hand crackled with bursting flames, while black Lightning discharged from the Katana in her right hand.
Charlotte slashed the snake’s head in a cross pattern.
Black Lightning burst forth, while an explosion erupted. A simultaneous attack using Second Stratum magic. The Sea Serpent breathed its last and turned to sand in an instant.
Charlotte, landing on the ground, exhaled with a “Phew.”
“Well done, Charlotte.”
Charlotte shook her head at Hans’s praise.
“No, Hans-san’s attack weakened it considerably, so I only finished it off.”
“It was a sufficient effort.”
As the two sheathed their weapons and turned their gaze, they saw the soldier Andrew standing there.
“Andrew, we need to evacuate immediately. The residents headed north, right?”
“Y-yes.”
Asked by Hans, Andrew snapped back to reality.
“I’m sorry. I was just so amazed by your battle…”
“Flattery won’t get you anything. More importantly, we need to move too.”
“Y-yes, that’s right. This way, please!”
Guided by Andrew, the three proceeded north along the national highway. Hans glanced back.
Most of the city was covered in ice. They probably couldn’t live here anymore. To think that the “Ice Kingdom (Ice Kingdom),” which had continued to protect the people, would collapse so easily.
He couldn’t deny the sense of loss, but he had no choice but to move forward.
Hans and the others ran through the flooded city.
◇◇◇
“Why aren’t the cars moving yet!?”
Leila, in the back seat of the official car, roared at the driver in anger.
The car was caught in a massive traffic jam and wasn’t moving at all. She needed to evacuate quickly, or her life would be in danger.
Just as her frustration reached its peak, she heard a scream from behind.
When Leila turned around, something fell from the sky. With a loud crash, Leila let out a small “Hee!”
“T-that’s enough! I’m getting out here.”
“P-Prime Minister! Please wait!!”
Ignoring the driver’s protests, Leila jumped out. Two SP bodyguards also got out of the car, following after Leila.
Looking around, she saw that what had fallen on the road was something like the wreckage of a turret.
“That is…”
Confused people were passing by, and some were shouting in a panic. Leila started running north.
There was a shelter prepared ahead for emergencies.
It was for the evacuation of residents, but important figures like herself would be given priority. Thinking so, she ran, when a voice called out from next to her.
“Prime Minister! Are you safe?”
Turning around, she saw the Minister of State, Jack Hamilton. He was dabbing his thinning hair with a handkerchief, running while wiping away sweat.
Seeing his bulging belly shaking, Leila frowned.
They were from the same political party and had known each other for a long time, but Leila couldn’t quite bring herself to like Jack.
“Well, the car I was in stopped moving too… Prime Minister, you’re going to the shelter at The Oval, right?”
The Oval was a cricket ground north of Brixton. A large-scale underground shelter had been built there to evacuate citizens in case of an emergency.
“Yes, that’s the plan. For now, we’ll wait for the chaos to subside and then evacuate to another city.”
“Indeed. Well, let’s hurry. I don’t think it’s likely, but it would be terrible if there were too many evacuees and we couldn’t get in.”
Leila was disgusted by Jack’s flippancy.
That could never happen. The weight of their lives was different from that of ordinary citizens.
It wouldn’t matter if a few ordinary people died, but if she died, the country would fall apart.
When they arrived at the entrance to The Oval’s shelter, many citizens and soldiers were arguing. Leila slowed her pace, watching the scene.
“Why can’t we get in!? Monsters are coming right up to us!!”
“Because we’ve reached the limit of our capacity! Go to another shelter or flee north!”
“Don’t screw with me! We don’t have time for that. If we can’t get in here, we’ll all die!”
At the man’s words, the commoners shouted, “That’s right! That’s right!”
They didn’t seem to understand at all. That they were “low-priority people.” Leila approached the soldiers guarding the entrance and ordered them to let her into the shelter.
The soldiers immediately saluted and tried to guide Leila, Jack, and the SPs to the entrance of the shelter. Seeing this, the commoners began to shout.
“Hey! The Prime Minister gets in!? Then we should be able to get in too!”
“That’s right! Let us in too!!”
“I have children! Let us through quickly!!”
The scene descended into chaos. Commoners and soldiers clashed, turning into a gruesome sight. Children cried, and a man who had been beaten by a soldier spat blood and fell to the ground.
Ignoring the scene, Leila snorted and walked on.
Foolish people who didn’t know their place. As she was thinking that, something caught the corner of her eye. A shadow flickering on top of a building.
Spreading its large wings, its body reflected the sunlight and sparkled. A sky-blue Monster with a long neck, leisurely gazing at the ground.
“That’s a “Blue Dragon”! Why is it here!?”
A Blue Dragon should never approach this “Ice Kingdom (Ice Kingdom).” The biggest threat to protecting the country was this Dragon, which dominated the airspace.
For that reason, “surface-to-air magical weapons” were installed in various locations to keep the Blue Dragon away. And yet—
Leila gasped. The turret that had fallen on the road earlier, wasn’t that a surface-to-air weapon installed on top of the building?
If so, it was destroyed by the Dragon!? Why all of a sudden?
“…Could it be…the tsunami’s influence…?”
That massive wave was hundreds of meters high and swallowed half the city. The surface-to-air weapons at high altitudes stopped working!?
As a result of the reduced air defenses, many Blue Dragons approached the city and destroyed the weapons on top of the buildings.
If that was the case—
Leila looked up at the sky. There, four Blue Dragons were swimming leisurely in the sky.
There were two more Dragons on top of the building.
She thought she had to escape, when the entrance to the shelter in front of her was blown away.
“Eh!?”
Leila, not understanding what had happened, opened her mouth in a daze. Everyone nearby was speechless and stopped moving.
Leila returned her gaze to the top of the building.
Water was dripping from the mouth of the Dragon perched on the roof of the building. The Dragons flying in the sky also opened their mouths, spewing out a large amount of water.
—Water Breath!
The water, attacking like a flash of light, blew away cars and people with its pressure.
This was the most troublesome Monster among the water types. The moment Leila looked up, several Breaths were fired.
The flashes of water killed commoners, killed soldiers, and indiscriminately took lives.
“H-hii!”
Leila crouched down, waiting for this overwhelming violence to pass.
“Jack! You should crouch down too…”
When Leila turned her gaze, Jack was already dead. The right half of his body was gone, and he was dead. Presumably, the Water Breath had grazed him.
And then it got dark. What more could there be, Leila thought, looking up at the sky.
How much better it would have been if it had just clouded over.
An incredible number of Dragons were dancing in the sky.
Thirty…no, there were nearly fifty of them. They circled in the sky, swimming leisurely.
If they were attacked by that many Dragons, no one in the area would be saved.
That, of course, included herself. At that moment, Leila gasped.
Ah, to those Monsters…there was no difference between humans. All were equally insects. The hierarchy that existed in human society was irrelevant to the Monsters.
Leila finally realized such an obvious thing.