[V7C16] The Man Who Felled a Dragon with a Kick

One evening, a week after Princess Cecilia’s arrival, Einhard Berger of the Imperial Guard was strolling near the Ridill Royal Palace. Today was his day off.

After chatting with a young female florist, Einhard bought a white flower and walked slowly along the road, humming to himself.

Once he spotted his friend coming from the opposite direction, he paused and casually waved the hand holding the white flower.

“Hey, over here. This way.”

White flowers served as the marker when meeting with this friend.

Meanwhile, his friend quickly noticed Einhard and rushed over, lifting the brim of his hat, which was worn unnaturally deep. This revealed the face of a man with stern yet kind eyes.

“Long time no see, Einhard.”

The man offered a gentle smile to Einhard, as they had been friends for a decade. His name was Lionel Blem Edwalt Ridill, and he was the First Prince of Ridill.

＊　＊　＊

Ten years ago, Einhard was still a spirited 16-year-old working for a squadron of the Imperial Knights. It was then that he bumped into Lionel.

Einhard boasted good looks and skill with the blade. And to top it all off, his family was one of the most influential houses in the Empire.

However, he ended up joining the Imperial Knights primarily due to his bad behavior. To make a long story short, his father had told him, “Foolish son of mine, I’m sending you to the Knights to learn some discipline, patience, and common sense!”

Despite reluctantly joining the Knights for such awful reasons, Einhard managed to get by reasonably well thanks to his natural resourcefulness.

After all, he was no longer under his father’s watchful eye, meaning he could misbehave as much as he pleased. The young troublemaker never had any intention of adhering to military discipline.

As Einhard was enjoying his newfound freedom, one day, a joint military exercise with the Ridill Kingdom was announced.

Ridill had once been at war with the Empire, so joint exercises were ostensibly meant as deterrence aimed at the neighboring nation. However, everyone knew this was merely a show of the then Emperor’s prestige.

Large-scale exercises with foreign nations naturally required a considerable amount of funds. The previous Emperor always spent lavishly to showcase his authority to other countries, even if it meant throwing significant sums down the drain.

It would be absurd to spend any effort satisfying the vanity of the bigwigs, so Einhard casually skipped the exercises. But on the early afternoon of the third day, the incident occurred.

Namely, a herd of dragons had been spotted near the venue.

Apparently, the earth dragons had woken up a bit late from hibernation. This disrupted the feeding grounds of the fire dragons that woke earlier, resulting in a territorial conflict.

This would be a trivial matter if the dragons simply slaughtered each other. However, the dragons defeated in such conflicts often descended into human settlements, seeking new feeding grounds. In this case, the fire dragons lost to the earth dragons and began invading human territory.

One or two dragons would still be manageable, but a dozen or so posed an obvious threat.

The armies who came to participate in the joint military exercise suddenly found themselves confronting the rabid dragons.

＊　＊　＊

In the face of imminent death, people lose a surprising amount of their vocabulary.

(Shit! Shit…!)

The only thoughts going through the head of the 16-year-old Einhard was the word “shit” repeated on an endless loop.

Standing before him was a massive dragon. While similar in shape to a bull, it easily exceeded twice the size of a normal one. The reddish-brown scales indicated that it was a fire dragon, and a quite large one at that.

Fire dragons were notorious for their ability to eliminate foes with their fiery breath. Therefore, the common strategy was to maintain a safe distance and bring it down with magic.

More easily said than done, as Einhard’s squad lacked a mage. In the first place, most of them wielded swords as their primary weapons. Unlike spears, swords were ill-suited for taking down dragons.

Facing a dragon head-on and accurately piercing its forehead with a sword was an audacious act. As far as Einhard knew, this was a feat only someone like Henrik Blanquet, the grandson of the Sword Saint, could pull off.

Either way, the primary task of Einhard’s squad was to protect and guide civilians during their evacuation. Bumping into a stray fire dragon was a very unlucky encounter.

Two of his comrades had been knocked unconscious by the fire dragon’s tail, and the rest of his squad scattered like ants.

As the only one left unharmed, Einhard struggled with a dilemma.

Should he try to save his unconscious squadmates? Or should he convey the situation to the other squads on standby? To minimize casualties, the correct choice would be to abandon the two and prioritize the relay of information. This was the logical answer.

…However, Einhard’s feet refused to budge.

(Me…? Abandoning my mates?)

With his drawn sword at the ready, Einhard let out a roar.

“The Empire’s finest man, Einhard Berger, ain’t gonna pull some lousy stunt like that! As if!”

That said, there was little chance of his blade reaching the fire dragon’s forehead.

In which case, he could act as a decoy and lead the fire dragon away from his comrades. Once he escaped into a suitably high location, he could wait for the dragon to expose an exploitable opening. This was his only path to victory.

“Hey lizard, over here! Bring it on!”

Provoked by Einhard’s shout and sword waving, the fire dragon inhaled a deep breath.

Suddenly, Einhard went stiff and remembered; fire dragons had the ability to breath fire.

(Shit…)

Einhard came back to his senses as the inferno closed in right before his eyes.

Unlike a campfire burning in place, these flames had been infused with the intent to kill.

A hot wind blasted into Einhard as his hair was the first to catch fire… or not. The flames had been deflected by an invisible barrier. A mage had saved him with barrier magic.

But where was the mage?

“Hand it over.”

A voice sounded right behind him, not in the Imperial language but the language of Ridill. By the time Einhard’s brain translated the words, someone had already snatched the sword from his hand and darted into the air with flight magic.

“Hey, that’s my sword!”

Einhard shouted, looking up at the man who had stolen his weapon.

The culprit was a young man with chestnut hair tied into a ponytail. He seemed a bit older than Einhard, perhaps in his late teens.

Judging by his high-collared uniform and cape, the man appeared to be from Ridill’s Magic Corps.

But why would a member of the Magic Corps need the sword of a knight?

As Einhard puzzled over this question, a ridiculously loud voice from behind exclaimed, “Are you alright!!?” This came from a well-built blond man in splendid armor, who was running towards them while dragging a creaking cart.

The chestnut-haired mage frowned at the sight of the big man.

“Good grief. Your Highness, what are you doing on the front lines?”

“To transport the wounded, of course! Someone needs to do it!”

The large man replied in a loud voice, to which the floating mage offered a shrug.

“Oh well… I suppose I shall have to tidy this up quickly to prevent any harm from befalling you.”

Leaving it at that, the mage then looked down at Einhard.

Einhard observed that the mage was rather slender and had a feminine-looking face. Meanwhile, the mage spoke again with a graceful smile.

“Your Highness, could you eloquently convey something to that dimwit with the stupid-looking face in the language of the Empire. Weaklings should stand back.”

The next moment, the fire dragon unleashed the second round of its fiery breath. However, all the flames dissipated upon hitting the defensive barrier.

(…Damn, why is his barrier so sturdy?!)

The mage did not need to invoke a second barrier. Enduring the breath of a fire dragon twice was an indication of his barrier’s considerable power.

Despite maintaining such an advanced barrier, the young mage flew toward the fire dragon via flight magic. Then, with his slender arm, he thrust Einhard’s sword into the dragon’s forehead.

However, this was a thrust from an unstable posture, only propelled by the force of flight magic. Although the sword had cleanly struck the fire dragon’s forehead, it was a bit shallow to be a fatal blow.

The fire dragon roared, shaking the air, and swung its massive claws toward the mage.

After manipulating his flight magic to easily dodge the claws, the mage landed on the dragon’s head and lifted a leg…

“——Raah!”

Along with a piercing war cry, the mage kicked the hilt of the stuck blade. Like a hammered down stake, the sword sank deep, piercing through the dragon’s head.

As a result, the fire dragon convulsed and collapsed to the ground with its mouth still open.

(What in the world…)

What kind of mage challenges a dragon with a sword, and finishes it off with a kick? Apparently this one.

Behind the astonished Einhard, the blond man was busily placing the injured onto the cart behind him. He even encouraged each one in the Imperial language, saying, “We’ll take you to the base soon. Hang in there.”

Once the floating mage descended, the large man lowered his bushy eyebrows and frowned.

“Louis, was there really no safer method to defeat the dragon? Like offensive magic…”

“By the time we encountered the fire dragon, I had already activated flight magic and a defensive barrier. In order to use offensive spells, I’d have to deactivate one of them and start chanting from scratch. It wouldn’t end well if the dragon took advantage of that opening to attack.”

“Hmm… I see, you are right.”

The argument sounded a bit forced, but the tall man didn’t press the mage any further. Instead, he turned to Einhard and asked in the Imperial language, “Are you hurt?”

The question was voiced in a very polite and elegant dialect of the Imperial language. It seemed the tall man was fluent in the language of the Empire, while the mage was not.

After glancing between the tall man and the mage, Einhard responded using the refined language of Ridill’s upper class.

“I am fine, thank you for the concern. My name is Einhard Berger, from House Morgenstein. You, sir, seem to be Prince Lionel of Ridill, if I may…”

“This is an emergency, so you may drop the formalities, Berger-dono. Let us prioritize moving the injured to a safe location.”

Einhard offered Lionel a deep bow.

“I sincerely appreciate your assistance… Also, you there, the delinquent mage. I heard those insults earlier. Compensate for my sword, you hear me, hey!”

The aforementioned delinquent mage maintained his elegant smile as he clicked his tongue.

View the latest chapters at seeker142.github.io