Chapter Two Hundred and Ninety-Three: Dealing with the Dragon 2
But Karen leaned out from between her protectors and cried out:
“If you can understand language, can we negotiate?!”
“Hey?!”
“Karen?!”
“You understand what I’m saying, don’t you?! What is it you want?! I’ll do my best to grant your wish! So can we talk—just for a moment—and see if we can make a deal?!—Gweh.”
“Are you out of your mind, trying to negotiate with a monster?!”
Licht had grabbed her by the scruff of her collar and yanked her back, and Karen choked.
“But S-rank monsters can be reasoned with…! I actually made a proper deal with the pegasus I mentioned before!”
And what’s more, the pegasus had been merciful. Karen had failed to fully honor that deal—she hadn’t been able to bring the perfect help the pegasus had wished for its foal—and yet the pegasus had forgiven her. Perhaps it had simply had no time left to punish her.
‘You… are not… a pegasus…?’
“Did you think I was a pegasus?”
The black dragon’s elongated pupils contracted several times as it fixed its eyes on Karen, her magical power no longer concealed, before it murmured:
‘You smelled… of a pegasus. I thought perhaps… you were the wretched remains… of a pegasus whose soul had been shattered to pieces… I believed that if I devoured a pegasus… it might help, even slightly…’
The realization that she had nearly been eaten sent a chill down Karen’s spine. It had been many days since she had parted from the pegasus’s foal, and apparently, the scent still clung to her body. Or perhaps it was a trace of magical residue.
“I’m just someone who knows a pegasus.”
‘I… see…’
With that murmur, the black dragon crumpled to the ground where it stood. Even as Julius took Karen from Licht’s hands, Karen kept her attention fixed entirely on the black dragon.
“Can we talk?”
‘…What is it that you want?’
“I want you to let me test whether my potions have any effect on your broken soul.”
Julius’s arms tightened around Karen as she leaned forward.
“I want to learn how to make potions that work on souls!”
It was a power she had only just, moments ago, begun to desperately want. And here, right before her eyes, was a monster whose soul was broken. Faced with a rare opportunity to test a potion, the fact that her potential trading partner happened to be a monster was a trivial detail.
‘Can you… make… the Philosopher’s Stone?’
“The Philosopher’s Stone…? Does that mean there’s no other magical remedy that can heal a soul?”
‘Correct…’
“What about a panacea? Can that not heal it?”
‘A panacea would not suffice… it may ease some of the physical suffering… but no more.’
Creating the Philosopher’s Stone was the ultimate goal of any alchemist. She had vaguely thought that someday, she would like to make one. She had genuinely meant to try. But she had never felt any real confidence that she actually could. She didn’t even know the materials, let alone how to begin. She had no idea at all where to start.
In her previous life, she recalled reading in a book that the Philosopher’s Stone was thought to be made from sulfur and mercury. According to the alchemical theories of her previous life, all substances were composed of sulfur and mercury, and both could be extracted from any material.
Burning, sublimating, melting, crystallizing, distilling… after painstakingly extracting ideal sulfur and mercury from matter, they would place them into a flask. They would combine them, allow them to decay, regenerate them, and then heat the mixture.
—But mercury was poison, never mind the sulfur.
No amount of manipulation of such a substance could ever produce something capable of curing every ailment known to exist. That much lay entirely outside the realm of Karen’s understanding. And yet, if Julius ever broke his own soul, Karen would have no choice but to make the Philosopher’s Stone.
Karen turned to look at Julius with eyes clouded by fear of a future she couldn’t yet see—when the black dragon pulled her attention back.
‘You said… you would hear… my wish.’
“…Yes. May I ask what it is?”
The arms holding Karen went rigid. She heard Licht draw a sharp breath. Both of them were bracing for the negotiation to fall apart. Karen held her breath as well and waited for the black dragon’s demand.
‘Something… that should not have been born has been born… It must be killed.’
“Something that should not have been born?”
Karen frowned. It was a phrase she had heard more than once during this hunting festival, when she had approached nobles about taking in children without magical power. The nobles’ compassion for such children had been thin and hollow. The nuance was slightly different, but more than one or two nobles had spoken in a way that suggested those children would have been better off never being born.
Yet what followed in the black dragon’s words carried something a little different from what those nobles had meant.
‘Yes. Before it hatches, if possible… If it has already hatched, how pitiable.’
“Pitiable?”
The monster’s words were not exactly sound—not something truly heard with the ears. They were thoughts, conveyed directly. And so Karen could feel with certainty that the black dragon felt genuine pity.
‘Twisted together into a mess… left to rot… unable to die… forced to regenerate… pitiable, so pitiable… it should never have been born… once it is born, it cannot be allowed to live… the poor thing… all of it is wrong… all of it is wrong…!’
The black dragon let out a roar. A long, long roar, filled to the brim with grief.
‘To die in battle is more than I could have hoped for… but there are things we must do…!’
Julius and Licht raised their swords and stepped forward. Both of them intended to cut the black dragon down here and now.
It was likely that if they didn’t, the massive opening torn open by a monster of this power would allow other monsters to pour through as well. Before anyone noticed, hordes of monsters had gathered beyond the dungeon gate leading to the eleventh layer.
‘Our march… is the will of the goddess… Even so, will you still stand against us, humans…!?’
These monsters were destroying their own souls and crossing floors, ascending toward the surface, in order to kill something that should never have been born. That was the cause of this Great Collapse Stampede. The black dragon said it was the goddess’s wish. There was no reason for this monster to lie—and it was almost certainly the truth.
“You must have grown quite feeble indeed if you think you can best us, Black Dragon.”
“We happen to be among the strongest of humans!”
“Excuse me!”
Karen raised her voice loudly, cutting through the tension that had built between both sides. Both turned to look at her with puzzled expressions.
“Mr. Black Dragon—this thing you say should not have been born, it isn’t human, is it? You said ‘hatch,’ which means it’s a monster or an animal…”
‘A monster.’
“Then if you lose here, I’ll take over your task, so please tell me the details.”
“Come on now, are you really being this considerate to a monster we’re about to fight to the death?”
Licht looked exasperated, but Karen continued:
“Because something is trying to be born on the surface, right? I don’t know why it’s a problem for monsters, but it would be a problem for humans too if a monster were born, so if you tell me the details, I’ll take care of it in your place.”
Karen made the promise to the black dragon and presented the deal with a smile.
“So please, don’t attack me.”
‘Hmm… you are clearly their weak point… I had intended to target you… but very well.’
The black dragon accepted Karen’s terms.
“Is there anything distinctive about the egg?”
‘Most likely… white.’
“A white egg.”
‘And… it has no magical power.’
“No magical power?”
Karen’s eyes went wide. She had never heard of a monster with no magical power. By definition, a monster was a beast that had been corrupted by magical power.
“Um, if it were releasing large amounts of magical power, there are magical tools that can detect that, so I think I could find it—but how would I find an egg with no magical power at all?”
‘The monsters on the surface… are also trying to kill it… Go to the place that humans have blocked… the place the monsters can’t reach.’
The black dragon fixed its gaze steadily on Karen, and she flinched.
‘Your name?’
“…Karen.”
‘Karen.’
The dragon’s golden eyes narrowed.
‘You look as though you could find it… Thanks to you, I may finally die as I should…!’
The roar the black dragon let out in the next instant was the true measure of an S-rank monster’s worth. From that single roar alone Karen felt as though her very soul—not merely her body—had been struck and shaken to its core, and she lost consciousness instantly.
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