Naturally—if it could be called natural—I refused her proposal.
“If you and I fight in earnest, there won’t be anything left of the inside of the Gate, and the three here will get caught up in it too.”
“Then how about sending them out and fighting?”
But Bia, apparently unwilling to give up so easily, made a new suggestion.
Send those three out and fight, huh.
If we did that, there wouldn’t really be a problem, but I couldn’t understand why she was so desperate to fight.
When I asked her about it, her answer was simple.
“Because it’s been a long time since I found an opponent who looks worth fighting. It’d be a shame to let you leave like this.”
“You really are a crazy bitch obsessed with fighting.”
“Why do you think I’m called the goddess of violence? Then I’ll take that as your acceptance. Now, now, you three who have no intention of fighting should be on your way.”
Bia, who had arbitrarily taken it as me accepting the fight, waved her hand at the three unrelated bystanders.
“Lord Nidhogg, what should we do?”
“Phew, since it’s come to this, go out first. I’ll deal with this one for a bit, then come out.”
If she wanted a fight that badly, I’d make sure to trample her properly.
Since Shin Sua, Baek Yeon, and Linnea would only get caught up in it if they stayed here, I decided to send them outside the Gate first.
Following my words, the three headed toward the exit first, carrying the various materials they had gathered.
I sat down on the ground and decided to wait until the three of them left the Gate.
As I quietly watched them go, Bia spoke to me from beside me.
“You’re the first dragon like you I’ve ever seen.”
“A dragon like me?”
“Yes. It’s the first time in my life I’ve seen a dragon care about each and every human that weak.”
“Then what were the dragons you’ve seen until now like?”
“Need you even ask? They were all arrogant and selfish beings.”
Arrogant and selfish dragons, huh.
It wasn’t exactly wrong.
I had a time like that in the distant past too.
Just as humans had something called eighth-grader syndrome, I too had a period when I was drunk on my own strength and ran wild.
Back then, I felt wronged that I was stuck all alone in a cold, desolate place like Niflheim, so I acted even more arrogant and selfish toward beings of other worlds.
But that life of being nothing but a nuisance to those around me didn’t last long.
Because I rampaged around too much, the eagle lady came to find me, beat me up, and threw me back into Niflheim.
For the first fight, I thought I had simply let my guard down and challenged her again, but after being beaten several more times after that, I came to my senses and focused on growing stronger while dreaming of revenge.
Well, now it was nothing more than an embarrassing piece of my past, and even after focusing so hard on growing stronger, I only managed to reach a draw with the eagle lady.
Ah, come to think of it, there was something I wanted to ask if someone who knew about dragons ever appeared.
“I once met a spider-like monster called Arachne, and she said she had seen a dragon before.”
“Arachne... I feel like I’ve heard that name somewhere.”
“That isn’t what’s important right now. According to her, she once saw a dragon with a hundred heads in the past. Do you know anything about it?”
“Oh. A hundred heads, is it? That one, perhaps? I don’t know who this Arachne is, but she did well to meet that creature and survive.”
Bia reacted as if the part about a hundred heads had rung a bell.
Judging by the way she spoke as though she knew the identity of that dragon too, had this one come from the same world as Arachne?
“Can you tell me information about that dragon?”
“You seem quite interested in dragons.”
Of course I was interested, since even if I counted all the members of my own kind I’d met so far, I could count them on one hand.
“I can’t teach you for free. If you beat me in a fight, I’ll tell you everything you’re curious about.”
“Fine. No taking that back.”
“I’m not the type to say two different things with one mouth, so don’t worry.”
Looks like I had more reason to fight now.
While I was talking with Bia, the three had already reached the Gate’s exit and gone outside.
Until the moment they left, Shin Sua and Baek Yeon kept looking back in my direction, as if they were worried about me.
Even after seeing my power, they were worried.
Should I be grateful for that, or call it needless concern?
Once the three had left the Gate like that, Bia openly began releasing her battle aura at me.
“Their presences have disappeared. We can begin now, can’t we?”
“Yeah.”
While she took out her weapon, I swelled my body greatly.
Two meters, three meters—my body, which had been growing larger and larger, became so enormous in an instant that it surpassed even giants and reached a size comparable to a high-rise building.
The gaze with which Bia had looked down on me was not merely reversed; from far above, I looked down at her, now appearing like an ant, and spoke.
“You have a lot to tell me, so do try not to die.”
“Hahahat! Same to you!”
With a tremendous explosion, we swung our claws and weapons at each other.
***
The fight continued for more than half a day.
Bia changed between all sorts of weapons and wielded them with skill close to divine, while I crushed her with overwhelming physical ability and poison that even a god could not ignore.
In a battle that overturned the earth and made the sky tremble, the inside of the Gate turned into a complete mess.
Though she was only an avatar, her weapons and techniques were sharp enough to cut even my scales, and attacks that could have killed even me if I let my guard down came flying again and again.
But in the end, I was the one who won.
Attacks that cut my scales and threatened my life?
When I fought the eagle lady, that was everyday life.
I’d actually crossed the line of death several times too.
Compared to the eagle lady, Bia was at the level of a child, and after tearing off her right arm and leg, I was able to force her surrender.
“Kuh... Cough! Haa... That was fun.”
Saying it was fun while her arm and leg had been blown off—she really wasn’t in her right mind.
Did she like fighting that much?
“Your arm and leg are gone, and you’re laughing?”
“Hehehe. Wh-who do you think I am? If I were going to suffer and grieve over wounds from fighting, I’d have to return the name of goddess of violence.”
I suppose that was true.
More importantly, she would recover from that, right?
From what I saw during the fight, small wounds healed quickly enough.
“Can you recover?”
“R-right now it’s a bit difficult, but if I rest for a little while.”
“Hmm, then eat this at least.”
I gave Bia, who was lying on the ground unable to move with her arm and leg gone, one of the giant cores I had set aside.
“What is this?”
“A giant’s core. They were coming out from inside this Gate before you. With that much, you should at least be able to replenish the strength needed to recover.”
“Hehe, then I’ll accept it gratefully.”
Bia took the giant’s core with her remaining arm, put it in her mouth, and swallowed it in one go. She seemed to close her eyes and gather the mana that came from the giant’s core, and then smoke began rising from her body.
When the smoke, which rose like pure white steam, disappeared, no wounds could be seen on her body anymore.
Her arm and leg, which had been hideously torn away as if she had been attacked by a beast, had grown back too.
“How’s your condition?”
“I only look fine on the outside. I’ll need to rest for a while, at least.”
“But you can still talk, can’t you?”
“Ah, I promised to tell you about the dragon, didn’t I?”
“It would be a problem if you forgot that.”
It seemed she really had no interest in anything but fighting, seeing as she had forgotten even the reward she was supposed to give me.
Bia rose, took off her half-destroyed armor, gathered it in one place along with the weapons scattered here and there, then plopped down on the ground.
“To explain the dragon you mentioned, Ladon, I first need to explain a little about the world I came from. You have enough time, don’t you?”
“Yeah. Time is the one thing I have plenty of anyway, so explain slowly.”
“This is why it’s easy to talk with long-lived races.”
Bia, who had thrown away the pretense she had worn as a goddess midway through the fight, briefly explained the world she had crossed over from.
The twelve gods of Olympus, who ruled the world and governed humanity.
And the Gigantes, who stood against Olympus and sought supremacy over the world.
“Wait. You said you were a Titan, didn’t you? Then whose side were you on?”
“I stood on the side of Olympus. More importantly, if you have questions, listen to the end first and ask afterward.”
The explanation continued.
After a long confrontation, a great war broke out between the gods of Olympus and the Gigantes.
The chief god Zeus, the various gods, and the beings cooperating with the gods.
The earth mother Gaia, her children the Gigantes, and various monsters.
In order to win this war, known as the Gigantomachia, both Olympus and the Gigantes summoned every fighting force they could use, and among them was Ladon, the information I wanted.
Ladon originally guarded the tree that bore golden apples due to some contract with Hera, the goddess of the hearth and mistress of Olympus, so he stood on the side of Olympus and fought the Gigantes.
They said Ladon’s power was tremendous, using his hundred heads to bite and tear dozens of Gigantes to death at once.
“Then what happened to the war?”
“Can’t you tell from the fact that I’m fine?”
“I guess Olympus won.”
“Yes. With the power of countless gods and heroes, Olympus defeated the Gigantes after many sacrifices and maintained its supremacy.”
“Then where did Ladon go after the war ended?”
“I heard that his contract with Hera ended after the war, but I don’t know where he went.”
What the hell.
I thought there would be some useful information, but in the end, wasn’t there no proper information aside from the fact that his power was tremendous?
When I sighed, openly giving off an air of disappointment, Bia asked curiously.
“Why are you so obsessed with information about dragons? Is there a dragon you’re looking for?”
“The reason I’m obsessed with dragons? Dragons are my own kind, and they aren’t exactly a race you can easily see. Besides...”
There’s nothing as good as a dragon for increasing my strength.
Now that I could no longer grow even through the roots of Yggdrasil, the best thing for my growth was the heart of a dragon—one of my own kind.