“Haerang, keep the head of the Yeonseong Nam family with you.”
“Haerang-Haerang! If things get dicey, you can throw the family head to them as bait and run!”
“Fine, got it! I don’t like it, but I’ll keep an eye on that man!”
Leaving Nam Sieon to Yong Haerang.
My friends and I entered the battle.
Woof, woof! Oiiink!
Grrrrk!
Monsters and chimeras came charging in.
In an instant, a chaotic melee broke out.
Even so, we did not panic as we stood against them.
“We’ll take the outside!”
“We’re going toooo!”
“Cerberus, sortie!”
“Guys! If you run like that, you’ll trip!”
Bak Sagun swung his massive axe, killing the creatures, or threatening them and driving them off.
The triplets did not miss that opening and ambushed the ones that had fallen away from the group.
In that way, the four of them steadily reduced their numbers from the perimeter inward.
Meanwhile.
Swaaash!
Go Eunbi dealt with the approaching enemies by deploying Krav Maga, then opened the distance and shot arrows.
Most of her arrows lodged in their vital points, dealing fatal wounds.
Ham Minju and her wolf phantasmal beasts also joined the fight.
Yu Gaeul lent her strength as well.
She hid her presence, then struck at the creatures’ blind spots.
Besides them, Yeon Haneul, Yeon Bada, and the others also showed off their skills.
As for Kang Hanbyeol….
“White!”
Caw! Caw!
He was also testing the power of White, the phantasmal beast he had contracted not long ago.
The moment Kang Hanbyeol stretched out his left hand.
White, who had been gliding through the research facility, answered his call and landed on the back of his hand.
At the same time, it emitted a pure white light.
Before long, when the light faded.
In his hand was a revolver with a silver-white base, decorated with golden lines.
He pulled the trigger.
Bang!
A bullet made by compressing light-attribute mana pierced through the enemies.
Kang Hanbyeol chased them down, firing his gun and swinging his sword.
He was having the time of his life.
Just then.
Crackle!
My evasive instinct activated.
I raised my head.
Whoosh!
The black dragon floating in the night sky held flames in its mouth.
Immediately afterward, it fired them.
A breath attack.
‘A dragon’s breath is no joke….’
But I was not worried.
I decided to trust my friends and focused on dealing with the enemies around me.
Sure enough.
───!!
The friends I had placed my trust in stepped forward.
Cha Eunsol, who was facing the black dragon in the air, borrowed the power of the water spirit and blocked the breath.
Swirling currents of water extinguished the flames.
Immediately after that, Min Arin, who had analyzed the breath with the Sage’s Eye, took charge of the next defense.
Gradually, the force of the breath diminished.
Even so, the breath was not extinguished, and it finally shattered the barrier.
At that moment.
Whoooosh!
As if they had been waiting for it, Yeon Haneul and Yeon Bada constructed a double-layered barrier.
The first barrier blocked the breath, but could not endure the heat and melted away.
However, the second barrier held, letting the flames flow past.
It was then that Lisa shouted.
“Haneul, Bada! It’s all right now! Release the magic!”
Yeon Haneul and Yeon Bada reacted at once.
The two of them dispelled the barrier.
Because of that, the scattering breath fell toward us, and….
Lisa created a subspace above our heads and transferred the breath to another space.
Behind the black dragon.
The breath engulfed it.
Whoosh! Fwoooosh!
Kwooooo!
Caught in its own breath, the black dragon roared as if enraged.
It extinguished the flames with a beat of its wings.
Unfortunately, perhaps because its armor was so thick, it did not seem to have taken any damage.
‘Dragons are all like that by nature, but still, this one’s pretty troublesome. Ordinary attacks won’t work… so I guess there’s no choice but that. I don’t really want to do it, though….’
I clicked my tongue.
It seemed we would have to prioritize dealing with the black dragon Casus over the enemies on the ground.
Kang Hanbyeol seemed to agree.
“I’ll go deal with the black dragon!”
Kang Hanbyeol’s revolver emitted light.
White, having regained its original form, seeped into Kang Hanbyeol and became wings.
With pure white wings sprouting from his back, he immediately soared into the night sky.
“I’ll go join them too. Bada, you support the ones below.”
Yeon Haneul also spread virtual wings and flew after Kang Hanbyeol.
Like that, Cha Eunsol, Min Arin, Kang Hanbyeol, and Yeon Haneul fought the black dragon with the night sky as their stage.
I decided to lend my strength as well.
“Yuri, get ready. We’re going too.”
“Mm-hm! Got it!”
Nam Yuri clung to me from behind.
When she tapped the ground with her bare foot, a pillar suddenly shot up from beneath us.
We soared straight into the night sky.
Then, just before we began to fall….
I kicked off the air as naturally as if I were stepping on the ground.
With Nam Yuri hanging from my neck, I hid myself within a veil of darkness and approached the black dragon.
“You really can do it, right?”
“Yep, Gyeonu-Gyeonu! Just trust me!”
We had already made a plan.
While Kang Hanbyeol, Yeon Haneul, Cha Eunsol, and Min Arin drew the black dragon’s attention.
Taking advantage of that opening, Nam Yuri and I put our plan into action.
We charged at the black dragon.
Braving the danger.
Crackle! Cra-cra-cra-crackle!
‘Ghk! Stay still!’
Resisting the compulsion of my evasive instinct.
I hurled myself straight into the black dragon’s mouth.
The darkness of its throat swallowed us.
We fell.
I gritted my teeth.
“Gyeonu-Gyeonu!”
“I know!”
Nam Yuri shouted into my ear.
I focused as much as I could and felt for the path that had just been connected through our souls.
I caught it.
Through that path, I linked my consciousness.
Feeling the existence bound to me by contract, I manifested the mana within my body.
I called imagination into reality.
Nam Yuri, who had been wrapped around my neck and clinging to me, transformed into an ash-gray coat.
Now wearing the coat over my shoulders, I deployed light elemental magic and illuminated the darkness.
A shadowed esophagus came into view.
Toward that esophagus.
Thuck!
I stabbed the Ultramarine Sword into it.
The blade, lodged deep and falling with me, split the esophagus open.
Blood gushed out.
Because of that, the black dragon screamed in agony and thrashed.
It did not matter.
I raised the corners of my mouth.
Through the path, I asked Nam Yuri.
‘If we’ve drawn this much blood, it should be enough, right?’
[Yep, yep! It’s enough! Leave it to me!]
Nam Yuri answered brightly.
I released the current dwelling in the Ultramarine Sword.
Then she supported me.
[Gyeonu-Gyeonu, you just focus on output. Mana, current, water—anything difficult, I’ll handle it all for you.]
Nam Yuri’s voice was full of confidence.
I nodded at the sound echoing in my head.
I decided to leave the complicated parts to her.
So I….
[There’s no need to go out of our way to create water. There’s water in blood, in blood itself. In that sense… we haven’t entered the black dragon’s body right now, we’ve entered a water tank. Heeheehee! This is going to be fun!]
Swung my sword straight and true.
Lion Blood Thunder
Azure lightning flared, and blood exploded.
Lightning that had drunk blood and shone red roared savagely as it tore the darkness apart.
* * *
‘That actually worked….’
Entering the black dragon’s mouth directly and causing a hydrogen explosion from the inside.
Perhaps it was an idea only Nam Yuri could come up with, and only she could execute.
At any rate, if not for her help, my friends and I would have had a very hard time bringing down the black dragon.
[Ah, that was fun! Doing it like this, dragons aren’t that big a deal either. Gyeonu-Gyeonu! Next time, let’s use iron sand to tear one apart from the inside! Or through its respiratory tract….]
“Sure, if we get the chance someday.”
[Ah! You’re finding me annoying right now, aren’t you? Gyeonu-Gyeonu, even if you try to deceive me without meaning it, it won’t work anymore. You and I can share thoughts and emotions through the path. Not everything, but still. Especially when I’ve transformed into your equipment….]
“It feels like I’m talking to Sagun….”
[Ah! Aaaah…. Gyeonu-Gyeonu! How could you say something so awful!? Why am I Sagun-Sagun? That’s too much!]
Nam Yuri’s chattering voice rang inside my head.
It was distracting.
[Hmmm? Aha! Distracting, you say! Gyeonu-Gyeonu, you shouldn’t be like that!]
“…Don’t read other people’s thoughts without permission.”
[Too bad, but now that Gyeonu-Gyeonu has become one with me, it can’t be helped. We’ve formed an even deeper bond than you have with Haneul-Haneul!]
“Don’t say that to Haneul. Unless you want her to hate you….”
The blood and chunks of flesh from the black dragon Casus fell in clumps below.
Some of it oxidized into particles of mana.
After roughly washing myself with Clean magic, I looked down at the sight and sighed.
“Let’s go down.”
[Okay, okay!]
Although the black dragon Casus had been subjugated, the battle was not over yet.
There were still monsters and chimeras causing havoc in the research facility.
I sensed their presence.
‘There are still a lot left….’
Even though my friends were reducing their numbers.
They continued to appear.
I clicked my tongue briefly.
[It can’t be helped since the atmospheric mana is in bad condition. And we just eliminated the black dragon. The aftermath stimulated the atmospheric mana even more. As for the chimeras…. It seems the family head created quite a lot of them.]
As I listened to Nam Yuri’s explanation.
I quietly sank into thought.
‘At this rate, it’ll take a long time to settle the situation…. And we’ll burn through a lot of stamina…. What should I do? As expected… it’d be better to take care of it cleanly in one shot, right?’
I finished deliberating.
I conveyed my opinion to Nam Yuri.
She reacted with delight.
[Heehee! Sounds fun. I like it! That’s our Gyeonu-Gyeonu! So flashy.]
“Then I’ll be counting on you again.”
[Yep, got it!]
Soon, we landed in the research facility.
I said to my friends,
“We’ll take care of the rest. You guys withdraw as far from here as possible. Lisa, you can do it, right?”
“Yes, I can, but…. Gyeonu, will you be all right alone?”
“I’m not alone. I said we, didn’t I? Yuri will be with me too.”
“Ah….”
At Lisa’s and my friends’ questioning gazes.
I pointed at the ash-gray coat draped over my shoulders.
Only then did they nod as if they understood.
At the same time, they looked uneasy.
“What… are you going to do with Yuri this time? You already went into the black dragon’s body and caused an explosion earlier…. Gyeonu, Yuri, we are people aspiring to become Hunters. Please be careful not to do anything that goes against a Hunter’s dignity if possible. All right?”
“I understand what you mean. I’ll be careful.”
Had I ever done anything that went against dignity?
Though I wondered about that inwardly, I pretended to agree.
There would be nothing good about making Lisa’s lecture any longer.
That judgment was based on experience.
And so.
“We’ll go now. Be careful, both of you.”
“Gyeonu, don’t push yourself too hard.”
Lisa, Yeon Haneul, and the rest of my friends left through a subspace.
Now, only Nam Yuri, the monsters, and the chimeras remained in the research facility with me.
After sweeping my gaze over the creatures gathered around us, I deployed water elemental magic.
Then I generated azure lightning.
“Yuri.”
[Yep, yep!]
In response to my command.
Nam Yuri, in my place, decomposed the water that had covered the area with azure lightning.
The water split into two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom.
The oxygen atoms combined in threes, creating ozone.
Unlike the oxygen that allowed one to breathe, it was toxic to life.
Gr… rrgh….
Except for me.
The creatures that inhaled the ozone began to suffer from respiratory distress.
They collapsed one after another.
[They’re going to be in a lot of pain. The ozone is killing the cells in their alveoli. If it’s severe, it might even affect their brains. Gyeonu-Gyeonu, isn’t it fascinating? Depending on the number of oxygen atoms, it can save life or become a poison that kills it.]
“I guess so.”
Before they could even properly come at me.
The creatures were already rendered powerless.
I turned my gaze away from the enemies writhing on the ground.
Then, using Void Step, I walked high up into the night sky.
“This should be about right.”
The research facility lay below me.
I waved my hand.
I unfolded water elemental magic.
Swaaash!
Streams of water split into several strands and wrapped around the laboratory in a hemispherical shape.
I aimed the Ultramarine Sword at it.
‘I never intended to leave it here from the start.’
This was a research facility that the Yeonseong Nam family, which Nam Yuri would lead from now on, did not need.
So I might as well wipe it out together with the enemies.
I raised the corners of my mouth.
“Yuri.”
[Yep, yep!]
“I promised you before, didn’t I? That someday, I’d drop a hydrogen bomb on your family.”
[…Yeah, that’s right. You remember.]
“I’ll keep that promise now. I can’t drop it on the main estate, but I can erase one research facility for you.”
[Yep, yep! Thank you, Gyeonu-Gyeonu! This is why I want to give you everything! I really like you!]
Nam Yuri rejoiced.
As I listened to her laughter.
I swung the Ultramarine Sword down.
Lion Divine Star
A pillar of light rose up, shaking the mountain and illuminating the night sky.
The world exploded.
When time passed and the explosion ceased.
At the source, nothing remained but a deep gouge in the earth.
I Became the Childhood Friend of the Mid-Boss