Chapter 36
War of Liberation (1)
“Classified as a supernatural biological weapon. Approximately 40.2 meters in length, capable of flying at speeds exceeding 120 meters per second, durable enough to withstand multiple direct hits from 120mm tank guns without penetration, and equipped with infrared and electromagnetic detection capabilities. It is also capable of strategic thought. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“On top of that, it can alter atmospheric composition within a radius of approximately three kilometers, allowing it to manipulate the weather, restrict visibility, cause equipment malfunctions, and generate lightning strikes, strong winds, blizzards, and similar phenomena. It can also physically manifest and freely control natural elements such as fire, ice, electricity, and wind. And through a pseudo-magical attack called ‘Breath,’ it can cause localized explosions.”
“Yes.”
“It can achieve high-speed flight approaching Mach 0.3, allowing flexible evasive maneuvers, steep dives followed by rapid climbs, and gliding assault attacks. It also possesses a complex detection system that allows it to identify targets even under electromagnetic interference. Correct?”
“Yes.”
“And a creature possessing all of that... is what you call a dragon.”
The word dragon was threatening enough on its own.
Wasn’t it a fantastical species that appeared throughout countless works of fantasy?
But after hearing military expert Raymond’s objective assessment, the specifications possessed by a dragon felt even more hopeless and terrifying.
A single living creature possessed all of that?
“It’s practically cheating.”
“Our ancestors recorded them that way in our history as well.”
It wasn’t Hephaestus who answered Raymond, but Hephaestus’s grandfather.
An old dwarf who was practically a living witness to their brutal history—
Vulcanos.
He had been summoned alongside Hephaestus to help formulate countermeasures against the dragon, and with war approaching, he looked overwhelmed.
“Is it... possible?”
“It’s not as though there are no tactical countermeasures. First, we would deploy multi-barrel anti-aircraft guns capable of high-angle rotation. We would also need electro-optical tracking weapons equipped with guidance systems. To counter weather disruption, we’d need weapon systems based on electronic counter-countermeasures and infrared tracking as well.”
“....”
“Of course, that’s from the perspective of a modern military.”
Military expert Raymond raised his head.
“Dragon Partmos can be classified as a strategic-level entity existing somewhere between a tactical weapon and a supernatural disaster. It is a fantastical species that cannot be understood through natural principles. Fortunately, there are also people in your world who can wield fantastical powers.”
“Fantastical... powers?”
“The first and most important objective is to bring that terrifying biological weapon down from the sky. The operation begins there.”
“Don’t take your fingers off the triggers! Until the Saintess’s blessing ends, pour as much fire into it as possible! Right now, no matter where you shoot, you’ll hit! Shave away even a little of those scales!”
The battlefield roared with deafening noise.
While Eve’s [Judgment of Iron] remained active, every bullet fired by the dwarves automatically struck anything that was not a follower of Lee Shin’s Faith.
An authority with such a powerful effect could not last long.
Until it ended, they had to keep firing.
“We’re... not doing any damage.”
“Keep shooting anyway! One of those stray rounds might hit that damned Governor! Even tiny damage piles up if you keep stacking it. Don’t doubt the plan we made!”
The enormous machine guns had not been designed to fit dwarf bodies.
They were weapons created with military expert Raymond’s assistance, so large and heavy that no dwarf could possibly carry one.
They were practically cannons.
Precise aiming was impossible.
But with Eve’s authority, aiming was unnecessary in the first place.
That was exactly what these machine guns had been built around.
Hephaestus had named them—
Dragon Slayers.
And then—
Santiago’s palms split open with a sharp tear, blood splattering across his wrinkled hands.
His wrists trembled violently, but Santiago gritted his teeth and tied the rope he was gripping around his wrist.
Even if his wrist was torn off—
He would not let go.
“Huh...?”
The dragon flying high above gave a single mighty flap of its wings.
At the same instant—
“Urgh...!”
The harpoon embedded in the dragon’s body jerked violently.
Santiago, who had been gripping the rope with all his strength, was dragged forward and lifted into the air.
It was not a force any dwarf could withstand.
Santiago’s body rose into the air before slamming back into the ground.
It happened three or four times.
When the old man finally rose from the cloud of dirt, his body was already battered beyond recognition.
All because of a trivial movement from the dragon, as though it were swatting away a fly.
Santiago had never suffered any meaningful injuries during the previous war.
But this time, the battle had barely begun, and his body was already torn to pieces.
Covered in blood, the old dwarf gasped for breath.
“Miss Eve... how much longer... will your Silence authority last...?”
“At most... three more minutes.”
Three minutes at most.
Santiago’s role was to keep hold of the harpoon embedded in Dragon Partmos until Eve’s authority, [Forced Silence], ended.
His mission was to pinpoint the dragon’s location—
And keep “iron” lodged inside its body.
That was the task entrusted to the old dwarf.
“This old man has lived... irritatingly long, but I’ve never felt three minutes... stretch this long before.”
“I’ll... endure... ngh!”
Whoosh—
Santiago’s body was lifted into the air again.
Eve, collapsed on the ground, bit her lip.
‘...We can do this.’
She repeated the words in her mind.
‘We can do this. We can.’
We can survive.
There will be hope at the end of this.
Those were the words Eve had clung to her entire life.
“Hephaestus! Are you ready yet?”
“Not yet! There isn’t enough iron attached to the dragon! We need to fire more bullets! Even if I move now, I won’t be able to bring it down from the sky!”
Hephaestus answered Eve’s question.
He was the key to the entire operation.
With military expert Raymond’s assistance, they had obtained many weapons and tactical recommendations.
But the most important mission belonged to Hephaestus, the Flame Blacksmith.
To make use of the weapon he possessed, they needed time.
“Hold on a little longer! Just a little more!”
Hephaestus cried desperately.
Fortunately, there was still hope.
Because Eve, the Saintess of Lee Shin’s Faith, had unleashed her authority from the very beginning, the dragon’s various weapons had been sealed.
Its ability to summon lightning and storms.
Its breath that swept away everything in sight.
Its elemental control capable of creating natural disasters.
All of it had been sealed for three minutes.
An authority permitted only to the sole Saintess, the one closest to God.
At that moment, Dragon Partmos was no longer the incarnation of destruction that had ended the dwarves’ age of glory.
It had been reduced to a flying lizard with nothing more than a massive body.
Before it regained access to its true power, they had to inflict as much damage as possible.
By any means necessary.
And then—
“Huh...?”
“...It’s coming! It’s descending toward us!!”
“Prepare for a dive attack!!”
“Shells! Fire the shells! Aim for its head!”
“How the hell are we supposed to aim for its head?! Damn it, how can something that huge fly like that?! Precise aiming is impossible!”
“Then shoot anywhere! Just fire!!”
Confusion spread in an instant.
Fortunately, the dwarves acted exactly as they had trained.
But—
“Uh....”
Dragon Partmos was by no means an easy opponent.
“Why does it keep... getting bigger...?”
The forty-meter-long dragon was not a wild animal that had lived only in nature.
It was a biological weapon that had survived countless wars.
And it fought alongside the most capable soldier who had never once tasted defeat.
The moment shells were fired at the diving dragon, Partmos suddenly climbed vertically like an acrobat.
Because of Eve’s authority, the shells continued chasing it.
With countless shells trailing behind its tail, the dragon soared high into the sky, rolled once in midair—
And dove again.
The shells were still following behind it.
“That damn lizard bastard... it’s dragging all the shells with it...!”
“Doesn’t matter! Fire and steel can’t kill dwarves anyway! As long as the Saintess is here, attacks like that can’t hurt us—”
“That’s not the problem! The fortress is going to collapse! If the gun emplacements and the fortress are smashed to pieces, that lizard can just leave, and the giants can come afterward and kill every one of us!”
“Then what are we supposed to—”
At that moment, several dwarves charged out from the fortress with battle cries.
They were clad from head to toe in iron armor.
And instead of guns, they carried heavy melee weapons.
“For the Little Ones—!”
The dwarf paladins.
They were the warriors who had been conducting guerrilla warfare by raiding the workshops until now.
They rushed out to bring the crisis under control.
At the same time—
Pure white fragments of bone erupted from beneath the ground.
A tiny skeleton joined them as well.
“Hug me!”
Another unit stepped forward to defend the fortress.
The dragon paid no attention to their appearance and simply beat its wings.
With an utterly arrogant expression.
Dragon Partmos moved its jaws.
[You don’t even know your place.]
The next moment, the dragon that had been far in the distance appeared right in front of them.
The dwarves couldn’t even see the process of its flight.
The forty-meter-long dragon had appeared as though it had teleported.
Now facing the dragon at close range, the paladins’ hearts began pounding as though they might burst.
The fear of their natural predator was engraved into their blood.
And yet, the paladins did not retreat.
‘When you are most afraid, think of your families.’
Vulcanos’s words remained in their hearts.
There was nowhere left to retreat.
Their days of running away were over.
If they did not want to disappear, they had to fight.
For the things they cherished.
For the things that shone.
For the small and insignificant.
‘The God of the Little Ones will be with us.’
Flames erupted from the paladins’ bodies before surging into pillars of fire.
Strengthened by multiple synergies and Eve’s authorities, the flames they created began blazing toward their arrogant natural enemy.
But—
[Have you forgotten history?]
[It seems the tiny brains inside your tiny heads don’t function properly. Have you truly forgotten how your pathetic ancestors were trampled beneath us?]
The dragon’s tail swept through the pillar of fire.
Crack!
The paladins struck by the tail burst apart like watermelons.
Bones and muscle separated as blood sprayed through the air.
Then, with a single beat of the dragon’s wings, the fierce wind extinguished the flames.
Against the overwhelming mass of a forty-meter-long body, their iron armor offered no protection whatsoever.
With a single movement, the paladins died like insects.
Their noble determination shattered before overwhelming evil.
Meaningless deaths.
In a way, their deaths resembled moths throwing themselves into a flame.
However—
「Many collapse before the cruelty of reality.」
Why do moths chase the light?
「But these faithful ones will not fall.」
A moth follows the light so that it can fly upward.
To rise into the sky, it must know which direction the sky lies.
And so it beats its wings toward the brightest sun.
To take flight.
To climb higher.
Upward.
Higher still.
The dwarves were no different.
「At least, not today.」
To survive.
For radiant glory.
They chased the future—
Toward hope.
「Intermediate Believer Eve uses the [Sacred Relic]. For the next 1 minute, all followers of Lee Shin’s Faith enter the Immortality (□□) state.」
「They will not die, even if the world itself is destroyed.」
Light returned to the eyes of the fallen paladins.
The shattered pieces of their bodies came together like pieces of a puzzle.
The dwarves returned from death.
And instead of fleeing—
They rose again.
To burn once more.
“Let’s gooooo, my frieeeends—!”
From among the paladins, the skeleton Jude shouted.
‘Jude, the things you truly cherish and truly want won’t always come to you just because you wait.’
‘Someday, you’ll have to fight to find them.’
The eerie yet lonely skeleton.
‘When that day comes, will you promise me that you won’t simply sit and wait, and that when the time is right, you’ll fight for what’s precious to you?’
There was one skeleton who didn’t want to lose this joyful and beautiful world or the friends within it.
Not for a sky filled with shining stars.
Not for a lovely sunset.
Not even for a slide that could carry him somewhere far away.
The skeleton who had lived in the coldest and most barren land now ran across the smallest and hottest land of all.
“Riiiise—!”
Click!
A cheerful sound rang out.
Then the immortal legion answered their master’s call.
The pure white skeletons were no longer carrying weapons made of bone.
They were holding weapons forged from iron.
At the same time, deafening gunfire erupted.
Rat-tat-tat-tat—!
A storm of bullets hammered again and again against the scales of the dragon that had so proudly appeared before them.
The deformed bullets did not bounce away.
Instead, they clung to the dragon’s scales like chewing gum.
And now Dragon Partmos looked almost as though its entire body had been clad in iron armor.
[Now even these pathetic skeletons dare...]
Its reptilian eyes gleamed.
Even after the dwarves had poured every weapon they possessed into it, the dragon showed not the slightest sign of panic.
There was no hint of defeat in those murderous eyes.
If anything, they had only provoked its anger.
A human did not fear an ant merely because it bit their toe.
A predator faced with the desperate struggles of something insignificant did not feel fear.
It felt irritation.
But every creature had teeth.
“There’s enough iron now!”
Hephaestus shouted.
At the same moment—
“Now, Santiago!”
“Can you... do it?”
The old man who had been gasping for breath raised his head.
“...Well, I can’t exactly say... it’s too difficult.”
Santiago let out a low chuckle.
“The fishing line... still hasn’t snapped, and the fisherman... is still holding the rod. No matter how big the bastard is... in the end, it’s only one fish....”
Crack. Crack.
Santiago’s tendons tore.
But even then—
He did not release the line.
「Intermediate Believer Santiago prepares a Special Skill.」
「The soul of a Hero begins to tremble.」
His eyes became bloodshot.
Every tiny vessel burst.
His head spun.
Yet what appeared before Santiago’s eyes was not the horrific reality around him.
It was the beautiful past.
The days when he had been young.
Powerful.
At the height of his glory.
Days that would never return.
And yet—
Days that still shone brightly.
「“But man is not made for defeat.”」
「Intermediate Believer Santiago activates the Special Skill [The Old Man and the Sea].」
「The skill [Big Catch] can no longer fail.」
Splash—
The sound of waves echoed across the battlefield.
And for the first time, Santiago, who until now had only been dragged helplessly around, was able to pull back.
His wrinkled hands burst open.
The muscles in his arms tore.
And yet—
He was no longer being dragged.
The eyes of the enormous dragon that had been trying to rise into the sky shook violently.
[What...?!]
Not upward.
Downward.
Not toward the sky—
But toward the ground.
“This will be... the greatest catch... of this old man’s life.”
BOOM—!
The dragon’s body plunged downward.
Dragon Partmos.
Even Governor Johan was shocked.
As though what had just happened should have been impossible.
But—
“That was incredible.”
It wasn’t over yet.
“Now leave the rest to the young one.”
The spark had only just begun to burn.
「Low-Rank Believer Hephaestus prepares a Special Skill.」
「The soul of the Eternal Flame begins to tremble.」