CHAPTER 616: AFTER THE BATTLE

Editor: Tseirp

“No way… Fan was frozen in ice…?”

Lau murmured, eyes wide.

His surprise was to be expected.

The two of them were blue dragons.

Dragon Kings.

They could be said to be the pinnacle of water-attribute monsters.

And such a being was frozen in ice?

Sure, it wasn’t the dragon’s true body.

Still…

Impossible!

Yet in reality… she was frozen.

If that had been the dragon’s true body, it could break the ice by sheer force without magic and escape.

But the body being used as a vessel now couldn’t.

It was sturdier than an ordinary human, but still not remotely comparable to a dragon’s body…

“May I call this my victory?”

Ryo asked quietly.

A fight with no clearly defined victory conditions.

Killing the opponent would be a victory.

The opponent’s surrender would be a victory.

But if the opponent was encased in ice, you can’t confirm it.

So he asked the witness, the partner who would vouch for it.

“I acknowledge it—Ryo’s victory.”

Lau stated that plainly.

At those words, Ryo thawed the ice coffin and drank a potion at the same time.

His left shoulder and left arm were regenerated.

It didn’t look like he had lost a limb at all.

He then watched the thawed contents warily.

Because Fan might be enraged.

As Abel had been told, Ryo thought Lau and Fan were Dragon Kings.

Water-attribute dragons.

The pinnacle of water-attribute monsters.

Naturally, they were entirely different from humans in every way.

So they probably had never been frozen before.

Yet she’d been frozen by Ryo, exploiting her negligence.

She might go berserk…

Fan stepped out of the ice.

Her expression remained one of wide-eyed surprise.

Then she looked around left and right, found Ryo.

And ran at him!

Ryo tensed his body.

“Amazing, Ryo!”

Fan wrapped her arms around Ryo’s waist, lifted him high like a child, and shouted.

“Huh?”

Ryo, taken aback by the unexpected development.

“I didn’t expect to be frozen!”

Even during battle, Fan rarely changed expression, yet she was smiling and shouting in excitement.

Lau shrugged as he watched.

“It’s been a while since Fan is that happy.”

“She hardly ever changed expression even while fighting.”

Abel observed.

“Well. Still, she’s happy in her own way. But a full-on beaming smile like now is pretty rare.”

Lau, too, smiled.

“Ryo, become my royal guard and fight me every day! I’ll make you not just blue bones but a cloak too.”

“Um, why would that be…?”

“A wonderful fight like this—you’d want it every day, right?”

“I’ll pass. I wouldn’t be able to handle it mentally.”

“If you become a skeleton, you won’t break mentally, you know?”

“That’s not the point…”

Fan, now more earnest than before, urged Ryo to become a skeleton.

Ryo continued to refuse.

“You said before. You didn’t want to be a skeleton because you wouldn’t be able to eat cake.”

“Ah… I think I did say that.”

“Then I’ll make a skeleton who can taste cake!”

“Excuse me?”

“If I do that, you won’t resist becoming a skeleton!”

“Well… is that possible?”

“No idea.”

A cake-tasting skeleton… where would food go for creatures without organs?

“Because you won this, Ryo, she’ll cling to you even more.”

“Why are you looking at me with such pitying eyes!?”

“No reason…”

Abel averted his gaze at Ryo’s protest.

The roles were reversed from the usual.

“Why do Leonor and Fan insist on fighting me…?”

“Being popular is tough.”

“See? You’re giving me that look again!”

Ryo protested once more.

The world is an unruly place…

“This is sword combat, so Abel should absolutely be the one to do it.”

“But at the end, that was alchemy, right? A magic alchemy version that freezes anyone who comes in.”

“Yes—Dynamic Steam Mine II. I deliberately made it by alchemy and engraved it on the scabbard.”

Ryo spoke of this with confidence, puffing his chest out as he explained.

“You said the things created by alchemy can’t be seized, didn’t you? During the Neil Andersen.”

“That’s right. As expected of Abel, you remember well.”

“It was fairly shocking, after all. So that means it works even against Dragon Kings?”

“Yes.”

Then Abel noticed something.

“Ryo’s water-attribute magic is amazing, but… if you use alchemy, you can freeze Ryo as well?”

“Eh…”

Logically, that was sound.

“T-that’s…!”

He seemed to have never considered that possibility until now.

After a moment of being at a loss for words, he admitted it.

“It would indeed turn out that way.”

He frowned.

Imagining being trapped in alchemically-made ice.

“From now on, I’ll need counters not only to magic but also to alchemy.”

Alchemy’s heights still lie ahead…

Lau and Fan, who had been talking a little apart from the others, came over.

“Thanks for playing with us.”

“Please spare me from life-or-death games.”

Ryo answered Lau honestly.

For these two, it was play, but for humans, it was life-or-death.

“Well, species traits can’t be helped.”

“Will there ever be correction for species disparity…?”

“As a substitute, how about I give you something good?”

“…Better to receive than not.”

Ryo agreed to Lau’s proposal.

When told unexpectedly you’ll get something good, you should accept.

Refusing gets you nothing.

Afterward, it would just mean more asymmetric battles.

They lose and it’s no big deal for them, but for Ryo losing could mean death—asymmetry.

So accept whatever you can get!

“I want something really good!”

“You wear your desires on your sleeve…”

Ryo insisted, Abel shook his head.

“This was a life-risking fight. Give me something fitting…”

“Well, you were promised information about Darwei if you won—that was given before the fight started.”

“Ugh… that’s true, but…”

Ryo was at a loss for words at Abel’s calm point.

It was true, though…

“So… something good huh? What counts as good?”

“Bones, right? Give him both the white bones and blue bones?”

“I am not a dog…”

Lau tilted his head, thinking; Fan offered a straightforward suggestion, Ryo refused.

“So then something cliché?”

“A country, money, beauties? In the Eastern countries, we could kill the royals and give it to you right away?”

“No, why are you suggesting the same things as the Akumas…”

Ryo rejected their proposals again.

“Did the Akumas make similar offers to Ryo? I don’t like them, but they have an eye for good things.”

“They’re not respectable, but Akumas can spot good things.”

“Why are they enemies yet rivals who recognize each other’s strength…?”

To Lau and Fan, Akumas were enemies but also rivals.

The fight between dragons and Akumas that Ryo had heard from Dragon King Nullus in the Golden City resurfaced in his mind.

They had fought each other to the death, apparently.

Ryo shook his head slightly.

“A rivalry born of fighting with all your might? What is this, a shonen-manga trope?”

His mutter went unheard by anyone.

“If not bones or a country, there’s not much we can give, right?”

“Humans are complicated. We live in the sea, you live on land… many differences.”

Lau and Fan talked seriously.

Trying to think of something to give Ryo.

Ryo suddenly remembered and asked.

“Earlier, sea monsters were moving from north to south around the archipelago region—what was that about?”

Yes, they had also encountered a swarm of krakens…

“That was because of the Phantomkins. Their movement scared the northern monsters away.”

“Why?”

“The Phantomkins capture monsters and make them servants. You know that?”

“Oh… now that you mention it.”

Ryo nodded at Lau’s question.

Abel nodded beside him.

In Tiger Mountain and the Ryokusou Plain, Phantomkins had led monsters.

“They tried to do the same with sea monsters.”

“…Can they control sea monsters?”

“No, they can’t.”

“That’s a relief.”

Ryo felt genuine relief.

If a swarm of controlled krakens had been coming, the Darwei fleet would have been in trouble.

Even the Neil Andersen would struggle against a kraken swarm.

Of course, he planned to fight and defeat them eventually, but…

There was truly too much to do!

“However, the sorcery spell those casters use to try to control them is something sea monsters hate. They used it on a large scale, so everyone headed south.”

“A simple question—don’t monsters run away from you Lau and Fan?”

“What do you mean?”

Lau tilted his head, not understanding Ryo’s question.

Fan did the same.

“Well, I thought since you were Dragon Kings, the monsters would run.”

“No, they don’t run. We don’t harm them.”

“Huh? You don’t eat them?”

“We don’t eat them.”

Ryo asked in surprise; Fan nodded in answer.

“Dragons don’t need to eat monsters or animals.”

“What!?”

Lau’s words surprised Ryo.

Because…

“My neighbor Ruwin and his subordinate dragons absolutely love meat.”

They love monster meat, apparently.

Especially Ruwin loved the meat Ryo seasoned with his spices and rice balls.

“Oh, Ruwin’s just a hedonist.”

“Eh…”

“He can live without eating, he just likes to eat.”

Humans can live without sweets, but those who love sweets will eat them.

Probably the same.

“I didn’t know that…”

“That’s why the red dragons settled in Rondo where there are no humans.”

“Such deep reasons…”

“Deep?”

Ryo nodded gravely, while Abel listening beside him couldn’t agree.

‘To each their own’ is a convenient phrase.

Ryo returned to the conversation.

“If we attach something those sorcerers use—the thing sea monsters hate—to our ship, could we make it so we’re not attacked at sea?”

Abel was the most surprised by Ryo’s words.

“You were thinking about that?”

“Yes. I said before, didn’t I? That in the western countries, anti-sea-monster magic formula was developed, and is quite effective.”

“You did say that. But I’m not sure it works on krakens.”

“That’s true. But if it’s that sorcerer’s method… say it’s like a talisman, if you stick it on a ship, maybe it won’t be attacked.”

Ryo spoke proudly.

He thought it a clever idea.

But…

“I wouldn’t recommend that.”

Lau frowned.

Fan frowned beside him.

It seemed the Blue Dragon Kings didn’t think it was a very good suggestion.

“Sure, krakens basically flee, but megalodons will attack like crazy.”

“Megalodon?”

“A giant shark from long ago, about twenty meters long, I remembered…”

Abel tilted his head at Lau’s explanation; Ryo answered from his Earth memory.

A massive shark said to have existed millions to tens of millions of years ago—could it still be on this ‘Phi’?

“Big shark, huh… well it’s a monster, but the description matches.”

“The big ones get up to fifty meters.”

Lau pictured it and answered; Fan spread his arms to show how huge.

Apparently, there are sea monsters scarier than krakens.

Perhaps the sea is indeed a world humans shouldn’t enter…

After a long discussion back and forth…

They settled on jewelry.

“For now, this.”

Lau handed over a surprisingly blue jewel about half a fist in size.

“This doesn’t look like a magic stone.”

“A regular gem? Oh, but it’s not a stone.”

“Not a stone?”

Ryo tilted his head at Fan’s words.

If it’s not a magic stone, isn’t it a gem?

“It’s a Blue Dragon’s Tear.”

“Dragon Drop…! ”

A gem produced by dragons, appearing in many stories around the world.

“Does it have any effect…?”

“Nope, nothing?”

“Oh, okay…”

Ryo felt deflated at Lau’s one word.

“Want something with effects?”

“Not really…”

“Then how about this? This annihilates all land life, Akasha’s…”

“No thanks!”

He certainly didn’t want something that dangerous.

“I accept this Dragon Drop… this Blue Dragon’s Tear!”

Ryo declared, and Lau and Fan nodded happily.

But Ryo thought he ought to say one thing.

“Just don’t cause trouble for others.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t take hostages or half-destroy cities to lure me out.”

“Understood. If we want to fight, we’ll come directly to Ryo!”

“Uh… ah, okay… well, that’s…”

Ryo reluctantly nodded, conjuring unsettling images in his head at Fan’s words.

“After this, I’ll go to the Darwei capital and challenge Ryo to a fight…”

“Multiple consecutive fights are a problem.”

Ryo said firmly, cutting in at Fan’s words.

He had to make it clear now or things would be terrible.

“Okay. Take one day off, tomorrow…”

“No!”

“Alright. Take one week, next week…”

“No!!”

“Fine. One month from now…”

“Please give me more time…”

After terse back-and-forth bargaining, they agreed to wait half a year.

“I’ll train fully for six months.”

“I’ll train until then, too.”

Fan and Lau said as they left.

“Abel, I’m exhausted.”

“It sure looked tough.”

“You say that like it’s someone else’s problem, but next you’ll fight Lau, Abel.”

“Yeah… I know. What are we doing wrong to end up in this?”

“Such a strange coincidence. I was just thinking the same too. Something must be wrong. On the level of fate or destiny…”

What is fate?

What is destiny?

They searched for answers they could not find.

Cheer up, Ryo and Abel.

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