(Risa POV)
"Yuuki, I refuse."
"Oh, come on. It's a normal A-ranked request. You said you wanted to fight strong enemies-"
"I'm not fighting a Dragon Lord!" I exclaimed, annoyed.
This wasn't the first time that Yuuki had given me a seemingly pointless assignment way beyond my pay grade. This time, Yuuki wanted me to track down a wind dragon that got too close to the capital city of the kingdom of Seltrozzo and ensure that it made it back to the Canaat Mountains. That meant tracking a dragon down deep in Dragon Lord territory for no reason. If the Dragon Lord decided that I didn't have the right to track down its ward, it'd be like the time I had to fight an entire army of demon summoners who'd sacrificed themselves in some sort of mission… That mission had also been in Seltrozzo, come to think of it.
I'd had to kill five arch-demons at once Even with my full power, I'd gotten pretty close to dying.
I was now a famous, A-ranked adventurer. But still, dragons were way above my pay grade.
"You're not fighting the Dragon Lord, I promise. You don't even have to go into the mountains at all. Just track the dragon until you get there, then the job will be done." Yuuki promised me.
"Okay. I won't go further than that, though. Period."
…
(Dragon POV)
"GRAAAH!!" I dug my talons into the ground and let out a mighty roar, attempting to scare the humanoid in front of me away. As much as I hated humans, I had no desire to kill this young girl.
I was a Wind-type Arch Dragon. Daughter of the Wind Dragon Lord himself, I was older and wiser than any others of my brood. Stronger and faster, as well.
My duty was to guard the border of my father's territory, and I took my duty seriously. I hadn't left these lands in hundreds of years, and none had passed me. This girl would be no different. My Unique Skill, Pact bound me to this land, strengthening me beyond anything an ordinary arch-dragon could hope for. I couldn't break my oath. Even if it meant I died, protecting my father's lands...
…
(Risa POV)
I wanted to run. I wasn't sure if even my full power would be enough against this horrifying beast… but Yuuki had told me that this dragon was responsible for the destruction of countless towns in the last few weeks, across the whole of the Western Nations. I'd seen it for myself. Villages reduced to craters by massive outbursts of magic… a dragon's breath, perhaps.
I wasn't stupid. Big Bro drilled it into my head time and time again that if you can't win, you run… but I think I have a chance. I couldn't live with myself if the dragon hurt more people simply because I didn't try.
The first thing I did was take my wings out. If it was going to fly, I needed to be able to fly at a moment's notice, too. Then, I pulled out my backup sword. I'd left Sol with Izzy, to make up for the fact that Izzy wasn't as good in a fight as I was. The backup I was using, now that I was an A-rank, was one I'd made totally out of magisteel, with a few mana circuits inside it that would burn the arm of anyone other than me who tried to use it. Nothing near as good as Sol, but it'd work for my needs.
The moment I pulled my sword out, the dragon recoiled, like it was reassessing me.
"You're a smart dragon, aren't you?" I noted, wreathing my sword in the white flame that my adventurer persona was known for.
As I dashed forward to engage the dragon, it flew into the air and released a quick breath attack at the speed of light. Even having predicted it beforehand with Chaos Warrior, I was only barely able to fly out of the range of the blast.
But as soon as I dodged the breath attack, another missile came flying directly at me. The dragon itself, enhancing its speed with the lightning attribute. It wasn't as fast as its breath, so I was able to lock eyes with it, parrying its claws with my sword as it lunged past me, faster than a blink.
…
CLANG! CLASH! BOOM! The dragon was faster than me, but I had a better grasp of my surroundings, and I was physically stronger, too. Those differences balanced the fight out.
Every time I landed a slash, the dragon would land three or four. I had resistance to electricity, but every single time I got close to the dragon, my Ultraspeed Regeneration would do a little bit of work.
The battle raged for days, destroying the landscape and the air around us with raging white and blue blasts of fire and lightning. While neither of us looked hurt on the outside, both I and the dragon had gone through two-thirds of our total magicules, and still, we continued to trade blasts.
The dragon raced toward me in the air for the thousandth time. Even at those insane speeds, I knew it could turn on a dime. My Chaos Warrior's Battle Senses told me that using Formhide to disappear from the dragon's sight for a moment was my best bet, but…
"Hellflare! Returning Haze!"
A black orb appeared in front of the dragon, but the Hellflare was deftly avoided. Next, I slashed at the dragon with a half-dozen white, flaming streaks of Spirit Flame at once. Avoided. Then, the remnants from the Hellflare behind the dragon began racing toward the dragon once more, invisible heat at impossibly high temperatures. That was the Returning Haze art that I'd created. Incredibly deadly.
Avoided.
But the heat wasn't done quite yet. Missing the dragon by a hair, the heat gathered in my sword, turning it white-hot once more, in a different way than normal. All of this had happened in a split second. The dragon bore down on me, meeting my gaze once more. I knew it wouldn't dodge. It could tell, just as I could, that we were both down to the wire. This battle wasn't going to last much longer, and I had an advantage in energy conservation.
Either we clashed right here and now, ending the fight with all of the energy we had left, or the dragon would lose.
I knew what I needed to do.
"Haze Style. Double Cherry Blossom - White-flame Eight Petals Flash!" I needed to meet this dragon's all-out attack with one of my own. The strongest Art that Hakuro had taught me. One of the secrets of the Haze Sword Art style. With my own twist on it, naturally.
I'd been fighting this dragon for days. It was somewhere between two and four times faster than me, but I'd never lost sight of it. Not once had it ever tried to blindside me, or distract me… it fought completely fairly, even though it knew that it could lose.
I couldn't bring myself to hate something that stupidly straightforward.
No… Honorable.