Dragon Era 523: Biggest Fight

Dragon Era 523

「...So you've come back, "No-Arms."」

The Chieftain’s voice, which I hadn’t heard in a long time, sounded lower, heavier, and more frightening than before.

「...Yeah.」

I looked up at him and nodded. Thirteen years since I left the village. Not a short span, but not all that long for lizardmen either. My height—long since overtaken by Yuuki—didn’t even reach a quarter of the Chieftain’s.

「Chieftain. I challenge you.」

The moment I said it, a murmur rippled through those around us. Then derisive laughter spread.
The same laughter that had been hurled at me almost daily when I still lived here—laughter I’d charge at every time, only to be beaten down.

But strangely enough, it didn’t bother me at all now.

Anyone has the right to challenge the Chieftain. And the Chieftain must accept.
If you win the fight, you’re recognized as the new Chieftain.

—In other words, I could save Sensei and the others.

「...Very well. Come at me.」

Of all the lizardmen, only the Chieftain didn’t so much as twitch a smile; he fixed his gaze on me. A taut, prickling air that felt like it pierced my scales—the distinctive presence I feel when facing Yuuki, Violet, or Amata.

If only he’d let his guard down, this would be a bit easier.

「Let’s make a deal.」

Thinking that to myself, I reached out my hand and said it.

「...A deal, you say?」

The Chieftain eyed me suspiciously and asked back.
The one thing the lizardmen—who use neither weapons nor magic—took from Sensei and adopted.

That was language.

It made communication so easy and was so convenient that even the lizardmen adopted it—couldn’t help but adopt it.

「The king who bore a spear gave his right eye and gained wisdom. The mermaid princess gave her voice and gained legs.」

Odin, chief god of Norse mythology. The Little Mermaid, from Andersen’s fairy tales.
Stories from another world that only Sensei and I know in this one.

The Chieftain faltered at the string of words that had meaning yet whose meaning no one here could grasp.

「What I offer are two arms. No fingers, no elbows—yet these proud arms of mine, in exchange...」

If the lizardmen had never learned words and remained mere beasts, I’d have been groveling on the ground long ago.

「Grant me the power to race freely through the sky!」

He let me complete such a long spell right under his nose.
My upper pair of arms spread; skin stretched between the lengthened bones, forming wings that beat the air.
At the same time, the Chieftain lunged; his fingertips grazed my leg.
Way too quick to react—be more stunned, would you!?

As I shot up into the air, shouting complaints in my head, the Chieftain bent his legs, packing power into them. He was going to jump.

「You are weak!」

The reflexively shouted spell took effect at once, and the Chieftain’s whole body lost much of its strength. Even so, he leapt to right beside me—over ten meters up. What kind of body is that!?

His four swinging arms were thicker than my torso. Even weakened by the spell, one hit would swat me from the sky.

But it had nothing like the sharpness of Amata’s sword. Nor the technique.

Those arms swung through purely on brute force; I guided them aside with my palms, yielded to the force, and let my body slip away into the sky. Terrifying as a four‑hit combo, but in the end just a four‑hit combo. Yuuki and Violet in combination are far scarier.

The Chieftain dropped, then leapt for me again. But his jump didn’t carry him quite as high as before. Sensei once said muscles that move the body come in two kinds: strong but short‑lived, and weak but able to keep going.

「O red one, O hot one, O that which runs through the trees—」

Lizardmen have more of the strong-but-short‑lived kind. In short, poor stamina—they tire quickly. The bigger the body, the more so. Bigger means stronger, but it also means heavier. In terms of stamina, a small guy like me has a many‑times advantage.

「O that which burns, that which flickers, that which is strong—」

And lizardmen lack Luka’s kind of cunning—waiting slyly for an opponent to run out of stamina. Any animal here is strong enough to kill head‑on. The Chieftain’s altitude kept dropping bit by bit, and at last, breathing hard, he glared up at me from the ground.

「O that which gently warms, that which watches over us from the sky, that which shines—」

If it were Rin, this would be a trap. She’s got a real knack for that—acting, then sucker‑punching when you let your guard down. The toughest opponent is the one you can’t predict. The Chieftain had none of that kind of fear. And above all—

「You who light the dark and guide the lost—O flame, noblest of all!」

A flame about a meter across bloomed above my palm.
Only after piling on this many words—this long a chant—do I get this. I despise my own lack of talent... and yet—

「Become an arrow and strike that one!」

I haven’t spent these dozen-odd years honing myself just to lose to someone far weaker than Sensei!

「Insolent whelp!」

With a whoosh through the air, the Chieftain’s thick leg cleaved the flame I’d loosed. Lizardman scales, born of volcanic life, resist heat. A flame of my level, he can scatter with ease... but—

「O flame! Become a cage and enclose that one!」

Gripping one edge of it, I shouted.
I dove at the same time I released the flame, and the Chieftain hadn’t realized I was already right beside him. The flame blinded him, and he never imagined I’d close the distance from far overhead.

At my words the flame changed its nature in an instant, hanging there like stone—still enclosing the Chieftain’s leg.

「Guh...!」

Even with weight and shape, flame is still flame; its heat does not change. A single kick would scatter it in an instant, but with his whole body engulfed, even the Chieftain let out a groan.
He thrashed to wipe the clinging fire from his body, but though the cage had form it lacked hardness. Brute force couldn’t tear it away.

Before long his movements grew sluggish, and at last he collapsed to the ground. Thrash around while covered in flame and that’s what happens. Even if lizardman scales endure heat, if your face is swathed in fire you can’t draw in oxygen.

「...I win!」

I threw my arm high and declared it. Once I confirmed the surrounding roar—somewhere between cheers and shouts of rage—I stripped the fire off the Chieftain. Lizardmen are tough; this much wouldn’t kill him.
Confirming the roaring voices around me—neither purely cheers nor purely angry shouts—I stripped the flames from the Chieftain. Lizardmen are sturdy; this much wouldn’t have killed him.

「Coward! That’s not our way of fighting!」
「Invalid! Invalid! How could that be true strength!」
「“No-Arms” isn’t fit to be Chieftain!」

As expected, the lizardmen shouted their complaints. I’d anticipated as much.

「If you’ve got complaints, come at me.」

I swept my gaze around and provoked them.

「The Chieftain refuses no challenge. Beat the Chieftain and you become Chieftain. Which means if you beat me now, you’re the Chieftain.」

They looked at each other and then rushed me. But I’d known they’d do that. I had no obligation to face each one fair and square. I sprang into the air, and a few idiots smashed heads together and fell over.

Then I shaped the flame I’d stripped from the Chieftain into a sword and lashed it like a whip. A screech rang out, and the rest bolted in a panic. The Chieftain hadn’t flinched even wreathed in fire—pathetic.

That said, my mana’s just about spent. I’m glad I managed to get away fast. ...But the Chieftain hasn’t moved a muscle. Don’t tell me he’s dead?

Thinking that, I dropped to the ground to check on him—when, from the shadow of that hulking body, a lizardman lunged out. I hadn’t expected a sneak attack and got slugged hard.

「You—!」

If Amata had seen that, I’d be in for a brutal extra round of drills. Fortunately my assailant was a kid too—only a little taller than me.

「I am strong! I am heavy! I am hard!」

Firing off enhancement magic in rapid succession, I grappled with the attacker and forced them down onto the ground.

「Kya!」

As I drew back a fist to smash it down, a scream rang out—and I realized.

「...A girl?」

Slender frame, smooth upper arms without any jutting bulk. Hard to tell on a child, but those were traits peculiar to female lizardmen. And in the scuffle my hand had clamped tight around that very upper arm.

For females, that’s a delicate place that no one is allowed to touch unless they’re loving spouses.

「W-where do you think you’re touching!」
「W-wait, I didn’t— Gah!」

She decked me with raw force, and my consciousness nearly blinked out. If I hadn’t been self‑enhanced, that would’ve ended it. I’d never heard of a female becoming Chieftain, but it wasn’t forbidden by the code either.

As a male—and as Sensei’s disciple—this was a fight I could not lose. After a brutal slugfest, I somehow managed to defeat her.

Frankly, I struggled many times more than against the Chieftain. To have my toughest, mud-slinging brawl be with a little girl—I can’t even tell Sensei. It’s mortifying.

And two days later I learned she was the Chieftain’s only daughter.

—Let alone that two years later she would become my lifelong partner. I had no way of knowing that then.