Skill Tree Goddess:Volume1 Chapter3

Chapter 3: Are You Fighting a Dragon After You Said Never Again?

Part 1

They borrowed one of the high elf caravan’s many simple collapsible huts to spend the night.

The next morning, Gilbezos and the goddess said goodbye to the high elves and left the reddening and somewhat chilly sugar maple forest.

“Wow…”

A blue expanse stretched out before them.

The sky wasn’t just overhead. The blue was found down below their feet, in the gaps of the land that floated without wings, and some clouds occasionally floated by. That sight was all the proof they needed that this was a different world from the surface.

“Ah! Don’t they say you your leather water bottles will burst if you take them to a Sky Territory?”

“This one is only about 1000 metora up, so it should be fine.”

They ran into some wind as soon as they left the forest. Instead of blowing in from one direction, it twisted around like a living creature. It felt like winds from different directions mixing together. Also…

“Oh, my.”

“You could at least try to hold down your skirt, Lady Seliphenia!!”

…Why did it never seem to bother her!? It was up to Gilbezos to quickly look away when the cloth billowed up in front of him. The goddess only placed a hand on her cheek.

“What an awkward altitude. Higher than this and you wouldn’t have to deal with rain and it wouldn’t have to go out of its way to avoid the larger mountains.”

Sky Territories had not been in the sky to begin with. There were originally areas of ground where power of the seven types flowed in great quantity. When a certain type, like wind or water, grew strong enough in a location, it would pull away from the surface and begin to float. They apparently gained traits similar to clouds.

“They say a lot of the sky people are tall. Does living in a high place make you tall, I wonder?”

“Isn’t most everyone tall compared to a shorty like you?”

Witches riding brooms flew by over Gilbezos’s head. In the distance, he saw a wooden container being carried by hanging it from a Hraevelgr, a bird larger than a theater. Even with a specialized tamer controlling it, it was incredible to see monsters coexisting with humans like that.

Like the goddess had said, this was only around 1000 metora up, so about the same as the summit of a small mountain. That explained why it was so chilly.

But the problem was that this wasn’t the only Sky Territory. A fair number of them were scattered around both inside and outside the kingdom.

“Where are we?” asked Gilbezos. “Which Sky Territory is this?”

“There’s a sign over there. It says this is Sunset Autumn Skyland.”

“Sunset Autumn. You mean that religious city?”

“Temple City Aeropremise. From what I’ve heard, it’s a vertical city crammed full of 700 thousand people.”

Gilbezos’s goal was to settle things with Brave Liar and keep his promise with the king.

If Brave Liar was here, this was fine, but otherwise he had to leave here eventually.

…But how could he leave a Sky Territory floating 1000 metora in the air?

“Looks like we’ll have to use one of those things after all.”

“There are a few other ways, but that would be the safest one. By a wide margin.”

He had seen them from the capital.

Ad cranes. A massive reel attached to the surface would hold a thick chain while 3-metora balloons made of animal hide were filled with lighter-than-air volcanic gas for buoyancy and a gondola hanging from the balloon would carry people and things up and down the chain.

However, there were no balloons that ran on a regular schedule for passengers. And they were generally used as entertainment for aristocrats, so they had to be chartered individually and were extremely expensive. So expensive that a nobleman who had wanted to ride one just once in his life had sold a valuable lakeside castle to pay for it.

…Could he really get back that way? If he used the Haggle skill often used by merchants, could he get the price down to something more reasonable?

“Are you going to start earning money with guild jobs again? Has that ever worked out well for you?”

“…”

“It’s so sweet how predictable you are. I should call you Guild-bezos.”

Look how…

“Look how high you- !! Ghh!?”

“Are your arms too little to lift me? Now this is a shock.”

No matter what the 18-year-old(-looking) goddess said, he needed money, so he would have to rely on the large city on this 10 kilemetora flying land.

Temple City Aeropremise.

Being on a Sky Territory must have meant limited land and they may have given up on the issue before it became a problem. The buildings in the city of white stone were all tall. Counting the windows, around ten floors appeared standard and the big temples and towers looked to be more than fifteen floors.

The city was also full of god statues.

But they weren’t all of Goddess Seliphenia.

“It is a polytheistic religion with plenty more gods to choose from. I manage the Skill Tree, so I don’t want people praying to me for their love life or safety while giving birth.”

“Huh? This doesn’t bother you?”

“Well, I am still the most popular one.”

Probably because this world revolved around skills. The gods of war, harvest, beauty, love, judgment, and destruction couldn’t complete with the goddess of the Skill Tree.

But 700 thousand people? That was a major city. Just finding the guild in such a large place would take some doing. Gilbezos spotted a familiar “INN” sign and decided to make that his base of operations while here.

This was his first time here, but the Queen Size inn still felt familiar as he checked in. This time he wasn’t surprised to find the counter manned by a woman of around 18 who had pink hair and a mysterious tail and horns.

“Enoi-”

“I am Egipusa Holysign★ …If you have any complaints, I will respond with my Sexy Panties Succubus Ninja Arts.”

So she said with a perfect smile. He was beginning to question if she really was a woman or even a human at all, but she seemed harmless enough and he decided to let her be. He got the feeling poking around here much longer would drag him into an ultra-powerful secret boss battle with no connection to the main quest!

After throwing what little luggage they had into the inn room, the goddess began stretching on the bed and made a suggestion.

“Hey, shorty. Once you accept a job at the guild, you’ll be entirely focused on that, won’t you? Based on past experience.”

“Probably, yeah?”

It was a job after all. He would give up on them if they were too unreasonable, but he generally took them seriously and wanted to show results.

“Then how about you deal with everything weighing on your mind before you enter work mode?”

That made sense, so he left the inn.

This flying land was about 10km in each direction, but it wasn’t a single piece of rock. A cluster of a few pieces of land were linked by stone bridges. The city filled one piece, but another was filled with lush greenery. This airborne Sky Territory even had a lake and caves.

Gilbezos and the goddess made their way to a deserted field to avoid causing any trouble.

Which meant they knew what they were about to do would cause trouble.

“6500 LAW. …Use it all and I can reach Rank 9. Yes, I’m finally at the top!”

Now he could part the sea, split a mountain, and plenty more besides.

It had all felt so distant before, but now it suddenly felt real.

Spending 6500 LAW at once was as big an event as paying cash for a large seafaring ship. A normal person might get nervous and freeze up. It was times like this when Gilbezos was most thankful for his special payback ability. He could try out anything he wanted.

Rank 9 was full of overpowered skills. Which one could he use to defeat Brave Liar?

…He figured his best bet was to try out any one that caught his eye and then do the payback so he could try the next one.

“What do you want to try first? Instant Hypnosis, Invisible Body, or Ultimate Pheromones? Oh, Gilbezos, you’re such a naughty boy★”

“I haven’t even said anything yet!!”

“Yet? You mean that future will come eventually? Something to look forward to then.”

Ahem.

“The problem is that Rank 9 includes that bright and shining option: Appraisal. O-oh, no. Gilbezos is going to appraise my chest size with those naughty boy eyes of his!”

“You could at least pretend to be embarrassed instead of sticking your chest out at me like that!!!”

Gilbezos.

Now isn’t the time to get sidetracked like this, is it?

“Anyway, I want to try out a lot of different combinations, including with Rank 9. If it doesn’t work, I just have to get the LAW back. Lady Seliphenia, open the Skill Tree if you don’t mind.”

“Yes, yes.”

“Hm? Why are you facing away from me?”

“To show off that this divine body is flexible enough to open it behind me too★”

“Can you just do it normally?”

The goddess childishly pouted her lips and waved her forearms side to side. As if washing a window. …Right in front of her chest. A gold light appeared. That was the Skill Tree.

Power Boost for Amount of MP Consumed. Appraisal. Accuracy Boost for Each Charge Up Action Taken – Max of 100%. Instant Hypnosis. Dragon Special. HP+1Billion. Modern Weapon Summoning. Zombie HP.

Rank 9 offered a lot of options. By mastering one route up the tree, such as physical power skills or disturbance skills, he would probably learn at least one, but when he could choose any one of them, it was hard to choose.

“Okay, time for a test. The first combination that comes to mind is…this, I guess?”

Fire Type Magic – Ultimate

0 Stamina Usage

Auto-Track Target During Effective Time

Power Boost for Amount of MP Consumed (Rank 9)

“Ki Ta Vi Wy Dey Ku Su Sa Ge Ne To Mi Ji Re Bo Vi Tsun (Appear before me, flaming tower of imminent disaster) – Cligalyne.”

Roaring crimson flames spiraled upwards where they scorched the blue sky. The massive flames were shaped by an updraft that turned them into a red tornado stretching upwards. Eventually, countless fireballs of different sizes poured down. Some rubble launched up with the wind must have been ignited. And they poured down with the intensity of fire arrows launched on a burning castle.

Simply put, this combination created a firestorm.

This wasn’t just Rank 9 at the top. The Rank 7 and 8 skills used to reach that point were useful in their own right.

Light Type Magic – Ultimate

Strength of All Attacks Boosted When at Full HP

Repeat Command

Accuracy Boost for Each Charge Up Action Taken – Max of 100% (Rank 9)

“Uh Ku Vi So Ta Day Me Lu Mon Fa Lu Ve Ve Ki Ki Te Ro Gi Ne To (Oh light, launch an insolent strike in the blink of an eye) – Mjorcma.”

Even the sound vanished.

Gilbezos’s shadow on the ground filled with white light before a thick beam surged diagonally up from it. It pierced a giant hole in the boulder he had targeted. A moment later, the thick beam itself came apart and scattered in all directions as countless arrowheads of light. The thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of attacks formed an explosion of pure white. The scenery was filled by deadly light.

Attack magic couldn’t harm your allies.

Without that, Gilbezos and the goddess might have been slaughtered by his own magic.

“Oops.”

Hearing the stone beneath his feet crumbling, Gilbezos finally stopped his hand. The stone crumbled away and the blue sky approached disconcertingly close to the toes of his boots. He felt bad for removing part of the Sky Territory’s limited land. And was that safe? He took a look far down below and it didn’t look like a populated area down there. He only saw an open field without even a road.

Also, while it had crumbled, could the small pieces of a Sky Territory continue to float after breaking away from the whole? He wanted to test that out, but he would have to break off more of this limited land to do so.

“That’s powerful magic, but it must be really hard to aim. Allllso, the exact same type of violence can be considered good or evil depending on its color, shape, and number. Why not give some thought to the symbolism of it next time?”

“What, like how if you slice people up with a sword of light, people will call you a righteous hero?”

The goddess must have seen this as a cue to take a break because she closed the Skill Tree, raised her arms, and stretched.

…Which was very distracting. Because of her chest!!

“Come to think of it, the high elf chief used Group Flight, right? That’s also a glorious Rank 9 skill, so couldn’t you use that now?”

“Maybe that would make it easier to reach the ground.”

“But given what it is, that might not be so easy. The high elf chief appeared to use ‘deep forest’ as a keyword for her flight, but doesn’t that mean that aspect of the skill isn’t clearly defined? If you set it up wrong, it could lead to failure.”

“Yeah, I would prefer not to miss my destination and end up flying to the other side of the continent.”

But more than that, there was another skill Gilbezos wanted to try out now that he could reach any skill he wanted.

“I want to try the skills that Brave Liar is using.”

“Copying him will only lead to a stalemate even if you do it perfectly. And if you don’t, you’ll lose.”

“I’m not talking about mimicking everything he did to win. But I might be able to guard against his attacks if I use the same type, right?”

The Hero would be good with a sword in addition to magic. He would be able to use that to block, deflect, and attack. Gilbezos wanted some physical skills to fight on equal footing, but he would never be able to learn enough if he just went at it without a plan. He wanted a plan specialized for use against Brave Liar.

Brave Liar’s skills list was incomplete because some came from his equipped items, but the goddess had managed to analyze a few of them.

If he remembered correctly, the list was as follows:

––––––

Certain Death

––––––

Light Type Magic – Hero Exclusive

The gaps were disconcerting, but with no hints at all, there was no use thinking about them. And of the two they did know, the goddess had already told him about the death lottery skill called Certain Death. That left only one.

Light Type Magic – Hero Exclusive.

Gilbezos sold back almost all of his skills.

He tried to learn the skills along a single path up the Skill Tree, but something lit up with a “zap!!”

…He was blocked? That had never happened before!

“Lady Seliphenia! What was that!?”

“You see the ‘hero exclusive’ label, don’t you? That means you can’t learn anything in that area.”

“That’s a thing?”

“You need to observe the Skill Tree more. There are a lot of branches like that. Like one limited to adults or a ‘no boys allowed’ one. This is another. It won’t open for you unless you grow into someone worthy of being called a hero.”

People did not grow by learning skills.

So were there cases where people had to grow to match the skills?

“Besides, hero exclusive skills are extremely powerful ones that can only be used to bring about world peace. If you try to use them to satisfy your own personal desires, you’ll get locked out, so they seem kind of pointless to me.”

“Then what about Brave Liar? Are you saying him killing the king was meant to improve the world? You’ve gotta be kidding me!”

The goddess said nothing in reply.

…Terms like “the world” and “peace” were so vague it was hard to determine what the actual conditions were. Could that dark hero have found some way of bypassing the rules?

Part 2

After trying out a number of options, Gilbezos only had more questions.

He returned to Temple City Aeropremise with his head tilted in confusion, but something seemed off about the city.

It was like there was fog out, or like the air had gotten thick and wet. He also couldn’t see anyone out in the city of 700 thousand. Not a single one.

The area down the main street was flashing violently.

An unpleasant air was slowly approaching. Like space itself carried deadly force.

…What was that? Lightning? No!!

“Sky Territories float in the air, so they will at times plow right into a thick thundercloud.”

“Ahhhh!?”

…He didn’t have time to listen to the goddess’s explanation.

A nearby house’s door opened and a large middle-aged woman shouted out to him.

“Quick, in here. What are you doing out on a day like this!? Just get inside!”

Gilbezos and Seliphenia rushed into the open door.

As soon as the woman pushed with her small back to shut the thick wooden door covered in waterproof paint, an ear-splitting boom came from the other side. And a crackling. Apparently a thick blast of lightning had hit the door.

The lightning was flying horizontally outside the tightly shut window. Not the way Gilbezos normally thought of lightning. It was like being inside a massive vortex. The light was flashing every which way on the main street and orange sparks exploded out as the metal streetlights were broken down from their base. What would have happened to Gilbezos and Seliphenia if they hadn’t escaped inside this building?

“I’m glad I was there to help. You two need to stay in here until this dies down.”

“Th-thanks…”

“It used to be that the Saint’s lightning purification ritual would protect us all from the lightning storms.”

Apparently the sky had its own unique issues. Gilbezos had been given a deadly crash course in that. Were the high elves all right in that red sugar maple forest?

They ended up waiting inside for about an hour. The woman brought them hot milk and chocolate chip cookies while they did. Mm, and she was a good cook. Those were some excellent cookies. He had heard that the way butter mixed or hardened or something at high altitudes made for a unique result.

Either the thundercloud had moved away or the Sky Territory had moved on because the danger eventually faded.

The boy thanked the woman and then nervously returned to the main street. He had expected a scorched smell, but instead everything was damp? Almost like a sprayer had been used all over the city.

“So what are you going to do now, boy?”

“What else is there to do but head to the guild and find a job?”

“But don’t you need to buy some items to prepare for that job?”

“…”

Right. Shirayuri Ferslona and her Necessities Emporium were not on this Sky Territory. She had been left behind on the surface. That meant he would have to get recovery items and such from the stores here.

A large city would have, for example, weapons shops all over the place and telling the good ones from the bad ones wouldn’t be easy. For now, Gilbezos’s priority was restocking the recovery items he had used during the forest battle, so he checked a drugstore right on the main street – since it had to do good business to afford such a pricey location.

“Wow…” he exclaimed on reflex.

…That was supposed to be a Cure Herb? But the leaves were so dry and the roots were thinner than a pen. And it was more expensive than it was on the surface? Wow…

The other options also turned this shopping trip into a reminder of just how blessed he was to have that introverted shut-in’s store. He made a mental note to give the 10 year old a head pat when he got back to the surface.

…Only one of the consumable items actually looked fresh and healthy.

It was something he had never seen on the surface.

“Saint’s Jewel? What’s that?”

It looked like a crystal ball about five centemetora across…but no. Maybe it was more like hard candy? Based on the illustration on the hand-written ad on the shelf, you apparently squeezed the orb in your fist and then pressed it into your other fist. Something like squeezing a lemon maybe?

The old woman running the shop mumbled a response.

“You need to thank the Saint for this. After all, this item will heal your HP and your MP. The adventurers I’ve heard say it heals about half of both right away.”

…That sounded amazing. Cure Herbs (the ordinary variety, not the ones sold here that looked like dried and shriveled carrots) would heal a set amount of 250 HP. Items that healed a percentage like this one were especially valuable once your HP was in the thousands or tens of thousands.

But this healed not just HP but 50% of your MP too? Then even if it was a consumable, it had to be a pretty rare item. With something like this on the market, Queen Size’s inns might be in trouble. But if they were that convenient, why weren’t they found all across the kingdom?

“Don’t be silly. We need to appreciate even this single scrap of the Saint’s blessing. I’m sure she has her reasons for only providing so much. It would be wrong to continue asking for more.”

…So could it not be mass produced, or did it go bad so fast it generally had to be consumed locally?

Whatever the case, they were cheap, so it would have been foolish not to buy some Saint’s Jewels. When he tried to buy them all, the old woman berated him and said it was 10 per customer.

“Damn. I should’ve had the goddess buy another ten for me.”

“Oh, really? Personally, I think you should put more work into not getting hurt in the first place so you don’t need the healing items.”

With his detours complete, it was finally time to head to the guild.

He didn’t want to insult the people who lived on this Sky Territory, but since he had to leave eventually, he wanted to secure the money needed to use one of the ad cranes connecting the surface to the sky. Which meant earning enough for an aristocrat’s entertainment.

“They have developed items that let humans use monster-exclusive skills and there are three in existence. If you got one of hem, you could use a flight skill to reach the surface.”

“I’m not entrusting my hopes to that. If there’s only three of them, they’re bound to be expensive.”

With his goal, the jobs he could choose from were limited. There was only one that would work.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

Slay Yuileen, the SS-rank Uroboros-form dragon.

Part 3

Apparently a specific dragon occasionally flew overhead and glared fiercely down into the city. Some said it seemed to be searching for something. They didn’t know what that was, but if it found it, there was a definite risk of it descending and attacking. Having a large SS-rank dragon repeatedly flying by and assessing them invited unnecessary chaos into people’s lives, so they wanted to put an end to this before the dragon actually attacked.

“Ughhh…”

Gilbezos lay his head down on the guild’s round table and went limp.

…SS-rank? What even was that?

Didn’t that mean this dragon was even more powerful than Balsta, the S-rank Lindworm-form dragon that had badly beaten him and so many others? That was a whole extra S there!!

“But wait, Gilbezos. This Yuileen slaying job might be a good thing.”

“How so? What’s so great about it? Fighting a monster like that is suicide.”

“When Brave Liar was still a proper Hero, he slayed at least five SSS-rank dragons on his own. If you really want to defeat him, you can’t let a mere SS-rank dragon scare you, can you?”

…Hm, she had a point.

Ugh, was that really what this came down to? Gilbezos had reached 6500 LAW, so he could incorporate at least one Rank 9 skill into his strategies. How overpowered were those overpowered skills? Maybe he should take on a stupidly powerful enemy to find out.

That said, Gilbezos wasn’t going to suicidally rush in at the dragon on his own or anything. This would probably be a larger scale battle, just like the one with Balsta.

“Hey.”

He turned toward the quiet man’s voice to find a familiar face here on the Sky Territory.

It was the bearded man who had joined him on the Balsta hunt before. His name was…hmm? Regardless, what a coincidence to run across him again in a dragon-related context.

“What are you doing here? You’re not on another dragon hunt, are you?”

“Yeah, we did get beaten pretty badly last time.” The bearded man laughed and scratched his head. “But if I’m going to till a field out on the country and leave all my cares behind as I begin my second life, I want to first free myself from any dangerous regrets. I don’t want to have nightmares about that every time I shut my eyes. And I want to retire early, but I’ve been borrowing so much money.”

So that was it.

Maybe this was similar to why Gilbezos was pursuing Brave Liar to keep his promise.

“I know I’m only being sentimental and it’s not really fair to this Uroboros-form when it has nothing to do with that Lindworm-form. Still, I want to defeat a dragon myself to help get my mind in order. So even if it’s reckless, I intend to take this job.”

Gilbezos was honestly glad to find someone he knew here.

However, what exactly could this bearded man do? When they had lost so badly to Balsta, he seemed to have joined the team bolstering their fire type defenses on the vanguard, but Gilbezos had never heard his actual job.

“Ah ha ha. I’m actually a heavy gunner mage.”

…Oh? That was unusual.

Such a rare and unique job was not what Gilbezos had expected.

“I have fairly strong magic in the fire and other types. The incantation times are on the longer side, so my magic can get interrupted by any physical attacks. If you can cover for me there, I can do good work.”

So he was essentially a gun turret for attack magic. Knights fortified with shields and armor would guard him and buy him time while he used group targeted attack magic to wipe the enemy party. The slow movement speed would make him an easy target and everything he did would have a high MP cost, but if those flaws were covered, he could become a significant damage source.

And…

“You’re trying your hand at the dragon hunt? Th-then you’ll need a vanguard with decent physical attack, won’t you? I can play that offensive role.”

A girl in a miniskirt and a rough cloth wrapped tightly around her chest sat down at their table. Her purple hair fell to her shoulder blades, she looked to be around 16, and she wasn’t carrying any obvious weapons. She was likely a boxer who fought only with her fists. They were specialists who didn’t even use kicks.

But wait a second.

…Wasn’t this girl part of the enemy group during that battle in the forest? Gilbezos recognized those cloth-wrapped boobs. She was one of the older girls who had followed the whip-wielding tamer dominatrix’s orders.

Gilbezos went ahead and asked the question on his mind.

“What are you doing here?”

“Ugh,” groaned the boxer.

She wouldn’t look him in the eye. She fidgeted as she managed to get a quiet voice out.

“…Th-the forest seemed to glow all of a sudden and then I started floating up into the air all on my own.”

“…”

Really!? Those stupid high elves!!

The chief’s overpowered Group Flight spell was certainly impressive, but was its range so wide it had carried one of the enemy humans along with them!? Thankfully it had only been one, but it could have been way worse!!

“I call a truce! Please can we work together for now!? I-I-I-I don’t know how to get home with nothing but sky in every direction and I don’t want to stay on this Sky Territory forever! Okay? Okay? Please, I can’t stay up here! I’m afraid of heights!!”

She must have thought he would mercilessly abandon her here because the boxer, who was normally fierce enough to clench her fists and go monster hunting bare-handed, had her hands clasped together to beg. She even had some tears in her eyes. Yeah, and he found it awkward when older people cried.

“…Fine, I guess.”

“Eh? Really? For real? Thank god!!”

When she smiled so brightly, she looked just like an ordinary cute girl. An older girl, but still.

Their battle in the forest had been more about their different positions, so Gilbezos didn’t have all that much of a grudge about it. Now that the high elves were safe, he had no more reason to battle her. And even if the boxer girl reported back to her old friends after returning to the surface, the high elf hunting team (or what was left of it) wouldn’t stage a large-scale attack on Sunset Autumn Skyland. To reiterate, the ad cranes connecting the ground to the sky cost a fortune per person. Transporting a large group up here would leave them deeply in debt even if they did capture the high elves.

And since their objective was dirty money, he could actually trust them in this case.

…Rank 9 at the top of the Skill Tree did have Group Flight that could transport a group to the sky, but that moved so slowly their approach would be noticed.

“With that settled, I’m Boxer Penelope Embuls. Nice to meet you★”

…So would their general formation to have Penelope out front for physical attacks and the heavy gunner mage man in the back doing incantations?

There was one thing Gilbezos wanted to point out here. It was a fairly critical point when it came to big boss battles.

“Um, where’s our healer?”

“That’s a great question, boy. If no one else is going to do it, why don’t you volunteer?”

Part 4

…What kinds of skills did a healer need?

Gilbezos tried to figure that out while wandering the city with his new party.

“Excuse me. Wait just a moment, adventurers.”

A young male priest called out to them on the main street. He looked to be in his late twenties.

“I am Sophocles Fang. You are on your way to hunt Yuileen, the SS-rank Uroboros-type dragon, correct? To protect Temple City Aeropremise. Then please visit the temple first. We can provide you with an item I am sure you will find useful.”

“?”

They had no real reason to refuse and the priest had been most polite to an adventurer who lived in an inn. Even one this short. Plus, Gilbezos was terrified of battling that huge dragon, so he welcomed a detour.

The priest guided them to the largest temple in the city. The big gate was flanked by large goddess statues. Specifically, they were about 30 metora tall.

“…I know it’s supposed to make them look grand, but doesn’t this let us look right up their skirts?”

“Getting your hopes up? But there’s no underwear to spy on if they didn’t sculpt the part underneath the clothing. Grin.”

As soon as he stepped through the gate and onto the temple grounds, a wave of dizziness struck Gilbezos.

“Ah ha ha. Back when I was still a monk in training, I always felt lightheaded when I walked through the gate.”

Acting like a tour guide, the priest pointed out some kind of a pointy stone pillar in the center of the large rectangular plaza. Was it a monolith? No, it could be more precisely defined. That was an obelisk.

“It was apparently excavated from a distant spiritual site and brought here, so it creates a holy ground that only humans can approach. If it could be mass-produced, the world might be freed from the threat of monsters.”

Temple City Aeropremise tended to be built vertically, so the temple also had several sharp towers in addition to its main building. Someone was visible in a window high up on one tower.

“Who is that?”

It was a girl. She was probably some kind of holy woman, but her blue clothing scattered with gold, silver, and gems looked quite expensive. Heavy too. She also wore a crown of flowers, likely made from those blooming in the garden. It looked handmade and seemed out of place with the rest of her gorgeous outfit.

She must have noticed Gilbezos looking up at her because she slipped back away from the window.

Could she be the Saint he had heard so much about? She looked to be 14…no, maybe 13. But of course, Shirayuri was only 10 and she did a crafting job. This girl’s skill at creating the Saint’s Jewels appeared to be real, so maybe one’s job and age had little to do with each other.

The bearded man got right to the point. Grownups could be amazing in some ways.

“So what is this useful item you mentioned?”

“We do not expect you to fully defeat an SS-rank dragon. That would be asking too much. So please take this with you. It is an anti-dragon Seal Talisman made by Saint Yulatia Fines herself.”

“?”

Gilbezos had never heard of a talisman like this.

Was it as useful as the Saint’s Jewels?

“No matter how much HP your opponent has left, they can be enclosed within this talisman as long as they are rendered unconscious. This allows you to avoid the hellish marathon of wearing down a dragon’s astronomically high HP.”

“That’s incredible.” The bearded man sounded impressed by this explanation. “So even sleep or faint would work?”

…It was questionable whether status effects like that would work on a major boss, but this was better than nothing. And maybe they could improve their odds of success by combining the status effects with some other skills. Gilbezos would gladly accept that talisman.

“Come here, Gilbezos. I was so bored. Hmph.”

The goddess was all over him as soon as he left the temple grounds.

Come to think of it, he hadn’t seen her for a bit, had he?

“It’s cheek rubbing time★ Followed by a ‘look how high you are’ for a combo attack★★★”

“Gyahhhhhh!? Where did this come from!? Besides, where have you been?”

“Some weird barrier wouldn’t let me on the temple grounds. I was so lonely.”

The 18-looking goddess was in full childish sulking mode. With her lips pouted and everything.

…Wait? So a temple to the goddess doesn’t let its own goddess inside?

Part 5

When the combat guild’s deadline for accepting the job had ended, Gilbezos and the others participating in the quest gathered to board a Queen Size wagon. The black-haired boy spoke aloud without thinking.

“You’re kidding.”

You could call it sparse or even deserted. Far fewer people had gathered than he expected.

…The wagon was fairly large, but he still hadn’t expected the entire hunting party to fit in just the one. He hadn’t counted, but were there even 20 people here?

The target was SS-rank, so maybe a lot of adventurers had been reluctant to participate.

But now that Gilbezos was doing this, he had to think about winning.

They grabbed a snack in the wagon while holding a strategy session.

The first to speak was Juina Melonsut, a dancer in a seashell bikini and slitted skirt. The sexy older girl had long, fluffy hair and brown skin. Her hair was mainly a dark brown, but it was dyed lemon yellow on the inside. The 17-year-old girl held metal rods of about a metora in length in her hands. Metal. They were a dancer’s tool used by striking them together like clappers, but they would probably also hurt like hell if she hit you with them. The maracas worn at her hip were probably blunt throwing weapons.

She was older but spoke in a cutesy way. Was that just how she talked, or was it a habit picked up at her job?

“From what I’ve heard, the SS-rank Uroboros-type dragon Yuileen is light type and really big! Word is it’s 50 metora long!”

“Eh?” “Eh?”

Gilbezos and the bearded man perfectly synced their reaction.

…That was a good bit smaller than the S-rank they had seen. When that Lindworm-from had spread its wings, it had been more than 250 metora. With an SS-rank, they had been expecting 1000 metora or something like that.

“Still…this isn’t going to be easy. It’s SS-rank. Ah, hot!?”

“Don’t burn your tongue, Gilbezos. We bought this fish skewer freshly cooked at that food stand, so you want to enjoy it while it’s hot. But you’ll want to blow on it first, okay? Fwoo.”

The brown dancer smiled bitterly at those two as she continued.

“I’ve also heard the Uroboros-form doesn’t do much flying.”

“How much is not much?”

“They normally run and will only fly when cornered. Probably something like a chicken.”

Between flying and non-flying, the former was more of a pain. Especially on the floating Sky Territory. If it could snipe them with its breath while flying around out in the open air…they wouldn’t have many options left. Which was why they were putting together a battle plan to keep that from happening.

The bearded man rubbed his chin and continued.

“There is a large cave near where it is said to live. Supposedly it was originally used to grow white asparagus and to let wine age.”

“And if the dragon goes in there, the ceiling over its head will keep it from flying?”

The 16-year-old must have been bothered by her chest because Boxer Penelope kept tugging at the cloth wrapping with her thumbs as she talked. Apparently she was still growing. Gilbezos wanted to look away.

And the seashell bikini dancer, who he wanted to look away from even more, winked and chimed in.

“For that, I can dance up a storm to draw the dragon’s aggro. By guiding it toward me with the cave’s entrance behind me, it will charge right on in.”

…Hmm. Ideally that’s what would happen, but would it actually work?

“I just hope it doesn’t blast you with its breath from a distance.”

“I’ve planned for that. By hitting it with the trance status effect first, its accuracy will be too low to hit me no matter how many breaths it sends my way. Using my dance!! And once the dragon gets fed up, it should charge at me★”

Well, a dancer who set foot on the battlefield with a bare midriff was probably used to that kind of risky evasive fighting style. Jut looking at her was enough to know her gear didn’t provide much in the way of defense.

“But if this Sky Territory has a cave, does it have a small mountain? Even though it’s floating in the sky?”

“Anything’s possible in nature. There’s a forest and a lake up here too,” said Penelope striking her fists together. The action drew the eye to her chest.

The bearded man kept the discussion going.

“Of course, the dragon will try to leave the cave after realizing its error. Or try to destroy the entire mountain. So once its inside, I want to use that opportunity to ensure it can’t fly. Using part destruction.”

“Then the question is which part exactly.”

Tearing off the dragon’s huge wings…would be difficult. Those individual parts would probably have tens of thousands of HP.

“The horns,” said the man.

“Why?”

“Apparently they are an important organ used for reading the air currents and keeping its balance during flight. And they have significantly less HP than trying to sever the wings or tail. They’re the perfect target.”

The dragon would still be a threat without flight, but they fortunately didn’t have to continue a marathon battle wearing down all of its hundred thousand or even a million HP.

Sleep, faint, or any other way of rendering Yuileen unconscious would be sufficient. Then they could trap it inside that special talisman.

If that was true, they could take a major shortcut along the path of the battle. This was completely different from when they were thrown onto the front line against Balsta without any kind of plan.

“The Seal Talisman, was it? That Saint person really is incredible,” said Gilbezos, holding the item in question between his fingers.

It only looked like a flimsy piece of parchment. It would be hard to find again if he lost it and he honestly wished someone else could look after it, but no one would look him in the eye. Not even the goddess. Forcing the responsibility onto him seemed cruel in his opinion.

The bearded man raised two fingers before speaking again.

“That means we need two teams. The first will keep firing probability-based status effect attacks and hope we’re lucky enough for the sleep or paralysis or whatever to take effect. The second will keep firing high-power magic. Instead of its HP, the idea is to wear down its guard endurance until we break it and get it to faint.”

Since neither option was certain to succeed, they would be doing both. If either one worked, the SS-rank dragon would be defeated.

Gilbezos spoke to the bearded man and Penelope.

“Which one are we?”

“The faint team targeting its endurance. I’m a physical punching specialist and the man’s an other type heavy gunner mage. The dragon Is light type, right? Fire, water, wind, earth, other, light, shadow. See, his attacks will be super effective.”

“Then let’s go with that.”

…Like in the forest, Gilbezos could use status effects to give himself 100% odds of knocking someone out with the slightest touch of a weapon, but he had no guarantee that would work against an SS-rank monster. In fact, he seriously doubted it would work since that was even higher than the Lindworm-form. It would be best to have everyone start attacking with their specialty and, if that didn’t work, change tack.

“Got it. Then we’ll try to hit it with sleep and paralysis and that sort of thing.”

That naturally left the party centered around Dancer Juina Melonsut to be the status effect team. They had a dancer, an assassin, and other jobs that accomplished something (including instant death) at some probability instead of going for a lot of damage, so it was probably the perfect job for them.

The power of inertia groaned loud. The wagon came to a stop and the coachman called out to them.

They had arrived at their destination.

“…”

They all fell silent.

Gilbezos left the wagon and found a dead land.

It appeared to have been a large field to begin with, but everything there was brown and dried up. The ground swelled up and stone steps had been used to adjust the height in places. The brown continued as far as the eye could see.

The only thing that hadn’t withered and rotted were the large windmill and silo made of stone and brick. They sat there abandoned, making the scene look all that more melancholy.

“This may have originally been a testing ground★” said Goddess Seliphenia with a sigh.

“What makes you say that, Lady Seliphenia?”

“Instead of a stable farm growing a single crop, they had a wide variety of vegetables and grains planted here. Dozens if not hundreds of cultivars. They may have been testing to see what grows in the Sky Territory’s different air pressure and temperature. Although it looks like their tests and selective breeding ended in failure.”

Gilbezos recalled the dried up Cure Herbs at the city’s drugstore.

…That was originally a plant growing in the ground, so had it not liked this chilly environment?

Visually following the stone waterway clogged with fallen leaves, he spotted a fairly large lake. Narrow bridges or walkways made of wooden planks crisscrossed the water’s surface, but they had rotted and broken away into the water in many places. They may have originally created square sections of the lake where something had been cultivated.

“Where’s the cave…? Is that it? Wow, it’s a lot bigger than I expected.”

At one side of the scene were some small mountains standing about 200 metora high. It was hard to say if they were natural or if people had built them up out of dirt. The sides of the mountains were sturdy and covered with useless weeds.

“What, are you nervous, Gilbezos?”

The seashell bikini and fluttery skirt dancer laughed.

…This had to be her first time fighting a dragon.

Gilbezos may have been similar before his clash with Balsta. But he and the bearded man knew what it was like, so even the way they breathed differed right now.

“It’ll be fine. I’ll be drawing aggro, so it’ll target me first. So at the very least, you don’t have to worry about being one-shotted right from the start.”

“Shh.”

The bearded man cautioned the 17-year-old. He was staring intently at a distant field that appeared to have once grown corn. It was hard to tell at first because of the camouflage.

They heard some crunching noises.

It was a lot like a big tree being split and smashed between two boulders, but not quite.

That was a bear being crunched within a dragon’s jaws. A bear alone would be enough for the average traveler to prepare for death. The 3-metora beast was thrashing about, but it was helplessly and noisily crushed and chewed between the jaws. It happened all too easily.

The fields were withered and the scenery was dead.

…But this explained how the dragon could make use of it. It was a hunting ground for catching wild prey.

The dragon slowly raised its head which had some dried brown plant wrapped around the horn above its right eye. The 50-metora creature was clearly focused on them now.

It was time to steel themselves.

“Begin the hunt.”

Part 6

“O-okayyy…”

The dancer, whose brown skin shined beyond her seashell bikini and fluttering skirt, smiled and took a step forward.

Juina Melonsut couldn’t hide her nerves as her long fluffy hair blew in the wind.

“I’ll get started. If I can draw aggro and lure it into the cave, we win. So you start attacking once it’s following me.”

Meanwhile, the enormous dragon stirred at a mere 400 metora away.

It seemed to be tilting its head.

And once it spread its wings wide…

Boom!!!

The space burst.

It was now right in front of them.

With its jaws opened wide and thrust forward.

…Had its giant wings beat at the air, propelling its 50-metora body forward all at once!?

After approaching them in an instant, the SS-rank dragon unnaturally spread just its right wing.

“Wait, a slap!? Are you kidding!?”

…Weren’t its wings more sensitive and needed to be treated with care!?

That wall of a strike carried the momentum of the dragon’s approach.

It was nothing more than luck that allowed Gilbezos to tackle Dancer Juina out of the way and roll to the side. If he hadn’t managed it, the top half of her body would have been turned to mincemeat and scattered into the air before she could even feel the pain.

It had rushed forward.

The wind and vibrations produced by its great body sent the two of them rolling far along the ground.

The attack that just barely missed the two of them instead hit the brick wall that had been behind them. The tower-like grain silo was blasted to pieces. And the dragon must have been in a bad mood because it didn’t stop there. It opened its jaws toward the remnants flying through the air next to it.

Flash!!!

A brilliant streak of light surged out. The silo, which had to weight a few dozen tona, was instantly annihilated. The air was scorched along a path diagonally up from the ground and continuing far into the distant sky.

“A dragon breath…at extreme close range!?”

And this wasn’t like with Balsta. Instead of a single line of destruction, tens of thousands of fist-sized blasts of light were scattered out in a fan shape.

It was a scattershot.

A large rut was torn into the dried field. After its straight-line dash, it didn’t bother decelerating and used every part of itself – its claws, its flapping wings, and its swinging tail – to change direction. The other type referred to “other forms of natural disaster and destruction”, so the bearded man launched a spear of hardened rock slat at the Uroboros-form’s back, but the dragon evaded the ultra-heavy projectile so it wasn’t even grazed.

It was a little over 300 metora away.

Its bat-like wings beat at the air as it dodged left and right to avoid projectiles and, once it found an opening, it charged toward them!!

“Whoa, a major attack already!?”

Gilbezos leaped over the ground to dodge. But the fierce attacks would never end like this. This was a completely different type than Balsta who sniped them with long-range breath attacks!

It used its large wings to charge 300-500 metora in a straight line.

It would trample its prey, pass them by, and once far enough away, use sharp side steps to evade.

Once it was ready for another charge, it would wait for an opening.

…It was the perfect pattern. It could repeat the same thing over and over and be a real threat. The biggest problem was how the charge also took the dragon away from you afterwards. That left no room for using close-range attacks with swords or spears. And magic projectiles weren’t any use when it could easily avoid those with its rapid side steps. Of course, matching the dragon’s timing to aim for a cross counter with the dragon’s great mass and speed would be far too reckless. If it continued charging even if it took some slight injury in the process, it could trample these humans underfoot.

It could win a crushing victory by literally crushing them.

They couldn’t hope to guide it into the cave like this.

Whether they forced it or whatever else, they couldn’t do anything unless they first stopped that thing’s swift movement!

“Penelope! You’re a boxer, right!? Do you have any physical skills you can use!? Something with enough oomph to stop that SS-rank dragon!?”

“…”

“Hey, Penelope!!”

No response.

That boxer girl would challenge any opponent head on with only her fists. But now she was cowering. Her eyes were opened to the limit and trembling. There were even tears in the corners.

…She had been swallowed up before she could even fight.

“Mister! Change of plans! I don’t think we can cover you long enough for your long incantation!!”

“I get that, but what else am I supposed to do!?”

Status Effect Fury Magic

Repeat Command

Increased Odds for All Randomized Skills

Apply Magic Effect to Weapon

The short boy manipulated the Skill Tree near the goddess’s chest and drew the sword at his hip. This was the combination he had used in the forest to knock someone out with 100% success with even a slight hit from his weapon.

Yuileen, the SS-rank Uroboros-form dragon, watched him from a distance.

Not the human group as a whole. It was clearly observing Gilbezos Overridge’s face.

(Here it comes!!)

The dragon crouched low and spread its bat-like wings wide.

It took its first step.

Its 50-metora body compressed the air as it charged forward. A 100% chance of fury? Against that wall of a wing slap and the extreme close-range scattershot breath? Attempting a cross counter against that massive foe with only a puny sword was nothing but suicide.

“But it’s not my sword.”

The SS-rank giant dropped to the ground.

This too was probably a remnant of when this had been a farm. A broken wooden fence and pointy sticks could be seen between the brown and withered crops. They were likely originally meant to keep animals out.

“I don’t need a cross-counter. If there’s a trap in your way, you’ll step on it yourself!!”

The dragon tripped and fell, its jaws jutting forward and tearing a large gouge in the ground. However, its momentum remained and it slid toward Gilbezos. At 50 metora, that was frightening enough on is own. Penelope was still trembling and too scared to fight or even move, so Gilbezos tugged on her hand and rolled out of the way.

A cloud of dirt filled the air.

The brown remnants of crops rained down on their heads.

But that was a hit.

Only one was enough.

As long as this one instance of fury rendered the dragon unconscious, they could trap it inside the Seal Talisman made by the Saint!! Gilbezos forgot to even get up from the ground as he reached into his pocket.

But…

“…?”

Something wasn’t right.

The attack had definitely hit and the repeat castings of 100%-odds fury would have sent the blood rushing to the dragon’s head, yet Yuileen only tilted its head.

And it moved!?

“Dammit!!!”

Its thick tail- no, was that a roundhouse kick with its powerful leg!?

It was a pure striking type physical attack.

Which may have been lucky actually. In his arms, Penelope reflexively held her arms up to guard. The older girl’s front surface faintly glowed for a moment and the gale-like force of the massive sweeping blow was deflected straight up.

“Wow. Did you redirect that attack, Penelope!? That was a dragon atta-”

“Ggh, agh!?”

His reflexive joy was interrupted. Penelope’s face twisted in agony as her right arm swelled unnaturally large from wrist to elbow. It grew purple before his eyes.

…Was it broken? Yes, that hadn’t been the striking type. It had been the slashing type using the sharp claws that could also be used to kick off the ground. Had she misread the type and failed to fully negate the physical damage!?

Or maybe the dragon had extended its claws at the last second to change the type of physical attack. If so, the dragon’s ability to switch types gave it an overwhelming advantage.

Only Goddess Seliphenia remained calmly on her feet. With her back straight.

“Oh, dear. The dragon recovered from the status effect somehow.”

“What the hell!? If it had a skill like that, you should’ve told me!!”

“I’m only guessing. After all, I can’t see skills that come from recovery items that don’t rely on LAW or the Skill Tree.”

“…?”

A recovery item?

If the dragon had used one, it must have eaten something when it fell and its jaws tore into the ground.

Had one of the dried and withered crops there had that effect? But hadn’t those been abandoned because they weren’t any good? Well, maybe what worked for dragons didn’t work for humans.

And after nearly passing out from a single attack, even that SS-rank would be cautious of Gilbezos even if it didn’t understand what had happened. He wasn’t going to get a hit in like that again.

“Still, it’s good you kept its attention that long.”

He heard a voice.

It was the bearded man.

“You gave me the time I needed to finish my lengthy incantation! Habangalay!!”

He launched a white mass around two metora long. That was rock salt. Salt damage belonged to the other type since it was “another form of natural disaster or destruction”. He targeted the two horns on Yuileen’s head. Just one would be enough. The attack struck the horn above the right eye – the same one with some brown withered plant tangled around it.

And a moment later.

A roar.

The world itself rattled.

It was a sudden change. A vortex of hostility.

The dragon’s wings spread wide before Gilbezos and the others’ eyes. But this time it wasn’t to charge forward. It slammed the air down into the ground, forcing its 50-metora body upwards.

It flew.

Its countless scales shined a rainbow light as the sun shined down on them.

…Its behavior pattern had changed? But why!?

“Does this mean its horns really are its weak point?” shouted the bearded man. “The attack must have panicked it!”

Was that really it? It bothered Gilbezos how attack focused the dragon had become. If this was about having its weak point attacked, wouldn’t its actions show some fear or panic it couldn’t quite hide?

The dragon didn’t run away. Even though they had pinpoint-targeted its weak point. It kept its wings spread wide as it made a U-turn and once more faced Gilbezos and the others on the Sky Territory.

Its jaws spread vertically and then small cracks spread across its face as it began to open horizontally as well.

The high-speed approach followed by a powerful attack had been terrifying, but now that the dragon was at a distance, the scattershot breath would pour down on them like rain. If that covered the entire area, there would be no escaping it.

And that was what happened.

Crash!!!

Except it wasn’t a downpour of light. Countless pointy gray spear-like things poured down instead. Just as Gilbezos realized they were spikes made of rough stone, the sharp downpour pierced the ground all across the area.

“Gh…?”

At the very last moment, he managed to get one step outside of it. The bearded man hadn’t made it in time, so he sent out a rock salt spear as a cross counter. However, that only struck the SS-rank’s surface before being easily deflected.

“Bh.”

This reaction was completely different. It hadn’t taken any damage at all.

Those rainbow-colored scales weren’t just the result of reflecting the sunlight. Yuileen had changed its own coloration. It was an ability.

Meaning…

“Its type…changed?”

The stone spikes were an earth type scattershot breath.

The countless sharp stone spikes tilled the dead farm from one end to the other. Tens of thousands of blades dropped down at once.

Gilbezos Overridge fell to his knees with his eyes still turned up to the sky. For some reason, he couldn’t gather any strength. It took him a while to even notice his right flank had been pierced by a stone spike. One more than three metora long.

They…weren’t going to last. Penelope had broken her arm. The bearded heavy gunner mage had been bloodied by the scattershot breath. Where even was Juina the dancer? A priest who was still active appeared to be forcing his injured body around to cast healing magic on the others, but it wouldn’t be enough. Another scattershot breath would reach them before the entire party had recovered.

The Saint’s Jewel?

That would heal 50% of their HP and MP, but what good was that? Was it even possible to defeat that monster!?

“Oh, no…” gasped the bearded man, lying on his side. Although he may have meant it as a shout. “Its eyes. That damn thing…is looking to the temple city. Cough. There are 700 thousand people living there!”

“…”

Gilbezos Override reached for a Saint’s Jewel.

Still holding his sword, he gripped the five centemetora translucent orb and twisted with his other fist. Like he was squeezing a lemon.

He used it.

Fire Type Magic – High

Repeat Command

Group Targeting with Magic

Repeat Command MP Cost 0

A deafening boom erupted forth.

A fireball large enough to blot out the sky appeared far overhead and crashed down into the top of flying Yuileen’s head.

This was the slaughter magic the goddess had recommended for use against a group of 5000 in the forest. The scale was a little smaller here since the target was a single dragon, but it was big enough.

Gilbezos didn’t hesitate to use it and slam the dragon down to the Sky Territory’s dead farm.

Shaking and rumbling.

Gilbezos’s body…moved. The Saint’s Jewels had been ten per customer, so he still had nine left. That wasn’t nearly enough, but he tossed them to his nearby party members, starting with Penelope who had broken her arm failing a block. Come to think of it, hadn’t he said he would handle healing before the battle started?

The bearded man used his and crawled to his feet, but turned to Gilbezos in disbelief.

“What…did you just do?”

What good was answering that? Gilbezos saw movement. As powerful as the attack had been, the SS-rank was still moving. The earth type’s weakness was wind type, so as powerful as that fire type magic had been, it wasn’t the right type.

This wasn’t over yet. S-rank Balsta had been a status quo monster that would injure but not kill, creating a decoy enemy the king could point to. But this was different.

SS-rank was a step above that.

This was a true monster that really would slaughter them all if they screwed this up.

“Dammit, what exactly are we supposed to do? I don’t care if it’s a legendary hero or a mysterious Hibagon, can’t someone conveniently show up now to save us!?”

Some nearby bushes rustled.

The next thing he knew, a long-eared high elf girl poked her head out with a bow in hand. She looked to be around 17 and her name was Sayuran Cuchanbern.

“Do you require some supporting fire? You need only provide me with a target.”

“…Explain yourself. Starting with why you’re here.”

“I have remained by your side this whole time as a representative of the high elves. What of it?”

The (probably much) older stalker was blunt about it.

And she continued with no expression on her face.

“Among high elves, a debt of life can only be repaid with a life. We owe you a large debt, so we cannot let you leave empty handed after saving the entire tribe. Now, honored guest, give me a command equal to the number and weight of the lives you saved.”

“Isn’t that great? You just found an ethical way to have an elf slave.”

…Gilbezos really wished the goddess wouldn’t describe it that way since he would never be able to look that 9-year-old boy in the eye.

“Then there’s something I want you to do more than using your bow.”

“Wearing a cute and sturdy collar?”

…Don’t you start sounding so eager about it too.

“Just to be certain, are the high elves on the human side or the monster side here?”

“I would say that we are on the elf side, but if you must look at it that way, I am disinclined to say I am on the human side.”

“Then can you tell how that dragon feels?”

The high elf stared into the distance.

At Yuileen, the SS-rank Uroboros-form dragon. She seemed to be trying to read the giant monster’s emotions from the wavering of its eyes and the dilation and constriction of its pupils rather than from its cries.

Yes. The dragon was certainly a threat to the city, but they didn’t know what it was after. Since they couldn’t defeat it by ordinary means, it might be safer to fix whatever the root cause was.

And the high elf spoke on the dragon’s behalf.

Return…her…to…me.

I…cannot…bear…it…any…longer.

Return…my…daughter…to…me.

Gilbezos was astonished.

Had he made a fundamental misunderstanding here? No, there had been hints.

If this dragon was really so violent and unmanageable…

“I thought it was weird.”

Gilbezos was glaring at the filthy dried plants tangled around the sinister horn growing from the giant dragon’s brow.

No, that wasn’t what it was.

“That’s a crown of flowers on the dragon’s horn. Who put that there!?”

Part 7

She had no reason for it. It was no more than a whim.

A human couple had abandoned a baby outside the city, so she decided to look after it.

The baby wouldn’t last long in the harsh natural environment. There was so much she didn’t know: what kind of food could a human baby eat, could a human survive the cold inside a dragon’s den, etc. So she hadn’t been saving the baby. It had been nothing more than a whim that was unlikely to lead anywhere.

Nevertheless, the baby worked to survive day after day.

As the baby grew, she learned to stand up, live with the dragon, and eventually laugh with her.

Something with truly miraculous odds had occurred.

By then, feelings of affection had formed within Yuileen as well. They had formed a real bond. When her daughter had made a crown of flowers for her, her tear ducts had loosened. Even though she was a brutal SS-rank dragon feared by all.

And yet…

“A girl raised by a dragon will possess certain rare traits.”

No. That was nothing more than superstition. There was no factual basis there.

“We are running out of stock. She should make a good Saint.”

Being raised by a dragon didn’t really have anything to do with it. One had been no more than a poor communicator who had a hard time fitting in. One had killed her parents in self-defense. Each of the past Saints carried a different taboo.

Ultimately, they were a disposable tool used for a strange ritual.

Doing that to “fellow humans” would pain the people doing it, so they would find a young girl whose circumstances made her seem different from everyone else, separate her from the group, and treat her like someone special who held a higher position…all to fill a role in a system that allowed for the guilt-free consumption of lives.

That was the true identity of the Saint.

Although sometimes she was just someone who needed to be disposed of quickly, such as a nobleman’s illegitimate child.

“The effect of the Saint’s Jewels is real. Foolishly, so many people seek an immediate and obvious form of salvation without ever bothering to improve their own minds. So as long as we have the Saint’s Jewels, the temple is safe.”

Driving out a group of puny humans might have been easy.

But Yuileen was too large and too powerful. She could not fight without also putting that young life at risk.

And in her fear of harming her own child, the dragon failed to keep her from being taken to the last place she wanted. She knew she was confusing her priorities, but she was too afraid of possibly trampling the girl she would gladly give up her own life for.

And so the mother dragon’s own foolish decision brought her child to greater danger.

She had regretted that decision ever since.

So this time would be different.

She had to find that girl and save her before her life had been worn down to nothing!!!

Part 8

Come to think of it.

Gilbezos Overridge had already seen a crown of flowers on this Sky Territory.

…Hadn’t the Saint been wearing one when he saw her in the temple’s window?

This also explained the instant change of attitude after the bearded man attacked that horn with his magic. That hadn’t been a response to an attack on the dragon’s weak point. It was a response to the damage done to a gift from her daughter.

“Then…what?” asked Penelope, grimacing as she healed her broken arm using a Saint’s Jewel. What did a 50% heal do with a broken bone? But her grimace wasn’t from the pain.

“They were forcibly separated to create these recovery items, so the dragon’s been rampaging in order to get her daughter back?”

…On that note, what even were the Saint’s Jewels?

Those mysterious local recovery items healed 50% of the user’s HP and MP at once.

They had seemed almost too good to be true. Gilbezos had wondered why they weren’t found all across the continent.

The answer was simple.

There was a more than comparable risk involved. The Saint had been forced to make these items by using a dangerous skill that ate away her own HP and MP. They could only be made within a closed environment where no one was blamed for repeatedly forcing her to make that command against her will.

“Hey, hey. And that’s not all.” Goddess Seliphenia interrupted. “Remember the Seal Talisman? Compare it the dragon before you and it should be obvious this flimsy thing can never seal an SS-rank dragon. She could tear out of it by force at any time if she wanted.”

“But Yuileen wouldn’t do that,” coldly stated High Elf Sayuran Cuchanbern. “The answer is obvious when you look at its structure. The talisman and the Saint are magically linked. If Yuileen tears out of the talisman, the Saint’s body would be torn apart in the same way. The talisman is designed to do that.”

The ability to seal the SS-rank dragon as long as she was knocked out with sleep or faint or something was nothing but a lie. The priest who had given the Seal Talisman to Gilbezos’s group had known all this from the start.

He had known the dragon’s true weakness.

“How could he do this? Goddamn that priest. Are you saying he’s using her daughter’s life as a shield!?”

Of course, if the dragon did nothing, the Saint would eventually reach her limit.

But if she forcibly tore out, her precious child would die then and there.

So she couldn’t do anything.

That talisman would bind her even as she knew she had to do something.

“So what do you want to do, Gilbezos?” asked the goddess.

“…”

“Return her to me.” “I cannot bear it any longer.” “Return my daughter to me.”

Gilbezos Overridge thought on the meaning of those words…and spoke.

“No. I can’t make a meaningless promise.”

He made his choice.

The high elf wanted to say something, but the goddess held out a hand to stop her.

So Gilbezos was able to state the cruel path laid out before him.

“I agree what the priest is doing is reprehensible. I can’t agree with continuing to force the Saint to create Saint’s Jewels until she dies. …But that’s no excuse for you to attack Temple City Aeropremise.”

This was harsh.

It hurt Gilbezos to say it, but he knew without trying that way wouldn’t work.

Because…

“The temple has a special barrier preventing anyone nonhuman from entering. Even a goddess like Lady Seliphenia was stopped. Rampaging through the city will not return your daughter to you. All you will do is needlessly harm the 700 thousand people living in the city. I can’t allow that.”

“A perfect response,” said the goddess, but she seemed to be coldly spitting out the words. “But do you really think a silly thing like being correct will get through to a furious mother whose precious daughter was taken from her?”

The ground audibly strained. SS-rank Uroboros-form Yuileen had been brought down once, but she was getting back up.

However…

“All these crops were left here to rot. You’ve been living off those plants, so while a normal person probably couldn’t manage it, you may have some way of recovering from the fury status effect. Maybe even some other status effects.”

Gilbezos spoke softly.

Because he had applied status effect magic to the stone spikes scattered across where the dragon had fallen.

“But you can’t handle all of them. There are more than 10 status effects. Did you forget? I win as long as I knock you end up unconscious with paralysis, faint, or anything else. It just has to work once.”

The dragon remained there.

She couldn’t move. No, she wasn’t even conscious.

…The paralysis status effect had been applied repeatedly with 100% odds. Had it actually affected her this time?

Gilbezos Overridge pulled a piece of parchment from his pocket – the Seal Talisman. If the dragon broke free from that, she would be tearing open her daughter’s body in the same way. That cursed restraint used a hostage in the most horrific way.

He only had to hold it out and speak under his breath.

“Seal.”

Something glowed in the bastard’s hand.

Part 9

At any rate, it was over now.

But the bearded man shook his head. Looking bone weary.

“I…can’t go with you. I am abandoning the guild job.”

“…”

“We all did our part, but in the end you more or less defeated the SS-rank on your own. …But I’m not jealous about that.”

He wasn’t the only one.

Penelope wouldn’t look Gilbezos in the eye.

“You risked your life to save those high elves in the forest, so I thought you’d be a big softy this time too. I’m disappointed it turned out this way.”

Dancer Juina didn’t bother hiding the contempt in her eyes.

“Are you doing this for the money? Then you’re no different from that priest. I’m through with this. I don’t need that filthy money, so you can head back to the guild alone. So why not take the whole sum for yourself?”

So were they breaking up here?

With a snort of laughter, short Gilbezos left the others.

The limited area of the Sky Territory meant Temple City Aeropremise was the only city there, so where were the others planning to go? They weren’t being realistic. They couldn’t use an ad crane to descend to the surface without the help of the city that was ruled by the priest and was busy devouring the Saint.

He had done nothing wrong.

And if he had done nothing wrong, he didn’t need to argue his case.

“Oh, right.”

She finally spoke once they had entered the city and arrived in front of the temple.

She didn’t lift him up or rub her cheek against him.

Goddess Seliphenia, the constant presence at his side, suddenly came to a stop.

Her voice was stiff.

“I will not continue past this point or accept anything from the priest.”

“Fine.”

Gilbezos sighed and had her alter his skills one last time. Then he stepped through the giant gate and entered the temple grounds.

This time, he truly was setting foot in another world all on his own.

“Welcome back!!”

The priest stood in a white stone front garden.

His smile was so twisted it looked grotesque. To anyone with ordinary sensibilities.

“So what happened with the wicked dragon threatening our city and our Saint’s life?”

Was that the story he told?

It was hard to avoid laughing when you knew the truth.

But Gilbezos only had to put up with it a bit longer. His job wasn’t over yet.

He pulled a rectangular piece of parchment from his pocket.

The Seal Talisman.

“I sealed her.”

“!!”

Someone made a gasping sound.

No, it may have been closer to a suppressed scream.

It came from the a window high up in one of the temple’s towers. The rumored Saint was there, eyes wide and hands over her mouth. Trembling. Apparently something mattered to her more than her own fate.

Come to think of it, didn’t towers have two primary roles? Watchtowers and prisons?

The priest spread his arms wide and showered Gilbezos with praise.

“Yes, yes. You are indeed our city’s savior! With the threat of that SS-rank dragon gone, our Temple City Aeropremise is all but guaranteed eternal prosperity with the Saint’s support!!”

“I’ll take whatever I can get. So what do you have for me?”

“I can provide many gifts in addition to the reward indicated in the guild job. And not just monetary ones. Your age is no obstacle. You will be given a special position and authority within Temple City Aeropremise. Now, hand the Seal Talisman to me. We should conclude this job before we discuss this further.”

“Out of curiosity, what are you going to do with this?”

“Slice it apart and throw it away. Along with the wicked dragon sealed within. If cut with a blade rather than torn, no harm will come to the Saint. That will allow us to kill the dragon no matter its strength and HP.”

“Oh, really?”

The priest held out his hand as if initiating a handshake and Gilbezos waved the Seal Talisman he held between two fingers.

And he tossed it back over his shoulder.

“Huh? …Uwuh?”

The priest made a funny sound.

The short boy couldn’t stand it any longer. And he didn’t have to. He smiled as he spoke.

“You’re released.”

White light burst out.

From directly behind Gilbezos. A great form towered up behind him.

And it was within the barrier protecting the temple grounds.

“Y-you did it all for this…?” asked the dazed priest.

“Sure did.”

For this.

Only humans could pass through. So he had waited until he was past the temple’s sturdy barrier to release Yuileen from the talisman!!

He had said he can’t make a meaningless promise.

…That was true. But he never said he wouldn’t make that mother’s wish come true.

There was no point in letting her rampage outside the barrier. Some other method was needed to rescue her daughter. So he had chosen another method that would actually work!

Gilbezos Overridge drew the sword at his hip.

And made an announcement.

“I know you must be worn out after all that fighting, but keep at it a little longer, dragon mama. Your adorable daughter is right there. Let’s show them that there is still justice in this world!!”

He was answered by a deafening roar.

They stood in the same place and faced the same enemy to rescue the same Saint.

A joint unit of human and monster bared its fangs against the corrupt priest!!

Part 10

Yuileen’s jaws released a scattershot breath. The mother first destroyed the obelisk in the center of the square plaza.

With the source of the loathsome barrier gone, Goddess Seliphenia casually walked in.

“I never lost faith in you, Gilbezos! Nor for a second! Honest!”

“Why are you teasing me? You’re trying to sound insincere, aren’t you!?”

He was sure the goddess had seen through him from the start. She had said she wouldn’t be going with him, but only because the barrier was in her way.

High elf Sayuran poked her head out from a nearby flower bed.

“Do not worry. Even if all of your friends leave you and you are all alone, I, Sayuran Cuchanbern, will continue to serve you to the end.”

“Meanwhile, she’s 100% sincere. Which hurts way more than the goddess’s teasing!!”

There was some kind of commotion out on the main street. At this rate, the boxer, the dancer, and the bearded man would soon notice something was up and make their way to the temple. Because the group had parted ways after those three defiantly refused to accept this ending.

Anyway, it was time to get started.

…He would take all the glory for himself. Which meant ending this before the rest of that good-natured party arrived. Yes. While the act has been necessary to deceive the priest, he hadn’t forgotten what they said!

“Do not think your young age will excuse you for deceiving servants of the goddess.”

The priest’s cheek, temple, lips…and really his entire face were pulsating.

“Besides, did you think we had no countermeasure in place for this SS-rank? Absurd. We are the servants chosen to guard the temple. Thanks to our special status, the Great Goddess Seliphenia shall grant us protection first and foremost!!”

…Uh, that “great goddess” is on my side and is giving you some kind shocked half smile?

The oblivious priest raised his extravagant staff and his voice.

“You should be thankful for the privilege of viewing the fruits of our labors as those who hold a special place in the goddess’s heart. Humanity has at long last reached this point. This is the greatest of our temple’s secret arts. Come forth, Artificial Goddess!!”

“?”

What the hell?

…This wasn’t even funny anymore. Gilbezos had never even heard the term “artificial goddess” before. But what if this meant they had artificially created a being capable of manipulating the Skill Tree just like his goddess? Then what all could the priest do? Choose his own skills? See his enemy’s skills?

The ground shook.

It came from one of the 30 metora goddess statues near the entrance gate.

It had already been fairly realistic and weirdly creepy.

But now it raised its arms and let out a low, low groan.

“Vwahhh.”

Gilbezos Override doubled over.

He was shaking.

…No. I can’t take it anymore.

“Bffh! Th-the resemblance is uncanny. Peh heh heh. Oh, man, is that well made. Bweh heh. Hey, check it out, doesn’t it look just like you, Lady Seliphenia!?”

“Th-the disrespect… Is this what you think a goddess iiiiiiiiiis!?”

The sexy young woman bristled and screamed.

She didn’t often lose her cool like this.

Also, this had nothing to do with the Skill Tree. Why was that thing throwing physical punches!? In fact, did the Skill Tree Goddess even have the power to fight on her own? This felt wrong on a fundamental level.

And in the end, it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter how much the priest had developed his Skill Tree and it didn’t matter how much the artificial goddess could (physically) fight.

The battle was as good as over from the moment that ferocious mom had been carried in past the barrier.

“Gyah!!”

“You brat!?”

A good distance away from it all, Gilbezos fired other type salt spears into the armor of the temple’s soldiers.

His only job was to use projectile magic to hold back anyone attempting to use the Seal Talisman in conjunction with status effect magic or an expert with the Dragon Special skill.

After all, this was the battle of a mother reclaiming her child.

“What…the…?” groaned the priest.

Yuileen had become light type.

This wasn’t all she could do. She could alter the rainbow-colored light of her scales to freely alter her type mid-battle. If the priest excelled at the light type, she could choose the other type that was strong against light and fight using that.

Yet she didn’t do that.

“D-damn you. A filthy monster like you dares defy me – me!! – with the light type!?”

She chose to use light against light and force the priest back with his same element.

It didn’t matter that the type defense reduced the effectiveness of her attacks.

Because she was here to tear down and reject the false light wielded by that greedy sack of shit.

…Yeah, that’s right.

How could you beat a mommy dragon who was utterly enraged by a threat to her only daughter?

No one had an answer to that one!!

He was crushed along with the 30 metora statue.

The greedy bastard who had laughed as he tore apart the bonds of mother and daughter vanished within the light of a scattershot breath.

…Now, the priest was a light type expert and may have managed to survive using multiple type defense skills, but it really didn’t matter either way.

Part 11

It was all over.

The tall tower was unlocked and the imprisoned Saint exited.

She didn’t hesitate.

She rushed right up to the snout of the dragon known as an SS-rank.

The mother kept her body and head low, shut her eyes, and accepted the embrace.

True.

There was no blood relation between them.

As human and monster, their species were nothing alike.

The girl was 150 centemetora and the dragon was 50 metora.

They may not have had a shared language even as they lived together.

But what did that matter?

One look at those smiles was enough.

However you wanted to define it, those two were undoubtedly a family.

Between the Lines 4

Archangel: “Archangel here!”

Lesser Demon: “Lesser Demon too.”

Archangel: “Meta talk, meta tallllk meta tallllllllk!! This time we’re discussing the polytheistic mythology found in this world of swords and sorcery! I’m so excited! (★Sparkle, sparkle★)”

Lesser Demon: “And here comes the stealth marketing, the evangelizing, and all that awful nonsense.”

Archangel: “As you can probably guess from the shitty demon monster’s terrible mood, having a bunch of gods doesn’t mean that just anyone can call themselves a god. No matter how powerful you are, you’re labeled a demon if you’re deemed evil, so be careful. The gods of other religions are given a friend invite as a visiting god, so coop play with them is an option, but demons and devils that appear from within are hunted down no questions asked.”

Lesser Demon: “You know what? I don’t care. There are lots of demons too!”

Archangel: “Now, while there are a countless number of gods, the Eleven Heavenly Gods are the most popular of the bunch. Add in the moon which doesn’t have a corresponding god and you have the twelve months of the year, so all you humans of the lower world should be familiar with them.”

Lesser Demon: “The most popular of those eleven is Goddess Seliphenia who the first month of the year is named for. Her strength has an obvious connection to personal growth and she provides people with their skills. A sign that humans really only care about fulfilling their own desires, so come join us, okay?”

Archangel: “Because a lot of people only pray in a moment of need, the other gods probably aren’t called on anywhere near as much as her. Like the god of war or the god of pestilence.”

Lesser Demon: “Why do they get to be gods? They sound more like devils to me.”

Archangel: “Because it’s the winners who write history and say who was in the right!”

Lesser Demon: “That’s the logic of a power-obsessed ultimate devil lord!!”

Archangel: “This only scratched the surface of the topic, so please stop by your local temple if you want to know more★”

Lesser Demon: “Wait? But if there are a lot of different gods…?”

Archangel: “What about it?”

Lesser Demon: “Could there be others like the goddess and Gilbezos? Humans being haunted by a god, I mean.”

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