Miss Black Dragon Refuses to Be a Mount

The bearded lord recognized the two mages. They'd both performed very well in the competition just now.

"Lin, leave the soldiers to you!"

To avoid exposing Ailolin's identity as Dragonkind, Likaro never directly called her Little Black Dragon when they were outside.

"No problem."

Ailolin gathered a massive amount of wind elements, whipping up a violent gale across the stands. Even the armored soldiers couldn't keep their footing and began toppling over one after another. Some even rolled down the steps of the stands.

Fortunately, they all wore helmets. At most, the bumps and blows would knock them unconscious; they generally wouldn't die.

Ailolin didn't like needless killing, and after her earlier persuasion, Likaro also understood who her true enemies were.

"Do you still recognize me?!"

At this point, Likaro had no need to disguise herself. In her mercy, she allowed her enemy to know who was killing him before he died.

"It's you!"

The bearded lord recognized Likaro and quickly drew his sword, taking up a defensive stance.

Likaro raised her hand and chanted an obscure spell. The radiance of magic began to gather.

"I never expected you to be a mage..."

"You bastard, go die!"

[Primal Impact!]

Boom!

Likaro detonated an enormous mass of primal magic around the bearded lord. An impact of this magnitude could easily shatter flesh and blood; even armor was useless.

She hated the man before her too much, so Likaro used the strongest single-target spell she could cast.

The bearded lord's body exploded outright, blood and bits of human tissue spraying everywhere.

Likaro stood frozen when she saw it. This was the first time she'd killed someone, and she'd caused such a gruesome scene.

But...

After the tension of killing someone for the first time faded, a strange sensation arose deep within her heart.

What's happening...

Likaro's body trembled nonstop as excitement and pleasure surged from her heart.

She began casting destructive attack spells, indiscriminately bombarding the area around the stands.

"What are you doing?!"

Ailolin nearly got hit by a spell. When she realized it was Likaro's magic, she hurried over to her.

"I'm fine. I've already taken my revenge," Likaro said with a smile.

"Then we need to get out of here quickly. It'll be a lot of trouble if we're too late."

"No."

"Huh?"

"Wouldn't it be better to kill them all?"

"..."

"This feeling is so wonderful..."

With a casual spell, Likaro killed several soldiers lying nearby who had already lost their ability to fight.

"Stop it!"

Ailolin realized that Likaro's mental state was somewhat abnormal. She grabbed Likaro by the shoulders and shook her desperately.

"Uwah, I-I... what am I doing?"

Likaro came back to herself and found corpses strewn all around her.

"No time to explain. Let's get out of here first!"

Ailolin grabbed Likaro's hand and jumped directly from the raised platform. At the same time, she cast [Slow Fall] on both herself and Likaro, and they landed steadily on the ground.

The soldiers had been running up the stairs toward the stands. They hadn't expected Ailolin and Likaro to jump straight down, so there were very few soldiers beneath the stands.

Just as their investigation had shown, the arena's north gate had the weakest defenses. Ailolin and Likaro successfully broke through from there.

"Let's run out of the city. Forget the horses for now," Ailolin said to Likaro as they ran.

"Mm." Likaro responded, though she seemed to be savoring something.

With the wind elements boosting them, the two ran at incredible speed and quickly escaped the city.

After confirming that no soldiers had caught up, Ailolin finally sighed in relief and began asking about what had happened earlier.

"What was wrong with you just now? Didn't you say you'd only kill the lord? Why did you..."

"I-I don't know either." Likaro looked miserable, still unable to process it. "After I killed the lord, it felt like I couldn't control myself."

"Could it be because you'd been repressing yourself for too long, so you saw red after killing him?"

"Maybe. I really did hate him that much."

Thinking of all the soldiers she'd killed earlier, guilt slowly began to fill Likaro's heart.

She vaguely felt uneasy. The thoughts that had arisen after killing her enemy were terrifying—so terrifying that...

Even when she'd seen Ailolin, her first thought had been to kill her too, to see her blood splatter.

Fortunately, she absolutely didn't have such thoughts now. Maybe she'd really just been too excited earlier.

"After taking out the bearded lord, how many enemies do you have left?" Ailolin asked.

"There are still several key members of the knight order. But assassinating them will be much easier than assassinating the lord."

"Why?"

"Because they're used to acting in small groups. They don't have much of a numerical advantage."

Under normal circumstances, the knight order wouldn't mobilize its entire force over a single matter. Most members were usually scattered around, so Likaro could find and assassinate them one by one.

"Thank you, Little Black Dragon."

Likaro solemnly expressed her gratitude.

"I told you, we're friends. It's nothing."

"Thank you so much."

Likaro felt like laughing, yet she also felt like crying.

In the end, she chose to give Ailolin a hug and refused to let go.

Ailolin let her hold her while pondering a question.

"What do you plan to do after you finish your revenge?"

"I..." Likaro had never considered that question before, but she quickly came up with an answer. "I want to go home, back to Aidefalong."

"Don't you want to become a knight anymore?"

Hearing Ailolin say that, Likaro hesitated.

Becoming a knight had been her childhood dream, but now she understood how exhausting that life was. If she had to choose now, she might choose an ordinary life—peacefully living as the young lady of a noble house.

After learning what Likaro wanted, Ailolin didn't say anything. In truth, she'd never wanted Likaro to fight and kill in the outside world from the very beginning.

Calamity Descends 027 The Experiment Begins

The sun had set. Ailolin built a campfire and roasted the prey they'd caught.

Likaro sighed from time to time, as though something weighed on her mind.

"Have some roasted meat. Don't overthink it."

"Mm."

Even after accepting the roasted meat, Likaro's mood didn't improve.

Once the excitement from successfully carrying out today's assassination had worn off, she kept thinking about the soldiers she'd killed earlier.

According to the original plan, only the bearded lord needed to die.

Yet for some reason, after killing him, she'd become so strange.

"Are you still thinking about what happened before? I think it might've been a reaction from being too excited."

Ailolin had seen Likaro's reaction with her own eyes. Feeling excited by killing people was strange, but considering that the person she'd killed was Likaro's enemy, it was understandable that her thoughts had become muddled for a short time.

Wasn't everything fine now?

Ailolin comforted the guilt-ridden Likaro, then took a bite of the fragrant roasted meat.

She still preferred cooked food.

Ailolin looked especially cute while eating, and Likaro couldn't help secretly watching her.

In the end, Likaro seemed to make up her mind and suddenly said to Ailolin, "Um... how about we start now?"

"Start what?"

"The experiment we talked about before."

"Uh..." Ailolin froze. "Didn't we say we'd talk about it after your revenge was complete?"

"Finding those knight order members will take time. It won't interfere with our experiment."

Likaro genuinely wanted to know what she felt for Ailolin. She didn't even dare meet Ailolin's eyes now; after only a few seconds, she'd blush and surrender.

At seventeen, she already knew what love was. She also believed she could distinguish friendship from love through the experiment.

Though she might already have an answer in her heart, she didn't dare admit it.

Then Likaro suddenly noticed Ailolin staring at her.

"Is there something on my face?"

"No. I just wanted to say that you're very cute."

"...You too."

Ailolin looked at Likaro with a smile and finally voiced her thoughts. "You're a little like how you were when we were kids now."

"How am I like that?"

"Your temperament, I guess. You don't have that same bitter, burdened feeling as before."

"..."

Likaro couldn't see the changes in herself. Since Little Black Dragon said she'd changed, perhaps she truly had.

After killing the bearded lord, Likaro had felt much lighter inside.

But this still wasn't enough. She had to kill every last one of her enemies.

"Oh, right. There's something I want to ask you, though I'm not sure if it's convenient for you to answer." Ailolin had been thinking about this question for a long time, but she'd always felt it was somewhat inappropriate to ask.

"What is it?"

"It has to do with your knight order."

"...Go ahead. It's fine."

Since Likaro didn't mind, Ailolin voiced her confusion. "You should be very strong, right? At the very least, with magic, you could deal with many soldiers. So why was the knight order ultimately still unable to withstand the enemy's attack?"

After hearing Ailolin's question, Likaro answered, "The Magic Suppression Device..."

This was the thing Likaro regretted most. If she'd been able to cast magic then, there was no way she would've allowed the knight order to be destroyed in her hands.

However, the enemy had apparently feared that there might be mages within the knight order, so they'd arranged Magic Suppression Devices in advance. Even though Likaro possessed an ocean of magic power, she couldn't release it.

Thus, Likaro had never used magic from beginning to end, fighting the enemy with her sword instead.

There were two simple ways to undo magic suppression. One was for a mage to be powerful enough to suppress the effects of the Magic Suppression Device, but Likaro couldn't do that.

The other was to destroy the Magic Suppression Device. But the knight order barely had enough manpower for defense, so how could they possibly have succeeded in destroying it?

Having all that strength yet being unable to use it was an unbearably stifling feeling.