Chapter 98
Far down another street, Laios and the others noticed the brilliant light illuminating the ruins.
Their curiosity immediately piqued.
After a brief discussion, the four decided to investigate.
On a different street not far from Haruto, a colossal creature had been wandering aimlessly through the ruins.
Its thick limbs struck the stone road with heavy, muffled thuds.
The moment it noticed the unnatural glow, a vicious gleam entered its eyes.
It turned and began slowly making its way toward Haruto.
Haruto had just captured another monster drawn in by the light and was feeling rather pleased when the ground beneath him began to tremble.
The vibrations grew steadily stronger and clearer, as though some enormous beast were approaching.
Haruto turned toward the source.
Any monster capable of shaking the ground with its footsteps had to be massive.
Rather than feeling afraid, Haruto grew excited. A larger monster usually meant a greater quantity of ingredients.
An enormous silhouette gradually emerged from the darkness.
The creature stood over ten meters tall, its body covered in thick red scales.
Beneath the floating spheres of light, those scales reflected a scorching gleam that made them look like burning flames.
It had a huge head lined with exposed fangs and four powerful limbs. Every step caused the ground to shudder beneath its weight.
"The Red Dragon."
Haruto’s brows drew together as he recognized it.
This was the Red Dragon that roamed the dungeon’s fifth floor.
Haruto was almost certain it was the same one that had fought Laios’s party and devoured Falin.
That left him in a somewhat difficult position.
He had no intention of passing up dragon meat. He had never eaten it before, and this was far too valuable an opportunity to waste.
The problem was that although Haruto had finally managed to cast a basic spell, he had not even begun learning resurrection magic.
Reviving someone who had been reduced to nothing but a skeleton, as Falin had, was completely beyond him.
If he killed the Red Dragon now, Falin’s resurrection could become a serious problem.
Haruto had developed a reasonably good relationship with Laios’s party.
If his actions left Falin permanently unable to return to life...
Still, this was already his third day on the fifth floor.
Given Laios’s party’s pace, they should have reached this level by now.
If the Red Dragon was wandering nearby, Laios and the others were probably not far away either.
"I’ll deal with the dragon first."
Haruto quickly made his decision.
"If I find Laios afterward, I can give Falin’s bones to him."
"If I don’t... then that’ll be unfortunate."
Letting the dragon escape was never an option.
Haruto did not have a habit of releasing valuable ingredients once they appeared before him.
He drew a deep breath and slowly advanced.
The Red Dragon soon noticed him.
It lowered its enormous head, a vicious gleam flashing through its scarlet eyes.
Then it opened its jaws and aimed directly at Haruto.
A series of sharp clicking sounds came from its tongue as sparks began appearing around the corners of its mouth. Waves of heat spread through the surrounding air.
Those were the signs that it was preparing its fiery breath.
Haruto was already familiar with how the attack worked.
The Red Dragon’s breath was not purely magical. Its mechanism contained an oddly scientific element.
The creature stored fuel inside its body and expelled it through its mouth.
When it wanted to attack, it clicked its tongue to produce a spark, igniting the fuel and creating a torrent of fire.
Most of that fuel came from the undigested remains of its prey, including substances that ordinarily should not have burned at all.
Yet the Red Dragon’s specialized internal organs converted everything into something highly combustible.
Viewed from that angle, the process became rather magical again.
Whether the breath was science or magic, however, Haruto did not particularly care.
He continued walking toward the dragon without slowing.
A trace of confusion passed through the Red Dragon’s simple mind.
It had encountered many adventurers inside the dungeon, and every one of them had fled desperately from its flames.
Haruto was the first to approach without showing the slightest fear.
Its confusion did nothing to delay the attack.
A vast torrent of fire erupted from the Red Dragon’s mouth like a burning river, surging toward Haruto with unbearable heat.
The stone road glowed red wherever the flames passed, while the stench of scorched material filled the air.
Haruto’s gaze sharpened.
His pace suddenly accelerated, and his body blurred sideways like a phantom.
The roaring flames swept past close enough to brush the edge of his clothes.
The instant he cleared the breath, Haruto planted a foot against the nearby wall and launched himself forward, appearing beside the Red Dragon in a flash.
He concentrated most of his Nen into his right leg and drove a powerful kick into one of the dragon’s forelegs.
A heavy boom shook the street.
Haruto’s foot slammed into the thick scales, but the expected sound of shattering bone never came.
It felt as though he had kicked an enormous slab of steel.
The violent recoil left his ankle faintly numb.
His strike had shattered several scales and exposed the dark-red skin beneath, but that skin was more than ten centimeters thick and extraordinarily tough.
The kick had failed to break through it.
’The Red Dragon’s defenses are really exceptional.’
Haruto frowned slightly.
He now understood that he had underestimated the dungeon’s dragons.
Their earlier performances had made them seem somewhat unimpressive, but they clearly possessed strengths of their own.
The Red Dragon’s defenses alone far exceeded his expectations.
Haruto was confident that he could force his way through and kill it with repeated full-power attacks, but doing so would take considerable effort and might even leave him injured.
"I’ll have to strike the reverse scale after all."
His gaze shifted toward the underside of the Red Dragon’s head.
There was a small area without the protection of thick scales—the reverse scale, the most vulnerable point on a dragon’s body.
Haruto was just preparing to create an opening and finish the creature with a single strike when a sudden wave of dizziness crashed over him.
The entire world spun violently.
His vision erupted into a whirl of shifting colors, twisting and changing like a kaleidoscope until he could no longer make out his surroundings.
’Damn it... Mana sickness!’
Haruto’s heart sank.
He had never imagined the symptoms would strike at such a critical moment.
Mana sickness was a common condition among novice mages after casting spells for the first time.
It occurred when magical power was depleted before the mind and body had fully adapted to using it.
Symptoms included dizziness, visual hallucinations, and, in severe cases, complete loss of consciousness.
Light magic was only a basic spell and consumed very little mana.
However, Haruto had only just begun using magic.
He had also cast the spell repeatedly, while the connection between his mind and magical power remained poorly developed.
The consequences had finally caught up with him.
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