"GRAAAOOOOOOOOOO...!!!"
The deafening roar ripped through the chamber, swallowing every other sound whole.
The other Adventurer parties, half a beat slower than Leon's group, felt it too: a crushing pressure that stopped them in their tracks. Every set of eyes in the chamber snapped toward the same point.
At the mouth of the passage connecting to the adjacent chamber, the fog churned and tore apart as if ripped by enormous hands.
Then a wall of massive scales broke through, glinting with a cold amber sheen.
A tail sheathed in heavy plating. Claws that could shred steel, gleaming with a predator's edge. Row after row of fangs that made the blood run cold.
"Infant Dragon...!!!" someone screamed.
"Well, this is a curveball." Even Leon's eyelid twitched. He clicked his tongue. "We hadn't even gone looking for it yet, and the thing just walks right up to us. Bold move."
He had to give credit where it was due. Respect.
The beast stood on all fours, a member of the dragon species, regarded as the most powerful of all monster races. It had no wings, but the raw physical potential packed into that scale-covered frame was visibly, obviously in a different league from any Orc. Its mere presence radiated a suffocating weight.
The Infant Dragon's red eyes rolled slowly across the gathered Adventurers, giving the distinct impression it was browsing a menu.
"The spawn rate on these things is supposed to be near zero. We actually ran into one?"
Even Jeanne and Rose, always composed, looked caught off guard.
They'd talked big about wanting to test themselves against a dragon species on Floor 12, sure, but nobody had taken it seriously. The odds were astronomical. Across the sprawling expanse of Floors 11 and 12, encountering an Infant Dragon, which stacked both the rare-spawn and dragon-species modifiers, wasn't just unlikely. It was lottery-winner territory.
Of course, that was setting aside the stacks of parchment reports in the Guild archives documenting all the beginner parties it had effortlessly crushed.
...
Before Leon's team could make a move, the Infant Dragon attacked.
"GRAOOOO!"
Following the path of least resistance, its massive tail whipped sideways and launched a Pallum Adventurer who'd been a fraction too slow. The poor guy hit the wall, coughed blood, and his head lolled to the side as his eyes rolled back. Out cold.
Leon's team exchanged a single glance. Consensus was instant.
Rare opportunity. Take it down.
Free money walking through the door, and they had the firepower to collect. Why wouldn't they?
Leon was already moving, vaulting down the stairs, dropping low and sprinting with his hood pulled forward. His eyes beneath it had gone sharp, nothing like his usual easygoing self. His staff leveled forward as he channeled a torrent of Mind, guiding Magic toward the crystal at its tip.
His eyes narrowed behind the glow of gathering Magic. His left hand came up to brace the staff head, he sidestepped into a firing position, and a low grunt escaped him as he began charging.
"I'll take point! Rose, engage head-on! Laurier, flank and harass! Aura, prep your magic!" Jeanne barked.
She and Rose blurred past Leon, closing on the rampaging Infant Dragon at frightening speed.
"Run wild!" Laurier was right behind them, her short chant already complete. Magic surged through her. Golden hair streaming, her speed spiked and she caught up to the two in front within seconds.
Wind brushed his cheek. Leon allowed himself a small smile and glanced back over his shoulder.
Ancient hunger buried beneath fertile earth! Entwine, evergreen thorns! Let agony be your wine, let wailing be your song!
Within this cage...
Laurier was already in motion, so... Leon flicked his gaze to the side, and sure enough, Aura stood just behind and to his right, arms spread wide, her chant rolling out steady and powerful.
The full-team assault on the Infant Dragon was underway.
"Scorch!!!"
Leon's spell launched first, overtaking Jeanne and Rose to strike the target dead-on. Sparks skittered across its scales, but Leon knew the damage was negligible.
It didn't need to be. The ignition effect had landed. That was enough.
He yanked his face mask up to cover his nose and mouth, shielding himself from the heat and flames to come. Then his Mind surged, and the crystal at his staff's tip blazed white.
"Fireball!"
"Fireball!"
"Fireball! Fireball! Fireball! Fireball! Fireball!"
The barrage didn't stop there.
A chain of blazing orbs, each the size of a millstone, erupted from his staff in rapid succession, streaking through the air in a searing line of fire.
The next second, under the stunned gazes of every bystander in the chamber, the rolling chain of explosions swallowed the Infant Dragon's massive body whole.
"Holy shit!" echoed from multiple directions at once.
The blasts thundered one after another, fire roiling and heat warping the air. The shockwaves overlapped, the noise was earsplitting, and the sheer spectacle of magical violence on display was, in its own terrible way, beautiful.
None of the spectators had ever seen someone use magic like basic attacks.
"Good god... what kind of casting speed is that? He's using magic like auto-attacks?" An elf who looked like a mage stared blankly, muttering to himself.
The absurd display sent a shockwave of its own through the surrounding teams.
"That's... that's ridiculous."
"Am I dreaming?"
"Those Fireballs were chained together like a goddamn gatling gun!"
"That wasn't a hallucination, right?"
"What Familia are these people from? I've never seen them before."
"Shh. You want to die? Look at that coordination, those techniques, especially those two vanguards and that insane mage... this is Level 2 at minimum. Maybe higher."
"Let's back off. You saw what happened to the last poor bastard."
"Right. Don't give them the wrong idea. Kill-stealing in the Dungeon is a death sentence."
"Yeah, yeah, let's go. Now."
Leon paid the chatter no attention. His eyes were locked on the smoke billowing from the blast zone.
The Infant Dragon had not expected this. It had stepped out for a meal and walked straight into a beating. This was not how encounters with puny Adventurers were supposed to go.
"GRAOOOOO...!"
The smoke cleared, and the dragon's condition was plain for all to see. Its former majesty was gone. The scales across most of its body were pitted, blackened, and curling. Where blasted-off plates had fallen away, raw and vulnerable flesh was exposed. The creature lay toppled on its side, struggling to rise.
It hauled itself upright, fixing its burning red eyes on the source of its suffering, and was met with Leon's amused gaze.
"O Gold!"
A flash of blue hair. Rose materialized in front of the Infant Dragon as if she'd teleported, left fist clenched against her chest as she shouted her prayer mid-sprint. Golden Oath, her prayer magic, took hold.
Golden light flared across her body, and she blurred forward.
Her short sword punched clean through the Infant Dragon's right eye before the beast even registered she was there.
The dragon thrashed its head wildly, trying to fling Rose off, but Jeanne was already airborne, her greaves slamming off the ground as she launched herself upward. The Banner Lance caught the light for a split second before it drove straight through the left eye, already scorched raw by the Fireballs.
"GRAOOOOO...!!!"
The agony of losing both eyes on top of its full-body burns twisted the dragon's roar into a wretched, keening shriek.
But no one in the chamber was about to feel sorry for a monster. Laurier pressed in, her sword tracing silver arcs as she wove through the blinded dragon's flailing counterattacks, harassing from the side and opening wound after wound.
The injuries accumulated. The crippled Infant Dragon grew wilder and more desperate, lashing out at anything it could reach.
"Careful, everyone! This is when a monster is most dangerous!" Leon called out, his voice steady as he kept up his fire support.
"Got it!" came three voices at once.
Rose planted herself directly in front of the Infant Dragon, shield up, absorbing everything it threw at her. Claws, fangs, the whip of its tail, even a full-body charge. Every attack met her shield's white glow and went nowhere.
And between the impacts, she found the gaps. Each counter with her short sword carved a deep new wound into the dragon's body.
Steel Knight: counterattack power and speed, boosted.
Jeanne was no less relentless on the offensive. Her Banner Lance danced in blinding arcs, punching hole after hole through the creature's massive frame.
God's Resolution: hostile targets, weakened.
Combined with Laurier's fluid hit-and-run harassment, the already crumbling Infant Dragon's resistance faded by the second.
Minutes passed. The fight intensified. The scales tipped further and further in Leon's team's favor.
And yet the sheer vitality afforded by the dragon's status as both a strongest-species and large-class monster kept it standing. Dying, but refusing to fall.
Even Leon was starting to question reality. This thing is supposed to be Level 2? I'm not so sure about that.
He frowned, studying the dragon more carefully.
Something's off.
There's something wrong here, but I can't pin it down.
His instincts were screaming, but no matter how many times he looked, he couldn't identify the source. He shelved the unease for now and refocused on the fight.
Another ten minutes ground by under the team's coordinated assault.
"Fireball!"
With a stable firing position and his frontline holding the dragon in place, Leon refreshed the ignition debuff and poured fully charged Fireballs into the restrained target, one after another. His staff swung with calm precision, each shot delivering another thunderous explosion against the pinned-down dragon.
Every few seconds, another blast tore into the Infant Dragon's ruined body. Its movements slowed visibly, growing sluggish, stiff, its form starting to buckle.
The end was close. Leon locked eyes with Aura and gave a sharp nod.
Aura nodded back, her expression grave.
Drink deep the scattering light! With your dying breaths...
Nourish my flesh! Feed my soul!
The instant before Aura spoke the final words of her chant...
Crack. Crack. Crack-crack-crack-crack...
The chamber's walls and floor began splitting apart in massive fissures, exactly as Leon had expected.
"Ha. Knew it." He let out a contemptuous snort. "Always right when victory's in your hands and your guard's at its lowest. Surprise."
He snapped his arm toward Aura in a sharp go-signal.
Aura's chant hit its crescendo:
"Feast of the Bacchanal Harvest!!!"
The chamber floor shook as countless vines and root tendrils erupted from the ground. Under Aura's control, they surged toward the Infant Dragon and the fresh swarm of monsters pouring from the crumbling walls, binding them tight, wrapping them into massive cocooned bundles. The vines drank greedily, draining life force and Magic from every creature they held.
Roars, shrieks, croaks, chittering. Imps, Orcs, Goblins, Frog Shooters, Killer Ants. It didn't matter what they were. Once the vines took hold, nothing escaped. They were all just fuel for the Feast.
Leon drew a deep breath, leveled his staff at the vine-wrapped core of the still-struggling Infant Dragon, and let the crystal build to maximum charge. One final, full-power Fireball roared from the tip and slammed home.
Firelight played across his calm face. In his eyes, the reflection of the great beast crashing to the ground, and a flicker of satisfaction.
"Now then." His mouth curved upward as he raised his voice. "I'd like to think the Dungeon sent us all this bonus Excelia as a congratulations gift."
"Ladies, it's party time."