Chapter 22: Dragon Problems

The area we were currently heading into was one that, according to the traders we had spoken to, had a mysterious disease spreading throughout the mountain. Seeing the state of the forest, I agreed that something was wrong but I wasn't what could be causing it. There aren't a lot of things that can cause such devastating effects to so many varieties of plants, and there isn't much wildlife around either. The best guess I can make is that there is some kind of toxin spreading, either through the ground or the air.

"Keep a cloth covering your mouths and noses, and sprinkle some antidote on it just to be safe." Hopefully that will be enough to keep whatever it is from affecting us.

When we arrived at the village they tried to warn us off, until they learned that we had medicine to sell. Then they took a good look at Blake and went running saying something about the phantom saint. Even here the nickname haunts me. I looked around and noticed the fresh graves. Looks like at least a tenth of the village population. What kind of disease could have caused all this?

We were led to the village clinic and I spoke with the doctor. The medicine I had was able to treat the symptoms; interestingly it seemed I had gained the ability to affect multiple people when I administered medicine to someone. Even considering how little sense this world tends to make in regards to the laws of physics, medicine affecting people in a range is just weird. The doctor then told me that he thinks the disease is carried on the wind coming from up the mountain. Defiantly some sort of toxin, an airborne bacterial infection would have different symptoms. Then again with the way magic and monsters work in this world anything is possible.

"You said that the disease came from the mountain. Did anything unusual happen there before the disease came?" The more I know, the better I can handle this.

"Around a month ago the sword hero came and slew a dragon that was living there; I believe that its rotting corpse is the source of this plague."

"Damn it Ren, why would you leave a dragon corpse to rot? Even if you aren't going to feed it all to your weapon, you should at least know to bury it or something." Calm down, it doesn't matter what he was thinking, just what can be done now.

The doctor was confused by my reaction and Seb noticed that I wasn't in the best mindset so he continued the questioning for me. "Why didn't you do something about it before things got this bad?"

"We didn't know until it was too late. Originally he came here with a large group of adventurers who wanted to watch the fight. Afterwards he left the corpse so they could take pieces of it as souvenirs. Then those wishing to see the corpse for themselves passed through and the village ended up making a great deal of money. Unfortunately things changed when the body started to rot. First the adventurers that went to see the body came back sick then the entire ecology of the mountain began to change. The air turned to poison and not even the adventurers would dare go near it at that point. Now it is rare for anyone to even come here. We are doing all we can just to survive."

I regained myself enough to ask the questions I needed to know. "Did you report this to the kingdom?"

"Yes, we are awaiting a delivery of medicine."

"What about the so-called heroes?"

He was a bit surprised by the way I referred to them, but considering one was part of the cause of this mess he didn't say anything about it. "They are busy and we are not a high priority." Just like with the miracle seed, a hero causes problems but they are too busy to fix it.

"How does the payment for aide requests work?"

He looked like he could hardly contain his hope. "We sent payment in advance, but if there is reason to cancel the request it will be returned. Are you saying that you're going to take care of the corpse, great saint?"

"I don't like it when people die because a hero is being an idiot. We'll take care of the corpse and you can pay us the money that would have been paid for the request."

"Oh thank you. Bless your soul phantom saint." He looked like he might cry for joy.

"Don't celebrate yet. We don't know how long it will take after destroying the corpse for things to get back to normal."

It took a bit of convincing but we managed to get Blake to leave the carriage and two of the carts at the village while we went to deal with the dragon corpse. There were a lot of monsters on the way; most of them gave me shields with poison resistances. We even saw the hallmark of any fantasy world setting, the slime. Of course it was a poison slime, so I just got more poison resistance. Once I unlock them all I will probably be immune to all but the strongest of poisons.

As we continued up the mountain, I wondered what type of dragon it was. If people wanted to watch Ren kill it and take souvenirs it was probably a proper dragon rather than something like the overgrown lizard Motoyasu rode in our race. So far I have only ever seen the dragonmen from Tio's village and the dragons made by that demon working for Ehit, plus I heard about the dragons in the sky world. All of them were western style dragons, but Yue's magic dragon attacks are based on eastern style dragons.

We reached the dragon's corpse and it was another western. Over 30 feet long and missing most of its skin, there were monster flies all around it and its guts were spilling from a slash on its abdomen. The whole thing was disgusting.

"Mmm, dragon meat." (Blake)

"Don't tell me you want to eat that?" (Seb)

"It may not be as good as fresh, but it should still be satisfying." (Blake)

"I realize that filolials have a primal hatred of dragons, but eating rotten meat takes it too far."(Seb)

"Let's just get this done." I didn't want the others to have to stay in this bad air any longer than necessary. "Talia, Seb, you eliminate the flies. Blake, we're going to get to work on the corpse."

As we approached, I felt something off about the dragon corpse. The flies left and the body began to move. You've got to be kidding me, a dragon zombie? The rotting meat merged back into the main body as it regenerated its missing wings and skin. Luckily its claws and fangs had been taken as trophies and they didn't seem to be regenerating any time soon. This just turned from an easy fight while dismantling a corpse, to a boss fight with an undead dragon. Sigh, there's no helping it, for the first time since coming to this world, I willing activated [Abyss Lord].

I donned my Heavenly Eye and brought forth two clones. They split up and flanked the dragon from both sides. "Foolish dragon, no, you no longer deserve that title, for now you are but an undead beast. You should have stayed dead. Now you must be destroyed by the strength of the Abyss." The beast's throat swelled in what I assume to be preparations for its breath attack. "Oh, going big right off the bat, let's see how you do against my [Air Strike Shield]!" The shield appeared directly in the path of the breath attack, which was apparently just a spray of purple gas, probably poisonous. I should expect nothing better from a rotten corpse. The gas was redirected outward when it hit the shield but started to disperse towards us as well. "Sebastian, Raphtalia, when I tell you, cut off its head." As it was focusing on out main group, my clones made their move.

"Invite to the abyss, Earth Escape - Abyss Quicksand!" My first clone dove into the ground.

"Crawl on the ground. Embrace the infinite hell fire! Fire Escape - Prominence Dragon!" My second clone created a serpent of fire which coiled around the undead abomination, immobilizing it and burning away much of the poison in the air surrounding it. Of course the fact that it used to be a dragon meant that it wouldn't take as much damage from fire based attacks as an undead normally would, but that wasn't the purpose of the attack. No, the true attack is what comes next.

"Earth Escape - Lightning Escape Combination Art - Lightning Flower Phoenix Arrival!" With a sound reminiscent of a true dragon's roar, lightning burst forth from my first clone's position in the ground underneath the zombie. The reanimated corpse was damaged but not yet vanquished.

"Take its head." I had cast [All Zweite Power] while my clones were making their move to boost my allies' attack strength, so they should be able to cut it. Raphtalia stuck first, cutting most of the way through its neck, then Sebastian completed the severing from the other side. The creature's head fell to the ground and its body slumped over, but its regeneration continued. Hmmm… the way mana is flowing in its body… "Blake, do you feel that power coming from its chest?"

It took her a moment to snap out of her daze from seeing her first glimpse of what I am like when I use my true power. "Yes, it seems important."

"It's probably what is keeping that thing moving, go get it."

"I'm on it." For some reason she chose to change into her human form and dove into the throat of the corpse's still severed neck. I suppose it would probably be easier to get the core from the inside but that is still a rather bold choice to make. Both Sebastian and Raphtalia were so surprised when she jumped in that they stopped any attempt to continue damaging it.

"Both of you fall back." We'll have to be careful while Blake is inside that thing.

"But Blake, she just went inside it." (Raphtalia)

"She is going after the core. If we attack it recklessly while she is inside, we risk hitting her as well. Now fall back. Sebastian, your ice magic should be safe for keeping it contained and slowing it down."

"Understood. As the source of thy power I order thee. Hear my words and comprehend them. Freeze him! [Zweit Icicle Prison]!" The ice managed to cover most of its front legs, which should keep it from moving once it's finished reattaching its head. Meanwhile my clones worked to severe the tail and back legs hopefully more damage slows the regeneration.

It didn't take long for the zombie's head to reconnect enough to start moving. Luckily the ice held and it was unable to do anything but glare at us and attempt to spew more toxic gasses. I still had plenty of antidotes on hand and we weren't hit directly thanks to my [Shield Prison], but the air around us was still horrible.

Shortly after the prison expired, the former dragon fell completely limp and there was an EXP notification. The corpse's former wounds returned and its guts once again were spilled across the ground, along with a small girl in a duster covered in juices.

"That wasn't quite as easy as I thought it would be. Grosser too." Blake came over to us holding a large purple crystal. "I got it Master Kousuke."

"Good job, now we just need to get rid of all the rotting meat. Save the bones and any pieces of skin that look useable. The rest is getting fed to my shield, unless Blake eats it first." I'm going to have to think up a good title for Blake, maybe something along the lines of Gut Bursting Shadow Feather.

"After being inside it, I'm not sure I want it inside me." (Blake)

"That may be the most sensible thing you've said all day." (Sebastian)

True to her word, Blake didn't eat any of the dragon meat. It took a while to cut it up and feed it all to my shield, but we got it done. It seems that the dragon materials give high level shields that I can't access yet. There was also a bit of skin that seemed to be in usable condition and plenty of bones. I think I'm going to keep the skull as a souvenir, it may not be as impressive without the teeth, but it's still a dragon skull.

As we made our way back I took of my sunglasses and tried to make myself as small as possible in the cart. Why did I have to make those attack names so long and crazy. And that talk about it not being a dragon anymore. Sigh, at least it wasn't as bad as giving Motoyasu a lecture about the moral values and perspectives of heroes while in the middle of a duel.

AN: Endou has seen a surprisingly high number of dragons in his life and I figure he has a certain amount of respect for them in general, so he wouldn't like seeing one become a zombie. That really was the first time he chose to activate Abyss Lord, the rest were all times where it activated without him wanting it to.

In regards to Blake's personality: From what I've gathered reading the Reprise WN, the personalities of filolial queens are determined by what egg they come from and the people that raise them. Blake came from a rather high quality egg and was raised by a master assassin and two of his disiples whereas Filo came from a low quality egg (I'm serious, it's canon) and was raised by an edgy Naofumi. The general idea I'm going for with Blake is a slightly chunni kid that generally tries to act mature and has never had the chance to have fun as a kid before. Some of this will be more evident when she interacts with Melty.