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Chapter 1 – 21

Calamity's Demise

I didn't understand what had happened.

The zombie dragon that I thought I had defeated was still alive, and then he attacked us with his breath. It had swept over father and the others and they were gone. After some time, another breath attack swept over the place where they had left me. Once again, I could hear screams rising up all around. The wall was already beat up and crumbling.

It seems I had fallen into the moat, so I slowly got up and crawled outside it. I could see the zombie dragon from where I crawled out. He suddenly noticed me. He was probably less than 300m away, and he seemed to be sneering as he thought about the prey that had shamelessly crawled out in front of him.

The zombie dragon turned his body around to face me and took aim. He was about to release his breath.

I couldn't move. Rather, I didn't have the will to move. I thought it would be fine if I died. They had died right in front of me! I had called them my parents in this world and had so many happy memories with them.

I remembered how they had told me, “Survive!”.

When I remembered this, I finally recognized the disgusting smile that had crept onto the zombie dragon's face.

Just as he was about to release his breath, I instinctively raised my hand up in front of me. There, a collection of walls appeared, about 2m thick and 5m across. Around 100 of them acc.u.mulated and gradually rose between us.

Paying them no mind the zombie dragon released his breath attack, but it was extinguished before even destroying 50 of the walls.

“I'll kill you……”

“Die, die, die, die, DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE……”

“I'LL KILL YOOOU! You rotten LIZARD!”

I broke into a run. There was only one thing to do. I had to destroy the『Rotten Lizard』that stood before me.

―~――~―――~―――~――~― This chapter was translated by Refulgent for [ FourSlimes . com ―~――~―――~―――~――~―

The zombie dragon was surprised. Suddenly walls had appeared in front of him and got in the way of his breath. Even worse, what he had thought would be easy prey had suddenly raised his voice against him. Things had taken an unexpected turn.

Predictably, as he was a dragon, he immediately tried to intercept by shooting more breath attacks.

Seeing this, I aimed at the dragon's jaw with an especially large Earth Needle and fired. It was a direct hit to his jaw, which had just opened to release his breath. It was a powerful shock from below, and it forced his entire mouth closed. This left nowhere for the breath to escape, and the dragon destroyed his own lower jaw.

The zombie dragon pa.s.sed out from the extreme pain. During that time, I made my way closer and shot Fire Bullets at him rapidly.

1… 5… 10… 20… 30… He must have eaten 100 shots before I flew right up to him and took out my sword.

Placing magic power in the sword, I aimed at the zombie dragon's back and swung. Because of the magic power, just a single swing turned into a huge slas.h.i.+ng attack, and I carved up the dragon's back. It cut so deeply it went about a quarter of the way through his body on one part, considering the dragon's size, it was quite a deep gash.

However, the wounds were slowly healing. The very first wound from the Fire Bullets was nearly closed up.

“d.a.m.nit, your body can regenerate?!”

As I was still on his back, the dragon zombie swung at me with his tail. I used Floating magic and with good timing, I dodged the tail and landed safely. He then attacked using his front leg.

I swung my sword the same way as I had when I carved up his back. The zombie dragon lost his right front leg from the elbow down.

“GyaaAAAA!” The dragon shrieked in pain.

I took aim at his face and swung my sword once again, but when it reached the dragon's right eye the sword snapped.

Because of the sword breaking my balance was thrown off. Seeing this, the dragon swiped at me with what little remained of his right front leg. I immediately put up a magic barrier, and by strengthening it with all my might I avoided being killed, but still got slammed into the ground.

I rolled 20~30m away and lost my concentration. Although you could say the barrier had helped to soften the blow, I still took quite a lot of damage.

I quickly used potions and healing magic to recover. It seemed the dragon zombie hadn't had enough time for his jaw to recover, so he approached me without shooting his breath attack.

I fired an Earth Needle at his left front foot, then another that pierced through the now off-balance dragon's face. I took that opening to escape to the forest and hide myself.

The zombie dragon was enraged and gave chase, seemingly only searching for me. He violently destroyed tree after tree, trying to track me down. I watched him as I prepared a certain magic.

Around 5 minutes of rampaging later, the zombie dragon finally noticed me floating in midair. I quickly descended into the forest 200m in front of him. The dragon, now mad with rage, headed towards me while pulverizing the trees in his way.

When he reached around 100m away, I activated a certain magic.

“『Tempest!』”

At that moment, a gigantic tornado sprung up, centered around Tenma. The zombie dragon, just outside of the tornado was unable to fly and braced itself, but was slowly drawn in. All over its body, an uncountable number of small cuts started to form.

“It's not over yet! 『Tempest F3!』” 1

Tenma intensified the magic and stopped the dragon from getting away. It seemed like the dragon would be swept up at any moment. Blood began streaming from his body, but he still endured.

“『Tempest F4!』”

The dragon's body finally began to rise into the air. The trees that got swept up smashed into the dragon's body, further worsening his wounds. Even Tenma's body had started to be injured by the wind.

“Now the finis.h.i.+ng blow, 『Tempest F5!』”

The dragon, now completely swept up by the windstorm, was unable to resist and his body was shredded to pieces.

“GyagyagyagyaaaAAAAaaaaaaaaa”

10 seconds after casting 『Tempest F5』, the tornado vanished, along with the agonizing shrieks of the dying dragon. Tenma, covered in blood, fell to his knees and pa.s.sed out.

―~――~―――~―――~――~― This chapter was translated by Refulgent for [ FourSlimes . com ―~――~―――~―――~――~―

The stronghold survivors were shocked and terrified by such a ma.s.sive tornado. Mysteriously, after the tornado calmed down around half of the zombies that had been approaching the stronghold crumbled away and died. Those zombies that were still moving had no will to attack, and most of them were shambling toward the forest. Those that remained were b.u.mping into walls, their fellow zombies and everything that had fallen over in the chaos.

The golems that Tenma had made also crumbled apart. Mark noticed them crumbling and went to go search for Tenma, but as he left the south gate he instead found Celia buried among the rubble.

“Celia! Somebody give me a hand here!”

Mark called out and Martha, who was still safe, along with a dozen or so people gathered together.

“Remove this debris very carefully and bring someone who can use healing magic! As fast as you can!”

At Mark's orders, the rubble started to be removed. Around 10 minutes of work later, Celia had been extracted from the rubble and near to her, Merlin and Ricardo were also found.

Merlin was in still in critical condition, but Ricardo had already pa.s.sed on.

“Celia, hey, can you hear me? Celia, open your eyes.”

Martha held her up as she responded to Mark's voice, her eyes opening slightly. It was clear her life was in a very dangerous state still.

“Mark, Martha… Where is Tenma…”

Mark realized there was no way he could tell her that Tenma was still unaccounted for. He suddenly burst out,

“Tenma defeated the zombie dragon. It was amazing! But, he drove him as far back as the heart of the forest so he still hasn't come back yet. He should be coming to see us soon.” he lied.

He had no doubt that the dragon had been defeated, yet the death still hadn't been confirmed.

“Ah… That kid really always tries his best doesn't he… I must shower him with praise…”

As Celia's words became fainter and fainter, Mark and Martha desperately called out to her.

“Hang on a just little longer, Tenma will be back really soon!”

“That's right, it's your job as his mother to welcome him back with a smile!”

However, Celia slowly shook her head,

“I don't have much longer. Mark, Martha, give this to Tenma for me, and give him all my praise…”

As she said so, she took her Guild Card out from her purse and gave it to Martha.

“Don't say things like that!”

However, Celia's consciousness had begun to cloud over and it seems Martha's words didn't reach her.

“It's Tenma! Celia, Tenma's come back! He's running this way!” Mark said. n.o.body stopped him.

“Ahh… Tenma… You really came back… You really did your best, you're such a wonderful child… Ricardo was there too… Now we can finally live peacefully as a family again…”

After those words, Celia's body lost all strength.

“Celia? Wait, Celia! Hang on!”

Martha shook her.

“I love you… Tenma…”

Celia whispered with her final breath.

[Author's Note]

The real world use of F4 & F5 might be different, but please treat them as separate levels.

Hi, Refulgent, your translator here, if you like my translations, you can show your support by leaving a comment or constructive feedback at Four slimes . com I'd love to hear from you directly~

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Translator's NotesThe F3 etc. refers to the Fujita Scale for rating tornado intensity.