The Exiled Knight Takes Up Life as an Adventurer — A Former Captain's Secret Power and His Carefree Days in a Distant Land - Chapter 27

Morning of the third day.

After breakfast, we made our way back to the place where we had scattered the entrails the night before.

“Ah, over there!”

Velnika suddenly called out.

I couldn’t see it yet, but with her sharp vision, she must have spotted something.

“Is that… Azpreshius, the Azure Spout Dragon?”

“Yes, it is!”

“Is it the same one?”

“No doubt about it! The wound Lacru left is still there!”

I pulled out my monocular.

Azpreshius is said to be about three Medelt in length, but this one was even larger.

“It’s huge…”

The bipedal Azpreshius balanced itself with its long tail, its head lowered as it devoured the scattered entrails.

Each time it moved, the sunlight reflected off its gleaming blue scales.

“There’s definitely a wound on its head.”

“That’s it! That’s the one that killed Lacru!”

Velnika lowered herself into a crouch and slowly advanced while raising her bow.

But it seemed Azpreshius had already sensed us.

“Tch… we’re upwind.”

Azpreshius stood downwind, which meant it had likely caught our scent.

“Upwind works in our favor!”

Yelling, Velnika immediately fired her bow.

For archers, being upwind gives their arrows more speed and accuracy.

Velnika’s bow could hit a target a hundred Medelt away with pinpoint precision.

She was truly a master. If there was one weakness, it was that her arrows didn’t carry overwhelming force—but the wind made up for that.

The arrow flew at high speed, cutting cleanly through the air.

Azpreshius roared in response.

“It’s opening its mouth! A water blast is coming!”

The dragon compressed the seawater it had swallowed and fired it like a cannon.

Even from nearly a hundred Medelt away, a direct hit could be fatal.

A water blast the size of a human head shot from Azpreshius’s mouth.

It collided with Velnika’s arrow in mid-air.

The water blast overpowered the arrow, snapping it in two.

Sunlight hit the spray, casting a faint rainbow.

“Velnika! Get down!”

The next blast came roaring toward us.

I stepped in front of Velnika and raised my shield to block it.

“Ugh! That power… even from this distance it’s insane!”

The force knocked my left arm back.

Velnika drew another arrow and fired again.

“Velnika! Long-range combat isn’t working—we need to close in!”

“Die already!!”

She wasn’t listening.

Fueled by rage, Velnika kept firing.

She shot one arrow after another at incredible speed.

But every arrow was blocked by Azpreshius’s water blasts.

“Velnika! Calm down! Stay focused!”

Each time I blocked another blast with my shield, a heavy, echoing thud rang out, followed by a spray of water.

It felt like getting slammed with a giant iron hammer.

Even though my shield was reinforced with metal, cracks had already started forming in the wooden core.

“Damn… the shield won’t last much longer!”

Azpreshius kept advancing, firing blast after blast.

And the closer it got, the harder it became for Velnika to land a clean shot.

“Just die!!”

Her arrows were all deflected.

Meanwhile, Azpreshius’s water blasts grew stronger and faster.

“Ugh… this isn’t working!”

The cracks spread wide—and finally, the shield shattered.

Azpreshius was now only about ten Medelt away.

“For Lacru!”

Screaming, Velnika drew her longsword and charged straight at the Azure Spout Dragon.

Azpreshius opened its jaws wide, aiming at her.

It was about to unleash another water blast—at point-blank range.

If she took that hit from this close…

She wouldn’t survive.

“Velnika!”

I reacted instantly, firing my Thread Fil.

With a sharp twist of my arm, I maneuvered the threads to coil around Azpreshius’s open jaws.

“Got it!”

The threads wrapped tightly around the dragon’s mouth, sealing it completely shut.

With that, Azpreshius was no longer able to fire its deadly water blasts.
Its only weapon now was its body—and even that was restrained by the threads.

I pulled the Thread Fil tighter.

Azpreshius thrashed its neck, struggling to break free, but the tension in the threads halted its movement entirely.

“Velnika! Now! Finish it off!”

“DIEEEEE!”

Velnika drove her longsword straight into Azpreshius’s throat.

“GYAAAAAAHH!”

The dragon let out a piercing shriek as bl00d sprayed into the air.

“For Lacru!”

Without wasting a second, Velnika yanked the blade free and stabbed again—this time into the wound Lacru had left behind.

“That scar… That’s the one Lacru made!”

With a heavy, shuddering noise, Azpreshius collapsed where it stood.

Its eyes were lifeless. It was dead.

“Haa… haa… Ugh… uuuu…”

Velnika dropped to her knees.

Breathing heavily, she covered her face with both hands and began to sob uncontrollably.

“You did it, Velnika. You really did.”

I placed a hand gently on her shoulder.

“Mardin… I’m sorry.”

“Huh? What for? Why are you apologizing?”

“I let my anger take over… I put you in danger.”

“What are you talking about? Thanks to your attacks, I was never in any real danger. And you’re the one who took it down, remember? You were incredible.”

“I’m still… sorry…”

“You avenged him. With Lacru’s sword. He would’ve been proud.”

“…Lacru… Lacru…”

I had noticed it from the start.

The longsword Velnika had been using—it was the very one Lacru had always carried.

She finished the dragon with the sword Lacru once held, piercing the very wound he left behind.

“You two defeated it together. That was amazing.”

“…Lacru…”

“Come on. Stand tall. Be proud.”

I pulled Lacru’s longsword from Azpreshius’s corpse and gently laid it in front of Velnika.