It’s just intensely hot.
I’ve exchanged magic with the Ore Tree before, but never like this.
Something different from before, and because of that “something,” I’m experiencing a sensation like my entire body is burning.
Yet, all I can hear is a pulsating numbness emanating from my body.
I can’t think of anything through the torture-like pain.
No, the pain is eroding my thoughts.
I can only writhe in pain.
All I can do is produce inarticulate sounds from my throat.
“■■■■■! ■■■■■!”
I can hear sounds.
But I can’t recognize them.
This body should be composed of magic, yet it feels like my living body is being burned, with no part from the tips of my toes to the top of my head free from pain.
And more than anything.
“Ahhhhhhhggggggggggg!?”
My body is wrong.
No, at this point, my entire body is in pain, so it’s definitely wrong, but the sensations I can barely recognize are still screaming that this is abnormal.
Amidst the hot, burning pain, there’s a sensation as if something is devouring me.
Every single cell is being replaced, and something is preying on me from within, trying to create the space for that replacement.
I can’t even form a question of what it is.
It feels like my body is being forcibly reshaped, and my will is irrelevant as I’m forced to endure the pain, and what I was even doing becomes vague.
“Jiro-san! Behind you!”
Amidst such pain, my vision and hearing suddenly restarted, as if a video connection was abruptly made.
It was as if they were saying “temporary construction is complete,” and information was suddenly supplied.
My ears picked up someone’s voice, and my eyes, which had stopped moving, caught sight of a giant maw.
What happened? What’s coming?
Before these questions could even cross my mind, my body moved on its own.
“■■■■■■■■■■■■!!”
A strange cry erupted from the back of my throat.
And my body, which had lurched back, sprang up and swung my right hand with brute force.
There was no technique, just violence.
Normally, the destructive power generated by such violence wouldn’t be much.
And it certainly shouldn’t be much if the opponent was a dragon.
“No way.”
Again.
I picked up a sound again.
I heard someone’s voice, as if they were saying it was impossible, and I registered it as sound. Without understanding its meaning, I took action.
With my left hand, which I thought of as “uninjured,” I obscured my vision with static and pressed my aching forehead, then looked at the result of my strike.
There was a dragon’s bone, its jaw shattered, and its lower jaw dislocated.
What is this?
What happened?
My body is still hot. My body still hurts.
But the pain is gradually subsiding.
Instead, the sound of my heart is loud.
Thump-thump-thump echoes in my ears, and my headache intensifies.
I want my heart to be quiet.
I’m driven by such an impulse, but my mind sharpens even more.
My body feels light.
My headache continues, my body is still hot and aching, my heart is loud, my vision is unstable, my ears don’t pick up sounds accurately, but.
I instinctively know that my body feels its best right now.
“Kaha.”
Someone must think I’ve gone mad.
“Jiro, san?”
I can hear “someone’s” voice.
But I have no time for that.
The remnants of memory screaming that this place is dangerous urge me to kill the enemy.
This voice is not the enemy.
So, where is the enemy?
Ah, I see.
“…Katsu-. We’re leaving.”
“Karen-san!? But!”
“Just do it! Jiro-san right now is acting strange!”
The bones, repairing their broken jaws with a *grinding* sound, are they the “enemy”?
A small presence is moving away, but I don’t need to worry about it; in fact, I think it’s convenient.
Why?
Well, it doesn’t matter.
The enemy must be killed.
How easy it is.
The opponent is just a collection of bones that are “big.”
Swaying, I grip what’s in my hands, readying not just my right hand but both.
Thump-thump. It’s loud like my heart.
Red roots are entwined around my right arm.
It’s unbearably hot there, but oh well.
For now, I have an opponent to defeat.
“Kaha.”
Why do I laugh every time I open my mouth?
Oh well, I’m feeling better, and this pain will probably be a little more bearable.
“Ah.”
I didn’t know if I could speak with my scorched throat, but I did naturally.
I take a step forward with that voice.
My legs move, though they hurt.
My arms move, though they hurt.
My vision… well, it’s okay, it occasionally blurs, sometimes loses color.
My hearing is a bit muffled.
I think my current state is far from good, it should be bad, but.
“I don’t feel like losing.”
I felt something different towards the dragon in front of me just a moment ago, but now it seems different.
I have to confirm it.
“Well then, shall we?”
Can’t I put strength into my body properly?
No, that’s not right. It’s.
“■■■■■■■■■■■!!!!”
There’s an abundance of power? My body feels different? I moved my body as I normally would.
Yet, as I just tried to run a little, the opponent stopped in place, and I found myself at the base of its neck.
Oh well, I can cut it, so… I will cut it.
With a smooth motion, I swing the weapon in my hand horizontally, severing the meter-long thick neck.
“Ah, just cutting it isn’t enough.”
However, seeing the severed neck move independently, I understand that simply cutting it is not enough.
This time, I try to move faster than before and move my legs.
My body creaked slightly.
Then, the creaking part became hot and painful, and before I knew it, it no longer hurt.
In the meantime, I was in front of the dragon’s severed face.
It felt like I ran up its neck…
Even so, was the opponent this slow?
Oh well.
It’s not a problem if the opponent is slow.
This time, I swing my right hand three times to cut the face.
One down, one up at the right, and one to the left.
That was enough to tear the face apart.
“…”
There’s no sentiment.
It’s just a task, and even though my body aches all over, I feel no sense of accomplishment.
The joy I felt just a moment ago is gone.
So what should I do?
“End this.”
I will end it.
This battle.
How do I end it?
Do I cut off all its heads?
Should I cut off its torso?
Oh well.
I’ll cut it all off.
Using a falling bone as a foothold, I leap into the air to cut off its torso first.
Using the severed pieces as a foothold, I arrive in an instant.
Even so, my body is hot.
Gradually, I’m losing sensation.
Oh well.
If I cut it, it will end.
One vertical swing. Ah, this won’t cut deep enough.
In that case, I should add magic to it.
“You’re in the way.”
Because I couldn’t cut it in one go, a neck blocked me and I was flung away, but my body was fine.
Is that why my only thought was what came out of my mouth?
And if that didn’t work, I let the red roots absorb my magic as well.
*Thump*. I feel a response from my hand.
Feeling that, I know, “This time I can cut it.”
Yes, with no basis but absolute certainty, I rush forward.
Breaking through the wall of wind and slicing off the heads that obstruct me, I position myself in front of the opponent’s body.
The front is like a white wall. To cut through it, I grip my weapon firmly overhead… and swing it down.
Without a sound, I only felt the reality of having cut, and confident that the opponent’s life had ceased, I gently turned and began to walk away.
With a *clack-clack-clack*, the strength I had moments ago was gone, and the heads stretched out to attack me with weak movements, but they ran out of power about a meter away and returned to bone.
Thinking, with my hazy mind, “What was all that struggle for?”, something rushes towards me from ahead.
There are five of them.
They seem flustered, but did something happen?
There are no enemies.
I can tell by their presence.
They aren’t enemies, so they don’t need to be flustered…
“Gah!?”
As my thoughts raced, a sharp, intense headache struck with a jolt, and static appeared in my vision.
The vision began to be filled with noisy static, like a broken TV.
Thinking “What is this?”, I tried to press my head with my left hand, but my vision went dark with a *snap*.
“Senpai!!”
“Jiro-san!”
“Leader!”
Ah, Kaido, Kitamiya, Minami, why are you all so flustered, what’s happenin…
And when I woke up.
“…I’m familiar with this ceiling.”
“Naturally. It’s a hospital room you’ve been to many times. Of course, you’d recognize it.”
“…Evia-san?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
A familiar, beautiful white ceiling.
And from that sight, I instantly realized I had been brought to a medical facility. As I thought this, the curtain was *ssshh*-ed open, and Ervia emerged.
“How are you feeling?”
“Ah, strangely, I don’t feel any fatigue. I’m glad you treated me thoroughly.”
“…”
I thought I’d worried them again and that I’d have to apologize to Suella, Kaido, and the others. As I decided this, I sat up and tried moving lightly, but found no abnormalities.
In fact, I felt lighter than usual.
Is the medical staff here finally getting used to treating me? I thought a morbid thought and answered Ervia’s question.
However, her expression didn’t brighten; it became even more severe.
Could it be that my upper body is fine, but my lower body isn’t? I panicked and tried moving my body under the covers, but it also moved normally.
“Jiro, listen carefully.”
Without changing her expression, Ervia spoke calmly.
“You are no longer human.”
“Huh?”
“More accurately, it should be said that you are half-human no longer. However, with such a transformation, one cannot call you human.”
She frowned, her beautiful eyebrows furrowed, and began reading from a medical chart she likely received from a doctor.
“We performed an examination, but we didn’t treat your injuries. All of them healed on their own. When Kaido and the others hastily brought you to this room, your body had already healed. Normally, there would be a significant impact from the feedback of returning to a living body from a magic body, but that didn’t happen.”
“What do you mean?”
I was certainly injured in both hands when I used Pile Regret.
I understand better than anyone that those weren’t injuries that could be healed by one or two potions.
Those injuries are healed?
Where could it have happened? As I was retracing my memories, I suddenly noticed a gap in my recollection.
When did I collapse?
Was it when I used Pile Regret?
No, I felt intense pain then, but my consciousness was certainly there.
I shouldn’t have lost consciousness.
However, my memory of what happened afterward was hazy.
“According to Kaido’s report, you started screaming the moment you grasped the Ore Tree. They also said you seemed to be enduring the pain. You were writhing in pain for only a few seconds. When you were attacked by the Dragon King’s Shinz Skull Dragon, you repelled it, and later defeated it. They said your movements at that time could only be described as abnormal.”
“Abnormal?”
“They said their eyes couldn’t keep up. I don’t believe you could exhibit such power with your current abilities either. We tested it, suspecting the Ore Tree might have provided some trigger, and this is the result.”
Without dwelling on that, she calmly explained the situation and gently handed me a copy of the medical chart.
It was a copy, and the explanation was written in a way that was easy for me to understand. Looking at the section for blood, I saw a red line drawn, and the attention-grabbing text below it made me gasp.
“Dragon’s blood?”
“Yes. It’s something no human could possibly possess. Yet, it is within you.”
Did my bloodline include dragons? I thought back to my mother’s and father’s family lines, and I couldn’t recall any mention of dragon lineage.
“The cause is the Ore Tree.”
“The Ore Tree?”
“Yes, I honestly can’t fully believe something like this could happen. It’s true that the Ore Tree is still largely unknown, but I’ve never heard of it bestowing dragon’s blood upon its wielder.”
Ervia gestured with her eyes, urging me to turn the page. On the next page, a simple report was attached.
“I’ve confiscated the Ore Tree that was wrapped around your arm. Something like this happened, and we needed to investigate various things. During that examination, two types of blood were confirmed: your blood, and blood that closely resembled it, which was dragon’s blood.”
“? What do you mean?”
“I’m not certain. Naturally, as there are no past examples. What follows is speculation based on the examination results from the researcher and blacksmith who investigated this. Your Ore Tree absorbed your own blood and, using your blood as a base, created dragon’s blood and infused it into your body.”
“Haa!? Is that even possible!?”
“I told you there were no past examples. But the Ore Tree inherently possesses the potential to become any sword. It can become a Holy Sword or a Magic Sword. Considering that, if it’s happening in reality, then it’s probably possible.”
“But, at that time, I was in a magic body, right? It shouldn’t have had any effect on my actual body.”
“Your thinking is largely correct, but I’ll make one correction. It’s merely that the body recomposed with magic was returned to its original state when you left the Dungeon. Do you understand? The modified parts are applied to the original body; otherwise, your statuses wouldn’t increase.”
Ervia explained that injuries are adjusted to be healed upon exiting, but even though I wasn’t panicking, I could tell something incredible had happened to my body.
“…There are cases where individuals who once absorbed dragon’s blood died due to rejection. However, in your case, you survived because you created the dragon’s blood from your own blood. Since it’s your own blood, your body could adapt to it to some extent. With a body enhanced by a magic crest and the created blood, these two conditions are why you only experienced minor repercussions. For now, the only unusual part noted in the examination is your body, strengthened by that blood.”
As if to alleviate my inner turmoil, Ervia produced a mirror before me. Peering into it, I saw my usual self reflected.
“We still need to conduct some more examinations, but if there are no problems, we’ll aim for your discharge tomorrow. I’ll contact Suella and the others, so rest well today.”
“Yes.”
Relieved by this, I let out a sigh. Ervia, about to leave to return to work, stopped at the curtain.
“Ervia-san? Is something wrong?”
“…Jiro.”
“Yes.”
“I’m glad you’re safe.”
With those words, I realized that despite her stern demeanor, she was worried about me.
“I apologize for causing you concern.”
“If you’re going to answer, try to be a little more casual.”
Seeing Ervia’s expression as she glanced back slightly, I rephrased.
“Sorry to have worried you, and thank you for worrying, Ervia.”
“…*Pfft*. Calling me by my first name isn’t so bad either.”
Hearing my words, she gave a faint smile and then teleported away.
And I collapsed onto the bed with a thud.
“…I’ve quit being human.”
When I quit my company, I didn’t have much regret, but at this moment, I was a little shocked.
Today’s Quote:
It’s better if you can say, “I’m glad you’re safe.”
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*The first volume of this book has been published by Hayakawa Bunko JA.
It was released on October 18, 2018.
The e-book version was released on October 31 of the same year.
Volume two was released on December 19.
Volume three was released on February 20, 2019.
The content includes revisions and expansions of the material originally posted on Shousetsuka ni Narou, along with the addition of unpublished interlude chapters.
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A comic adaptation is being serialized in Kodansha’s “Young Magazine The Third.”
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