The Dragon That Guards The Treasure – Part 2

Chloe, Keil and I made our way to the daunting cave entrance through the loose rocks and boulders of the collapsed buildings. As we got there, the low rumble permeating the air and ground became louder and louder. Among the darkness, we could see the silhouette of some beast further up ahead, sleeping peacefully.

“(There he is. Our friend Cave Dragon.)”

I pointed the Debuggun at it to get a reading on it.

<Mob: Elder Cave Dragon (Lv. 87)

HP: 20000/20000

MP: 500

Skills: Flame, Fireball, Spikes, Magma, Dragon Laser

Status conditions: Infected (※¶ƒ¢⁋$†%)>

“Uh-oh.”

“What is the problem, Takashi?” Keil asked, confused.

Oh, right. They don’t know the Debuggun also checks stats. Well, whatever.

“Well, huh… just look at it. I think it’s an Elder Cave Dragon, not a regular one.”

Indeed, there were a couple of differences between normal and Elder Cave Dragons—most notably their size, the color of their hide and, crucially, their ability to withstand magical attacks.

“Oh, you know your stuff. So this is an Elder, huh? That’s impossible for me to handle alone.”

“Seems like it. But this is odd. How did this guy become an Elder?” I asked.

I was absolutely sure he had been a regular Cave Dragon in Arcforge.

“I mean, it has been over one hundred years since anyone has been here,” Chloe said. “Is it that surprising?”

Now that she mentions it…

It was said in the lore documents that dragons who lived for over one hundred years became elders. Obviously, Arcforge never ran for that long, so every Elder Dragon spawned as an elder, and you couldn’t “make” any more. But here, in the real Iditath, that lore snippet once again became a reality.

The mechanism itself was irrelevant, though. The fact was that this Cave Dragon became an Elder, and that brought with it a massive increase in its stats and HP. But we didn’t have to deal with that at all.

“If I just hit it with the Resetting Beam, it should just return to its spawn state.”

Yes, that’s right. We could just ignore this entire “Elder” thing.

Being careful to not wake the dragon up, I brandished the Debuggun and fired my Resetting Beam at it. It hit the dragon squarely in the snout.

However, other than a bit of color returning to its hide, nothing about its size or appearance really changed.

Hold on. Didn’t the Resetting Beam work?

“Takashi, it looks the exact same as before.”

“I… What?”

What is going on? Maybe when it changed class to “Elder”, it became a new mob under the rules of the Debuggun?

But honestly, we had bigger problems to deal with than that.

Now that I think about it, what’s the default spawning state of Cave Drag—

That thought was cut it off before I had a chance to finish it. Immediately after hitting the dragon, the thing roared back to life.

“What have you done?!” Chloe screamed.

“Sorry, I didn’t remember its default state was awake—woah!”

The Cave Dragon didn’t even hesitate and began charging its iconic Dragon Laser.

“Let’s run out of here!”

“Oh, for Bealrak’s sake…!”

You’re cursing to the wrong god, Chloe!

The three of us scrambled out of the cave entrance, running downhill as fast as we could. I almost tripped on the loose rocks a fair few times. And then, a laser beam of pure purple and white energy shot out just above me, striking through the blue sky. I didn’t stop to admire the view, though. I just kept running and running until crossing over the area cleared of the White Death, inside the safety of the Polis.

“Phew, that was inten—” I said, assuming that Chloe was right beside me. However, she wasn’t. When I looked back—

“Chloe!”

There she was, uphill from me, collapsed among the boulders. And right behind her was a massive and very angry Cave Dragon, a stout and armored brownish beast, whose only goal was to destroy the humans who woke it up from its slumber.

She must have slipped on her outfit or something…!

I had to do something to rescue her, otherwise she’d be turned into a pulp by paws the size of a car.

“Go get her! I’ll cover you!” Keil said from beside me. “Light Arrow!”

An arrow of light shot out from behind me, hitting the Cave Dragon’s side. It did little more than stagger it. Dragons had a lot of elemental magic resistance, and usually Holy and Profane Magic could hit through them, but Elder Cave Dragons in particular had very thick hides. Keil’s attack was like tickling an elephant.

The attack did, however, shift the Cave Dragon’s aggro to Keil. The beast completely ignored Chloe as it began charging its Dragon Laser again in his direction, a ball of energy forming in its throat—but that was precisely what I was looking for.

If the weak point is the same as in Arcforge, then…!

“Shadow Strike!” I called, pointing directly at the Cave Dragon’s throat!

The dark ball of light hit the inside of the beast, dealing massive damage—or so I hoped, anyway. Unfortunately, this risky strategy didn’t stun lock the beast, or anything, so I had to quickly run to the side and duck into the ground. Just above my head, the laser beam shot out, its heat almost burning my back.

“Gosh, that’s hot!”

The laser beam hit the Polis’ protective bubble, which instead of absorbing the energy, made it skim through the surface, refocus on the other side, and shot out as if it wasn’t even there in the first place.

I didn’t stay down to admire the view. As Keil and the others scrambled to deal with the Cave Dragon, I ran up to Chloe’s side.

“Come on, get up!”

“Ugh. I hate this stupid outfit!”

She began trying to get up, but as soon as she put weight on her right foot, she lost her balance; if it wasn’t for me, she’d have fallen straight back to the ground.

“Great, and now I’ve strained my foot. This sucks.”

“Can’t you just heal it yourself?”

“Don’t ya remember how long Heal takes to cast? We’d be mincemeat.”

“Ah, I suppose you’re right.”

The basic healing skill in Arcforge, <Heal>, took up to fifteen seconds to cast. Even with the Airdrake crew covering us, if the Cave Dragon got his sights on us, that would be capital B Bad.

“Alright, get on my back,” I said as I crouched down next to her.

“This again? Ya really love feeling up my tits, don’t ya?”

“You really think this is the time for that?! Now get on, or I’ll leave you behind.”

“Okay, okay. Fine! Geez.”

Since she had no choice, she wrapped her arms around my neck while I held her legs.

“Hurry up, Takashi. The Cave Dragon is lookin’ right at us!”

Apparently, this guy knew we were the weakest link, so as it shrugged off Keil and the others’ attacks, it turned its attention to us. I began hearing the swirling of the energy in its mouth once again. We had just a few seconds until it fired another laser.

“Can you cast Light Strike into its mouth while I’m running away?!”

“Light Strike? But—”

“Do as I say! You can or you can’t?!”

“I can! Give me a sec.” She let go of her left hand from my neck and pointed her staff at the dragon to our left. “Light Strike!”

A ball of light shot out, hitting the inside of its mouth once again. The dragon staggered a bit from the damage, but it didn’t flinch; instead, it locked onto us with increased rage. Putting as much force as I could on my legs, I ran the few meters until we got to the Polis, though I almost tripped a couple of times because of the extra weight on my back.

We got there just in time. The laser beam the dragon shot grazed the Polis to the side, not reaching us by a few meters.

“Phew. That was harrowing,” I said as I let Chloe down on the ground.

“Takashi! Chloe!”

Fianna’s voice brought us back to reality. The three of them had retreated back into the Polis, and the Cave Dragon, with no target, just looked at us angrily.

“Are you two okay?” The elf asked.

“I’m fine. Chloe strained her ankle, but she couldn’t heal herself out there.”

“That was a good choice. Had you taken any more time, it would have vaporized you.”

“Quite a dashing rescue there, Takashi!” Keil added as he patted my back with his huge muscular arms.

It hurts, man. I’ll need Chloe’s healing myself at this rate.

“Yeah, he loves rushing straight into danger without considering the consequences,” Chloe added with just a tinge of Yzara’s usual snark.

“I did save you, didn’t I? Now heal yourself while you still can.”

Chloe let out a cute “hmph” and proceeded to chant her healing spell.

“How about you guys?”

“We’re fine,” Fianna said. “But the Airdrake is another story.”

Only when she pointed it out did I notice that the oblong airship now had a deflated section, making it look like it had suffered a dent.

“The Dragon Laser from before hit the part of the Airdrake that jutted out from the Polis’ protection. We’ll have to repair it, otherwise we’re not flying.”

“Well, great.”

So we are stranded on this mountain side, Cave Dragon or not.

“With Tanney around, we can refill the balloon after the area is secured, but…”

“Yeah. With the rampaging dragon, that’s not happening.”

“A-at least we’re protected now,” Tanney said.

“Kinda,” I added.

“‘Kinda’?” Keil asked.

“The Polis can take a few hits, yes, but if it gets too much damage, it’ll shut down again.”

“Ahh, great. So we can’t just take our time with that guy, can we?”

“Nope. We’re really going to have to defeat it, and fast.”

I took the chance to point the Debuggun at it to get another reading.

<Mob: Elder Cave Dragon (Lv. 87)

HP: 14345/20000

MP: 500

Skills: Flame, Fireball, Spike Creation, Magma, Dragon Laser

Status conditions: None>

Yes! More than 5000 HP of damage is a ton at this level! And its MP is going down too!

“Why are you grinning so much, Takashi?”

“Its HP has gone down—I mean, I can see it has taken quite a bit of damage.”

“Really? But I thought Cave Dragons were the toughest dragons around, especially against magic attacks,” Fianna added. “So how did we do so much damage?”

“It was those strikes inside its mouth—right, Takashi?” Chloe said, evidently done with her healing.

“Yeah. Every dragon takes more damage inside their mouths. But it’s very risky to target that area specifically because it doesn’t stun them, and you get right in the path of its laser.”

“Guess as long as we’re inside, we’re safe. Should we just target it from here?”

“Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Our magic won’t get outside the protective bubble, and it eventually could break through the Polis’ defenses.”

We’d have to go out there and deal with it the old-fashioned way.

“Everyone, hear me out. I have a plan.”