True Love's Seventh Kiss

Ch.14 Holy Water Get!

"Slowly..." Novak said as he and Marion managed to fill the bottles and plug them.

[Obtained Elven Spring water 2/2]

"Slowly..." Novak hushed as he put his hand out protectively between Marion and the dragon. They began to walk backwards as they placed the holy water in their pouches.

The dragon's eye was the size of Novak's torso which made its head the size of a cart and its body the size of a large warehouse. Its gaze hovered over both of them as it raised its massive head to get a better look.

Marion considered how in a normal "overpowered Isekai story" he would be forced to fight this thing or befriend it and it would turn it into a pretty dragon girl. However, looking at the size and presences of the dragon really forced Marion to accept just how utterly stupid that was! It must be so easy for authors to just tap their fingers away and write 'and then it was a pretty girl' from their safe keyboards with their designer coffee drinks.

They should be forced to stare down an actual dragon and feel the mana burn their bones just by standing next to them before they start making up such ridiculous garbage. Somehow while thinking this Marion wasn't watching where he was looking and stepped on a twig. The dragon then revealed its teeth and growled threateningly at them.

"go, Go, GO!" Novak said urgently as he started rushing Marion toward the exit.

Together they made a mad dash to escape.

The dragon roared at them in response to the sudden movement. Its roar shook the ground, and they could actually feel the dragon's hot breath on their backs as the Mana in the area flared up with aggressive energy that made them both wish they had worn brown pants.

"Kaliban, I'm pretty sure the ghouls heard that! Get ready to push through them!" Marion shouted as he hopped over a bush and narrowly dodged a fairy that was frozen in fright along the way.

Marion's heart skipped a beat when he heard the footsteps of the dragon shuffle around to give pursuit. When he glanced back, he saw the dragon begin to take a long breath. Whether it was to blow fire or roar again neither was ideal.

"INCOMING!" Marion shouted when he saw the glowing yellow of a furnace within the dragon's teeth.

They cleared the door but not before Novak turned around and threw up a shield to block the blast of fire. He was able to block it off, but it hurt in every way to cast magic, and casting it here in the forest next to the sanctum just made it worse.

Once the fire had died down the recoil of casting in his condition as well as defending against dragon fire forced him to his knees and he coughed blood while seeing stars. The pain was actually deafening, so he couldn't tell if his ears were ringing because he just fought a dragon or if it was because of his body.

Luckily, Marion wasted no time. He grabbed his father's arm and slung it around his neck then he hoisted him by the waist and practically dragged him onward. The dragon roared again, but they couldn't look back anymore as they stumbled past the giant mushrooms to the stairway.

Novak didn't recover from the vertigo of the backlash until hallway up the stairs and it wasn't a moment too soon as the ghouls had found their way to the noise and started engaging in combat with Kaliban.

Marion was impressed with Kaliban's ability to cut down the ghouls as well as their own ability to survive being slashed in half. Marion drew his own cutlass and the odd familiar feeling of the handle washed over him. He couldn't dwell on it though as he had to stab and cut down the active parts of ghouls they rushed by.

Marion ignored the counting prompts from finishing off the ghouls since surviving and protecting his weakened father were much bigger parts of his concern. Especially, since he could hear the loud and heavy foot falls of the pursuing dragon.

When they reached the top of the stairs, they managed to jump out of the doorway in time for another dragon fire breath to come out of it. The fire incinerated the ghouls standing in a direct line of the doorway and Novak threw up another barrier, this time to merely protect from the heat instead of trying to block the fire.

The smell was already unpleasant thanks to the corpse-like ghouls but with the cooking and burning smells it made it so much worse to the point Marion dry heaved. At that point he was glad he skipped dinner.

Once the breath attack finished, Kaliban waved his arm and let loose an explosive ice attack that froze the remaining ghouls and created a giant field of icicles. The ice did little to ease the feeling of being inside an oven and Marion scanned the area looking for a way out. Kaliban was on the opposite side of the door from Marion and Novak and his attack had managed to block the door the ghouls had busted down and create a direct walkway up to the catwalk.

"Come on, Novak." Kaliban rushed to Novak who had been forced to his knee. Luckily, Novak wasn't coughing up blood this time, but that didn't mean he had any more energy since his whole body throbbed with an intense pain of being over encumbered with mana. It felt like his bones and his muscles were bloated. "Just a hop and a skip and we will be to the boat." he said, dropping all formality as he helped the count to his feet.

"Dragons... Irina will never believe we fought a dragon, will she?" Novak laughed as he caught his breath.

"You say that like we are done." Kaliban laughed as he caught Novak's hand and hoisted him to his feet.

They ascended the ice to the loft and Novak forced Marion up the ladder first to the roof he then helped Novak up and Kaliban only just made it up before the building began to rumble and churn in a way it was never was never meant to move.

They quickly attached themselves to the lines and started their ascent.

Meanwhile the Dragon seemed to be forcing it's way through the narrow pathway coming from the inner sanctum until its large body unseated the whole church from the ground it was resting on.

"It's too late to relax boys," Novak said weakly as he drew his rapier. On the way to the ship, they noticed it was surrounded by more ghoulish gargoyles. With the help of the knights and Henry they were quickly fished aboard. They didn't have much time to flop around on deck since the knights were beginning to tire and Herman was trying to treat Klayus who was bleeding in a bad way from his side neck and left arm.

"Took you guys long enough." Henry quipped. "Did you find it?"

"'It' and so much more we need to move!" Marion said and dashed to the Helm.

The dragon roared again as it breached the surface of the earth's crust as if it were a whale coming up for air.

"What was that? RION! WHAT WAS THAT!?" Henry squeaked as he followed.

"Something big and scary!" Marion pulled a lever that released the break. He spun a wheel next to the steering wheel to open up the throttle and then nearly broke off the lever that artificially propelled the ship forward with the engine.

There was a pipe next to the controls that allowed the helmsman to speak with the engineer. "Chaunce full speed ahead, use all the shrikes and crystals we have!"

Something popped up in the corner of Marion's vision that looked like a mini map from a video game. A yellow triangle rested in the middle and there was a dotted line traced through the forest. The dotted line bent around red areas labeled both 'dangerous flying bastards' and 'huge dangerous non-flying bastards'. And then right under the Yellow triangle was a red dot that said [Flying danger noodle- Extra spicy.]

Marion rolled his eyes as the ship roared to life.

He spun the wheel to get it going in the right direction.

[-Quest Update-

-Escape the range of the Extra spicy danger noodle-]