Episode 15 – Heart
The place was filled with converging tubes.
Blue, red, and even green tubes of various sizes—likely the ones spread throughout the creature’s body—ran along the walls, all stretching toward and converging on a single spherical object.
That sphere was unmistakably a stone.
It was a scarlet Calvaon.
Its size was on a completely different scale compared to the Calvaon found in normal monsters. Even monsters that appear in mid-level dungeons only have Calvaon about the size of a fist. But the one before Nada and the others towered over their height with ease—large enough that five people could enter it without any trouble. The tubes connected to the heart were so thick that even a person could pass through them.
And that Calvaon was, undeniably, moving.
Its surface was rough, gleaming with that dull luster typical of minerals—or rather, typical of Calvaon. It looked hard as stone, yet it pulsated slowly and deeply. About twice per minute. Perhaps because it had to circulate blood through the massive body of a creature of impossible scale, its heartbeat was extremely slow.
Nada and the others were stunned to see the Calvaon beating as the dragon’s heart. They had suspected it, but seeing it in motion with their own eyes shattered their preconceived notion that Calvaon was just stone.
What they saw was the fusion of stone and flesh—two incompatible things coexisting as a single living organ. Every time the stone throbbed, the tubes throbbed with it, sending blood slowly onward. They even saw moments where the blood vessels briefly swelled. No matter how closely they looked, they couldn’t tell where the stone ended, and the tubes began.
There was no boundary.
The heart was scarlet, and the blood vessels were a similar shade of red. In the areas where they joined, the colors blended into mottled patches of crimson and red, where flesh and stone mixed together.
“…That’s—?”
Nada murmured.
His eyes were completely drawn to the dragon’s Calvaon.
This was their first time seeing a Calvaon inside a living body—Nada, Serena, even Amarelo. To them, Calvaon had always been nothing more than spoils taken from monsters, a resource for daily living. They had never questioned its nature, nor considered what it meant to the monsters themselves.
All they knew was that Calvaon existed near the creature’s heart.
They had never seen it move, nor imagined it would—not until entering the dragon’s body.
Yet seeing it with their own eyes filled Nada with confusion.
A stone was truly moving—
He mulled over that fact deeply.
In the modern city of Inferno—and the Kingdom of Paraíso as a whole—Calvaon was known to be a fuel far stronger and longer-lasting than firewood, but learning that it moved, that it beat like an organ—
The three of them were probably the first in history to witness this. They had never heard such a thing, not even as a rumor.
“I truly did not think it would actually be moving. This must not be a dream, yes…?”
“No, it’s real. Even my eyes see it moving—”
Serena grimaced as she answered Amarelo’s doubt.
“Well, whether it’s moving or not doesn’t matter right now. Once we slice that thing in half, everything will be settled—”
Nada shifted the Green Dragon Crescent Blade he had been resting on his shoulder, turning it horizontally as he glared at the Calvaon.
In his eyes, the Calvaon was already nothing more than a target for slaughter.
Any questions or curiosity he had moments ago vanished into the sky.
For Nada, seeing something for the first time in his life was ultimately trivial.
“Indeed. We are adventurers, not scholars. If that is the weak point, then our course of action is obvious—”
Amarelo placed his left hand on the weapon at his waist, slightly raising the tsuba from the sheath.
“As unpleasant as it is to agree with you two, I’ll go along with it. But more importantly, what do we do about the thing coming from over there?”
Serena pointed at the large shadow emerging from behind the massive Calvaon—whether it was a monster or an insect.
Since Nada and Amarelo were already focused on that point, they must have noticed it even before Serena spoke.
There was only one shadow.
An insect.
But it was entirely unlike the ones they had encountered up to now.
—It was sharp.
Sharper than any blade they had ever seen, sharper than any spear, sharper than any weapon crafted to pierce flesh.
“The gatekeeper’s arrived…”
As Nada said that, his face wasn’t fearful—it was expressionless.
Even though they were about to fight a monster none of them had ever seen before, not a shred of fear showed on Nada’s face.
—The creature, rather than an insect or even a monster, was closer to a single spear. A charging lance. Its form resembled the lance used by knights on horseback.
“Another strong-looking inscent… no, monster, perhaps? It’s carrying a terribly troublesome weapon…”
Even as Amarelo said that, he wasn’t shaken at all.
In fact, he laughed lightly as usual—almost cheerfully. Was it curiosity toward a monster he’d never seen before? Or curiosity toward a type of weapon he’d never seen before?
Whichever it was, Amarelo’s body twitched slightly, carrying the kind of bloodlust that said he could leap in to cut it down at any moment.
—This insect also resembled a knight. Its form was similar to the one Amarelo had fought earlier: centaur-like, as if a knight riding a horse. Its dull, metallic, armor-like carapace looked exactly like proper plate armor.
“It’s holding a lance, no doubt. A massive weapon. My first time seeing that weapon. And… its specialty is obvious at a glance.”
Meanwhile, Serena—drawing the sword at her waist and clearly signaling her readiness for battle—trembled like a timid herbivore before a predator.
Was it because the weapon the insect carried was of a shape she had never seen? Or was it fear of the unknown monster? Or perhaps her sixth sense was whispering to her: The creature before you is dangerous.
—The insect’s most defining feature wasn’t its horse-like lower body, nor its left arm forming a massive, inverted-triangle kite shield. Its true peculiarity was the right arm—everything from the elbow down had become an enormous, conical lance.
Lances were, like the Green Dragon Crescent Blade, a weapon that had already died out among humans.
The reason was simple: as wars between humans declined and nations came to prefer adventurers over mercenaries, weapons usable only on horseback—or large weapons awkward to handle in dungeons—naturally fell out of use.
The lance was one such relic.
Because of its sheer size, wielding it freely required considerable strength. Thus, it was mostly used on horseback, where it excelled at skewering ranks of soldiers. But horses could not be brought into dungeons. Some adventurers still tried to use lances, but with stabbing as their only practical technique, one by one, those users disappeared. Today, not a single adventurer still fights with a lance.
But what about the insect before them?
It had overcome every weakness.
Its lower body was like a horse, giving it speed far beyond any human adventurer. And as a monster, human muscular limitations meant nothing—Nada assumed it could wield the lance with ease. Monsters exceeding human strength were hardly rare.
“That one looks strong…”
Nada lowered his stance slightly, focusing on the creature before him.
Behind the bluish helm-like carapace—shaped like a horned knight’s helmet—the eyes hidden within shone a deep, azure blue.
And before any of the three could move, the insect moved first.
Author Note:
The dragon's heart was modeled after the heart of a blue whale.
After looking it up, I realized just how insanely huge it really is.
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