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Kim Hajun stared at the mushroom cloud of smoke floating upwards in the distance. The meteor Vur had called had struck the ground and penetrated deep within, setting off an explosion and causing lava to gush out of the earth. Even the perpetual fog lingering in the valleys of the sword mountain range had been blown away, revealing the thin bodies of the mountains. Some of them were cracking and crumbling, and the fiends that lived within the valleys were panicking while running for their lives. A furrow appeared on Kim Hajun’s brow; the way the fiends fled, it reminded him of the way humans had fled when the Oebu Sin attacked the tower in his prophetic dream.
The rumbling continued as the hole Vur had created with the meteor continued to expand, the surrounding land falling down into the lava within the pit. The mountains cracked like thunder as they slowly collapsed, their foundations shaken by the gigantic hole left behind by Vur’s attack. The mountaintop Kim Hajun was standing on shifted, and he turned his head towards Vur and Tafel.
“I think we should get out of here,” Tafel said and pursed her lips. “Should we do anything about that?” She gestured towards the meteor’s impact zone.
“No,” Vur said and shook his head. “The tower will fix it.”
Tafel nodded. “Great,” she said. “Where are we going next now that we have the insect gold sap?”
Kim Hajun glanced over the edge of the mountaintop once more. It would take a long time for the sword mountain range to recover to its original state without any external assistance, perhaps several decades. Then again, to a dragon, several decades wasn’t that long of a time. If Kim Hajun left a mess in his backyard, and he knew it’d naturally disappear over the weekend, he’d leave it alone and let nature do its thing just like Vur was doing now.
“We wait for Sir Selddup,” Vur said. “After he finds the Oebu Sin insect swarm, we’ll use the sap to lure them to the battlefield.”
“Poor Ashley,” Tafel said, causing Vur to tilt his head. “She’s the one we sent to find the bugs, but you’re giving all the credit to her dog.” She shrugged. “Well, I guess you’re not wrong; dogs do tend to be better at tracking things than people are.” Then, the demon looked at Kim Hajun. “So, you’ve seen Vur’s innate ability. What are your thoughts? Is it enough to stop the Oebu Sin?”
“It’s hard to say after seeing only a single attack,” Kim Hajun said before frowning at Vur. “How many attacks on that level can you unleash before running out of energy? Do you have abilities that let you participate in a prolonged fight? There’s a saying back where I came from: enough ants can even kill an elephant. You shouldn’t underestimate the swarm; there are billions of individual insects.”
Vur stared at Kim Hajun and gulped. “How many meals is that?”
“What?” Kim Hajun asked, the question bypassing the filter in his head that prevented him from making a fool of himself. “I, uh, I’m not sure, but if you catch one of the insects and tell me how many calories you consume in a day, I can make a rough estimate for you.”
“What’s a calorie?” Vur asked and tilted his head.
“Never mind,” Kim Hajun said. “Even if you ate nothing but the bugs from the swarm every day for the rest of your life, I don’t think you’d finish them all even with a dragon’s lifespan if you try to eat them by yourself.”
Vur blinked and swallowed his saliva. “Unlimited food?”
“Yes,” Kim Hajun said after a short pause. There seemed to be some sort of miscommunication happening between him and Vur. Perhaps it was because Vur was a dragon, and dragons didn’t really feel a sense of danger or urgency. Kim Hajun furrowed his brow. If Vur overestimated himself and lured the Oebu Sin only to be defeated by them, the tower would face destruction. Kim Hajun squinted at Vur and Tafel before letting out a sigh. Even if he wanted to stop the couple, he was too weak. Also, he was relying on them to take him out of here; the mountaintop was shaking way too much.
***
“How do you feel?” Lindyss asked the fairy queen standing on the table. Seconds earlier, there was a sparkling orb in front of the fairy. Now, Erin was the only thing on the table; she was hunched over while clutching her stomach as if she had food poisoning.
“I feel like … I still haven’t digested all the booze you gave me,” Erin said before raising her head to make eye contact with the cursed elf.
“Yeah, that’s not what I was asking,” Lindyss said and leaned forward, propping her elbows up on the table before resting her cheeks on her palms. “Did anything change after you used the innate ability orb? Do you feel sicker? Poisoned? Like you’re going to drop dead any second now?”
A dark expression appeared on Erin’s face. “Are you treating me like an experimental test subject?” Her eyes widened. “This is what you meant by you were going to see if there were any negative side effects!” The fairy queen flew up and stomped her foot in the air as she crossed her arms over her chest. “What would you have done if something bad did happen to me? Can you withstand the guild that’d befall you for treating an innocent fairy like this? Apologize!”
Lindyss’ eyes glazed over as her face took on a neutral expression. “I’m sorry,” she said in a monotonous voice.
“Huh?” Erin made a questioning sound and blinked. Although she had demanded an apology, she wasn’t actually expecting one, not from the cursed elf, who put up a stony exterior. The fairy queen tilted her head. “Is everything okay?”
A frown appeared on Lindyss’ face as she clutched her head with her right hand. She glared at the fairy queen. “Did you just use controlling magic on me?”
Erin blinked and looked down at herself. For some reason, she felt like she could give people orders, and they’d have to listen to her when she did. Was this her new innate ability? It wasn’t as good as the infinite mana pool she was hoping for, but it was still awesome! She raised her head and flinched upon seeing the scowl on the cursed elf’s countenance. “Maybe?” the fairy queen asked. A glint appeared in Erin’s eyes, and a smile split her lips. “I command you to dance!”