Bellium's Tears.

According to legend, Bellium, who founded Elysium, wept when he found those who had died fighting to protect the city. His tears hardened into what became known as Bellium's Tears. But legend was only legend. No one had ever established exactly how the relics were made. Research had revealed one thing, though: Bellium's Tears contained highly concentrated dragon energy.

In any case, Elysium had preserved Bellium's Tears as precious cultural treasures for their beauty and the legend surrounding them. But several hundred years ago, one of the three surviving Tears was lost. Because of its historical importance, Elysium's scholars searched for it for centuries before finally finding it.

Yet before that precious treasure could even return to Elysium, an unidentified necromancer had nearly stolen it. And now, at this very moment, it was being absorbed by Minjun, an outsider with no connection to the city.

"M-Mr. Minjun!"

"W-what on earth is happening?"

The necromancer, his captive Adil, and the escort team that had come to rescue him—everyone there stared blankly at Minjun as he absorbed Bellium's Tears.

The moment Bellium's Tears entered his body, Minjun felt power welling up beyond his control.

'This is...'

He could feel the energy contained in the relic flowing into him.

He didn't know much about it, but he knew it was a sacred relic of great significance to Elysium. Why was it being absorbed into him? There were questions everywhere, but first he had to subdue the necromancer. Only if they brought him down and returned safely would he have a chance to find answers.

A luminous halo spread out behind Minjun. As it gradually faded, his Dragon Bone Sword began to shine brightly. This was nothing like its usual faint, dark aura. Clusters of brilliant light glimmered within the darkness, like a galaxy scattered across the night sky.

As the aura gathered on Minjun's blade, the necromancer, who had been smug and at ease from the start, grew visibly shaken. When he had sized up their strength, he hadn't imagined he could lose. The aura on Minjun's sword changed his mind completely.

"We've got him!"

Seeing the necromancer shaken by Minjun's sudden surge in power, the escort team's spirits rose. Until moments ago, they had been utterly cowed. Now it seemed their best chance was to let Minjun face the necromancer head-on. In that case...

"Everyone except Minjun, focus everything you've got on holding back the undead!"

They would keep the undead off Minjun so he could concentrate on taking down the necromancer. Under Araven's command, the escort team covered him as he rapidly closed the distance.

Sensing danger, the necromancer pulled the bound Adil against his body to use him as a human shield. With a hostage pressed so close, Minjun would have trouble attacking.

But Minjun charged without hesitation and thrust his sword forward. Caught off guard, the necromancer lost his grip on Adil. The strike left only a small scratch on his arm, but it freed Adil from his hold long enough for a rescue.

Araven, who had been holding off the undead behind them, saw his chance. He darted in, pulled Adil to safety, and moved him to the rear. Once Adil was secure, Araven shouted,

"We'll protect Adil and Levy! Don't worry about us!"

Minjun nodded, poured as much dragon energy as he could into his sword, and swung it hard at the necromancer.

'Even a graze would be fatal.'

The necromancer had no hostage left to shield him, and the others were concentrating on the undead, making it hard to bring them over to block the blow. Dodging was his best option. It wounded his pride, but he had to move with the possibility of retreat in mind.

The necromancer, who had stayed on the offensive until now, began to fall back. Araven and the other mages fighting the undead seized the opening and launched a surprise attack.

"Gah!"

Their attacks clearly landed, but the necromancer showed little sign of slowing. He didn't seem badly hurt.

Minjun frowned. 'We're running out of time.'

Adil needed help, and Levy was bleeding. Nothing good would come of dragging this out. Minjun wanted to end the fight as quickly as possible. Ideally, he would finish the necromancer in one burst of overwhelming force.

'Is there a way?'

Dragon Fear flashed through his mind. It couldn't provide the explosive force he'd been considering, but if it worked, it might stop the undead and the necromancer in their tracks. If everyone attacked together in that instant, they could land a devastating blow.

But...

'Can I do it?'

Absorbing Bellium's Tears had unquestionably made him stronger, so it wasn't impossible. The question was how well he could control the energy. Though he hid it, Minjun was struggling with the dragon energy running wild inside him. It surged out of control, settled, then surged again. There were plenty of uncertainties, including whether this would work at all, but it was his best option.

Recalling the sensation from yesterday, Minjun sent all the killing intent he could muster toward the necromancer.

But the man kept widening the distance between them. Dragon Fear didn't seem to have affected him.

'Did it fail?'

Minjun swallowed a groan. He had managed to unleash it, but the necromancer was strong, and Minjun still lacked practice with Dragon Fear. It hadn't worked on him.

On the other hand, even with his limited mastery, might it work on those numerous undead?

It had. Every undead creature within several hundred meters of Minjun was caught by Dragon Fear, overwhelming terror paralyzing their bodies. That was enough.

Once they saw the undead stop moving, most of the fighters who had been keeping them in check rushed to join the assault on the necromancer. He could no longer properly control the undead within several hundred meters, and attacks from the escort team came flying at him from every direction. He had already had his hands full with Minjun; facing everyone else as well was too much.

Dragon Fear had only half worked, but it had turned the tide completely. Minjun kept unleashing it as he pressed the necromancer.

Bellium's Tears had not yet fully assimilated into his body, and the dragon energy within him continued to fluctuate. Power flowed into the Dragon Bone Sword unevenly as a result, but it didn't matter.

At the instant the dragon energy in his blade reached its peak, Minjun knew this would be the strongest sword strike he had delivered all day. The blow seemed to tear through the space around them. For all his earlier swagger, the necromancer met a shockingly abrupt end.

"... Phew."

Perhaps he had yet to adjust to his new power. Minjun breathed hard after bringing down the necromancer. He sank to one knee, caught his breath, and looked around. The fighting had left the area devastated. Deprived of their controller, the undead collapsed where they stood like marionettes with their strings cut.

"We're in your debt again."

As Minjun rested, Araven, the escort team's leader, approached and knelt on one knee before him. The others did the same in thanks, apart from Levy, who was too badly hurt to steady himself. Last came Adil, hurrying over despite his injuries.

"I pay my respects to the Great One!"

Like so many Elysium soldiers the day before, Adil mistook Minjun for a dragon and prostrated himself before him.

*'Is this déjà vu?'

In the end, Minjun had to explain to Adil, just as he had yesterday, that he was not a dragon.

* * *

The unidentified necromancer who had kidnapped Adil had nearly gotten them all killed or seriously injured, but an unexpected turn had seen them through. They had rescued Adil, and fortunately Levy, the only one wounded, was said to be in no serious danger.

That might have been a happy ending, in a way. But...

'I can't help feeling uneasy.'

Bellium's Tears had saved us from the crisis. Ironically, it had also caused a new problem. I had absorbed it without meaning to.

I really hadn't intended to absorb it. I'd never even seen the thing before today. Now I was in a difficult position. What did the others think they'd witnessed? Did they believe I'd done it deliberately, or did they see it as an unavoidable accident? Either way, there was no denying the trouble I was in.

"What... should I do now?"

Araven let out a deep sigh, apparently just as stumped as I was.

"I... don't know either. It's a precious relic we went to such trouble to recover. I'd like to restore it to how it was, if we could, but I don't think that's possible now. What do you think, Adil?"

"What can I do about it? I don't even know how this happened..."

Sighs rose all around us. Nothing like this had ever happened before, so everyone seemed to be getting a headache over it. And if I'd been a villain, they might at least have blamed me. Since I wasn't, they couldn't even do that.

"For now, we'll have to inform the elders and call an emergency meeting."

Adil squeezed his eyes shut as if his head were throbbing.

"I also heard you need my help, Mr. Minjun. Of course I'll do anything I can, but it looks like I'll have to attend the emergency meeting first."

"I should probably attend too... shouldn't I?"

I was involved in this, after all. But Adil shook his head.

"I think it would be better if you didn't. If they need your account of what happened, I'll let you know then."

After Adil left to summon the elders, Araven said, "Estelle has arranged a room for you. Please stay there for now. I'll let Adil know you're at the inn."

Araven took me to the inn, told me to get plenty of rest, and left.

"How did things get to this point...?"

I set my things down in my room. I wanted to resolve the problem as soon as possible, but there was nothing I could do right now. The meeting looked likely to take a while, so after a short rest, I went to a small clearing behind the inn and took the Dragon Bone Sword out of my pocket dimension. I wanted to get a proper feel for my new power and see what it could do.

A sparring partner or even a practice dummy would have helped me test it better, but that wasn't possible right now. I'd do what I could. First, I meditated, concentrating on the dragon energy flowing through my body. I could clearly feel that there was more of it than before I'd absorbed Bellium's Tears, though considerably less than there had been immediately afterward.

If I had to come up with a theory, perhaps my body couldn't contain all that power, so I hadn't absorbed everything in the relic.

Just in case, I tried using dragon speech, but it failed, as expected. Still, not all failures were the same. I had a feeling that with just a little more, I might finally be able to use it. How should I put it? Given an advantage like the special environment of the Garden of the Dragon Sword, or a connection to the mysterious aura I'd seen yesterday, I thought I could use dragon speech reliably.

As for Dragon Fear... I probably couldn't test that here. One wrong move and I might hurt an innocent bystander.

"I might as well train."

Come to think of it, everything that had happened lately had kept me from training properly. I couldn't train in an environment as ideal as the one I'd had on Earth, but I could at least meditate and practice visualization.

* * *

Elysium's central hall.

"Everyone, take a seat."

A meeting about the Bellium's Tears Minjun had absorbed was just beginning.