Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka?

Past Arc ④

Her mission – to protect primitive creatures. Sariel has been carrying out that mission since the distant past. Protecting creatures from natural disasters, in particular protecting them from gods coming from off-world, only ever thinking about the situation of the primitive creatures. She has saved many lives. However, for Sariel who is specialised for combat, there was also countless lives that she was unable to save. Each time that happened, Sariel pondered. What is the best option? Where did things go wrong? Simply carrying out her mission. All to accomplish that, since before mankind even developed civilisation, Sariel has continuously been pondering such things.

Dealing with gods invading from outside is simple enough. Sariel belongs to the seraph class of higher order angels. Her combat abilities are so high that average gods don’t stand a chance against her. It makes no difference if they’re dragons either. The reason why dragons don’t rule this planet, is because of the existence of Sariel. In order to defeat Sariel, it would be completely impossible without the upper echelon dragons joining in. Even then there would be no certainty, and if they were careless even the upper echelon dragons could be defeated. The upper echelon dragons on this planet are aware of that. Gyuriedistodiez wasn’t aware of that. That’s why, he took action while being unaware of how terrifying she was.

He stretched out his unheld hand towards Sariel. That he moved to grab her rather than punch her, perhaps shows that a sense of reason still just barely remained in Gyuriedistodiez’s brain, or perhaps that he instinctively sensed that he couldn’t win and hesitated to completely antagonize her. Either way, the fact that he didn’t try to punch her, resulted in Gyuriedistodiez escaping death.

Gyuriedistodiez’s hand that made to try to grab her was brushed away. It was an action so casual that a “slap” sound effect could practically be heard, but for a god like Gyuriedistodiez to have his hand brushed away, wasn’t something that was normally possible. In the first place, Gyuriedistodiez’s grabbing hand easily surpassed the speed of sound, so considering that it was repelled with a physical body, it means that the collision alone between both hands would cause terrible shock-waves. That was due to the laws of physics, but Sariel disregarded them. As she had used a barrier to forcibly shut in the explosion that would normally have caused damage to the area. Taking the destruction of the surrounding area into consideration, is a pointless action in the midst of battle. However, the fact that she actually did it, indicates the true gap in strength between Sariel and Gyuriedistodiez.

「Second warning. Physical interference towards primitive creatures cannot be permitted. Allowing such actions violate the aforementioned mission. Will proceed to elimination.」

As the words indicated, the words spoken just recently were repeated.

「There will be no third warning.」

However, the words that followed were completely merciless advice. It was a plain declaration that if he tried to do anything further then he would be eliminated without question. However, Gyuriedistodiez was not aware that he was being treated with considerable tolerance thus far. Based on the information she had gained of this incident, Sariel knew which side was at fault. While there was nothing praiseworthy about raising a hand to unrelated members of the public, she also knew that dragons saw humans not as individuals but as a race. For that reason, she held back from crushing him immediately. Normally, the instant any non-native species tried to take action against the primitive creatures of this planet, she would crush them without question. Comparing that to this occasion, issuing a warning not just once, but ignoring a little prank and issuing a second warning, shows a considerable degree of tolerance. If Sariel had come here without knowing anything instead, or if Gyuriedistodiez had tried to punch her rather than grab her instead, then his life would have ended right there. And then, his lucky breaks continued.

「Hm!?」

A grunt of surprise leaked out from Gyuriedistodiez mouth. However, that was not due to Sariel, and instead his gaze went through Sariel to a different location. To where the abducted infant dragon was. In Gyuriedistodiez’s eyes, at the place where the infant dragon was being held, armed humans could be seen breaking in. Those armed humans, were also identifiable as belonging to the regular army of this country. Gyuriedistodiez single-mindedly concentrated on their actions, checking whether any harm could come to the abducted infant dragon. That concern passed without being realised, and the attacking soldiers captured the group of kidnappers. The abducted infant dragon was safely taken into protection. Observing that through clairvoyance Gyuriedistodiez breathed a light sigh of relief that the infant was no longer in danger for now. Then, remembering that his hand was still being held, he became baffled as to what he should do for the first time since coming here.

Gyuriedistodiez realised that the still expressionless woman holding his hand, was the stray angel Sariel that he had heard about. He had heard about her. About the stray angel on this planet, and that precisely because of her existence the dragons could only take half-hearted actions. However, there are things that can’t be understood without seeing her in person. With Gyuriedistodiez seeing her in person, he realised that his expectations of her were unimaginably naive.

Dragons uniquely have the ability to create a special boundary field. A field that invalidates all magecraft, something that could be said to be the natural enemy of gods that rely upon the foundation of the paranormal phenomenon known as magecraft. Naturally, Gyuriedistodiez was using that ability as well. However, that field, was currently being suppressed by force. It was being overwritten by the field that Sariel had projected. The field that dragons have can invalidate even the magecraft of gods. However, Sariel had turned that common sense upside down, and was suppressing Gyuriedistodiez’s field with another field of such power that it couldn’t be invalidated. A pure feat of strength, to an absolutely absurd degree.

The difference in strength was simply too great. Here and now, Gyuriedistodiez became aware that he himself had done something very risky. If he had ignored the second warning and had launched another attack then what? Without doubt the dragon known as Gyuriedistodiez would have come to an end there. By chance the rescue operation of the abducted infant dragon occurred with opportune timing, and without the country’s army storming into the kidnapper’s base he likely wouldn’t have been distracted. However, if that hadn’t happened and with him having lost his cool at the time, what would the end result have been then? On imagining such a thing, this time Gyuriedistodiez became cool-headed.

「The subjugation seems to be completed. We should go.」

Still holding Gyuriedistodiez’s hand, Sariel walked off towards the scene. Gyuriedistodiez followed, lead by Sariel’s hand. In his dread, Gyuriedistodiez couldn’t do anything except to follow in silence.

Afterwards, the abducted infant dragon was safely delivered into Gyuriedistodiez’s hands, and as the one who reported the location of the criminals to the country, Sariel gave a firm refusal to the army commander who had wanted to give her hospitality as a reward. She simply left. The young dragon looking on that scene, would never have imagined in his wildest dreams that he would fall in love with her later on.