"Dammit!"
I had harsher words on the tip of my tongue, but I forced them back down.
Since the dragon was circling far above the tower, Ha-neul and I decided to head back down.
We raced down the stone spiral staircase inside the oval watchtower. To make it down faster, I braced myself against the wall and leaped several steps at a time.
Inside the tower, a priest was already tending to the wounded.
They were rotating—healing soldiers while others fought outside, then swapping them when someone else got mangled.
But there was no telling how long they could hold out like this. Someone needed to land a decisive blow on that dragon.
"Gah... ungh..."
"Just a little longer, hang in there."
Leaving the wounded and the priest behind, we stepped back outside. The situation was grim; we were definitely losing.
Roughly forty guards had been deployed for this hunt, but more than a quarter were already dead.
While that was a larger force than what appeared in the game, what good were a handful of guards against a creature of myth currently leveling the outskirts? We needed a damn army.
Worse yet, the bastard was smart. It wouldn't land.
In the game, the dragon would eventually land to give the player a chance to deal melee damage, but in this reality, a highly intelligent predator had no reason to do that.
The dragon glided effortlessly through the sky, dodging arrows, and whenever its Magicka regenerated, it unleashed a gout of flame hot enough to liquefy steel in seconds.
Five or six men fell with every breath attack. At this rate, we were all dead.
I needed a ranged weapon, so I scavenged an Imperial Bow from a dead guard.
'I'll just borrow this for a bit.'
It was much better than my old longbow. Pulling the string back with everything I had, I aimed for the dragon's wings.
I fired arrow after arrow, but hitting it was a nightmare, and even when I did, my current strength wasn't enough to do more than scratch its hide.
The only one dealing significant damage was Irileth, who was using shock magic.
'If I'd known this was going to be this hard, I would've learned some spells!'
Even though I knew the dragon fight was coming, my preparations felt pathetic. Calling myself a Skyrim veteran felt like a joke right now.
Meanwhile, Irileth cycled between her bow and magic, slowly chipping away at the dragon's health.
Shock magic was slightly weaker than fire in terms of pure damage, but it had a distinct advantage: it drained Magicka.
That meant if she kept hitting her marks, she could deplete the dragon's Magicka and prevent it from using its breath attacks.
But Irileth's own Magicka was clearly hitting its limit.
'Dammit, there has to be a way. I put seven hundred hours into this world. I have to find an opening.'
"Mister! Get down!"
"What?"
I spun around just in time to see Mirmulnir swooping down to snatch me with its talons. I realized too late that I wouldn't be able to dodge—until—
Choi Ha-neul threw herself at me, knocking me out of the path of the claws just in time.
"Oof!"
"Get your head in the game!"
Ha-neul snapped at me. She was right. Staring off into space in the middle of a battle was a death sentence; this was no time for deep thinking.
"Ha-neul, your axe..."
I looked closer and saw the blade of the axe in her hand was warped and melted.
"Ah, this? Must've melted up on top of the tower earlier. Doesn't matter, we have to deal with the dragon!"
Ha-neul fired a firebolt back to retaliate, and while it hit, the effect was negligible.
"Why isn't it working..."
"It's the same element. You're trying to burn a creature of fire."
Both she and I were at a terrible disadvantage against a fire dragon.
Wait, same element—
'That's it!'
"Ha-neul! You still have that scroll from earlier, right?"
"Yeah! But why?"
"Listen carefully to what I say next."
The guards fired a volley, and as if to mock them, the dragon unleashed its breath.
FWOOOOOOSH—
"ARGH!"
"Hartman! No!"
A guard named Hartman was consumed by the Fire Breath, burning alive until he finally collapsed.
In the blink of an eye, there were fewer than ten guards left standing. Irileth had collapsed on the ground, likely suffering from severe burns, her Magicka completely drained.
"Captain Irileth! Go to the priest for healing! Now!"
"Ungh... we don't have the time!"
No sooner had she spoken than the dragon dived again, charging straight for the two of them.
A ball of superheated Magicka was already swirling in the monster's maw. Irileth squeezed her eyes shut, accepting the end.
"Azura... I come to your side..."
Suddenly, a bolt of lightning streaked from the air and slammed into the dragon's flank.
The damage itself wasn't huge, but as I'd planned, the shock magic hit the Magicka pool, interrupting the Fire Breath casting just before it released.
Following the trail of the lightning bolt, a lone Nord was standing atop the watchtower.
Mirmulnir, furious at the sting to his head and losing his prey, snapped his attention to the tower. He banked sharply to kill the pest.
That emotional, tactical error was Mirmulnir's death sentence.
As he charged the tower, an Ice Spear shot out from the ruined midsection of the building where the walls had crumbled.
Normally, it would have been a minor wound.
But the spear buried itself deep into the wing that the fallen soldiers had been hacking at until their last breaths. The sudden flash of frost magic against his fire-based hide acted as a devastating critical hit.
With his wing shredded by the ice, the dragon lost all momentum and slammed into the watchtower before crashing violently onto the dirt.
I knew he'd regain his senses and try to take flight again soon. We had to stop him.
To buy time, I leaped from the top of the tower directly onto the beast's head and unleashed my once-a-day racial ability: Battle Cry.
Against a dragon's indomitable willpower, it shouldn't have done much, but since I screamed it directly into his face, it dazed the bastard for a crucial few seconds.
Not missing those seconds, Choi Ha-neul landed on the dragon's snout. She drew an Imperial Sword she'd borrowed from a dead guard and plunged it into the dragon's head.
She couldn't pierce the skull in one go—Mirmulnir had far too much HP for that—so she began hacking and stabbing with desperate, frantic energy.
"HAAAH!"
—ROAAAAR!
Ha-neul rained down strikes until the dragon's health was a sliver of its former self. Finally, when it was almost spent—
She raised the sword high with both hands and drove it straight through the center of its skull.
"Gurr-ahhh..."
With its brain pierced, Mirmulnir fell dead.
Ha-neul pulled her sword from the dragon's skull and thrust it into the air, as if declaring a victory for all mankind.
In that moment, the legend of old—the Dragonborn—was reborn.
Irileth couldn't believe her eyes.
When she had sent them to Farengar, she thought they were just two lucky backcountry adventurers who'd stumbled upon a stone tablet.
But those two had survived a fight with a dragon until the bitter end.
Not only that, she had witnessed the girl climb onto the dragon's head and slay the beast with her own hands.
She looked exactly like the heroes of the myths Irileth had heard as a child.
Irileth was silent for a long time, whether out of awe at witnessing the birth of a hero or simple relief at having her life saved at the last second.
"Mister! we did it! Woo-hoo!!"
"I can't believe we actually succeeded. This isn't a dream, right?"
I spoke from the ground, having collapsed there. My leg was definitely fractured from the jump off the tower.
Strangely, I couldn't feel the pain.
Suddenly, a mystical energy erupted from the dragon's corpse, swirling around Choi Ha-neul before she absorbed it into herself.
"Unbelievable. You... you are Dragonborn..."
A guard who had rushed out from the tower after being healed witnessed the entire spectacle.
"Dragonborn? What's that?"
As expected, Ha-neul didn't have a single bit of game knowledge.
"I'll explain it later. For now, let's get the wounded to the temple."
"Right!"
As we talked, Irileth stepped toward us.
"That was the most impressive combat I've ever seen."
"Hehe."
Ha-neul beamed, laughing like an idiot.
"And you... Nord. Thank you for saving my life."
I was surprised to hear such gratitude from someone as abrasive as her. Accepting her thanks, I got straight to the point.
"Don't mention it. But I have one favor to ask."
"What is it? I'll grant it if it's within my power."
"Please keep the fact that Ha-neul is Dragonborn a secret."
"What? Why? A light has finally appeared in the darkness of Skyrim...!"
"Mister, you're just jealous that I'm getting ahead in life, aren't you? Tee-hee!"
"It's not that..."
Suddenly, my head started spinning. Was it the battle fatigue finally catching up?
"Huh? Mister!"
"Priest! We have another patient here!"
Listening to their worried shouts, I let the darkness take me and lost consciousness.
**
Meanwhile, in Riften—
"Haha, not bad at all. Imagine the look on Brand-Shei's face when he finds Madesi's ring in his own pocket."
Brynjolf marveled at the unexpected dexterity of the woman before him. Lately, he had been searching for talented recruits to expand the influence of the stagnating Thieves Guild.
"So, will you accept me now?"
"Of course. But there are still a few more tasks. Some might require a bit of violence."
"No problem."
"Still, I don't understand why a delicate woman like you would want to get involved in this sort of business."
"You don't need to know," the woman replied flatly.
"Haha. Quite the bold one, aren't you? You'll fit in just fine around here."