The Sky Mountain Range is a living labyrinth.
Even seasoned rangers frequently lose their way. Due to the sheer density of mana, the creatures here are universally massive and powerful. A mere caterpillar grows to the size of a wild boar, and ordinary beasts boast bodies that rival the monsters of the Northern Continent. The flora is no exception. There are fruits that explode like bombs, plants that devour animals with their vines, and flowers that spew venom capable of melting steel.
It isn’t for nothing that the Sky Mountain Range is designated as a continental mystery and a forbidden zone. There isn’t even a proper map of the range. The terrain shifts at regular intervals, and countless disasters of unknown origin occur. To borrow the words of explorers, the Sky Mountain Range is ‘alive.’ Adventurers who dream of this place often say that to climb the Sky Mountain Range, the mountain itself must grant permission.
Every word of it is true.
Though I had absorbed the memories of the Old Adventurer contained within Soaring , I didn’t feel the confidence to conquer the Sky Mountain Range on my own. On the contrary, a sense of awe for this mountain welled up within me. But if it was just the ‘entrance’? My current self could run ten laps around it with my eyes closed.
I slowly raised my head.
“Ugh, aaah, graaa, kraaaaah—!”
The young dragon was groaning in agony. He stared blankly at his wrist, which felt far too light. The dragon’s left hand had fallen to the ground, and from the stump where the hand had been severed, unique, pure white dragon blood poured out. It looked less like the blood of a living creature and more like something sacred.
“S-stop. Stop.”
As I approached with my sword drawn, the young dragon recoiled. It was a comical sight—to see a great dragon retreating from the threat of a mere human.
“T-that’s enough. Stop right there. I… I won’t make an issue of the way you swung your blade. I shall forgive you, so just leave. Get lost! Y-you may even use the Cloud Bridge. Take your pathetic companions and go at once—!”
The dragon spoke as if he were doing me a great favor. To think he would cling to his pride even while trembling in fear.
What a truly magnificent race.
“You speak as if you’re being generous.”
I did not use honorifics with him.
“You were acting like the king of this place until a moment ago. Have you finally realized your place? But it seems you still haven’t shed your arrogance. Making an issue of things? Granting forgiveness? Aren’t those things you can only do if you’re alive?”
“Human, you… what are you saying?”
“With one strike, I pierced your scales. With the second, I carved off your hand. Don’t you think that if I don’t stop swinging, I could cut your throat as well? I think that would be quite excellent. I wouldn’t have to worry about a dragon’s retaliation, I’d obtain a priceless dragon corpse, and I’d even gain the honor of having killed a dragon alone with a single sword.”
“……You must not.”
“Is there a reason why I shouldn’t?”
“I am… I am a dragon!”
A confident shout. In response, I let out a long breath. Then, I cast aside all pretense.
“So what if you’re a dragon?”
At the same time, I let my rage flare.
“Listen well, young dragon. I utterly loathe your kind.”
It was a sincere, heartfelt anger.
“Beings who trample on the dignity of others, trusting only in their own strength. Beings who do not hesitate to crush others just because they believe themselves to be powerful. Beings whose own strength is the only criterion for judging everything in the world. Beings who ruin the lives of others as naturally as they breathe, wielding unreasonable power and committing injustices that are unacceptable and incomprehensible.”
“……”
“Forgiveness? Don’t make me laugh. If my sword hadn’t reached you, would you have let us go? You wouldn’t have. You would have toyed with us, insulted us, and laughed while trampling us to your heart’s content. You would have played with us like toys. You would have inflicted helplessness, defeat, and despair. Because that is what your kind always does.”
My anger blazed like fire.
The trauma regarding Swordmaster Carlos mixed with the hatred for dragons contained within Soaring . The fury pouring from my mouth at this moment was a rage toward the past, and also the hatred of an old adventurer who had lived in an age long gone.
“Because dragons… are all like that.”
My hatred and anger were not composed of words alone. Two pairs of wings unfurled, and soon the aura erupting from me began to take physical form. Did the dragon sense my killing intent? Instead of speaking further, he opened his maw and took a deep breath. His body slowly swelled. No matter how much of a backwater provincial I was, I knew what that was. The symbol of a dragon—the most well-known of the violences they possessed.
「The Breath is coming, young descendant.」
Breath.
Immediately after that word came to mind, I felt the surrounding mana fluctuate wildly. Instinct told me: it was dangerous.
And then. At that moment.
『Why is it a sin to covet the sky?』
The voice of the sword echoed.
『There was too much I could not understand.』
『Because I could not accept it, I had to ask.』
『To the sky.』
Before the pouring Breath, the memories of the sword rushed in like a tide.
* * *
My son craved the sky. He craved the shining things and the high heavens. And so, my son wished to fly. He desired to soar. But the young man who fell from the heights was now trapped in a shell, growing old. Faded.
My son, who had been stagnating and rotting away while faded, held his old father’s hand and painfully dreamed his youthful dream once more. Forgetting everything else, he looked only at the sky. He dreamed of going up, higher up. In the adventure I shared with my son in my old age, I too felt truly alive.
But.
“How do those without wings dare to covet the sky?”
It seemed it was time to wake from the dream.
“I find it difficult to overlook your profanity.”
It was the masters of the sky who broke my son and sent him plummeting. The noble dragons did not wish for pathetic, wingless creatures to soar. And so, my son was displayed, taxidermied within a terrible shell—a warning not to dare climb.
However, the great dragons eventually saw the humans who climbed and climbed until they finally met their eyes again. Icarus, broken and shattered but unyielding. A young man who still craved the sky, still wanted to fly, and wanted to shine like them. Even now, my son longed for the heavens.
“O insignificant things born in the lowest of places. Do you wish to climb to the place closest to the sky and embrace the endless heavens? Do you crave to shine alongside the infinite stars and the most brilliant sun?”
The great dragon read the longing in my son’s eyes.
“The profane acts of wingless things must be judged with severe punishment. However, since it is commendable that you reached this place in your pathetic, lowly bodies, I shall give you one chance.”
It was like the temptation of a devil.
“Fashion wings out of something fragile and insignificant, much like your own bodies. If you can fly with those wings and complete one circuit around the Sky Mountain Range, I shall fulfill your dream. I shall permit you to soar. I shall grant you the sky as well. I shall acknowledge the soaring of man.”
Make a circuit around the Sky Mountain Range with pathetic wings. It was undoubtedly intended to mock our noble intent. To make a circuit around the sky of this great mountain range—which even the gryphons and wyverns that rule the skies of the Northern Continent cannot fly over—with crudely made wings? It was impossible. Furthermore, judging by the dragon’s words, it seemed he was directing this at my son. There was no way my son, who couldn’t even walk, could operate wings. Absolutely not.
“If you are afraid, speak. I shall show mercy and spare your lives. If you promise never to climb here again, I shall send you back safely. Safely, without a single scratch.”
But.
“Uu, ugh. Uuugh.”
My son did not refuse.
“Ugh, uu, ugh.”
Struggling, my son wrote words on my back with trembling fingers. I could now recognize what the words he wrote meant. I want to fly. I want to fly, Father. I could not break my son’s wish. A moth with wings already torn, my moth who still looked at the brightly burning light and wished to embrace the brilliant flame. As a father, there was only one thing I could do.
“I understand.”
Soar. And burn. More brilliantly than anyone. Brighter than any star in this world.
“Ugh. Uuugh.”
I made wings out of wax, just as my son asked. I made them with all my heart with my old, wrinkled hands. I attached the finished wax wings to my son, and my drooling son had a strange expression as his eyes sparkled. Standing at the edge of a cliff under the starry firmament, my son somehow looked as if he were smiling. Just like back then, in the distant past, when he laughed brightly while speaking of his dreams.
“Let us fly. Let us fly far and wide.”
Hearing my words, my son took flight.
Amazingly, my son soared with great vigor. He flew so magnificently that even the dragon was lost for words. With wings made of wax, the sight of my son flying through the harshly blowing wind was more beautiful than any bird in the world. More beautiful than even the greatest dragons. My son was a bird, the most brilliant star, and a single flicker of flame.
My son’s flight was a masterpiece.
It felt as if everything in the world had vanished, all sound had ceased, and only the sky and my son existed. Amidst a silence that felt as if time had stopped, my son’s flight was a success. Finally completing the circuit and returning from behind, my son was smiling brightly. Like the days when he possessed the beautiful youth he had before he was broken—like the precious time when he had just taken his first steps and laughed innocently while shouting ‘Papa’…
And then.
“Ah…”
Toward my son, who was descending for a landing, the dragon poured out his Breath. The wings of Icarus, which had regained their light after a grueling ordeal, were broken once again. The great dragon’s Breath did not burn my son’s flesh, but only his wings. My son’s struggling body fell toward the cliff and was shattered just like that. The body that had been broken was now completely destroyed.
“Dear me.”
“……”
“You know this, don’t you? All masters of the sky are we dragons. If that is so, then to overcome the sky means one must overcome the dragons. That pathetic human could not overcome the sky. In the end, it means he lacked the qualification. The sky has rejected him.”
Ah.
I held my dead son in my arms. Then I looked toward the summit of the mountain, toward the hateful sky that had not only broken my son but had finally stolen him from me. In the center of the sky was the master of the sky.
“Why do you look at the sky with such eyes?”
Was it so difficult to give up even a handful of the sky? Was the handful of light, the handful of brilliance that my poor son wanted, something you truly could not give? Was this the only possible outcome for the dream of my son, who admired you great beings? Did my genius, my son, my Icarus, who dreamed of the sky from the lowest of places, have to meet such an end?
Countless questions swirled in my throat. My son no longer breathed.
My son was no longer trapped in an old body. My son’s soul had departed far, far away. He had finally left his father’s arms. No one knows whether my son soared upward or sank into the earth. However, as a living father who has sent his child away, I say what must be said. I ask the question that must be answered.
“Do you know of the genius who became a stuffed specimen?”
The dragon did not answer. He gave me a light shove with his large, hard claw. My old body fell over the cliff far too easily. While plummeting toward the infinite depths, I saw the sky. The brilliant and beautiful sky. Looking at the sky, I embraced my son’s breathless body. The scent of death. Before the approaching end, I saw the dragon. The dragon’s eyes were dry. Like a child who had lost interest because a toy was broken.
“Nonsense.”
A towering cliff. Gravity pulled at the old body. The body that hit the ground shattered; the aged arms and legs broke. The sky grew distant. Having finally returned to the lowest place, I was left alone with my dead son. I saw the melted wax wings, the pathetically withered forearms, and my son’s eyes that had remained wide open until the very end. There was the piercingly blue sky. There was the beautifully burning sun. There was my breathless son, there was the dragon, and there was I.
“Ah.”
The world seemed to be growing faint. It felt as if death was approaching. Will I follow my son in death just like this? Amidst various scenes intersecting, my eyes did not close. Beyond the sharp cliffs and lush thickets, at the highest point, was the sky. The sky my son had craved so much.
I fell from such a height, so why has this pathetic old man’s life not yet ended? It was mysterious, but I soon understood the reason. It was because the sky was still there.
“……Wings.”
Because there was a dream that had not yet ended.
“Sprout, wings. Sprout once more.”
I grasped my son’s melted wax wings. I clumsily fixed them and raised my broken body. With trembling hands, I gripped a protruding rock on the cliff. To raise this creaking, old body high. To get closer to the sky.
“Let’s fly. Let’s fly just once.”
I must reach the sky. To do that, there is only one thing to do. I must go.
“Let’s try flying just one more time.”
Upward. Higher up.
* * *
Geniuses are those who find answers amidst any difficulty.
Geniuses overcome hardships, record magnificent achievements in history, and are respected by many. However, there are those in the world who are praised even more than them.
「You’ve caught it—the light.」
Those who cannot find a perfect answer amidst difficulties, but who nevertheless do not give up. Those who nevertheless do not retreat. Heroes. Beings who find hope within the impossible and bring about miracles.
「Yes, that’s it.」
What they have achieved—people speak of it like this:
「That is the legend contained within that blade.」
Legend.
“Phew—!”
A desperate moment.
Normally, the memory should have cut off, but the memory of the sword did not end even at the very, very end. The narrative of the old adventurer contained within the blade did not end with his son’s death and fall. It was not the end, but the beginning.
“Dragon—!”
Trials and persecution. The death of a loved one, a harsh world. It is a rough and crude, yet common story. In an era overflowing with countless chivalric novels, that is exactly how innumerable stories begin.
“I am!”
Therefore, there is also a word for that kind of story.
“Unyielding!”
An epic poem.
“No one!”
What is contained within Soaring is not some grand biography of an adventurer in his twilight years. What this blade harbors is not some travelogue containing the secrets of a legendary adventurer that the witches were expecting, or the mysteries of the vast continent.
“No one can break me—!”
The life story of a human who wished to soar within an unreasonable world. The story of an insignificant human who wished to soar from the lowest of places.
A fragment of a legend. Left behind by a pathetic old man.
“—!”
I howled like a beast, pouring out my swirling emotions. The sword was handing me power along with the memory. The flame erupting from me soon sparkled like the radiance of the stars. The sparkling light dyed the sky red. The destructive violence, the Breath, that poured from the young dragon’s maw could not wound me. Following the curve I drew, the Breath began to bend.
『Facts as facts, misunderstandings as misunderstandings.』
Like a small flame meeting a larger flame and being swallowed.
『One simply needs to walk through the world, limping endlessly.』
