(HELEN POV)

I come from a noble family called the Redfield household. Father was a general that always had to go to the front line. He was a skilled swordsman and was respected by many.

I wanted to be like him. I wanted to he respected too. But that slowly changed. I wanted to be different from him. The words I always heard were:

-As expected of General Redfield’s daughter.

-The perks of being born from the Redfield bloodline.

-She is just like her father, isn’t she?

I cursed those people over and over again inside my head.

I wanted people to see me for who I was and not because I was the daughter of a famous general. That’s what I wanted.

I had a new goal. To become better than father instead of walking in his footsteps.

My childhood friend and former fiancé, Jered told me that he’d help me on my journey. I never asked him to do that. He always meddles in my business. I found him to be annoying and a busybody.

We’ve known each other for pretty much our whole lives. He was the son of a viscount household. His household was affiliated with ours for 200 years ever since becoming a noble house. Mother decided one day that the two of us should get married when we turned 15.

I was 14 at the time when I became an adventurer. My main weapon was the saber. Completely different from my father that uses a double handed sword. Though I wanted to be different from father, the techniques of the Redfield bloodline that I learned since childhood was still engraved in my body.

My first adventurer party had Jered, Sheila and I in it. Sheila is my second cousin and comes from a knight peerage house. She would’ve been able to succeed in pursuing her career as a mage further if our kingdom didn’t lack the funds to keep the mage tower standing. She only managed to learn spells of intermediate-Low and had to self-study to get to Intermediate-Mid. Sadly that was her limit. But she’s still a valued member of my team that I trust and love.

Our kingdom’s former monarch was always obsessed with strengthening our military power more than investing in our cultural needs and developing lands. That decision led to the death of the former king since he was killed by his son who was then killed in war and only the daughter survived out of the entire family, the current queen.

After that happened, the kingdom stabilized and the adventurer guild also grew. After that, many more people joined our kingdom’s adventurer guild and that’s where I met my current teammates, Lucy, Paula, Billy and Raymond.

We grew up together and have been in the same party for 4 years.

My life was bliss with my teammates. I even developed feelings for Jered although I wasn’t sure if they were strong enough to be called love. Maybe like?

Sadly, that had to come to an end after the kingdom was invaded. The neighbouring nation sent their entire army in an effort to take down our kingdom.

The entire snow filled lands was full of blood.

Then one day when I returned home to our territory mansion, I only saw charred remains of what was left.

I heard from one of the people that survived that a dragon flew into a rage. Dragons are beings that view themselves higher than any other lifeform .That particular dragon wanted to destroy our kingdom while we were at war.

The good thing was that it caught the enemy nation off-guard and our side managed to win overwhelmingly.

The lesser dragon was heavily injured since our strongest knights battled against it but I was still not satisfied. The dragon escaped before the killing blow could be delivered.

It killed my entire family and destroyed all our assets and lands. Dragons have a large pool of mana so nearly all our lands were burnt down from its [Dragon’s Breath].

I changed since then. I wanted to grow stronger and earn the title of an S rank. After that I would slay the dragon that destroyed my home and the people that were my family.

That was my goal. I pushed any other thing aside and focused on getting stronger. I pushed Jered away because he would’ve gotten in the way of my goal. My path in life was only laying the dragon.

Whatever happened after that... well, I’d leave it up to fate.

My feelings for anything disappeared and only one path remained. My teammates sometimes called me similar to a homunculus. A being that is only programmed to do things its creator told it to. I was fine being seen as one as long as I get my revenge against the dragon.

Today was that day.

◇

Clyde released a large amount of mana and sent it into the ground. The entire cave trembled when his spell activated.

The spell he used spread out through the entire cavern. It softened the ground the dragon stood on.

“NOW!”

I sent a nod to Clyde and pounced forward.

The dragon’s foot was lodged into the ground as if mud was underneath it. Clyde summoned tentacles to push its legs further down.

It was about to fire its dragon’s breath when a shield appeared before me. It was a familiar barrier spell Sheila always used.

“I’ll focus on supporting you!”

“Thank you, Sheila!”

I activated my first art.

“---!”

Particles of light emerged from my sword and formed a huge spiralling circle.

The priests cast buffs as Jered and I moved in to attack the dragon. It was still fighting our martial artist that has superhuman strength and the boy we met yesterday that has a white glowing arm. I couldn’t understand why his spells look so different to Sheila’s.

Compared to Sheila that had to use chants, he could cast without chants. It just goes to show that he is from a splendid noble family of mages. No wonder his mannerisms and attitude are that of a noble. I could practically see Sheila had a frustrated face in the corner of my eye.

The dragon swung its claws at me.

Kwung

Jered blocked just in time and I jumped on his back and ran up the dragon’s arm. I used the spiralling light behind my back and severed the flesh of the dragon.

ROAR—!!!

Its roar was so loud that I could feel my insides tremble alone from the echo.

My plan was to sever its eyes while the others kept it busy but I failed because it looked like it knew what I would do. This dragon had surely faced many humans before. The barrier of Sheila could only stop magical attacks. If the dragon bit the shield then there’s no doubt that it would shatter due to its strong jaws.

This dragon may not have recovered fully since then but it was still so strong.

‘I have to find an opening.’

I had to retreat to the back line. Jered was protecting the mages along with the other warrior while Clyde was using massive amounts of water to hold the dragon back.

I couldn’t understand how he could produce that much water with mana alone. It would make sense if there was a pool of water nearby but there currently wasn’t.

My anger grew as I got ready to use my full power. I looked towards the other party that joined us. Jered’s team.

Why was he so keen on participating? He’s fighting with his life on the line here.

Our plan today was just to clear the dungeon but we received an unpleasant surprise. I couldn’t help but think he was a fool for putting himself in danger when he could’ve just run away.

The dragon, seemingly frustrated at having its movements sealed by large quantities of water, suddenly raised its snout into the air.

Its target was the cause of his sealed movements.

“Don’t worry about me! Finish it!!”

He shouted at the rest of us. I hesitated because he was still a little boy with a bright future.

But that confident smile told a different story.

“Miss Sheila and the others, freeze the water!”

“Intermediate rank-[Frostbite]!” Sheila glowed as a blue light flew towards the water.

The water then rapidly froze. A cold wind followed in the next moment.

I took that as a signal. The dragon was then pushed against the cave wall from the massive amounts of frozen water. It struggled behind the wall of ice. Since magically manifested ice was harder than original ice, it would take a lot of work to get out of there.

“Here!”

My friend, Paula stuck out her arms.

I jumped onto her hands with my feet as I wielded my saber.

WHOOOSH

As expected of a martial artist. She threw me with such force that I found it hard to balance myself mid-air. I flew straight towards the dragon.

“-----!!!!”

The dragon gave a loud roar as it fired its Dragon’s Breath. I narrowly avoided it mid-air but it managed to graze my shoulder. But I didn’t falter.

I only saw my enemy before my eyes. Its wide opened eyes looked amusing.

‘Dragons are superior to humans, huh?’

“Taste this, you bastard!!”

The dragon, not being able to handle the intensity of its own energy blast, violently turned its head. A tremor shook the cavern when the beam hit the ceiling.

“GYAAA–!!”

“AAH–!!”

“AAAAARGH!”

I couldn’t hear the screams that followed.

All my eyes could see and my ears could hear was the dragon.

“[Cross Strike]!!”

The circle that was rapidly spinning behind me fused with the Ki of my blade. I swung my sword horizontally and vertically, imitating a cross.

ROOOOOAR

“High rank-[Flaming Star]!!”

A boy’s voice echoed as I watched the dragon’s face get sliced in half. After I was out of the strike rang, a large blood red fireball blew up the head of the dragon. The ice melted causing the dragon’s corpse to fall.

BOOOM

BOOM

RUMBLE

I fell towards the ground at rapid speeds. All the energy in my body seemed to leave as I dropped my saber.

“Miss Helen!!”

That was the last thing I heard before I lost consciousness.