The Human Missile

In this world there is something we call G.o.d. This ‘G.o.d’ makes humans disappear without warning.

In the ancient times humans feared this phenomenon. They thought that they were being abducted by Tengus or Ghosts into the world of G.o.ds.

The real reason why those people suddenly disappeared was that they suddenly left, had been kidnapped, or died in an accident, and so on.

However, there were still some people who were kidnapped into another world.

Our protagonist, Watase Kosuke, is one of those people.

That day after he went home from school, he went to the convenience store to buy the [Weekly Jump] and it happened.

“I’m so stupid, I even forgot to bring my wallet to school.”

Kosuke always rode his bicycle to school and brought his bento so he didn’t have the habit of buying bus pa.s.ses or lunch. There also wasn’t much of a chance that he would need his wallet for something in school.

[The Protagonist has awoken his ability and confronted the powerful enemies in front of him, while the Shura field behind him expanded and threatened to overwhelm him. The protagonist was thinking of a way get out of this predicament.]

As it reached the climax, the chapter ended and it left Watase really curious about it.

“I can´t wait, I have to buy it and read the climax.”

Kosuke, wanting to read the newest Jump, hummed a song which gave him the air of an ordinary High School Student. In less than a minute, his life was going to change.

Seeing the corner in front of him, he sped up since the convenience store was just around it.

“What the?!”

But before he could make his first step he was surrounded by darkness.

In that moment, he wasn’t worrying about his own safety but rather not being able to buy and read his manga.

Being spirited away suddenly happened to Kosuke.

Without the interference of a G.o.d or ghost, he just accidentally stumbled into a dimensional crack.

Due to the sudden nature of this event, he couldn’t even react.

After entering the crack he drifted for a short while, and then was immediately sucked into another crack.

This is the nature of being ‘spirited away’ which happened to Kosuke.

So he continued to fall. Kosuke couldn’t understand what was even happening.

In less than a minute his scenery changed so drastically while he fell that he even forgot to feel panic.

Kosuke couldn’t help but stare at the sky while listening to the violent wind and experiencing the cold air on his skin – If he looked down in this situation he might cry out loud, being terrified of the huge beast below.

But fear is fear, and he opened his eyes. To his surprise, in front of him was a dreadful Black Dragon.

(TN: 也有可能害怕歸害怕,可是他會用既驚訝又好奇的眼神)

That huge creature was a European-style dragon.

It face had a pair of glowing red eyes full of intellect and was covered by black scales. Its mouth had huge, sharp fangs. Adorning its head were two magnificent horns, and on its back were a pair of silver wings which gave an impression of strength. Its appearance gave off a terrifying atmosphere.

Kosuke fell from the sky and crashed into the dragon, losing consciousness.

Falling from that height at that speed, the impact so strong that Kosuke was terribly wounded and half dead.

But there were three reasons why his life was not extinguished, and ended up s.h.i.+ning even brighter.

Kosuke had a dream. He dreamt that he woke up in an overseas hospital and on his side was a beautiful West-European Girl.

In the dream they couldn’t talk to each other due to the language barrier, but they understood each other by using hand signs.

It was a strange yet peaceful dream.

That day had happened to be the dining day of the black dragon which occurred every half-year.

While waiting for the sacrifice to come.

The Black Dragon was deciding between swallowing the sacrifice with one bite or eating her slowly after torturing her with fear.

Having the humans offer sacrifices for his consumption was an old tradition.

Since then, the Black Dragon has only seen the humans as food to fill his stomach.

The Black Dragon has no misunderstanding as to why the humans do that and never interfere, it’s because he is that powerful a being.

Before the gaze of the strong, there is no need to think about a weak group of vulnerable beings.

Since that is the law of nature.

He even thought that if a G.o.d appeared before him he would eat him.

Over hundreds of years there were countless heroes who tried to kill, him but they were defeated instead.

Before Kosuke appeared, the Black Dragon was a invincible being.

However, the Black Dragon finally received an attack unlike anything he had felt before, an impact so strong that it would destroy his skull, which lead to the death of the Black Dragon.

While the Black Dragon was on the edge of death, it felt its strength leaving its body.

This was the evidence that he lost.

While still in disbelief, the consciousness of the Dragon gradually sank into darkness.

Horun Kosuberu Sutorachi who was in the Cage for offerings heard that sound, a dragon roar which had never been heard before.

(TN: Having a problem with her name if anyone knows (j.a.p.: ホルン・コスベル・ストラーチ/ Chn.: 赫倫‧柯佩斯‧斯托拉齊))

She has already heard the Dragon roar many times before, but the previous roars were all full of confidence in his power.

But the one from today sounded different from the usual, it sounded like moaning.

The cage which was moving to the Dragon’s nest stopped, since the people carrying the cage were also confused.

‘But even if the dragon is moaning, so what?’

She asked herself, disheartened.

Even if the question was answered, she wouldn’t survive to see the next sunrise.

In order to let her country survive, Horun will be eaten by the Dragon. Her life was already forsaken.

Then the cage started moving again and Horun stopped thinking.

As her eyes lost all their light, she accepted her fate.

The cage kept moving forward towards the altar.

20 minutes later, the cage reached its destination.

By Horun’s calculation, it seems she’s finally arrived at the altar.

After hearing the sound of a lock being opened, the cage door swung wide.

After being locked in a small cage for so long, she was finally able to breathe fresh air with a feeling of liberation.

She wasn’t feeling happy.

Horun was guided out of the cage by the Knights.

Although her movements were slow, the Knights weren’t acting impatient but rather they had an expression which showed pity watching Horun walk to the altar.

Horun was wearing a luxurious dress which suited her gray hair and white skin.

This was a present which the country gave her in order to let her be as beautiful as possible when she saw her parents for the last time.

But the dress also looked like a shroud, fitting since she will die in it.

Just like the former captured and sacrificed girls.

After being lead by the Knights to the Altar, she was told to stand there and not to move.

They haven’t thought about the possibility of Horun running away since she is of n.o.ble birth and is well aware of her fate.

The Knights returned the way they came with the cage in tow.

If there were other people at the altar, the Dragon wouldn’t be pleased. It was possible that a city would be wiped out.

Horun closed her eyes and waited for the dragon.

While her cloth and hair swayed in the wind her body didn’t move a bit giving her the appearance of a doll. 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour. Time pa.s.sed as she stood there waiting. After nearly 2 hours, Horun finally opened her eyes and looked with her emerald-like eyes to the altar.

Her expression showed not only fear, but also a questioning look as to why the dragon still hasn’t appeared.

She had enough of waiting around to be killed and just wanted everything to be over as soon as possible.

Even if leaving the altar would anger the dragon, she couldn’t escape her fate of being eaten. Horun walked down from the Altar to the forest path.

The forest path she walked on was formed by crushed trees from the dragon walking here, so following them should lead her to the Dragon’s nest.

“Such a peaceful place…”

One could only hear the rustling sound of leaves swaying in the wind and the insects .

There wasn’t even one animal nor any monsters, perhaps they didn´t want to live next to the Black Dragon.

While Horun walked in the forest she could only hear the ambient forest noise and her own footsteps.

After walking for 30 minutes Horun stopped.

She saw a huge black lump slowly become visible on the other side of the forrest.

“Is that it..?” wondered Horun, because she couldn’t feel a bit of pressure.

When she was younger she saw the dragon once. She had been scared and trembling even though there was a great distance between them.

But now, she couldn’t feel anything nor any pressure.

As if she was just looking at a statue.

After steeling herself she walked closer to the huge lump. Seeing it up close, she knew that her life was saved.

“… dead.”

The Dragon was obviously not breathing anymore.

The most important internal organ was the horn on the head.

All the power of a dragon is produced by the horn and then circulates through the body, and without the horn they can’t survive for long.

But the horn of the Black Dragon was broken, showing that the dragon is dead.

“How?”

The fact that the Black Dragon is dead was great news for Horun and her country, but the question of how the Dragon died was a more pressing matter to Horun.

She went close to the dragon’s head to search for the reason, but since Horun was ignorant about fighting she wouldn’t be able to tell what happened anyways.

Regardless of that she continued to search for clues on the body of the dragon.

The ma.s.sive body that was larger than 10 meters seemed completely unharmed. Even though the body was covered with dirt, just wiping it with your hand would cause it to reflect the sunlight.

“Ah!”

Then Horun found a teenager on the ground while she was slowly walking.

This was the boy whom was transferred into another world, cras.h.i.+ng into the dragon at a high speed from the sky.

While walking to Kosuke to check if he was alright, she noticed that the invulnerable scales of the dragon had been cracked.

This was the death blow for the Black Dragon. The Dragon wasn’t afraid of injury or the like but it could have survived if it were hit in another location, only feeling a bit of pain instead of death.

The problem was the location of the broken scale, a weakness for the dragon which it was unaware of itself.

The kind of weakness that could be exploited with a simple impact, you just needed to keep the beast still for long enough.

Up until now it was protected by the impregnable scales which protected the weakness so it emerged unscathed in every battle, but this time its luck ran out.

Such a chance was even lower than hitting the jackpot in the lottery.

Against this, an ordinary person who accidentally drifted into this world would be finished as soon as he arrived.

Kosuke had received some major injuries from his encounter; he had crushed his shoulder from the impact, his right hand had multiple fractures and lacerations, his rib cage was fractured, he had several fatal injuries, and to top it off he also had some serious systemic contusions.

Although he was seriously injured he successfully killed the Dragon, which was a great achievement.

“Was the dragon killed by him?”

Despite not being clear about what happened, Horun was sure that the person which was lying on the ground used some unknown way to kill the dragon, which revived her sense of being alive.

After the first tear fell, she couldn’t stop crying anymore.

“Waaaaah, ou, *sniffle* ah,ah-!”

There was no meaning in crying, but from the sound of how she was crying one could hear that she was letting out all her pent up emotions.

After the crying echoed for a while one could hear the insects again, as if they understood that the Black Dragon is dead and there is no longer any need to be afraid.

After she stopped crying and wiped away her tears, Horun walked to the person who killed the Dragon to thank him.

As she approached him, she realized how grievous his wounds were. She rushed over to his side.

Even though she was clueless about fighting, she had a wealth of medical knowledge. After examining the boy, Horun’s expression became pale.

If she had cried for even a little while longer, Kosuke would have succ.u.mbed to his wounds. Horun quickly healed the boy, starting with his right arm, moving to his chest, and then doing the rest of his body.

It not like everyone in this world has the same knowledge of medical technique and magic.

Horun happened to be a genius about those topics. At the age of 19 she was already one of the best in the country.

But that’s also the reason why she hated the fact that she had been chosen as the sacrifice for the dragon。

After 30 minutes had pa.s.sed, Horun was sure that the wounds were healed. She could finally relax.

As soon as she relaxed, she was struck with sleepiness and fell asleep while leaning on the dragon’s corpse.

Using Healing magic consumes physical energy, but she was also just exhausted from being unable to sleep due to anxiety and fear.

So it was understandable that she fell for the temptation of sleep.

The boy woke up only 2 hours after Horun had fallen asleep.

“Huh… why does it feel so hard?”

Not noticing that the hard ground was merely soil, Kosuke was looking at his unfamiliar surroundings. The anemia he was experiencing due to the ma.s.sive amount of blood he lost was clouding his mind.

He wondered where he was.

His arm didn’t feel quite right. Upon glancing at it, he saw a large red mark which was made up of his dried blood.

“What the h.e.l.l!!”

Kosuke touched his arm in panic to make sure that there wasn’t a problem.

The crash jostled his memory, he had no recollection of what happened.

Kosuke’s home was nowhere near a forest, but he was clearly in a forest right now.

Next to him there was a beautiful woman sleeping, and a giant beast which he never seen before.

Kosuke slowly started to remember what he had done after waking up in the morning, and the events that had lead to him being here.

“After I got up in the morning I went to school. Then after school I went to the convenience store and then…then…it suddenly got dark? I fell out of the darkness into the sky? And hit something? No, there’s no way, right?”

Kosuke couldn’t help but not believe his memories.

Even though he continued to ponder over the events, he couldn’t make heads or tails of anything. His surprise was understandable since he suddenly fell from the sky. There really wasn’t any sense to what had happened.

“It is just like a plot in a Novel or Manga…let’s ask that person first. From her looks she probably can’t speak j.a.panese, but I hope I can at least communicate with her in English…I’ve never spoken to such a beautiful person before…”

Kosuke patted Horun´s shoulder nervously, and seeing that she didn’t wake up he grabbed her shoulder and started shaking her.

“Wake up, wake up.”

Horun who was still sleepy slowly opened her eyes.

Before she saw Kosuke after opening her eyes, her mind suddenly had the thought “What if my salvation was only a dream?”.

But she realized that she was not in the cage nor in the belly of the dragon.

She noticed that she had accidentally fallen asleep outside, and that the teenager that she had healed earlier was in front of her. There was no doubt she had been spared her fate.

Horun wanted to ask Kosuke if he was still hurting anywhere, and Kosuke wanted to ask Horun where he was. At the same time they said:

“dfyerhs?”

“Where am I?”

Neither party understood the other, and thinking they just got the words wrong tried again:

“jsthsmu?”

“Where am I?”

(TN: The first time Kosuke asked in j.a.panese and the second time he asked in English.)

Kosuke confirmed that she didn’t speak English and he wasn’t able to communicate with her, while Horun was simply confused about the unfamiliar language.

Kosuke then tried to communicate with her using hand signals which confused her even more, then he understood that it was wasted effort.

To any onlookers, they would see a teenager performing an eccentric dance in front of a beautiful girl while both parties had a serious expression on. It looked rather ridiculous.

Kosuke began to feel anxious and distressed since he didn’t know where he was or how he came to be here.

All of his worried were clearly written on his face.

Even though he knew that it was useless, he still continued trying to talk to her.

Seeing the restless red eyes of Kosuke, Horun touched his head trying to calm him down.

Horun did that because she once saw how a mother calmed down her crying child with this method.

While she did that she smiled to tell him that he has nothing to fear and that she is not his enemy, while she continued stroking his head gently till Kosuke calmed down.

Kosuke eventually grasped her hand to tell her to stop.

“Thank you.”

While knowing that she didn’t understand him but he still was thankful.

Then Horun smiled and put her hand at her chest:

“Horun.”

After she introduced herself she repeated her name again and pointed at Kosuke.

Kosuke didn’t understand what she was doing, and after seeing Kosuke’s reaction Horun repeated her introduction.

After the second time, Kosuke finally understood that it was an introduction.

“Kosuke.”

“Kosuke?”

After Horun said his name while pointing at him, Kosuke nodded.

Then she repeated his name again while he also nodded again.

After confirming each others names Kosuke felt relieved after seeing the smiling Horun.

At least they now knew each others name, proving that communication was not completely impossible. Knowing this calmed down Kosuke’s restless heart.

After successfully communicating with Kosuke, Horun smiled while thinking to make sure that Kosuke wouldn’t start feeling uneasy.

In the end, returning was impossible for her now since about 80% of the population would think that she ran away halfway.

Even if her relatives accepted her return, she would still receive the backlash from the city and possibly the country for running home.

Her family would also receive a punishment.

Even if she announced the death of the dragon, she feared that no one would believe it since there were so many heroes which were slain by the dragon. Everyone believed that the dragon was an invincible being.

Even if she brought Kosuke back, there would be very few who would believe he defeated it since he looked weak.

And even if they did believe it, she couldn’t rule out the possibility that the n.o.bility would misuse him and leave him out to dry afterwards.

Since he was the legendary Dragon Slayer’s reincarnation.

He might also be arrested to be used as a bargaining chip for diplomacy.

Horun didn’t want her savior ending up like that.

[He doesn’t looks like a talkative person…should I go with him to Alice first? That person’s place is a fair distance from the city and is suitable for hiding in, and Alice is not a person who would betray me. The problem is that place is some distance away from here…will that boy obediently follow me there?]

After accepting it as a good idea, Horun stood up followed by Kosuke.

Taking into account that she would be intruding on Alice out of the blue, Horun decided to bring a souvenir.

The souvenir was a dragon scale.

Not only was it an expensive material, it was also evidence that the dragon was dead.

Horun chose the scale which had been broken by Kosuke.

Horun’s strength was on par with a typical adult male, but she still had difficulty stripping the scale off. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t peel the scale from the flesh.

“Ah… I can’t strip it off, that’s troublesome. Kosuke, can you help?”

Seeing Horun’s actions, Kosuke thought that the scales are necessary and rolled up his sleeves in order to help.

After watching Horun try peeling one off with all her strength and failing, he decided to use both his hands. He didn’t expect it to tear off so easily.

Perhaps Horun was just really weak?

In the end, Kosuke judged that one hand was enough to peel them off and did so one by one.

After seeing Kosuke’s performance, Horun was astonished.

[I don’t believe it.]

Horun never thought that Kosuke was that strong, but her surprise soon turned into understanding since he was able to kill the dragon. His strength couldn’t be judged merely from his appearance.

Even though both parties were slightly misunderstanding the situation, there was n.o.body here that could correct them.

After Kosuke pulled out about 50 scales Horun told him to stop and he gave all the scales to Horun, who bound them together in her scarf and carried them on her shoulder.

Then she walked in the direction of Alice’s house while pulling Kosuke.