Chapter 60: A Perilous Escape and a Stern Rebuke

“This city is vast; there’s no need for you to venture into the city center, as the deep pit there might prove even more perilous. Simply locate a spot relatively distant from both the city walls and the towering structures.”

Alfred advised us just before we departed.

“We will be monitoring your progress from here at all times.”

“Stay safe.”

These words, imbued with a final urgency, lingered in the air before the great gate swung shut.

Amos and I exchanged a silent glance, then without a word, we began our sprint into the heart of the city.

“This spot should suffice.”

Amos halted, having found a location that seemed to strike a perfect balance, equidistant from both the imposing city walls and the ominous deep pit at the city’s core.

Fortuitously, the crossroads here appeared quite spacious, and its distance from the nearby slender towers also made it feel ideal to me.

“Shall we commence?”

After securing Amos tightly in front of me, much like I had once bound Sally, I sought his final confirmation.

“Hold on…” Although his expression remained hidden from my view, a peculiar note had entered his voice.

“Could you perhaps loosen it just a little?”

To my mind, the binding felt perfectly adequate; after all, hadn’t Sally been secured in precisely this manner? Nevertheless, given his specific request, I conceded and eased the ropes a fraction.

“This is the absolute maximum I can loosen it. Any more, and I fear it will become unstable.”

“Alright… very well.”

“Is everything satisfactory now?”

Amos’s voice still carried an odd inflection, which I had initially attributed to the tightness of the binding; I couldn’t help but furrow my brow.

“Everything’s fine!”

Upon receiving his definitive answer, I immediately dispelled the concealment shrouding my wings, allowing them to unfurl.

“Ascend, quickly!”

Spurred by his urgent reminder, I dared not dither, instantly beating my wings and launching skyward, clearing the surrounding rooftops in the blink of an eye.

To evade detection from the vigilant guards along the city walls, I initially refrained from flying directly outwards, instead opting to continuously circle and gain altitude within a confined space.

“I’ll handle keeping watch; you simply focus on flying.”

Evidently concerned about my potential distraction, he had proactively taken charge of the observational duties, a gesture that alleviated a significant burden from my shoulders.

Amos, as anticipated, proved slightly heavier than Sally, yet he remained a single individual, certainly not corpulent, allowing me to effortlessly disregard the marginal increase in weight.

“Is this altitude sufficient?”

As we neared approximately half the height of the tallest tower, I inquired of Amos.

In truth, from our current vantage point, nearly half the city sprawled beneath us, perfectly visible. However, regarding the guards stationed atop the city walls, I harbored doubts about our ability to evade their scrutiny, given the inherent height of the walls themselves.

“Let’s ascend a little further.” His words perfectly echoed my own assessment.

Yet, just as I prepared to resume our upward climb, a sudden, resonant “buzzing” vibration reverberated through the air around us.

“What could that be?”

A jolt of alarm shot through me, instantly tightening my nerves. My gaze swept across our surroundings, but no monstrous shadow materialized. What, then, was the source of this sound?

“It’s the towers!”

Amos’s immediate response sparked my realization. With his prompt, I quickly understood: a closer inspection revealed that the nearest towers were vibrating with a subtle, rhythmic tremor. The amplitude was so slight that it had escaped my initial notice.

“What are they attempting?”

Their actions were unequivocally aimed at us, yet their purpose remained shrouded in mystery. I found myself at a complete loss, unsure whether to continue our ascent or to veer horizontally, putting more distance between us and these unsettling structures. For a fleeting moment, I hung suspended in the air, utterly bewildered.

“Fly, quickly!”

Amos’s urgent cry pierced the air. Simultaneously, from the depths of the city’s central pit, a massive white skeletal form abruptly surged skyward, its silhouette unmistakably that of a colossal Western dragon.

“It’s a bone dragon! Flee!”

Amos’s voice, laced with renewed anxiety, spurred me on. As if I needed further prompting! I immediately pivoted and streaked towards the city’s periphery.

“Faster still! Another one has emerged! Bone dragons are formidable creatures of Rank 6 or higher, and these even surpass Rank 6.5!”

Though I couldn’t glimpse our pursuers during our frantic escape, he diligently relayed the situation behind us, even providing a precise assessment of the enemy’s power level.

Rank 6.5? What an outrageous jest! Yet, I was already pushing my limits; this was the absolute fastest I could possibly fly!

“Fly right!”

Before my astonishment could fully settle, Amos’s voice suddenly blared once more, his tone fraught with urgency.

“Huh? Right?”

Placing my implicit trust in him, I immediately swerved to the right, only to be assailed by a hurricane of putrid, foul-smelling wind that left me teetering precariously in the air. The very next instant, a colossal skeletal dragon’s jaw slammed shut abruptly just to my left, unleashing a deafening ‘CRACK!’

Good heavens! o(ﾟДﾟ)っ! Utterly blindsided, I was so terrified that tears threatened to spring forth. Had my wings not instinctively reacted on their own, my suddenly limp limbs would assuredly have sent me plummeting.

How could it be so swift? How much time had truly elapsed since the first bone dragon burst forth? Less than five seconds, and it had already closed the distance. Without Amos’s timely warning, I would have undoubtedly been caught in its jaws.

“Left! The other one…”

Before I could even fully regain my composure, Amos’s next warning rang out. Yet, his words remained unfinished as the horrifying scene from moments ago was instantly replayed on my other side.

This time, however, my evasion was not a conscious act. My sluggish reaction to the initial attack had left me too close, and the turbulent air stirred by the first dragon’s head had destabilized my flight. Still struggling to regain my balance in mid-air, I inadvertently caused the second dragon’s snap to be imprecise, allowing me a truly perilous escape.

“Concentrate! To conserve precious time, from this point forward, I will only issue commands: ‘up,’ ‘down,’ ‘left,’ or ‘right.’”

Though my face was hidden from his view, Amos clearly perceived my agitated mental state, prompting his swift vocal warning.

“But there are two of them, and they’re flying considerably faster than I am! How am I supposed to evade them?”

A profound sense of despair had all but consumed me. I was merely surviving by the thinnest of margins, weaving precariously between the gaping jaws of the two bone dragons, convinced that at any second, I would be seized.

“It’s precisely *because* there are two that we have an opportunity! Right!”

My companion, it seemed, had not yet succumbed to despair. Upon hearing his urgent instruction, I complied without a moment’s hesitation, narrowly evading yet another snapping jaw.

However, at that precise moment, the other bone dragon positioned itself directly in my path, its immense maw yawning open before me.

Its cavernous mouth was not vacant; a hazy, shimmering orb of grey light pulsed within. I sensed an indescribable, unsettling essence coalescing within that grey luminescence—something far more sinister than mere dark elements, radiating an unequivocally ominous aura.

“Down!”

Following the command, I executed a precipitous dive, only for Amos to immediately issue another, rather peculiar, instruction.

“Charge directly towards its body.”

“What?” My initial reaction was one of bewilderment, but as the scene unfolded before me, a sudden realization dawned.

“Of course!”

It was precisely because of their immense size, composed entirely of colossal bones, that their frames were riddled with numerous gaps. Our combined size, Amos and I, was perfectly suited to slip through these very interstices.

And in such a predicament—being pursued by one while passing directly through the body of the other—it was only natural that…

Witnessing the two gargantuan bone dragons behind us collide with a resounding ‘boom,’ then both plummet from the sky to smash against the city wall below, I lamented with a cry of ‘What a shame!’

Precisely because they were bone dragons, the impact of their skeletal mass against the city wall yielded absolutely no effect; not even a hairline crack materialized.

However, the city walls of Val City were not only towering but also surprisingly slender. Upon impact, the dragons became perfectly ensnared within each other’s skeletal frameworks, their own bones interlocking in a chaotic jumble. This entanglement effectively prevented them from separating, rendering them utterly incapable of flight.

The two bone dragons, so arrogantly dominant moments before, were now reduced to little more than furiously flapping their membrane-thin wings, succeeding only in kicking up clouds of dust from the ground below.

“Fly faster! Put more distance between us!”

Amos pressed me, and though we had momentarily eluded the dragons’ pincer attack, he showed no inclination to let me halt.

“But Sally and the others…”

My gaze darted anxiously behind us. We had escaped, but what fate awaited those left behind within the city walls?

A handful of creatures, resembling spectral dragonflies, launched from the city, pursuing us for a short while. However, apparently deeming the distance too vast, they soon wheeled around and retreated.

“This is no time to lower your guard; fly even further!”

Amos had also observed them, yet he remained exceedingly cautious, instructing me to press onward. We continued our flight until we had concealed ourselves behind a distant mountain peak, far removed from the city. Only after confirming the absence of any further pursuers did we finally descend.

“CRACK!”

No sooner had I unfastened the ropes that bound him than Amos whirled around, delivering a sharp backhanded slap across my face.

“……”

I stood utterly dumbfounded, rooted to the spot. It had never crossed my mind that he would strike me the very instant we touched down.

Had we not just successfully evaded the pursuit of two formidable bone dragons? And emerged completely unscathed? Was this not a triumph worthy of celebration? Why, then, would he resort to striking me?

“Wh-why?”

My fingers tentatively grazed my stinging cheek; the pain was quite real, and an immeasurable wave of grievance suddenly washed over me.

“You still don’t comprehend why I struck you?”

Observing my bewildered question, he let out a sigh, his expression tinged with a hint of exasperation.

I parted my lips, still inclined to press him for an explanation, but ultimately, I conceded with a truthful response.

“I… I don’t know.”

“You show far too little regard for your own well-being!” Amos declared, his voice laden with the frustration of one witnessing a self-destructive act.

“I’ve repeatedly told you not to concern yourself with others’ opinions of you. It’s one thing to disregard my advice, but why must you push yourself to such a suicidal extreme?”

For a moment, however, his words utterly failed to register with me.

“When did I ever court death?”

I inquired, my face a mask of utter bewilderment, genuinely failing to grasp his meaning.

Perceiving that I remained oblivious to the gravity of the situation, he immediately divulged the incident from the previous night: my clandestine meeting with Alfred while everyone else slept.

“Why did you voluntarily approach Alfred, specifically requesting to conduct this perilous experiment of escaping by ascending from the city center?”

Upon hearing this, a wave of profound astonishment washed over me. How could he possibly know? Had Alfred revealed the details to him during their private discussion?

“Naturally, it was to forge a path of escape for everyone! With all other routes out of the city now sealed, wasn’t it imperative that I proactively seek an alternative? And Blanche had coincidentally mentioned…”

I explained, as if stating the obvious. I had presented this very rationale to Alfred previously; surely, it was a perfectly valid and justifiable reason?

“And what, pray tell, was the *outcome*? Did I not warn you repeatedly? I explicitly stated that such an approach was exceedingly dangerous and that I would never endorse it. Moreover, everyone was attempting to dissuade you; did you heed a single word?”

Amos meticulously enumerated the myriad flaws and inherent unreliability of my so-called ‘way out.’

“Had the enemy not been so utterly imprudent as to dispatch such colossal creatures as bone dragons—and two of them, no less—do you honestly believe you would still be alive now, had they sent other Rank 6 monsters instead?”