The Principle of a Philosopher by Eternal Fool “Asley”

“AWOOOOO!!”

Pochi let out a threatening howl.

Now that she had become a Heavenly Beast, her arcane energy surpassed that of a wolf Beast.

The Blazing Dragons flinched, overwhelmed by the intimidating magical property of her howl.

The enemies were still of the Dragon Archetype, however. Although their bodies reacted appropriately, their pride would never allow a retreat.

Their crimson breaths were locked on to the gigantified Pochi.

“”GAAAARRRR!!””

All Purgatory Breaths were unleashed at once, drawing in on Pochi.

“Orah!”

He held out both his hands; at the same time and a wall of arcane energy appeared, keeping the Blazing Dragons’ streaming flames at bay.

“Nghghgh…”

“C’mon, Master! Let’s get going!”

Pochi picked Asley up by the collar of his shirt.

Seeing the Breath Attacks finally subside, Asley heaved a sigh.

“And… there!”

Pochi raised her head with all her might, throwing Asley high into the sky.

“Whoa?! …Ngh, Pochi Pad Bomb!”

The paw-shaped water bomb engulfed two of the Blazing Dragons.

The other Dragons, seeing two of their kind fall to the ground, further intensified their roars.

“GAAAARRRR!!”

But at the same time, as if to jump the gun on those Dragons, Pochi hit those Dragons with her Freeze Breath.

The stream of cold air whirled around several Blazing Dragons, freezing them solid.

“Hurry and get on, Master! They won’t stop coming! We need to get out of here!”

“Got it-! Wait, no, get to those five Blazing Dragons first! Guile’s almost out of energy now!”

“Yes, sir!”

Pochi ran off toward Guile, with Asley hopping on her back mid-run.

Asley, gritting through the impact of Pochi’s abnormal acceleration, aimed at the Blazing Dragon directly above Guile.

“Rise, Cross Wind!”

Since Guile was right underneath the area of effect, Asley had chosen to limit the power of his spell to that of the intermediate level.

The other Dragons around Guile, noticing Asley and Pochi’s approach, turned to glare at them instead.

But by then, Pochi had already slipped past the Dragons’ feet, reaching Guile just as he was about to be exhausted.

“Great work, you two!”

“Thank you!”

The Blazing Dragons, reacting to Guile’s voice, directed their sights back at him; but Guile already reached Asley and Pochi, while also managing to lop off the head of the nearest Dragon on his way.

Asley reached out to grab the back of Guile’s armor, then lifted him up and placed him in front of himself on Pochi’s back.

Using the headless Blazing Dragon’s body as a springboard, Pochi leaped up and blasted one of the airborne Dragons with a Freeze Breath. Asley didn’t lose this opportunity to launch another Pochi Pad Bomb at the middle of the Dragons’ cluster.

All that happened in mere seconds; those five Blazing Dragons were no more.

“Gah! Hah… hah… Hey, long time… no see…”

“High Cure Adjust!”

Although Guile had in fact not sustained any major injuries, Asley used his large-scale restoration spell to heal him; it happened to be the one he had set as Swift Magic.

That, and he had considered the possibility of Guile’s overexertion resulting in severe internal wounds.

Asley himself had no suitable verbal reply to Guile’s forced banter – he only held the man up by his back and gave him the look of respect.

“Master, give him the thing!”

Realizing what Pochi was referring to, Asley reached for a vial of Pochi Bitande’d in his chest pocket and passed it to Guile.

“Hah hah… what? The hell’s this, orange juice?”

“Poison, I guess! Just hurry and drink it!”

Asley replied to Guile’s banter this time; the latter, relaxed upon hearing so, chugged down the vial’s contents in one go.

Pochi landed softly, mindful of her riders; feeling all the hostile intent in the word from behind, she immediately proceeded to rush off to the side.

This was to make sure that Asley could see what was coming at them.

“Forty incoming!”

“A hundred meters away, sir!”

“No need to aim! Zenith Breath at the middle of the flock!”

In response to that instruction, Pochi briefly stopped.

“Huuuuu… GAAAHHHH!!”

A curtain of blue light spread forth, engulfing ten of the Blazing Dragons; the monsters were obliterated, while Guile was utterly dazzled by the sight.

Pochi, her mouth still smoking, ran off again immediately, shocking Guile with the impact on his body.

Guile grabbed on to Pochi’s back, his exhausted body whipping around in the wind – but then he felt something change.

[…I’m not… tired anymore? What the-!]

Now Guile realized what the ‘juice’ in that vial did; he turned to Asley, only to see him doing something… incomprehensible.

“Rise! Rise, A-rise! Rise! Rise, Arise, A-rise… Rise!”

Incomprehensible to Guile, indeed.

Asley, using the time Pochi had bought for him, was reconfiguring his Swift Magic.

Pochi, realizing what her Master was doing, kept on shooting down the Blazing Dragons to buy Asley more time.

And then-

“Oh c’mon… really?”

Guile’s words, upon him seeing the mountain, suggested a great deal of surprise and despair – where the latter comprised a considerably larger part of it.

A black, cloud-like clump was writhing on the mountain’s summit.

But that was indeed no cloud; each moving part was its own individual.

“They really don’t wanna let us go, huh…”

What Guile was looking at was a flock of Blazing Dragons – at least a hundred of them.

Asley’s spells and Pochi’s breath attacks had slain over fifty of them in total.

However, there were still more than ten-fold of that amount chasing them.

And at least a hundred of them left on the mountain’s summit…

Guile caught the sound of Pochi’s rough breathing in his ears. The reality here was that if Pochi stopped moving, it would be all over for the three of them.

“H-hey! You have any more of that juice?!”

Guile now realized the weight of the situation, but what he heard next was not at all what he had expected.

“You need a break, Shiro?!”

“Hah hah… this is… nothing…!”

Asley had no more of the Pochi Bitande’d left on hand.

Pochi already knew that.

If he hadn’t given that last vial to Guile, the latter would have been thrown off to his death by now.

Realizing what was up, Guile promptly closed his mouth; he could now only bite his lower lip down in regret.

“We’ve got to gather them around somehow!”

“I would already have if I could!”

“I know! Let’s give this a try! Gravity Road & Remote Control!”

Asley drew a circle on the fly and invoked the gravity spell.

“Ngh?! W-what made you think it’s a good idea to joke around NOW?!”

It did hold down the flock of Blazing Dragons – but Asley, Pochi, and Guile as well.

“Gah! …T-the hell is this spell?!”

Guile tried to keep himself up, fighting the increased weight of his own body.

Although Pochi was chucking profanities at Asley, she knew that Asley wasn’t joking around.

She still didn’t understand his intentions, however, and could only tread carefully as the Blazing Dragons slowly approached them.

“Ngh… and… here! Rise! Magic Colors!”

This time, Asley cast a spell into the sky; the Spell Circle expanded, and proceeded to rain down rainbow-colored light particles.

Pochi’s eyes widened; now she understood what her Master was going for.

Asley’s latter spell highlighted the arcane energy with its different colors, in turn identifying the Gravity Road’s exact areas of effect.

The paths with increased gravitational pull restricted the movements of the Blazing Dragons in their effect areas; the plan was for Pochi to lure them around, eventually gathering them in a single location.

All that needed to be done now was to carry the plan out.

Pochi proceeded to run ahead with the fastest speed she could manage – dodging past, leaping over, and slipping under the enemies’ Purgatory Breaths like a thread through a needle hole.

The Blazing Dragons, agitated by the abnormal gravity, fell right into Pochi’s trick.

The paths led to one center point… the dead center of a vortex, completely surrounded by a wall of increased gravity; Pochi reached here first.

The Blazing Dragons glided right into it, falling down mid-way; there were approximately eighty of them here.

The monsters roared in unison, the sheer magnitude of their voices and the wideness of each of their mouths shaking Guile to his core.

However,

“Whirlwind!”

Asley unleashed one of his newly-set Swift Magic spells.

Pochi leapt up, letting the wind below her feet carry her.

It got her high enough in the air to cross over the gravity spell’s areas of effect.

As one would expect, the Blazing Dragons tried to give chase; they spread their wings, blowing up dust clouds with each flap.

At this moment, Asley invoked a spell from another one of his new Swift Magic slots.

“Gravity Stamp!”

Pochi, with Asley and Guile on her back, was the first and only to escape from the gravity vortex.

The Blazing Dragons were blocked from further progress by the latest spell’s invisible ceiling, as if they had a lid to seal them in a pot.

They had only one way to get out now: the sides, which had pinned down countless others of their own kind.

“Earth Control!”

Asley invoked the third Swift Magic spell, calling up strong earthen walls – a countless amount of them.

Now the Blazing Dragons were completely trapped; still, they unleashed their Purgatory Breaths, with Pochi spinning around to dodge them all in mid-air.

On Pochi’s back, Asley readied his staff – a staff made from the fangs of Torrent Dragons, the Blazing Dragons’ greatest rival.

“Pochi Pad Breath!!”

What he aimed at was the vortex’s center.

What he shouted out was a gigantic, paw-shaped ball of water; its size was that of a small mountain.

Pochi subsequently landed, and immediately laid flat on the ground, her body shrinking down.

“Ack… ack…!”

“Hey… are you al- whoa?!”

Guile had no time to worry about Pochi now.

Pochi’s gigantification had disengaged; Asley carried her on his shoulder, while also helping Guile up.

As he got up, Asley immediately screamed,

“RUN, RUN, RUN!!”

The Pochi Pad Breath was about to explode.

Asley was the only one present who knew of the spell’s destructive power; his face warped into a spectrum of emotions: panic, regret, more panic… and tears of fear.

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