I Got a Gallery in the Wild - Chapter 830

Thanks to the friend Wonmo brought along and that friend’s master, the battle had turned far more in our favor.

The Photon Cannon—whose sheer power sent chills down one’s spine just looking at it—had been neutralized, and its head had even been severed.

But since it was an entity formed from countless fused bodies, losing a head wasn’t enough to kill it.

’The heart. I need to find the heart.’

The Dragon Heart that made Manatology, already fearsome, exponentially more powerful.

It had to be somewhere inside that massive bulk, bigger than most buildings, but locating it was a nightmare.

[Aaaargh...]

[Just... why...]

Voices, indistinguishable whether male or female, leaked from the mouths scattered across its body.

It was creepy on every level, and I wanted nothing more than to put an end to the bastard as fast as possible.

’How do I...’

A battle of attrition was stacked against us.

Even if we had holy water, that thing had a Dragon Heart.

With a clear weak point to target, aiming for a war of attrition was foolish.

Bang! Bang!

The one saving grace was that Gas Mask’s supporting fire was superb.

Whenever weapons sprouted from across the Flesh Dragon’s body, he sniped and neutralized them right on time.

But that was the limit of what Gas Mask could do; expecting more support seemed unrealistic.

Fweeet!

It was right when I was scrambling to figure out how to take the Flesh Dragon down.

A whistle sounded from where the gunfire had come, and the shepherd pricked up its ears.

"Friend! I gotta go now!"

"Where are you going? I wanna come too!"

Wonmo. Where do you think you’re going?

Stop wagging that stubby tail and help me out here.

’Wait, no. Maybe it’s better than Wonmo jumping into the fight.’

Setting that aside, the shepherd spoke.

"Master must be running out of bullets. I have to go deliver some."

"Really? Okay, bye!"

"Bye! I’ll come back later!"

After their warm little chat, the shepherd took off.

I wondered how a dog was supposed to resupply ammo, but someone else answered that for me.

"That guy. He’s one of my kind."

"Your kind? You mean a shadow?"

"Yeah. Probably packed with all sorts of weapons inside."

Heukgu, who still lived inside my shadow, explained.

Gas Mask and the Elders were suspected to be Aragon’s underlings, after all.

So having a shadow creature—essentially another creation of the gods—by their side wasn’t surprising.

The difference was that Heukgu had been directly commanded by the Chief God, while the shepherd just tagged along after its master.

Squirm, squirm, squirm—

That aside, dealing with the Flesh Dragon came first.

Even with its massive neck severed, it kept stubbornly regenerating—far worse than any zombie.

"Grylls-ssi! More monsters are swarming in!"

"Spray the holy water, female!"

On top of that, other Fog Monsters in the area were gathering in growing numbers, making this a massive headache.

Fortunately, having finished reloading, Gas Mask provided steady cover, but even that wasn’t enough.

’There has to be a way...’

As I wrestled with thoughts during this endless war of attrition—

"Daddy. Daddy."

Wonmo, who had been trading blows with the Flesh Dragon alongside me, called out.

Part of me wanted to move Wonmo somewhere safe, but he was actually being a huge help.

I cleaved apart a giant arm lunging at me with my sword and answered.

"What is it, Wonmo?"

"It smells funny only over there."

Wonmo had been holding his own smoothly using the skills he learned from Quokka.

With his keen sense of smell, I thought he was just suffering from the stench, but apparently he’d picked up on something odd amidst the chaos.

I turned my head toward where Wonmo was pointing, but sadly, I couldn’t see anything.

Just the thick, bloated torso of the Flesh Dragon.

Kaboom!

Right then, some kind of cannon poked out and fired at us.

The shot was clearly visible, so I easily blocked it with Body-Protecting Gangqi, but Wonmo’s words weighed on my mind more than the attack.

"What do you mean, it smells different?"

"Everywhere else smells like poop, but over there smells refreshing."

Smells like poop. Such a cute way to put it, fitting for the young Wonmo.

At first, of course, I thought it might just be a mistake brought on by the chaotic fight.

’Still, this is Wonmo, who just fetched a friend from afar...’This story is hosted at n‌ovelping.com.

He was smart enough to make sharp decisions without me having to say a word.

If he said that, there had to be a reason. It was worth trusting.

I fixed my gaze on the area Wonmo pointed to—the Flesh Dragon’s lower abdomen.

’I hope I can see something like with that water deer last time...’

Crash!

Dodging the Flesh Dragon’s tail whip, I activated my Eye Lantern.

Then, widening my eyes, I focused my vision on the spot Wonmo had pointed out.

Flash!

To my astonishment, the Flesh Dragon’s entire body was glowing.

A glow like this meant it contained massive quantities of mana.

In other words, the Flesh Dragon’s body was effectively a gigantic mass of mana.

’It doesn’t look like one seamless whole, but rather segmented.’

Every living being, and even different individuals of the same species, harbors a different amount of mana.

The Flesh Dragon looked as if it had been stitched together by force with thread.

A visual manifestation through mana of "one us" where neither "you" nor "I" existed—

No sooner had I thought how typical that was of Manatology than something caught my eye even more.

Shwaaa—

The light was so blinding I almost missed it, but there was a section completely foreign compared to the rest.

A difference so minute I never would have noticed had Wonmo not pointed it out.

While the rest glowed like starlight, the area I was looking at had a starkly different quality.

The mana distribution was alien compared to the rest, dense and tightly packed together.

It was suspicious by any standard. Time to check it out myself.

’How are the others doing...’

With a plan formed, I checked on the others.

Unfortunately, Lackey and Elia had their hands full dealing with the swarming monsters.

If they tried to help me now, they’d end up overwhelmed by Manatology.

’I’ll just have to trust Gas Mask’s support.’

He’d provided timely backup so far, so trusting him was my best bet.

Racking my brain, I weighed how to strike at that lower abdomen.

’First, I need to blast open the surface with an arrow and expose what’s inside.’

Not an ordinary arrow, but a power-amplifying Mythricon Arrow.

I intended to save the Arrow of the Lord God for the finishing blow; for now, opening an opportunity was best.

Creaaak—

Widening my eyes, I nocked the Mythricon Arrow to the string.

Having fully regenerated its head in the meantime, the Flesh Dragon gaped its maw wide.

That alone would have been fine, but—

Whoosh!

The real problem was the dozens of arms reaching toward me. I had to clear them all at once to target the abdomen.

Slash! Slice!

"Jju-bbyu-jju-bbyu!"

Wonmo, who had grown steadily all this time.

Bang! Bang!

Gas Mask, providing continuous covering fire from the fog.

"Hmph. Annoying bastards."

And even Heukgu, who seemed to have regained some strength as he offered support from my shadow.

Backed by their support, I charged toward the Flesh Dragon’s lower abdomen.

The Flesh Dragon raised its foreleg high, but its movements were sluggish enough that dodging wasn’t difficult.

The real trouble was the firearms popping out across its body and those grotesque limbs.

Boom!

Evading them all, I kicked hard off the ground and surged forward.

The leap was powerful enough to gouge the solid concrete floor, catapulting my body forward like an arrow.

As I sped past the Flesh Dragon’s lower abdomen, I spun my body midair.

Turning around, my vision filled not with the hard concrete, but with the hideous belly of the Flesh Dragon.

At that exact moment, I locked onto the spot I’d marked earlier.

Twang!

I released the nocked arrow with ease.

Thunk!

The arrow struck dead center on the spot where the Dragon Heart was presumed hidden.

Skimming past the dragon’s belly, just before my back scraped against the concrete—

"Careful."

Heukgu smartly caught my back with a shadow.

True to humanity’s best friend—dog-tier support.Enjoying the story? Read on at no⁠velping.com.

"...Did you just think of something rude?"

"No, of course not."

Kaboom!

Right as we traded words—

A massive explosion erupted from the Flesh Dragon’s lower belly where my arrow had struck.

I’d packed plenty of mana into that Mythricon Arrow, yet the blast was weaker than expected.

Apparently, the Flesh Dragon had absorbed the mana, blunting the force of the blast.

But the power was still plenty enough to achieve what I wanted.

Slump—

The dragon’s underbelly, made of pure meat without bone.

Chunks of flesh scattered in every direction from the blast, baring what lay inside.

The thing already looked like a giant mound of tumors, but what was revealed inside was a real tumor.

Specifically, a tumor curled into a rounded sphere to protect something within.

’That’s it.’

The moment I laid eyes on it, I knew by instinct that it was the Dragon Heart.

Moreover, a Dragon Heart had a structure that cradled a heart within a heart.

If you counted that tumor as a kind of heart, this went beyond a double heart—it was practically a triple heart.

Bang!

While I was briefly lost in thought considering our next move—

As if there were no time to waste thinking, Gas Mask pulled the trigger without hesitation.

The fired round pierced through the thick fog, streaking straight toward the mass of tumors.

Thwack!

Instead of piercing clean through, something lodged itself into the tumor shielding the Dragon Heart.

Looking closer, to my surprise, it wasn’t a bullet at all—it was shaped like a syringe.

On top of that, the liquid inside the syringe was forcibly pumped into the tumor.

Sizzle!

Whether it shared properties with holy water or was something he’d synthesized himself, the tumor began to melt away.

Other masses of flesh scrambled to shield it, but the drug from the syringe dissolved them all.

[Karak-rak-rahl-ahaaa!!!][#@@#!@#!!]

The Flesh Dragon let out an indecipherable shriek.

I couldn’t miss this chance, so I hurled every last drop of holy water I’d received from Asella.

Elia and Lackey, quick-witted as always while fending off the swarming monsters, tossed their holy water without hesitation.

Sizzle!

Cut off from the energy of its Dragon Heart, the Flesh Dragon began to melt away.

But with the most vital Dragon Heart still intact, standing by and watching was out of the question.

"Friend’s master! My master says to do something! He says he can’t do any more!"

Right on cue, the shepherd dashed over to report Gas Mask’s situation.

I already had something in mind, having already nocked the Arrow of the Lord God to the string.

’I might suffer mana exhaustion like last time, but...’

With my comrades around me, I could trust them to cover me.

With that resolve, I slowly poured mana into the Arrow of the Lord God.

Like an opened dam, the mana inside my body was drained away in an instant.

’Sharp are the arrows of the King; they penetrate the hearts of His enemies.’

But just as the verse flashed through my mind, an anomaly occurred.

Normally, it should have devoured every drop of mana inside my body, but this time was different.

As if the Arrow of the Lord God had become part of my own body, it began voraciously absorbing ambient mana from the surroundings instead of from me.

Just as mana filled me with every breath I took, the Arrow of the Lord God seemed to breathe, inhaling mana as it did.

Applying scientific logic to how an inanimate arrow could breathe had no place in this moment.

That was simply how it felt.

[Graaaargh!]

Sensing mortal danger, the Flesh Dragon charged toward me in one last desperate struggle.

It roared with spiteful fury, but it was already too late.

’His arrow shall flash forth like lightning.’

With that verse, I released the bowstring.

Zing!

A streak of blinding light shot straight through the monster’s heart.

And then.

Flash!

As if that flash had detonated outward, it scattered an overwhelming radiance in every direction.

It was so blinding—like staring straight into the sun—that I had to clamp my eyes shut.

After a moment, when my vision had somewhat recovered, I slowly opened my eyes.

"N-No! You can’t! Please, not the World Tree...!"

"Did you really think the Teacher would be pleased after what you’ve done?"

I saw Aris pointing a sword at someone.