The target was right before their eyes.
Yet the entire squad, including Sonia, fell into a bizarre silence, and an unsettling atmosphere hung heavily in the air.
Was something wrong?
Melina vaguely remembered her instructors mentioning a situation like this, but when she tried to think about it, it felt like looking at a variant of a math problem she had seen before—she knew how to solve it, but couldn't quite recall the steps. She was currently trapped in that awkward transitional zone between theoretical knowledge and practical experience. Seeing that everyone else remained silent, she simply stayed quiet and pressed close to her senior.
This game of red light, green light somehow dragged on, reminding Melina of standing at attention during military training in her past life.
Stand firm like a pine...
Stand firm like a pine……
…
The eerie stillness was maintained just like that.
After about five or six minutes, with a rustling sound, the surrounding "jungle" shifted.
The air seemed to be "losing its color." Patches of paint-like camouflage peeled away, dissolving from solid blocks of visible magic factor back into a special conceptual factor and fading into nothingness. Hiding right beside them was a colossal behemoth.
It was undeniably close to forty meters in body length and nearly ten meters in height. Potent magic factors continuously radiated in wave-like thermal ripples from its crimson scales, accompanied by a faint scent of mutton and fresh grass.
An adult Red Dragon.
Its skull featured the thick, rugged short-snout structure typical of a wyvern, reminiscent of a boxer. Its horns were a pair of swept-back horns shooting straight up into the air, standard for its kind. This was a wing-legged dragon; its folded wings doubled as forelimbs for walking on the ground. What was most striking about this dragon was the terrifying six-sided hammer blade at the tip of its heavy tail, as well as the gorgeous, fiery red, feather-like scales covering its wings.
Fiery red, circular arc blades grew over its joints, and the main structure of its body was encased in interlocking red armor plates.
It almost made Melina's knees go weak instantly.
This thing was vastly bigger than any Marsh Dragon.
This was a powerful Red-Dragon-species wyvern.
Fortunately, a wyvern's static vision is infinitely close to blindness, and this particular dragon's sense of smell wasn't very acute—as evidenced by the mutton stench on its body, this fellow's staple diet was mutton, and it even roasted the meat before eating it. Did that phrase come in handy now, then?
That phrase, *Dua-Puia-Akir*?
She wondered if old Mr. Don Quixote had taken Joan's teaching seriously and actually used that phrase as true Draconic.
All in all, though……
This fucking dragon had camouflage! Such a huge dragon had camouflage! That was simply unreasonable... Melina's classical theoretical foundation kicked in; this swamp had evidently been claimed by the wyvern as its personal hoard, which was why these glowing blue Taryi Crystal Mines hadn't been coveted by other dragons. The greed of dragons for glowing minerals was beyond human comprehension, and the vast majority of wyvems were hunted down precisely because "they were unwilling to leave their wealth," ultimately turning them into a part of that wealth.
Hunting a wyvern of this caliber required a hunting syndicate of over thirty people split into ten teams cooperating wholeheartedly—confirming the ecology, lair, movement patterns, and habits, then custom-making traps, Alchemy items, consumables, and buying a calf... Local custom dictated that before a large-scale hunt began, one had to perform a bunch of mystical, ritualistic activities and treat the whole hunting party to roast calf.
If it succeeded, it meant the calf was auspicious enough.
If it failed, most of the time you wouldn't be coming back anyway, but at least you got a good meal beforehand, right?
…
But fucking hell, the sisters didn't have a calf to eat right now. Could they ask this dragon to kindly reschedule and wait until the sisters came back?
Melina was the kind of freak whose nervous system grew more active the greater the pressure.
Seeing this red dragon prepare to close its eyes and resume snoring deeply, she had an idea.
Standing around here playing red light, green light with this dragon was a dead loss, because if they stood too long, someone was bound to go numb, twitch, and inevitably provoke an attack from the red dragon. They had to lure this dragon out.
And after careful consideration, Melina felt she had to do it herself.
First, she was small and agile enough—Rae and Joan wouldn't do; the physical stats of those two lolis were far inferior to her own.
Second, she had an abundance of magic factors—abundant magic factors actually granted her exceptional elemental defense, so taking a blast of Dragon Breath wouldn't necessarily spell doom.
Finally, she carried the least amount of equipment, so throwing her life away wouldn't hurt the economy... Just kidding; it was because she had relatively little equipment, making her easier to run with, and she would also attract the dragon more easily. No matter how huge these dragons grew, they were essentially inclined to bully the soft and fear the hard.
Having weighed these three aspects.
Melina pondered the ultimate question: Was this even necessary?
Right now, they were like students trapped in a classroom before dismissal, with the teacher declaring, "No one leaves until this problem is solved!" and at this moment, a hero needed to step up to solve the problem while bearing the teacher's irresponsible, misplaced wrath. Would she do it?
I would.
Melina thought.
She had no fondness for becoming a "hero"; what she enjoyed was the thrill of racing against danger, that true sense of freedom that made her feel alive, while incidentally watching the ugly expression of that irresponsible old bastard who kept dragging out class. It was genuinely amusing.
Therefore, standing in the red dragon's blind spot, she turned her head to look at Sonia.
At that moment, she trusted Sonia understood what she was about to do.
*Oh crap, don't—* Sonia hadn't even had time to voice the words before Melina launched into action, executing a fierce, relentless jump-step that propelled her instantly out of the optimal starting distance. She sprang from the tree like a Fairy, and moving like a Vampire, she whipped up magic factors into an invisible force field wall as she sped past, striking a heavy blow right across the red dragon's face.
A sound as sharp as a slap rang out.
Simultaneously, an ear-splitting roar echoed, followed by a thunderous, catapult-like launch.
As one of the apex predators of this world, a red dragon naturally possessed an inflated and abnormal pride. They were like kings of their domain, and now someone had actually dared to slap the respected face of the king? Then came the wrath of the king.
Despite its massive bulk, the red dragon possessed terrifying agility beyond human imagination. While they appeared blind to static objects—true dragon-blinds—their ability to capture dynamic motion had reached an infinitesimal degree. Furthermore, its innate agility allowed it to close the gap instantly, overtaking Melina from behind as its short snout snapped open, its brutal bite force instantly laid bare.
This terrifying explosive power erupted simultaneously with the moment Melina seemed about to perish beneath the dragon's jaws.
Sonia almost screamed out loud, only to see Melina, with her back turned and unable to see the dragon, execute an elegant evasive dodge just as the jaws snapped shut. Agile as a fairy in mid-air, she flashed a provocative smile, clenched both fists, and swung them across in an X shape. A force field wall condensed from overwhelmingly heavy magic factors struck the tip of the red dragon's nose once again.
For a giant dragon with a short snout, the nose was a sensitive spot.
Attacking it only made the beast even more frantic.
Which made sense: if a king got slapped by someone and found out the opponent hit a bit hard, he might say, "I'll let it slide this time, I'm magnanimous." But when a second slap landed, not even Jesus could play the king with that kind of good temper.
*I'll rip you to shreds!*
The crimson giant dragon erupted with thunderous fury, accelerating once more.
And Melina fully unleashed the nature of a win-streak umamusume who passionately loved to run, accelerating yet again across the flat ground. She dodged the giant dragon's lunging pounce and drew the beast far away in one breath. The fairy-like young girl relished the danger, surrounded by the dragon and made the focal point—this was her already warped nature.
…
Melina stepped forward and lured the giant dragon away.
Staring blankly at the trail of flying dust and wood fragments soaring into the distance, Sonia finally snapped back to her senses and shrieked:
"Quick, start mining!"
She then fished out a noise arrow and a flash arrow from her pouch and loaded them onto her brass crossbow.
She didn't waste time on sentimentality by telling the members of Echo Squad to rush over and help Xiaomei; instead, she urged them to get straight to work.
At the same time, she possessed an unreasoned conviction that once they finished their task here and fired a crossbow bolt into the sky, it would signal Melina, and they would eventually rendezvous near Hamlet Town.
It wasn't tacit understanding, but a certain kind of knowing.
She knew she would do that.
"Has she gone crazy?" Rae asked, still shaken.
"Rae!" Joan shouted, cutting Rae off as she glared sternly at her. "To work."
Joan glanced at Sonia. "Sorry, my sister's a bit too stimulated today."
If someone was willing to pay the price of rear-guard cover and sacrifice, you could never call that person crazy.
"That was a great choice," Joan said solemnly.
Don Quixote had already trotted over to the edge of the swamp, pulled out the mining tools he had prepared long ago, and shouted loudly:
"Rae, give me a hand here!"
The members of Echo Squad quickly displayed their professional competence, clearing away the defensive magic factors blanketing the swamp in mere seconds and setting to work on neutralizing the dragon venom. Sonia could only stare helplessly from the sidelines; she wasn't an expert—not every reincarnator could suddenly solve advanced math problems they couldn't do before just because they went back in time.
These specialized skills were much like math: if you couldn't do them, you wouldn't be able to do them even if you reincarnated a hundred times.
Naturally, her thoughts drifted to Melina.
That fairy-like girl who practically danced through the air.
In the First Playthrough, the world had three top-tier monsters: All-Out Alice (Alice), Peak Taisia (Taisia), and Healthy Mel (Melina). Legend had it that the appearance of these three monsters would spell the end of everything, much like gathering the Dark Magician in Yu-Gi-Oh! or the Angel Teaching in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX.
Yet of those three, only Melina was a genuine top-five Explorer in the world, and only her situation left room for the imagination...
When she met Melina in the First Playthrough, the girl's physical condition was already extremely poor. On average, she required immensely powerful magic akin to a wish-granting spell every month just to alleviate her eternal torment, and she couldn't run at all anymore. She was considered an Explorer who used light Armament, yet served as the representative figure of heavy Armament. Only occasionally did she display a terrifying burst of explosive speed that allowed her to keep pace for a split second with unique, peerlessly agile dragons like the Shadow-Tracking Dragon.
It made one imagine just how terrifying a fully healthy Melina could be.
Now, Sonia had caught a glimpse of that shadow.
Not an Explorer, yet she effortlessly toyed with a speed-type Red-Feathered Dragon using sheer velocity. A genius like that probably couldn't be found anywhere in the Royal Capital, no matter how hard you searched.
At this thought, Sonia felt a slight ache in her teeth.
Her reincarnation cheat had easily given her the upper hand, allowing her to bring along her future Crossbow Mastery skill, which sat at Challenge Rating 10. But her innate talent hadn't improved by a single shred; when shooting at stationary targets, she was still like Mark Gor from a Hong Kong cop film—you want accuracy? You have the ammo count. You want utility? You have the ammo count! Never mind whether she was accurate; just look at how fast and how many bullets she had!
Her memories were interrupted by Echo Squad.
The professional team had used the fastest possible speed to unearth those glowing blue crystal ores, strictly following Sonia's prior instructions to handle them like radioactive thermal stones by placing them in individual small boxes, using gloved and armored hands for contact throughout the entire process.
Seeing this, Sonia fired two consecutive crossbow bolts into the sky.
One noise-interference arrow, and one flash-burst arrow.