The Armor of a Dragon Warrior

 

The Armor of a Dragon Warrior

Translator: Isabelle Emerson

 

 

Chapter 1: Becoming the Dragon Warrior

 

 

“Yaaaaa!”

Jung Joonhyuk let out a long scream.

“You’re such a jerk, Mr. Choi! Garbage Park Myungseok! Kim Soeun you’re a dog!”

It was a thick cry.

The hand holding the railing was tense.

“Aaaaaah!!”

One by one, he released the anger he had accumulated for two years. The sounds of his shouts gradually receded beyond the horizon. After he finished shouting, his heart finally felt refreshed.

It was a great time.

It was good at first. It was a high-paying job. Wasn’t it great to work for a top-paying conglomerate when you had a less than impressive background?

There was a rumor going around town. I pledged my loyalty to the company.

The result?

The walls of society were high, and the reality was people ended up in the gutter, unlike in dramas and movies.

Click.

Jung Joonhyuk took a selfie with the village’s famous monument in the background.

[Do I look handsome?]

He sent it to his friend, Yoon Kyungho.

A prompt salary Lupin.

[You look like a dog.]

[You’re joking around again.]

[What, dude. You should file a complaint.]

[Whatever.]

[Aren’t you too busy? This bullshit is all because of one guy.]

[Ah, that thing in Chuncheon?]

[Yeah.]

[It’s been a month and you’re still upset about that?]

[More than 1000 people died. If that bastard couldn’t do the set, he should have just resigned.]

[Then he said he’d die.]

[I’m telling you. If you’re going to die, you should just die alone. Why take a thousand people with you? Oh, I got a shot.]

That was it.

Jung Joonhyuk checked the time and shrugged. It was already 1pm, lunchtime at the government office was over. Yoon Kyungho worked for the Ministry of Public Administration and Security, so he would be busy.

“I should eat.”

He found a suitable restaurant for lunch.

“Oh, I’m out of battery.”

His phone’s battery sign had already turned red.

Well, you get what you pay for. The power cable he bought at the convenience store seemed to have gone bad as he started traveling the country. He definitely slept with it connected to the power cable last night, but it seemed it didn’t charge.

Oh well.

Now that he had arrived in the south, he intended to travel along the coastal road to Busan. If he crossed the bridge in the middle and traveled east, he would come across Wando. He didn’t need a map.

Jung Joonhyuk slapped his thigh. His legs felt heavy even though he biked slowly. He thought maybe he should rest tomorrow and go to a sauna.

“Should I go?”

He got on his bike and started pedaling.

The roads in Haenam were the worst. As he came down from Mokpo to the south, he thought his butt was bruised beyond repair.

However, the coastal road headed east from his current position was flat.

If he was driving east—

The blue sea stretched endlessly to the right. Sweat evaporated pleasantly in the cool September breeze, and the group of lights broke down on the horizon and glittered like a gold fly. Cosmos planted on both sides of the road danced softly, giving off a sweet scent.

His moderately stiff legs, fast beating heart, and swollen lungs came with a feeling of pleasure that blew away any pressure. As his mouth drew a soft arc, he pressed the pedals stronger and stronger.

His bicycle was whirling.

Cars appeared and disappeared from time to time, and a flock of birds passed overhead, beckoning Jung Joonhyuk lightly.

Brrrring! 

After traveling for a long time, his phone rang once.

Huh? It wasn’t a message or a phone call.

He tried to check, but the moment he looked at it, the phone turned off.

The battery was dead.

It was probably a message from Yoon Kyungho. No matter how busy he was, wouldn’t he have time by now?

“It’s already 3?”

Jung Joonhyuk was surprised when he looked at the watch on his bicycle.

He had been lost in his thoughts for over an hour.

The fatigue that he had forgotten about suddenly washed over him again. His body felt heavy, and his thighs were screaming.

Joonhyuk pulled his bike off to the side of the road, onto a little section that protruded toward the sea. He leaned onto the guardrail as he looked out at the sea, feeling peace inside his heart.

“Nice…”

He was glad he decided to travel the country.

He didn’t regret buying a bicycle and protective gear even though it took all his savings.

He took off his goggles and helmet and enjoyed the sea breeze.

A sea without the sound of birds.

A quiet road without a single car passing by.

A deserted weekday afternoon.

Jung Joonhyuk enjoyed the leisure of it.

A cold wind blew and evaporated all his sweat.

“Huh?”

That was strange.

Jung Joonhyuk instinctively sensed a strange atmosphere.

Why was it so quiet?

Of course, the coastal road itself was generally a quiet road. It wasn’t a road with any logistics, and right now wasn’t a time for tourism.

But it should still be more than this. It wasn’t a road where not a single car passed by. No matter how much leisure time you had, a few cars should pass by in a minute.

And this silence…

Wasn’t it weird to not hear any bugs when it wasn’t winter?

Where was the sound of birds that had been so refreshing to his ears just a few minutes ago?

The answer came quickly.

Brrrrr.

A strange vibration, a strange alarm.

Jung Joonhyuk jerked his head up. At the end of his gaze, a huge vortex was forming in the sky, covering the sun.

An ominous purple.

A dimensional gate.

An open portal that led to another world.

A hole that was opening its mouth like a lamprey eel.

“Shit!”

This was one hell of a mess.

He was totally screwed.

Such thoughts penetrated Jung Joonhyuk’s mind.

At the same time, he remembered his phone that had died while trying to ring.

Was it a warning for this?

Was it a disaster warning?

No wonder the road had been so quiet. He hadn’t even seen any cars while driving. It seemed everyone had gone the other way after receiving the disaster alert.

Joonhyuk chewed on his lower lip.

It was too late to run away not that he’d seen the dimensional gate. How could he possibly run away on a bike? Even a professional athlete couldn’t go 100 kilometers per hour.

“Please, please…”

He laughed at the sudden thought.

He didn’t know he’d be waiting for someone who used to curse like this on an ordinary day.

He thought that he was just a human being.

Even so, he wanted to live. He wanted to go back home. He wanted to chat while drinking with his friends and confess how scary this moment had been.

Then, he heard the sound he had been waiting for.

A hollow sound that cut through the atmosphere.

When he lifted his head, he saw a huge object floating high in the sky.

A jet-black fuselage.

Bigger than a large passenger plane.

The shape resembled a Western dragon.

A large beam gun was mounted on its back.

A dragon warrior.

“Aaaah!”

Jung Joonhyuk shouted out without thinking.

An icon of defeat? A dragon warrior?

He didn’t have a savior until now. There was a set faction, so he would gladly evangelize and convert.

Pat!

A blue ray began to emanate from the dragon’s belly. The rays spread out and scoured the area. They passed not only through the coastal road where Jung Joonhyuk sat, but also the unknown rural village in front of him along the road, Wando bridge, and the small island beyond.

And there was a completely transparent screen. There was a scene in which the earth was formed, the sea was sloshing, and buildings were built up.

A spatial phase!

It was a subdimensional battlefield separated from reality. The principle of it was unknown, but soldiers used to fight battles against the behemoths by creating a spatial phase to reduce damage to reality.

Of course, it wasn’t perfect. If that was all that was needed, then the Chuncheon and San Francisco disasters would never have happened.

He heard a strange rumble.

A dimensional door trapped in the huge sphere in the sky began to ring.

Pop!

An arm popped out through a purple hole.

A white shining arm. Four thick, steel beams wrapped around each other like ropes. White fur shining in between looked strong and sharp. White, frosty jewels were stuck in what seemed to be pores in the hairy section, blowing out cold air like dry ice.

A frost giant!

A class 7 behemoth. The set was a class 7 warrior as well, so wouldn’t it be able to block it?

Suddenly, he felt uneasy.

Originally, a warrior could defeat two or three monsters of the same level easily. The top American and German warriors once fought 4 to 1 and still won. Therefore, even if the behemoth and the set weren’t a good match, they could win a 1 to 1 fight, right?

The dragon warrior could be seen spreading its wings outside the spatial phase. The beam gun on its back sprayed out a group of blue lights, and a missile warhead poked out from between the joints of its wings. As its mouth opened, a blue circle formed.

The image was distorted, but it was fully recognizable. This was because although the camera could see the sea or only one building at a time as if it were walking around arbitrarily, the view was reflected in the spatial phase through the dragon warrior’s nucleus.

It wasn’t long before the frost giant fully appeared. As the name suggested, it looked like a giant yeti, but more like a robot yeti. This was because it had a steel head with a red lens instead of the typical yeti head.

The dragon warrior seemed to have been waiting a long time.

Hundreds of mana missiles were pouring out. The light artillery hit the frost giant, which was larger than a decently sized building. Plasma from the dragon warrior’s open mouth penetrated the frost giant and scratched the walls of the spatial phase.

“The offense is incredible.”

That was the problem.

It wasn’t covered in armor or fast like some other warriors. It was all about firing bullets from afar. A complete one-tool player. That was how they violently destroyed the behemoths.

Jung Joonhyuk looked up at the ball in the sky nervously. The explosion violently scattered debris everywhere. White hairs were exploding in all directions.

The dragon warrior’s bombardment lasted nearly half an hour. The attack didn’t leave behind a single trace. Some mountains had been destroyed and other firepower was lost, but in the end a class 7 monster was destroyed.

The dragon warrior stopped firing and looked to the side where the dimensional gate used to be. The way he put the beam gun away and closed his mouth seemed to be asking ‘did I hurt him?’.

“Ya! Ya!”

Jung Joonhyuk jumped in surprise.

Distorted shapes could be seen on the surface of the sphere. A frost giant passed by in an instant.

The frost giant was in a disastrous state. All its hair had been shed until only a grotesque body remained. A serpentine stream of steel hung down like a snake, on the verge of being twisted and burned.

However, there was an ice spear.

Seeing the glowing ice spear rising from the breast of the frost giant, Jung Joonhyuk frantically shook his arms.

“Warrior! Hey! Hey! Shoot some more!”

The dragon warrior turned its attention to Joonhyuk. He quickly motioned his arms to shoot, but the warrior seemed to take it in a strange way. He waved his own hand as if in greeting.

“Argh! That’s not it!”

He pointed toward the frost giant, but the dragon warrior ignored him. Instead, he turned slowly and spread his wings to ignite the thrusters.

He seemed to think the battle was over.

At that moment, the frost giant made its move.

Cold air burst out like an explosion and the giant began to accelerate rapidly. The frost giant, looking like nothing more than a huge lump of wire, raced up the frozen ground.

Its body stretched out. The frost giant, which used to be in the shape of a human, changed into a snake. Thus, as the space between them narrowed, he violently hit the chest of the dragon warrior.

Boom!

The impact was so large it sounded like an explosion. It tore into Joonhyuk’s chest as if he had been hit.

“Warrior!”

The frost giant deformed again.

Its arms and legs stretched out and wrapped around the dragon soldier. White hairs began to form between the steel stems, and each white fur pierced the dragon warrior like a thorn.

Ching!

It still only scratched the surface of the shield. Over time, however, the cold air would gnaw at the shield and eventually the thorns would pierce through and smash the driving equipment.

The dragon warrior wasn’t going to accept that end.

The dragon warrior was also transforming.

The dragons head collapsed into its chest. The wings bent in reverse and formed a V shape. The forelegs and hindlegs went sideways and stuck under the fuselage. They combined with the elongated body to become a human limb, and the body split in half to form an upper and lower section by rotating once.

What kind of stupid thing was this?

“No way!”

The energy being used by the warrior was enormous. A powerful shield erupted and pushed the frost giant away. The steel stem that had been rotating and folding around it was cut at once. The frost giant’s limbs wiggled and fell towards the sea.

However…

Jung Joonhyuk watched the dragon warrior’s transformation with his chest tight.

Transformation.

A warrior’s transformation.

There were a variety of defenses, but it was the most vulnerable point in battle. Behemoths were known to be unintelligent, but if a warrior was unlucky, he could suffer fatal damage.

Like now.

“Aaah!”

Jung Joonhyuk shook his head and let out a scream.

The head of the frost giant was still wrapped around the dragon warrior. The ice it had produced had stuck to the dragon warrior’s neck.

That normally wouldn’t have been a big problem.

But now…

Now that it was transforming, the cockpit had to pass through that area. It had to move from the dragon head that had entered the chest into the human head that was now protruding.

It only took a matter of seconds.

What kind of twist of fate was this?

It wasn’t a bad choice to fight a frost giant with a dragon warrior, but gambling had fatal consequences.

Bang! Bang bang!

Beam guns came out from the dragon warrior’s shoulders. The frost giant couldn’t stand the light hitting it like a shotgun and fell off. Its body was smashed and mana core exposed, giving off a faint red color.

The frost giant fell along with fragments of the destroyed spatial phase.

But there was another big body that fell first.

A giant in dragon armor rammed into the sea.

Right in front of the coastal road where Jung Joonhyuk stood.

Jung Joonhyuk was hit by the spray.

 

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