Chapter 426: O Dragon, O Dragon! Part 3

"Good evening, what's the status?"

"PT Overwerke, is that you? Even for a raid, they're too strong... Apparently their parameters have been adjusted for the Decisive Battle Phase. For their motions, ask whoever's free."

"Nn, got it... And that particular customer?"

"No word from them either. It's possible some issue came up, but it's also entirely possible the colored dragons are just appearing in a specific order."

"If the Blue Dragon is aquatic as we predicted, thinking about it is just terrifying... Alright. Roki-san, can I trouble you to take command of the front lines?"

"I was getting bored of being a rearguard commander anyway. Leave it to me."

Having logged in after returning from his own battlefield—at a speed that would normally be unimaginable—PT Overwerke's arrival meant Team 10PM was also fully swinging into action.
Roki, who had been acting as a proxy at the clan leaders' tactical headquarters, returned to the front lines, and another player tumbled in to take his place.

"Oh crap, this is bad, seriously bad!!"

"What's wrong!"

"Red! The Red Dragon... uh, what was it again?"

"Dreadnought?"

"No, that's wrong. It's Doomsday Hole, right?"

"Don't make jokes, it'll make me want to throw out a retorting punchline. It's Dreadhowl... Wait, did it show up!?"

"That's the one! That bastard roasted the entrance to the Sea of Trees and made his grand entrance!"

Even the players who had been engaging in silly banter felt tension run through them at the arrival of the new Red Dragon, which had radically altered the layout of a wide area.

"The monsters fleeing from the forest are coming this way and it's bad. What do we do!?"

"A scorched field? If so, we can assume the battlefield itself has expanded. Can't we push them in?"

"No, Brockentried goes without saying, but Bryreinyego is also very much the stationary type."

"No, in this case, let's have a percentage of the players take the long way around to encircle them."

Even though they were clan leaders, their true nature was that of Pioneers who swung swords and cast magic. An informal agreement had been made to gather for a meeting every hour, but each and every one of them was itching to fight on the front lines.
With the plan decided in short order, each player ran off to convey the strategy to their respective clans.

The time was exactly 9:00 PM. It was as if its appearance had been timed to the minute, but in reality, the trigger was "three or more colored dragons currently present."

『O humans... O heroes, know that tonight is the very night to show your radiance.』

It wasn't a roar, but through a system mechanism that prioritized this voice over all other audio, it echoed equally to every single player throughout the entire frontline base.
The owner of the voice was the sky—the golden moonlight spoke... No, with the golden moonlight at its back, the Golden Dragon spoke quietly.

『My name is Siegwurm, guardian of the Age of Divinity and burner of the world. The one who awaits heroes in the coming calamity... O heroes, show me, show me. Show the glittering deeds of a hero, the sole radiance in the fires of war!』

Everyone present—even the colored dragons—looked up at the sky to gaze at its form.
Shining its four wings and possessing an unnatural number of horns—two on the left and three on the right—the glorious Golden Dragon King. Far up in the high sky, looking down on everything below, the wings of Siegwurm the Heavenly Sovereign grew even brighter.

『My law covers this land, crushing all creation. Applause for the heroes, punishment for the fools... This is none other than Notorious — the Law of the Dragon...!!』

As if its wings had expanded even further, a golden light spreading from the celestial Siegwurm formed a thin dome, covering the frontline base, the scorched Sea of Trees, and even the vast expanse of the ocean.

『Bad Increase Gravity — Malignant Gravity Field!!』

In an instant, every player and NPC within the golden dome felt a heavy pressure as if being crushed from directly above for just a brief moment... and that was it.

"What was that! What just happened!?"

"A buff! Or a debuff?"

"For now, it doesn't seem like something that affects our motions, but..."

A mysterious action by a Unique Monster was reason enough to be on guard. Argent Owl, who was blowing away small dragons in the midst of battle, also investigated what had occurred... and found it in her status screen.

"Special State 'B.I.G' ...?"

Perhaps because they were distracted like that, and completely ignoring the players' confusion, the small dragons swarmed the two players who stood frozen.

"Gah."

"Watch out!"

While easily handling the small dragons attacking her, Argent Owl watched. In the end, both were swarmed by small dragons and died, but... one of them had tried to use their partner as a shield, while the other tried to step forward to protect their partner.

But the real problem started from here.

"...A countdown?"

Because of the swarming small dragons, she couldn't tell exactly where the two had died, but two icons had appeared roughly where they had fallen.
One was an icon counting down one second at a time from 180. The other was an icon that combined a downward-pointing arrow and a 15-second countdown.

"...No way."

Precisely because she was the US #1 Metius user—meaning she engaged in the most heroic roleplay in the entire US—a certain premonition crossed Argent Owl's mind. The moment the 15-second countdown icon hit zero, the player who had shielded their partner respawned right on the spot, confirming her suspicion.

"Roleplay!!"

"H-Huh? What did you say?"

"Katzo! It's roleplay! This thing adds to your death penalty if you don't perform heroic actions!!"

For a few seconds, OiKatzo chewed on her words with a bewildered look, but once she understood the implications of what those words meant, her expression stiffened as she looked up at Siegwurm.

"Are you serious, Siegwurm...! I thought nothing could be worse than level restrictions or forced gender bending, but you're going with this...!!"

Forcing a roleplay; in a sense, that was a restriction far more troublesome than parameter changes.
Judging from Siegwurm's words, non-heroic actions likely fell under the deduction criteria. But if simply using a tank as a shield triggered a debuff, massive chaos was absolutely guaranteed to break out.

"So it's 'don't live wisely, die foolishly,' huh...!!"

Stability was the exact opposite of the concept of being heroic. People didn't yearn for a heroic tale devoid of crisis—at least, Siegwurm certainly didn't think so.
However, it seemed that conversely, some kind of benefit would be granted for heroic actions.
But still, still.
What were they supposed to do respawning fifteen seconds later right where the source of their death was? Resetting coordinates didn't just present a redo of the adventure.

"This is bad. Sorry, Argent Owl. I'm going to go regroup with my clan members!!"

"I think I'll play around for a little longer... Oh?"

Suddenly, Argent Owl looked up at the sky. She wasn't looking at Siegwurm. Something akin to her "intuition" as the US #1 gamer in a Full-Dive VR environment drew her gaze not to the gold overlapping the moon, but to the deep, dark night sky.

『───Uuuuu...』

A portion of the star-filled sky was cut out in pitch black. No, it was moving. High, fast, as if to reach the moon itself.

And it was shouting───!

『SIEG-WURMUUUUUUUUUU!!!』

『N-Nguoh!?』

In the next instant, a full-force tackle from the pitch-black dragon Noirlind, accelerated to its absolute limit, slammed into the gold as an immense mass.

And at the same time. On the ground, the third (fourth) race following the Forest-folk and Mermen appeared.

"Eh, am I the one giving the command? Um... then, ready, set, go!!"

Whether they wore them as scarves, sashes, or headbands, they all uniformly wore black cloth. Lizard-like humanoids and dragon-like humanoids leapt onto the battlefield, with the girl in the fox mask at their head.

Author's Afterword
The "Black Dragon Shinobi Army" is a mysterious group formed centered around the Dragonewts—whose affection for Noirlind suddenly spiked before the dragon himself could even comprehend it—and the Lizardmen who joined for some reason, all through Akitsu Akane's persuasion!
Since they were formed entirely without the knowledge of the dragon himself, and their active policy is "we will freely do various things," absolutely no one knows what they are going to do!!