My Wife and I Became Sages in Another World
Chapter 356: The Lava Dragon

Chapter 356: The Lava Dragon

When the Lava Dragon turned into his humanoid form, the overwhelming energy that made it hard to stand in the cave dissipated to the point that it was bearable for everyone without coating our bodies in a thick layer of MP.

His energy was still present, but it wasn’t as powerful as when we entered the cave.

The dragon held his red, scaly egg in his hands and approached us, explaining that he had been protecting it from the devils that roamed the northern continent.

We already knew those details from Garon, so I asked if they had tried attacking him recently. However, the dragon said that once he went into full protection mode and covered the mountain with his energy, the devils’ advances stopped.

The dragon knew that the continent was going through a difficult time, with most of their citizens being mind-controlled by Baelzor.

Nonetheless, he expressed the fact that protecting the people wasn’t his responsibility and that he only cared about the safety of his egg.

I asked the dragon who the mother was, but he simply stared at me with confusion.

Thankfully, Vespera was there to explain that dragons were asexual creatures, so they didn’t need a partner to reproduce, and both males and females were able to lay eggs.

From what my companion told me, after a dragon grew large enough, they were able to take a piece of their heart and put it inside an egg made of their own flesh, which would later turn into a dragon fledgling.

’That’s pretty interesting...’ I thought as my companion explained the biology of magical beasts.

Once we were done with our small talk, the dragon got back into the topic and asked us what exactly Garon wanted from us, so I thought it was my turn to explain.

"You see, there is a chance that a big war will take place in the future..." I said, starting from the beginning.

I told the dragon that my group and I had killed three devils, which seemed to impress him a little, as he commented that Zagor was a mighty opponent even for him.

I wanted to convince him that joining us in battle wouldn’t be a bad idea. Nevertheless, the dragon showed no interest in anything other than caring for his egg.

’Honestly, it’s understandable. It’s like asking a single parent to go to war when their baby hasn’t even been born...’ I thought.

The dragon told us that he had only ever helped the humans fight against the devils once in the past. However, he didn’t have an egg to take care of back then, so it wasn’t a difficult decision for him.

"What if we can guarantee the safety of the egg?" I asked the dragon.

We were already so deep within Black Ice Pinnacle that it felt like absolutely nothing could endanger it.

There were literal hours of labyrinth trails that someone had to go through just to reach this area, so I couldn’t understand how the egg would be in trouble with all these defenses around it.

Still, the dragon explained that the labyrinth was mostly to halt people like us, as Drakzen and Baelzor could go through the entire thing in mere minutes.

"All I want is for my egg to hatch safely. If I go with you, what are the chances that you win?" he asked in return.

I had never thought about that. Any time I fought a devil, I wasn’t pondering about my chances of survival.

To be fair, I was close to dying a few times when I encountered them, but somehow, they always turned in my favor.

Still, I was the strongest I had ever been, so I didn’t really feel like I would lose.

The Lava Dragon smiled and said he would test me himself, so I was getting ready to spar with the Legendary Beast when he took a quick step to the back of the room.

"No need for sparring. One attack is all I need to measure you..." he said.

"One attack-?" I pondered aloud, but I was interrupted by the lava waterfalls that started to gather right in front of the dragon in the form of an orb.

"Survive this, and I’ll consider joining the battle..." the dragon continued as a massive amount of energy gathered in his hands and pointed them at me and my group.

"Everyone behind me!" I exclaimed to my team, who were struggling to keep standing from the overwhelming pressure that the dragon extruded.

’It’s lava magic, right? So, it should be a combination of earth and fire...’ I quickly thought before the dragon launched his attack.

His words said that all I needed to do was survive the attack, but he didn’t tell me how I should do it.

The more obvious spell would have been to cast a barrier around us and hold it until the attack was over, but dragons had a lot more MP than me, so there was a high chance that the barrier wouldn’t hold that long.

My idea was to redirect the attack, which was harder to do in terms of ability, but it would make me spend much less MP than casting a barrier spell if I did it correctly.

When the dragon released the wave of lava towards me, I clapped my hands and held them together, focusing fire and earth magic right in the center of his attack.

Just as the scalding hot lava reached the tip of my fingers, I released my MP and managed to split the wave into two, sending it splashing to the sides of the room.

I could feel my hands slightly burning from the few drops of lava that got on me, and the temperature rose quickly to the point where we felt we were getting cooked for a brief moment.

After diverting the lava for over fifteen seconds, the attack stopped, and I tiredly lowered my arms.

The part of my poncho that covered my arms was fully vaporized, and my skin was rather scorched from the drops of lava that landed on me.

My team was still behind me, sweating bullets from the high temperatures that we had to endure.

"So... How was that?" I asked the dragon before letting out a tired sigh.