Unrelenting Vengeance IV

"What about you?" Nina asked the soldier. It was too dangerous for him to stay as well. Shouldn't he flee with her?

"It's my job. I need to stay here and work things out."

"But what about the other two soldiers?" Even they ran from whatever was inside the slums which meant that it wasn't something that they could handle. If the two of them couldn't handle it, then how could he alone handle it?

"Soldiers? I didn't see any soldiers. All I saw were two cowards not doing their job properly," the soldier said to her. They weren't qualified to be called soldiers. They ran away from something that was supposed to be their duty. What kind of soldiers were they if they couldn't even stand their ground, and on their own land too. It wasn't like they were fighting outside of Silverfield. This was happening inside of Silverfield. They as soldiers are supposed to defend the kingdom and yet they ran at first sight of danger.

"I see... Maybe I can try to help-"

Another explosion of flames happened in the slums, shaking the ground and almost made the two of them fall. Nina didn't get a chance to finish what she was saying as she and the soldier looked back and saw that the fire had risen even higher. At this point, the entire place was burning down to ashes. Soldiers appeared from the fire and began pouring out from the slums in masses.

"That's enough talk. Go home where you're safe. I need to go do my job." The soldier didn't wait for another second and ran towards the fire where all the other soldiers were currently exiting.

Even though the soldier told Nina to leave, she decided to stay just a bit longer to see what it was all about. She didn't want to know before but now she did. Just what exactly in the world was happening in there? Was it some kind of monster or something? It almost looked like there was a dragon rampaging in the slums if she didn't know any better.

"What's going on in there?" the soldier asked the ones who just got out. One of them held up her hand to tell the soldier to give her a moment to catch her breath.

While she was doing that, another soldier walked up to him and answered the question for her. "There's a giant fire-breathing lizard with wings in there. It destroyed all the houses and killed whoever got near."

"Come again?"

"There's a dragon in there! A real dragon! Four legs, wings, horns, everything!" another soldier shouted.

"A dragon? Are you sure you weren't just seeing it wrong?"

"If you don't believe me, you can go see for yourself. It's still in there. Just follow the trail of burning bodies and you'll find it."

"Okay, okay. So say it is a dragon. We still need to go in and take it down."

"No we don't! We stand no chance. Are you crazy!? We need to get the knights to handle something like this!"

"But it'll cause more damage if we just leave it be. We need to at least slow it down-"

"If you want, you can go and sacrifice your life for that! I'm not going anywhere close to it." The soldiers that just came out did not want to go back in and fight the dragon again. They refused to give up their lives for the cause of keeping the giant monster at bay for the knights to arrive.

"Then I will."

"Heh, don't talk big if you're-"

But the soldier didn't heed the other soldier any attention and began walking towards the giant pillar of fire at the center of the slums.

"Are you out of your f*cking mind!?" the soldier grabbed the other soldier who was about to step foot into the infernal place.

"I'm going in. Let me go," the soldier said with a stone-cold face. He wasn't afraid of death. He was going into there to fight the dragon.

"Did you hit your head or something!? Or did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed!? Look here lad, that beast isn't just a big lizard that you can kill like it's nothing. So don't go acting like a hero cause the only thing you will accomplish is losing your life."

"And what are you all accomplishing by being out here instead of in there? If we don't give up our lives, it'll be the civilians who will be giving up theirs."

"You're not wrong, but why don't you think about this for a moment? If you go in and die then there will be no one left to protect the civilians. In that case, not only will your efforts be for naught, but the dragon will end up killing everyone in the city anyway." The soldier's words had reason, but it still wasn't enough to convince him to not charge in.

"I'm still going."

"What's wrong with you!?"

"He's right, what's wrong with you? You know that there are other things that you can do besides going to fight the dragon right?" This came from the female soldier who had been catching her breath the entire time.

"Like what?"

"Like evacuating the civilians." At the very least, if the dragon did attack the city, they should get as many people out of the area as possible to keep casualties to a minimum.

"But what if the dragon attacks while we're in the middle of evacuating everyone?"

"We will worry about that when it happens. For now, let us do that instead of mindlessly charging in and dying."

Nina agreed with the female soldier's suggestion. If it is true that there was a giant mythical fire-breathing dragon in there then there was no point in going in there and stalling it. It was better to get all the people here out before it decides that it had enough of destroying the slums and flies into the city.

An earth-shattering roar shook the grounds and a giant red beast flew out from the towering flames and hovered above the slums. Nina almost fell over again and had to hold onto a wall to steady herself. She looked up in the air and froze. She saw the enormous monster staring down at the soldiers on the ground. Its reptilian eyes shifted around until it also saw her.

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