[Kyrielle's POV]
(1 month and 2 days after Klada Disaster....)
Lynn flew off by herself almost 5 minutes ago. I sat by the road side waiting for her return and I'm bored.
I kept my eyes to the skies to watch for Rock Drakes.... Then, I saw it. One had glided past the valley's top most area. After that, another one had glided past as well. Two... Three... Dear god there's seven of them!
I lied down and hid myself by the side of the road hoping I won't get noticed by them. I'm like a lone soldier in a war seeing a squadron of attack choppers flying by, it's really nerve wrecking!
After all seven of them passed by above me before I finally saw it, the special one out of all eight of these drakes following at the back. The Rock drakes that passed by are all brown in color, but this one is in bright orange, and it's head is blue. That might be their leader... their Queen!
They all flew pass me without noticing me and towards the direction of the desert plains where Lynn shot her God ranked magic.
...I stood back up, waiting for the perfect chance to escape and find a place to hide in. I don't intend to mess with them because which idiot would want to fight EIGHT Rock Drakes together? I almost died of an heart attack when just one of them ambushed me!
Hold on... That direction they are flying at is the direction of the city!
I turned around and ran backwards on the road to see the drakes. And sure enough, they all flew towards the city! If I remembered correctly, there's no mages who are skilled at the city, they lacked fire power capable of killing these drakes!
I should distract them for now... I have an idea. I have never tried it at this distance before, but I think it can work really well.
I charged up a Mana Bullet and then casted two fireballs in the middle of it.
Forbidden Bullet, a small highly explosive bullet of raging flame vortex spun itself in my hand. Unlike Forbidden Sun, this one is much much more condensed and as such it will fly faster towards it's target.
After I squeezed my arms close and imagined the ball getting smaller and smaller until I can no longer squeeze it anymore....
"This should have enough speed to catch up to them now."
'Bang!' 'Phiuuucc!'
I shot the super heated forbidden bullet towards the seven gliding drakes in the air.
And then without even waiting, I charged another Forbidden Bullet.
My first target here is actually the queen, and I intend to take it out with one hit....
The Queen noticed that spell and started to the side to avoid the projectile. The other seven didn't notice until the bullet caught up to the Drake that is right in the middle of the bunch.....
A bright flash was seen, and then only after a about a second and a half....
'Boom!' A loud, distant explosion sounded. The explosion was extra large because I used two fireballs instead of one, and the rate of combustion would be insane with how much pressure there is inside the bullet.
I had intended to use that explosion as a distraction and to alert the guards of the city. But as they are all gliding really close, at least 3 of them will be directly caught into the blast. The shockwave alone from that explosion would knock the others into a concussion, delaying their counter attack.
My actual reason for casting that spell is to notify Lynn to come here like REAL fast.
The Queen made a sharp turn and glided towards me and but then there's still a large distance between us. About 1 kilometers. I should have the advantage in this fight.
I shot the second Forbidden Bullet towards the Drake. It changed directions right as the bullet is about to hit it and then dodged it like it's nothing.... The fire flew farther back before it blew up.
'Boom...!'
500 meters left... I have one more shot at it before I have to fight it in close range!
I charged up two Mana Bullet this time, not intending to waste time trying to put a fireball into it.
200 meters left... I shot the first one at the queen drake, then it once again slightly strafed to the left and dodged it. I shot the second bullet at her and this time it also dodged the bullet, but the bullet hit her wings, making her gliding destabilized.
As she loses control of her glide, she brought her body upwards and then extended the two of her legs towards me. She intend to crash land directly into me, and her claw on her legs make her seem like how an Eagle would attack it's prey with it's talons.
....I'll need to use plan B then.
'Earth, grant me a lance that shall pierces all...'
I charged up a Mana Ball simultaneously as I chanted, and like how Lynn turn the Mana Ball into a Mana Blade...
10 meters away from me! Now!
"Graaah!"
Ember!
I waved my Mana blade and casted ember sent a fire blade at the Drake. It can't dodge the fire blade in time because it's too close, but the fire didn't dealt that much damage at all.
"Graah!"
It groaned in pain while still gliding towards me, it instinctively tried to change directions after it was caught in my spell, which slowed it down a bit. This is the perfect chance for me!
I dived myself to the right and then just split seconds later the dragon came crashing down.
'Boom!...' A loud sound was heard when the drake crashed down into the ground where I was in just moments ago. Had I miss timing I would surely be dead by now, I mustn't underestimate this thing!
And just according to my plan, immediately after it crashed down onto the ground...
Earth Spear!
'Stab!'
An earth Spear stabbed up from the ground towards drake that was sliding in the ground. It saw the spear coming up from the distortion in the ground, and then tried to change directions again to dodge it. But it's momentum carried it forward, into the earth spear.
The Earth Spear stabbed itself through one of the Drake's wing, though I missed it's body, I still dealt some damage.
"Graaah!.... Haaah!"
It groaned in pain, but then it inhaled a very large amount of air..... What is it trying to do? Oh no.. I have a really REALLY bad feeling about this!
Within the very lands lies an impenetrable wall!
From the Drake's opened mouth I saw bright flashes coming out from the inside. I knew exactly what it is trying to do now, and I almost pee'ed my pants.
"Holy shi-! Earth wall!"
"Fwuooommm!"
The drake inhaled and then breathe out a Breathe of fire at me. I barely blocked it using Earth Wall.
'Thomp, thomp, thomp!' As the fire was still going on I heard loud footsteps approaching. It's trying to back me into a corner while still blowing hot flames at me!
If I don't do something I'll die! Think, Kyrielle!... Oh, that could work!
I charged up two Mana Blasts and gathered them into a single, large powered Mana Blast.
'Thomp thomp thomp!' As I heard the footstepd getting closer and closer.... I suddenly disintegrated the Earth Wall.
"?!" The Drake was surprised by my move.
In the split second I disintegrated the Earth Wall....
"Mana Blast!"
As the dragon's fire blew at me, I blasted it backwards with super charged wind pressure and knocked the fire backwards towards the Drake.
"GRAAAH!"
It yelled even louder than when it was stabbed by my Earth Spear... Inside the flames that engulfed the Drake, I saw that above the flames there's the arm of the Drake... That means!...
I immediately jumped backwards, and I jumped so far back that I might slip on the ground.
'Woosh!' A large claw immediately slashes at the ground that I was in just moments ago.
That was close! Had I been just a little late I would've been slashed to ribbons!
And then immediately after I landed on the ground...
Earth, grant me a lance that shall pierces all, Earth Spear!
The Spear stabbed upwards from the ground and stabbed straight through the Drake's body.
"Graaaa...! Haaah!"
With it's final breathe, it again inhaled sharply.
...It's breathe attack is way less concentrated than my Incineration, a modified Flame Gush which shoots out concentrated liquidfied plasma instead of just hot gasses similar to the dragon's breath. This meant that it's breath can easily be countered by wind magic! This time I have a real counter to it's breath attack!
I put my hand forward.... and charged up three Mana Balls together....
"Fwuooommm!"
As it breathed out, I shot my Triple charged Mana Ball. The Mana Ball flew forward and caught all the fire that the dragon was spilling out, and carried all the flames right into it's open mouth.
'Boom!'
The Mana Ball blew up right inside it's head and blew it's head completely open. All her brain juices and blood splatters onto the ground behind, and the Drake's body collapses onto the ground.
'Thump!'
"Phew... That was close!..."
In just a short minute of fighting I almost died three times! This is too dangerous!
Well... I came out on top either way... What about the other 7 drakes?
I walked backwards up the road, and then sure enough, I saw 7 drakes on the ground scatter throughout the desert plains about 2 kilometers in aarea 4 of them are moving, and three of them was burned to the crisp by my Forbidden Bullet.
Since Lynn said that they can only Glide, and only start their flight by dropping off from a high altitude, then that means they are sitting ducks right now since they can't glide now.... Perfect for my target practise right?
"Forbidden Sun! (4x)"
I sent out my attack spell for each one of them, blowing all of them up into grilled drakes.
"Phew...." I lied myself down on the ground and took a sigh of relief.
Though it may appear outside that I wiped the floor with this drake, in reality it is much closer of a fight, the Queen drake and I are just about even in terms of fighting power. Any one mistake that I make, I could very well end up dead... I'm lucky that all my plans went well against that Queen Drake....
When was the last time I fought so hard?... Right, that was with Richard. I still can't believe he managed to outsmart me, that defeat was one that I'm satisfied with simply because he planned so hard for it.
Ah, how I missed Richard.... I missed joking, playing and bantering around with him. I missed how cool he seems whenever he is doing his duty as a Student Council member. And I missed him helping and taking care of me....
Richard... I can't believe that I'm actually feeling a sense of desire for him. Is this what they call love? Or am I just being delusional? Are we just good friends or lovers?...
Those questions always scratches the back of my head but I can't answer them now that I'm physically an entire world's distance away from him, can I?
Maybe... Just maybe... if I got back home I'll confess my true feelings to him. After all, he's the one that changed me into a girl.... It's only natural that he will take responsibility for his actions right?
Ahh! How embarrassing! I can't believe that I'm thinking of loving a boy when I used to be a boy in the past as wel-
'Boom!'
Something crashed behind me and knocked up a huge screen of dusts. Yep, it's the annoying white lady who only shows up after the fight has ended and doesn't help much at all. I was remisnicing on Richard, and she is just gonna ruin it like that.
"Kyrielle! Kyrielle is dead! NOOO!"
"Shut up, I'm not dead!"
"Oh no! I can hear her ghost talking! I'm sorry I can't protect you, don't haun- huh? Kyrielle you are alive!"
"Jeez, look closely before you assume I'm dead, it's rude!"
She took a look around the entire place. She first saw the headless body of the Queen Drake, then the 7 crispy-burned drakes scattered throughout the desert plains.
"No way... You defeated the Queen Drake and an entire pack of Drakes by yourself?!"
"I was just lucky that I got the jump on them..."
"That's beyond impressive for normal humans, Kyrielle! Besides, the Queen Drake can breathe out elemental magic! And you killed her in direct combat?!"
"Yeah... I found out about her breath attack through the hard way though.... Luckily I had my Earth Wall."
"Normal people don't just 'luckily' block a dragon's breath attack like that without seeing it first time at all you know?"
Well... I had seen it. A lot of times in fact, in video games.
"Uhh... Yeah. "
"Are you hurt?"
"I did cut my elbows a bit from diving to the ground earlier, but other than that I'm fine."
"I see.... Than, you should rest a bit by the tree side instead of here in the middle of the road."
"Yeah, let's move." After I took the rest that I needed, we continued walking.
Inside the valley, there are a lot of creeks and holes for animals to hide in. Besides that, there's also water stream inside the valley's deepest end, so plants do grow inside this valley. It's like this valley has an ecosystem of itself.
The valley is enormous, and in length it would be at least about 4 or 7 kilometers long.
After 2 hours of walking we had finally crossed the valley, and that was just on one side of the valley. The entire valley is set between two mountain side that separated the middle of the continent from the west of the continent. What we walked through was just a smart part of it.
"Phew... Now I can finally relax..."
"Yeah... it was kind of anxious walking through there because those Rock Drakes, but luckily none of them attacked us after you killed the queen..."
After that, we begun our journey of walking again.
We travelled for days on end, I had seen the sun shine for a few times already. Following the main highway out of the Valley of the Drakes, we reached the second city.
Again, just like the last city, this city was also built on a river, though this one has an entirely different river from the one that was used by the last city.
This time it's a lot more secure of a city as well, as it has sand bricked walls around the perimeter to protect it from monsters. You can tell that this city is a lot more wealthier than the last.
We entered the city, and just like last time we drew a lot of attention. And again, we headed for the government building almost immediately.
Lynn talked to the officials there and earned us some money. But she was angry because my effort earned so little money. Apparently because we aren't registered travellers, they only gave us half the amount of what we should have been rewarded with.
"They are corrupted! They only gave us so little money because we are human! They are racist! They are scums! They are-"
"...Pfft! Hahaha!"
"Why are you laughing?! They gave us only half the pay and you are laughing?!"
"No no, haha... it's just that your reaction is really funny!"
"Well... am I?"
"Yes you are... and it's really funn- Pfft hahaha!"
Somehow after I told her that, she looked at my laughing face and then smiled warmly. It's like she's happy just to see me laughing.
We went to the shopping district afterwards and bought more rations.
We had planned to stop at the next city, because of the rain monsoon that is about to come. As such, we hurried out of this city without even stopping at it.
The reason being that we didn't like the way the locals here treated us, as well as the fact that we lacked time before the next monsoon comes so we had to hurry.
This time however, we bought something at the stables.... A giant herbivore lizard about 3 meters long and 2 meters tall. It's also really fat and strong. We bought a female one because we are a group of girls so having a male here would be weird. It's species is called Geen Lizards.
Besides, it's really cute because it's purple in color, most likely an evolution trait to naturally attracts male lizards. We rode on it's back for the next journey.
"Right now, we should be here on this area...."
Lynn showed me the map and then pointed out our exact location. On the map I could see the detailed size of the Valley of the Drakes, and it's actually much larger than my imagination.
We started from all the way to the west, almost near the coast of the west. And our current location? Barely even 1/5 of the way to the other side. We used 1 month and about 18 days now to travel, and it is only 1/5 of the way....
Riding on the giant lizard, we crossed the desert at a much faster pace. It's signature ability is being able to eat any plants, from trees to even cactuses, which is crazy seeing how it's not affected at all by the spikes. It still needed to drink water, so we provided water for it with spells.
Lynn and I liked it really much, so we decided to name it. Both of us lacked any naming sense, so we just called her 'Lizzie the Lizard', funny little name huh?
We travelled for almost 20 more days, about a month since we left the city that we stayed in, and right now we are about to reach the next city, which is another walled city closer to the middle of the continent.
We didn't come across any cities on our way there, and that is because we took the most direct route to there intending not to waste any time visiting pointless cities that we aren't gonna stay at anyway.
And naturally our rations wouldn't last us that long. That's why recently I have been eating more and more monster meat and also whatever fruits and vegetables that we can scavenge in the wilds.
For now, it's already night time so we settled down and made a camp. I went to sleep in a dug out hole right beside the campfire.
Sooner or later, we'll have to buy a tent, and that is because the eastern half of the Bostnia Continent is normal forests. There, rain will happen, and we don't wanna be drenched by rain in the middle of the night.
As for our destination, it is Creimland, the east most port city of Bostnia continent. Lynn must have killed Baal, the Supreme Demon King there. I read about that incident in a book called "Battle of Creimland", after all.
(Author's note : The book's contents are found on Volume 1, Chapter 3.)
The closer we get to Creimland, the more professional the government becomes. We will need to obey their law of not being able to accept quests if we are heading there.
Now I lied inside the comfy sand pit. I used my hand held bag as a pillow and my newly bought desert coat as a blanket to fall asleep. It's not the best, but it's comfier than sleeping in the cold desert night that's for sure.
Soon, I fell asleep really quickly because of the tiring day of walking constantly in the desert.
...
Suddenly, I found myself standing in a very familiar dark room. One that I had seen twice before. Once during the time I sealed the dragon inside me away, and the second during the time I unleashed it out... during Klada Disaster.
"...Human."
Huh? Someone spoke from behind. I turned backwards, and what I saw was me... But she is different.
She's slightly taller, her hair is left down and flowed naturally, her jaws has scales on them like a lizard, and she has two golden eyes of a serpent, with a vertical rectangular for irises.
She is no doubt the one creature that had been living inside me for so long.... The slumbering dragon.
A see-through dome is surrounding her, which is Lynn's Binding Vow. This dome shaped barrier is now trapping the dragon inside, preventing her from coming out. This dome here is way more powerful than the one that I casted, so she basically has no chance to even break it.
"...Who are you?" I asked her directly.
"Who am I? You should know that well, human. I am Albion, the red dragon of the North, and the host to the body that you are residing within. "
I got a little annoyed when she claimed that my body is hers.
"Heh, your body is it?"
"Obviously.... Your body has my soul in it, and the body changes according to the soul. That is the reason for most of your powers. Without my soul, you'd not have the affinity for fire that you have now..."
"I see... That explains my large amount of Reserve Mana as well."
"You got that wrong however."
"What?"
"Your Reserve Mana is seperate from mine. As mana is bound to the soul, when one soul is in control, that means the Reserve Mana you will have is that soul's."
"So what you are saying is that my ability is purely based on my natural talent?"
"Rightfully so. However, your skills are but a spectacle of dust when you are compared to me still."
"That is true... Why are you in here, sharing a body with me?"
"The reason why I am here is obviously because I was reincarnated into this body. This body's owner, you, is compatible with my soul, in short it's that we are two souls that share a lot in common."
"You think so? And you were reincarnated in here, does that mean you died?"
"I might be killed a really long while ago. What year is it now?"
"Year 38th of the Armored Titan's calendar... Which is about 2000 years ahead of the last calendar."
"Then I was killed for centuries at least.... For now, take control of the body... You will meet me more in the future."
.....
When I opened my eyes, it is still night time. I peeked around and saw Lynn sleeping next to the bonfire while cuddling Lizzie. That big fat and cold lizard must feel good to hug at night huh? Maybe I will try hugging her to sleep tomorrow....
"...I should go back to sleep now."
(Chapter 42, end)