So much had happened since I came to this world. I had enjoyed a leisurely day before meeting Ceylon, the girl whose life I saved and also required my help to save her struggling noble family. She was an innocent person who had helped me in strange ways, ways that I had struggled to process until now.

But now that she was missing after setting off with Regis’karr ⁠— the dragon whom I had fought to death on a whim and later turned out to be the Hermit ⁠— I realized it. Her presence made me calmer or rather less likely to act on my own, but now that she was not here I had gone and done my own thing. I was an impulsive person, but without her around it was even more noticeable.

I had fought Jake the Weapon Master, the man that dared to use my ice spear against me, and instead of killing him I had chosen to give him another ice spear in hopes he would challenge me again. I too had fought the Heroine of Spiders and defeated her SS Tier spider after surpassing my previous limits, but I guessed that was just my nature in battle. I could’ve died but I kept fighting out of enjoyment.

I enjoyed battles.

In the end, I learned my strongest skill [Frost, Stasis, Eternity and a Prophecy], an incredibly long name for a skill, yet so incredibly strong. The Heroine of Spiders had been employed by me and taken under custody by Jake.

Though, that had been the good outcome after fighting a hero, the bad one was the Hero of Shadows whom I had killed only to learn later he was still alive.

I didn’t know what would come from it, and it was always in the back of my mind, unknowing of what would happen. As for the Hero of Flames⁠ ⁠— I didn’t know if making Ceylon’s family the new rulers of Draliz would put me in his bad side, but if it did, then I was going to deal with him too.

And after, I arrived at the Maw of Dragons all because Regis’karr had been sent by the dragons to recruit me. I agreed with the intent to squeeze their worth, mainly get stronger via a blood ritual, but in the end it turned out to be an attempt to kill me or subdue me by the Dragon of Frost, who used arcane magic to make up for his weakness.

However, it hadn’t been enough, and in the end I won.

I won and declared myself the new Dragon of Frost in spite of just being a human, and then became the queen of the Grand Dragon Elders through force. And now, we were here.

I was on top of Malz, the Dragon of Shadows whom I had fought nearly to the death after she challenged me, and for some reason had asked to accompany me in my journey, but that decision had remained to be made. Now, we were heading in a direction across the ocean, a place far away from the Maw of Dragons, to one of the supposedly many entrances of the Forgotten Places.

Places where the corruption resided, places that represented the vestiges from the age of oblivion⁠— the time where heroes were summoned to protect the System. From my understanding the corruption originated from the System, and now due to it I was here in this world. With no actual purpose other than my own goals.

I wasn’t planning on dealing with the corruption of the System, or even fixing it, for it seemed to be completely out of my reach, so my only reason for visiting was to grow stronger. In order to protect myself from future threats; whether it was the Hero of Flames or someone else. It was all to have the strength to make my own future, even if said future was just finding a place to call home and making a living there.

So here I was, on a journey with the other dragon elders to the Forgotten Places. A full day had passed, and now the second day was coming to an end. By the first day we crossed the Great Sea, the largest stretch of water in all of Arlas, and where the Maw of Dragons resided, then we passed by a different country; the Miri-Sunre Republic, which well I didn’t bother to ask much about.

From what I saw however, it seemed to be a desertic country with sandstone buildings that reminded me of the east of earth. Architecture was nice at least. Still, given the journey had a few more hours left I decided to call it a day and instructed all the dragons to land in the nearest place for rest.

Without complaints all seven dragons veered off towards the desert in the night, and minutes later we landed. The Dragon of Earth erected barriers on all sides, creating a pyramid; seemingly having more common sense than Regis’karr. Then, once that was done, we all settled as I touched the sand at my feet.

It was an odd experience. I had touched sand in the long distant past, but the sensation was so foreign that I just stood there as my feet sank for a few moments before finding footing. The dragons settled around and finally, the Dragon of Earth turned to me, he had seemingly gained the position of second in command over all this time which I didn’t mind.

“Dragon Queen of⁠—”

“Arc is fine,” I interrupted, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. It wasn’t the first time I was addressed like this, but the waters had calmed with the dragons now. “You don’t need to call me Dragon Queen of Frost every time you address me.”

He blinked before nodding. “I understand humans are… different, I will try Miss Arc. As for ourselves we still will prefer you call us by our titles.”

“Right, I will. Thank you Dragon of Earth.”

He nodded this time with a small smile. “I understand that we are still adapting to these changes, but we respect your strength, and while we are still skeptical we do hope you stay true to your word.”

“Right…” I paused awkwardly. “I was truthful when I said I was no tyrant, my only request for now is to go to the Forgotten Places. As for what I expect, I just expect loyalty as for betrayal…” I shook my head. “Well we both know what happens in that case.”

The Dragon of Earth nodded in agreement. “Very well. As I wanted to say initially, we all will rest for the night unless you have a specific request from either or all of us.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“I don’t, I want to do my own thing for today.”

“Alright, farewell Arc.” With those words and yet another nod of acknowledgement he turned around and went with the rest of the dragons.

Meanwhile I just stood there, then took a step and was immediately distracted by the sand before deciding to just walk towards the human-sized entrance and appreciate it later. And that was when Malz out of all people called to me.

“Arc, can I come along to where you’re going?”

I blinked as I turned only to see the human form of Malz which again had a rather modern style of clothes, and I didn’t note it before but her lipstick was black⁠— was she goth? I was surprised for a second before I noticed she seemed nervous.

“You can,” I nodded.

She somewhat lit up as I began to step away, and soon after we left the pyramid of earth, I wanted to ask.

“Dragons can choose their physical appearance right?”

“Yeah we can, do I look weird?” Malz asked somewhat confused and with a hint of nervousness.

“Not exactly that, it’s very… your clothes remind me of my world I guess,” I said, shaking my head. “I find it peculiar that’s all.”

“Oh, that is…” Her voice turned a bit quiet before a sigh left her. “I copied the clothes from the Heroine of Darkness, who is now well… deceased… It’s a very long story and from times long forgotten, but I guess I do it to honor her.”

“Honor her?” I raised my brow. “I thought dragons didn’t get along with heroes.”

There was a brief pause as I also took in how the sand behaved as I stepped on it. Then after a moment she spoke.

“We didn’t but things happened and in some way or another we kinda connected…” Malz shook her head, her voice almost quivering. “I don’t want to talk about it, it still saddens me to this day.”

“I see…” I nodded, feeling out of place “Sorry for making you think about that.”

Malz chuckled somewhat awkwardly. “It’s fine really, curiosity rarely kills anyone.”

I thought for a few moments, staring at the stars before finally just making a decision. It was out of my comfort zone by a long shot, but I felt like she needed to hear it. I turned and smiled at her.

“For what it’s worth though, you look great in those clothes.”

Malz paused, completely frozen as she just slowly nodded. For a moment I thought I saw her blush but it was hard to tell under the night, then after a moment she looked down.

“Thank you, that… means a lot.”

“Right.” I turned away. “Let’s go then.”

And I began to walk. She stood there for a moment before breaking out of her reverie.

“Ah yeah.”

I took the time to just appreciate the sand, because again, it was unfamiliar yet familiar to me, I simply just messed with it and also noted how I could even turn it into solid ground if I let my feet get cold enough. It was odd, but entertaining to me. However, I found Malz strange.

She was different. Or treating me differently. Then again, she had changed her way of being as soon as she learned how long, or I guess little I had spent in training. Though, talking to her right now about it was weird.

At the same time I didn’t really know what to expect from her.

“Malz, I’ll be going to a town, do you want to come?”

“Oh, of course!” She nodded. “I don’t get to visit human towns often if at all!”

I smiled and offered her my hand. “Grab it, so we can go.”

She nodded with a smile and took a hold of my palm, then a moment later I used [God Step] as we vanished from our spot. Next we stood behind a sand dune extremely near our destination, it was a small town of the republic.

Malz blinked. “That is an incredibly impressive range for [God Step], so your boon is really that?”

“Is it that hard to believe?” I asked as I stepped over a sand dune.

“Hmm…” she pondered. “I guess not, you’re quite amazing after all.”

“If you say so.”

Finally, I got a view of the town, it was completely different to what I was used to. There were still the walls for sure, but they were all made of sandstone, the architecture was quite different too and was full of various carvings.

For a moment I worried about language barriers before realizing that I could speak with Ceylon and Malz just fine, and with all the dragons really. So I brushed it to the back of my mind and walked.

“I know a bit about the Miri-Sunre Republic, do you want to know about it?” Malz gently asked.

“Sure I guess, could be helpful,” I said, shrugging.

“Well, for starters people are very independent here, and from what I know resentful too? Strength is kind of glorified you see, so it’s a bit… well wild. Just warning you I guess.”

“Huh…” I cocked my head still walking forward as Malz trailed behind. “That’s weird.”

“Well, my information is outdated by a hundred years or so, so maybe don’t think about it too much?” She shrugged.

“I guess so?”

The conversation died down as we approached the town gates, there was a small line but nothing too overwhelming, though it however seemed to go into town rather than stay outside. So we just queued, unknowing of what was happening, most people in line were dark skinned barbarians or adventurers dressed in rather fancy armor, and without exception we received nasty glances.

Oddly enough there was not a single woman in line, then again there weren’t many female adventurers so I didn’t think much of it.

Time passed, and after a few minutes Malz and I found ourselves standing in front of a tall burly guard with shoddy armor and bulging muscles. The man stared us down trying to intimidate us but nothing came of it. All while people and locals surrounded us.

Malz stood next to me, but I seemed to be the main target of attention, and then the guard spoke.

“So what is your reason to visit Lan-Ronar?”

“Food I guess? Want to try the cuisine?” I said unsure.

He frowned. “So it is not to find a man?”

“Excuse me?” I blinked.

“A man, to marry,” he explained exasperatedly. “Are you even from around here? You seem very weak.” He frowned.

At that moment I felt Malz tense, but nothing happened as she continued.

“Any man around here could dominate you, you lack a lot of muscle, you clearly are a low value woman⁠—”

And a shadow hit, the guard’s torso dented and in a blink he went flying, dust and tiles of sandstone flew into the air. I blinked as I realized that Malz was standing in front of me, her fist hanging in the air.

“She’s not weak, nor low value, nor anything,” she hissed at the cloud of dust. “Say that again and I will kill you.”

Her voice echoed through the small plaza, everyone was looking at us in surprise, clearly not expecting the sudden aggression. A commotion had started without me wanting it to, and now all attention was on us.

This is bad…

And then, contrary to my expectations every single observer broke out into cheers.