“...Do you need to rest?” a voice timidly asked me.

“Sigh, no, I’m fine,” I responded wearily.

“...What about food or water?”

“No, thank you.”

We were flying through the skies, the plains and grassland of the beast continent stretching below us like a verdant tapestry. Reela naturally had her wings to propel her, while I rode on a two-headed winged serpent, wondering if I had made a mistake, or more likely, an unintended consequence.

Reversing my unintentional mesmer on Reela proved to be a simple matter. All it took was a quick trip to my beast space, for safety reasons, a quick consulting with the Trove on how to undo it, and a simple utterance of what I wanted. Ironically, the Trove stated that she would be more susceptible to future orders now that I had done it to her once already, though the fact remained that I was substituting essence for mana, and that it occurred without my intent.

Control yourself. I slapped my cheeks hard, the pain a minor thing compared to the agony that was soul pain, but it helped focus me regardless.

Too much had happened without my consent. Doing this properly was the first step to gaining some agency in my life.

“You will forget that I mesmerized you. You will act normally, as though nothing odd has happened…but you will reflect on your actions and strive to be more understanding of others, especially your newest…disciple,” I spit out the word as I got the last laugh over my mentor. Just try and throw me into a vorander nest now.

I had to do something to make up for how she treated me. So what if I made her slightly nicer?

She shook her head a few times, like a dog jumping out of the water, and her eyes regained their clarity.

One awkward apology later, and we were out of my beast space and flying to the heartlands of the beast continent, where the dragons made their home. Apparently, the dragon lands were protected against spatial magic, so intruders couldn’t enter. Reela hesitantly explained that she wasn’t powerful enough to teleport us all the way into the dragon lands from here, and that if she tried…she would be fine, but I would likely be disintegrated. We took off soon after that little bombshell.

It seemed like the mesmerism had worked properly, as Reela had forgotten the whole episode, so I chalked that up as a win, something I desperately needed. Thankfully, there were no dragon bodyguards waiting for me once I had undone Reela’s hypnosis, and I didn’t know what to make of it.

Was I jumping at shadows that didn’t exist, making up everything in my head? Or were there actually dragon bodyguards around that I simply couldn’t sense? The paranoia was distracting…and unnatural. I liked to think of myself as mostly cautious, but I was never so outright paranoid, referencing conspiracy theories as evidence and wearing a tinfoil hat. Granted, my caution had skyrocketed once I came to this new world, but that didn’t fully explain why I had contrived some imaginary threat in my head and acted as though it was real. What I was most afraid of was not being right,,,but that someone had induced my paranoia. I could deal with omnipotent dragons that surveilled the entire world. All I had to do was hop into my beast space and keep moving around. But someone who could affect my mind without my knowledge? That was far more terrifying.

The irony of creating a boogeyman to explain my paranoia was not lost on me, but I couldn’t find it in myself to laugh at that.

As the winds buffeted around us, I lamented the absence of windshields and grabbed a pair of well-crafted goggles out of my space, latching them onto my face so I could at least see properly. The sun was on the verge of setting, giving an orange tint to the untamed sea of grass below us. Here and there, beastfolk tribes could be seen, going about their daily life as dots on the ground, while a pack of wild creatures on the cusp of evolving to beasthood and sapience were roaming in search of their next meal. Thankfully, there were no ominous black patches indicating vorander nests anywhere in sight, or else Reela might have suggested I go take care of it.

We stopped once night fell, so I could get some proper sleep, Reela and her new personality accommodating my need to recuperate. I still hadn’t fully healed, after all, and she had given her assent when I asked to stop for the night. She found a tree to lie against, while I laid on the ground, a bedroll appearing beneath me.

Not five minutes passed before the silence was broken.

“Hey.”

“Yeah?”

“...Do you hate me?”

Seriously? Are you THAT insecure now?

“...I’ll tell you if you answer one of my questions,” I evaded.

“Very well,” came the response from Reela.

“Why didn’t any voranders swarm us after I killed those poachers? I know you teleported us out of there pretty quick, but we should have seen or felt something,” I asked.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

“Oh, that’s nothing. Voranders won’t approach dragons, or dragonkin.”

I waited a beat for her to follow up, and when nothing happened, I prompted her again. “That’s it?”

“It’s not that complicated,” she refuted. “Dragons are apex predators. Voranders just…recognize that, on a deep level. That’s why I couldn’t go into all those nests with you, otherwise all of them would either swarm me trying to protect their home, or they would flee and make a new den somewhere else.”

At least that explained why there was no alarm or protection spell around our little encampment. That was great. Just what I needed to hear. Turns out the dragons, the undisputed strongest race on the planet, were basically immune to the voranders’ evil detection, leaving them free to pillage and plunder as they wished. Now the question was, why hadn’t they done so already?

“No, I don’t hate you,” I assuaged her feelings, even if some might argue that I was the aggrieved party this whole time and any hatred I might feel was justified. “Now try to sleep, if dragons are even able to.”

“Dragons can sleep! It’s just hard to wake up, so we don’t do it that often,” she feebly protested, while also confirming that dragons on this world had long sleep cycles.

I slowed my breathing down as I closed my eyes, letting go of all the tension in my muscles, and mimicked how I breathed while sleeping. The next thing I knew, I felt something sharp poking me in the hip every few seconds, prompting me to wake up.

A night of nothing but pure, uninterrupted, restful sleep. When was the last time I had that?

“Can we start moving now, or do you need anything?”

The transition between sleeping and waking, combined with Reela’s general thoughtfulness, half-convinced me I was still asleep until I pinched myself and subsequently remembered the events of the previous day.

We had jumped around the southwestern part of the continent for my ‘training’, but Reela, and presumably myself as well, being summoned to the dragon lands meant we had to traverse some familiar terrain. It only took a few more days of traveling before I came across a landmark I had seen before, and then…

“Mentor,” I said begrudgingly.

“Yes, Disciple?” Reela had returned to her more normal mode of speaking, reminiscent of when we first met, but she insisted we put on a facade of civility and respect. Apparently, it wouldn’t do either of us any good if we acted so informally with each other in the presence of any elders, who were almost certainly going to cross paths with us. Because heaven forbid the weird human get any strange ideas about thinking himself equal to a dragon, even a bit.

I put up with it despite my feelings, but something more pressing urged me to speak.

“With all due respect, why do the dragons live in the desert?”

She turned to me and her eyebrow ridge arched up. “Obviously, so no one would bother us. For someone who claims to be intelligent, you tend to ask the strangest of questions.”

That comment alone made me tempted to mesmerize her again, but I repeated my new mantra to myself.

Control yourself. Control yourself. Control yourself. You may not be able to control how the world reacts to you, but you can control how you react to the world.

We swiftly crossed the border of the desert, where the grass of the plains slowly merged with the coarse sands of the outer edges, until finally not a single plant could be seen as the golden yellow sands overtook the entire landscape. Despite winter’s approach, the sun had reached its zenith and turned the desert and its skies into an oven, reminding me of how hot summers could be in the southern hemisphere. Sweat poured from me in sheets for hours before Reela signaled that we should descend.

As we landed and I adjusted my clothes while wiping the sweat from my face, I couldn’t help but be jealous of Reela once again. Her draconic constitution meant that extreme temperatures weren’t an issue for her, and her fire affinity allowed her to actually be stronger in the desert.

I stored my winged serpent back into my space as I looked around, this section of the desert indistinguishable from the rest of it. Sure it was a bit rockier, as I could make out a few hand-sized stones in the area, but there was nothing else notable about it. The desert itself was void of any essence for some reason, but I quickly attributed that to the dragons, as another layer of defense against any intruders. The essence void would have been more debilitating to me had I not been exposed to mana beforehand. By this point, any inexplicable events that happened to me could either be explained by the Deity’s Seed or….no, that was the most likely culprit.

My musings were cut short as Reela walked up to an empty space and held out her hand while a series of growls and hisses escaped her lips. Then she oddly turned to me and placed her other hand on my shoulder, followed by another set of growling and screeching. The next thing I knew, we were shifting through space…only it felt as though I was moving in slow-motion.

I could feel space ripple around where Reela had held out her hand, and essence completely enveloped her body before moving towards me, using her hand on my shoulder as a bridge. Once the essence covered me as well, the surroundings grew darker and brighter at the same time, as though I could see two separate planes of existence occupying the same space. Swirling galaxies and massive supernovas obscured my vision, while the darkness of outer space threatened to swallow me. I felt something turn towards me before I felt myself being judged, some ancient and primordial being capable of both destruction and creation, before time resumed its normal speed and I was whisked away. Gravity lost its bind on me as I entered a spatial tunnel and was overwhelmed by what I felt. Even attempting to recall what I experienced proved impossible, only that it felt…right.

Unfortunately, the sensation passed sooner than I would have liked, as I felt solid ground beneath me once more. But before I could get my bearings or even open my eyes, I felt something sharp and rigid poking into my throat and my chest, threatening to kill me if I moved any further. I couldn’t even voice my irritation as that would make me liable to stab myself with whatever was poking me. A bright light similar to the reflection of the sunlight off the desert sands blinded me, and once my sight returned after a few blinks, I saw something that instantly put me on edge.

No less than six dragonkin resembling Reela were clutching spears, two of which were the ones rendering me immobile, while the rest were slightly further back yet still had their weapons out and pointed at me. I saw two holding what looked like lightsabers and the rest wielded an odd hybrid between a taser and a trident, with lightning sparking off the edges of the prongs. My blood sense revealed four more behind me in the same state of combat readiness, and I was hesitant to even attempt to enter my space like this, though I would make the attempt if pushed.

I felt another gargantuan existence locking onto me, though slightly weaker than the previous one, though there was no judgment involved this time, merely…curiosity? Before I could even try to explain myself or ask for Reela to intervene or even think about entering my space, I fell into unconsciousness, only hoping that if I died, it would be less painful than the last time.