Laying in my bed the following morning, I can’t help but praise myself for doing such a good job at their personality check.
I was a little bit surprised at how well that ended up working, I didn’t really expect them to be so emotional. I guess that they just cry easily, because for how old they must be to cry that easily is a little weird.
Some people are just like that I suppose, so I’ll just ignore it for now and try not to think about it.
After I established that I was to be listened to, they continued to cry for a couple more minutes before sniffling off back to the castle where they would spend the rest of the day.
Tyler and I just hung out until around nightfall and then went our separate ways and went to bed ourselves.
I hop out of my bed and onto the cool stony floor to begin my final day on this continent for a while. Generating some water with my mana I splash myself on the face to fully rejuvenate myself and wash away all of the grogginess that comes after sleeping.
A little cold but also refreshed I get dressed and walk my 10 year old self to the dining room where I hope that breakfast will be.
As I make my way down the hall I’m greeted by the amazing smell of eggs and a type of meat called Kip, which is pretty much just ham. No matter how many lives I end up living, the smell of cooked eggs and ham will always be one of my favorites.
Almost skipping I hum my way down the corridor to where the rest of my family should be. Opening a small set of double doors I enter and see all of the guests here along with my parents sitting at the table waiting for their meals.
Not exactly in the mood to talk yet, I walk over to my seat next to my parents and sit down without saying anything other than a general ‘Good morning’ to everyone present.
Tyler’s hair is short, but somehow there are still bits and pieces standing straight up as if trying to protest and leave his skull. His eyes don’t seem tired at all, it’s just the rest of his face and hair that are giving off the impression of a not so morning person.
The twins both look energetic and back to normal though, their hair is already done and they might even be wearing a little bit of something similar to makeup. They’re all smiles as they talk to each other and their parents, unlike Tyler and I who are simply used to waking up early, these two seem to enjoy the mornings.
I could never understand such odd behavior during the worst time of the day, but to each his own I guess…
Right after I sit down the food is presented to us and after thanking the Allfather religiously we begin to eat.
The food was as good as it always is and I quickly finish my food to wait for the others. We are leaving right after this so I don’t really want to keep everyone waiting a second time.
Soon after everyone finishes their meals and we are once again led by my father to an empty white colored room with a circular pattern on the floor.
The complete lack of color hurts my eyes to stare at so I focus my eyes on the orange symbol covering the center of the room.
It looks important, with a 5m diameter and intricate criss cross patterns it must have taken hours to draw. I had read something about runes when I was first able to read, but this is my first time seeing one.
All I know about them is that they are drawn in a way that allows the user to pour his/her mana into it and activate a spell based on the pattern, the more complicated the rune the more mana needed.
I have no idea what the symbol means, so I’ll have to wait for someone to explain what it does..
Father enters the white room first and the rest of us follow, once we are all inside he turns around to face us and says
“This is a teleportation rune that we will be using to send you four to Sunvaarmun, from there you will be challenging yourselves by fighting those who are as strong or stronger than you. We have a few rules and things to give you, so listen carefully.”
He then steps back slightly and my mother replaces him
“Firstly, you will not kill the weak without provocation, unless you are threatened or the situation warrants it then there is to be no killings, understand? “
Not that I was planning on committing murder anyways, but I nod just to inform her that I do understand.
“You will not be allowed to fight anything or anyone who is two or more stages above you by yourselves, if you are to fight the strong do it in groups after you have figured out your teamwork. The last rule is that you are not permitted to reveal yourselves as dragons unless in a seriously grave matter, if that is to happen you are to immediately inform us of the situation with one of the items we are about to give you. That is all for the rules, do you have any questions?”
Well, they were pretty straightforward I think except for one thing, and the others don’t seem like they’re going to ask so I guess up to me.
“What are we allowed to kill?”
It’s a very simple question and it needs to be asked, I have no problems with taking a life as long as it is someone who deserves it. I have killed many before and I will continue to do so, it’s just the way it is.
Upon hearing my question only the girls eyes open widely and they appear to be shocked, can’t really blame them. Killing things is usually very ‘touchy’ with civilian women, I’ll have to try and get them used to it before they freeze up and get us killed.
Unlike the girls, my mother has no hesitation at all and replies coldy
“Anything is fair game, beastman, human, elven, anything. If someone or something so much as looks at you in a menacing way you have our permission to end it’s life, no puny mortal should dare offend us.”
The sudden harshness of her words startles me a tiny bit, but I don’t really have any problems with the answer. I won’t be as extreme as to kill someone who just glares at me, but this world’s laws and rules are different now and I won’t hesitate to end someone who poses any kind of threat to me or my friends.
Tyler’s eyes furrow as he nods quietly, looks like he has the same mentality as I do. I didn’t serve in the armed forces and reincarnate as a dragon in order to become some pushover, fuck that.
Jasmine and Carly on the other hand seem to have different views on the matter, they both shift nervously from leg to leg and cross and uncross their arms.
Can’t blame them, the brutality of this world is not something that they are used to afterall. With some time I’m sure they won’t bat an eye, but it will take a lot of coaxing and convincing.
That will be a project for later though, I should probably cross that bridge when I come to it.
“Is that all? No more questions then? Good, your parents all have something to give you. Vedova, come to your father.”
I do as I am told and walk over to where Sahqoviing is standing with a black leather bag, he just tells me that inside there’s some money, a few survival supplies, and a coin to contact them whenever we need to inside.
I can only guess what the vague term ‘survival supplies’ means, but I hope there will at least be enough to survive in the wilderness for a while if we need to.
The other children got the same bags, only they were color coded to match the hair/elements that we possess.
Carly with a black bag like mine and Jasmine with a pure white bag. The only outlier is Tyler with a brown bag to match his hair. I never figured out why his hair was different, I can only assume that God had something to do with it but it could? have a potential hidden meaning.
After receiving our goodies from our respective parents we were told to stand in the rune and wait for whatever comes next.
Huddled together like a bunch of elementary students waiting for a bus we stand still as the twins father starts some sort of water element spell directed at us.
The moment the blue energy makes contact with our skin I feel a warm sensation on the top of my head and on my backside, I look over to the twins to see what just happened.
Apparently the spell had some sort of transforming effect because there are large fluffy white cat-like ears sprouting out of Jasmine’s white hair, right above where her butt is is a similarly white thin tail.
Well, it looks like I’m about to get an answer to my questions about beastiality all those years ago...I wasn’t expecting something like this but they don’t look bad I guess…
I go to look at the other two but before I can a red wall of flames comes bursting out of the edges of the rune.
The blindingly bright flames aren’t burning us, but they are incredibly violent and are quickly advancing towards us to engulf our bodies completely.
The only emotion I felt as the flames surrounded me was disappointment at the fact that it wasn’t actually hot. Because of the fact that I don’t hear any screams other than the initial shout of surprise I think the others are taking it well too.
A few short seconds after the fire overtakes me I start to feel a pleasant warmth replace the nothingness that came with the fire.
Briefly after the nice warm feeling I know to be the shine of the sun the bright flames fade away and I get a good look at our new continent.
All around us are hundreds of small rolling hills covered by a deep green grass, for as far as I can see there is nothing but the grass, not a single tree in sight.
Because of the lack of a safari like environment I can narrow this down to the northern part of the massive piece of land we now reside on, this is both good and bad.
Good because there should be a lot of monsters and beasts to kill in this unpopulated area, bad because there won’t be anything but a couple small towns and a handful of settlements large enough to be cities.
There isn’t really much we can do about our situation other than to fight and gain experience, it would probably take over a year to walk to the southern lands where the capital is without flying there in dragon form.
And since we can’t do that, we will either have to live off of the land or blend in the nearest town.
Speaking of blending in, the new looks we got should help an incredible amount, now that I have time to look I can see that Carly also has some black cat ears, although these ones seem to be more of a housecat instead of the lion/bobcat ones of Jasmine.
Her tail is different too, it’s rather dark and foofy compared to the white and slim short haired tail of her sister.
The silence around us was broken by Tyler’s hysterical laughing, he’s bent over his knees pointing at the top of my head.
Makes me kind of worried, also makes me want to punch him, how bad could my ears be?
“Oi, fuck stick. What are you laughing at? You have some pretty cheesy ears yourself Mr. Droopy.”
He stops his mad cackle and a sudden realization rushes through his peanut brain and he frantically rubs the top of his head finding his limp blonde ears.
After confirming that I am not some anomaly he lets out a heavy sigh and grumbles something about being a mutt.
I can understand the mutt part, his ears really are floppy, they almost bounce with every step he takes. His tail isn’t as funny looking, just a longhaired tail that you would find on a golden retreiver of our old world.
I am kind of curious to know what my ears are like so I decide to ask the girls who are describing their own to each other a couple feet away from me.
“You two, how do I look? Is it bad?”
They quickly turn towards me after hearing my voice and stare at my ears and tail quietly for a couple seconds, the first one to speak up is Carly
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“They both look like a wold’s, black and pretty big. They look good, but…”
“Your teeth are kind of weird, smile real quick”
Jasmine finishes what her sister was about to say and a little confused I smile the brightest way I can. I leave it open as the twins nod in quick succession and Jasmine speaks up again
“The canines are just like a dogs, they're really sharp looking and decently long. Feel for yourself with your tongue.”
I close my mouth again and furrow my eyebrows
‘Tyler didn’t have dog teeth, why do I? What do humans even look like with long canines?’
Upon rubbing my teeth with my tongue I find that they really are just like a wolf’s…The hell? I guess it could be helpful...it could look really bad though, I wish I had a mirror…
*sigh*
Well, we’ve gotta do something other than just stand here and wait. It’s already about 8 o'clock here and the sun should be going down soon, we need to set up some type of camp.
I would have completely forgot about the huge time zone difference if it weren’t for the fact that the sky was already turning orange. It’s about a 36 hour difference from here to our home because of the fact that were 30,000 miles away so so it’s already the next day and 12 hours after 8:00.
“We need to set up camp. We should be fine in this wide open area, but I don’t want to risk night travel yet. Any complaints?”
I get a chorus of ‘no’ from the three others and I tell them to look inside their bags for anything we can use for shelter.
The relatively open area should be more than enough to act as a buffer zone for anything that might come to attack us, but I don’t exactly want to be wet while I sleep.
Also, the two girls will be pretty pissy if they have to sleep on the floor I assume, Tyler and I have done it several times in the field but those two were civilians I’m sure.
Not really focussing on any specific item, I go through the ruck sack like container that was presented to us, so far I’ve found a wide assortment of items including;
Rope, wire, a single potion, a flask?, and a hat. As I reach about the midway point of the items inside the bag I find a semi large block, it seems to be made out of some type of cloth that I can’t say would be a blanket.
I carefully remove the object and find that it actually takes up the entirety of the 50% remaining space, save for a small pouch buried underneath it there isn’t anything else inside.
With a mix of disappointment and curiosity, I fiddle around with the thing in my hands until I find a small handle of sorts.
There’s nothing else on the surface, so handle it is.
After tugging on the handle tediously as to not break anything inside, I find that whatever is inside is coming out at the base of the grip.
I keep pulling with my tiny arms until somehow it takes the form of a small cubical ‘tent’ with the surface of the previous box acting as a base for the rest of it.
Not large at all, the cube is maybe 3 feet high and 5 feet long and wide, leaving just enough room for me to sleep comfortably if I bend myself the right way.
Glad that we do have some type of protection from the elements, I look up at the darkening sky and feel the air around me cooling slightly as the sun goes down. Although we don’t really need one, a fire would feel nice so I decide to make one.
After explaining what the black cubes inside everyone’s bags are, they set theirs up in a circular formation making enough room in the center for a fire pit.
To clear away any slight dangerous grass, I have Tyler perform a type of electric spell called ‘Lightning Scythe’. Basically just a precise piece of electric mana, all of the grass surrounding the pit is cut at it’s base and added to the pile.
Also nabbing as much as the shin high grass as he can from our surroundings, we create a formidable pile of tall grass that should last us about an hour before we will have to get more of the quickly burning material.
The amount of the wild grass needed for such a long amount of time is huge, but we have a very large pile that will get the job done.
With our now cozy looking clearing in the hills, I form fire mana around my finger in the form of a slight torch/lighter in order to get the fire going.
Luckily, the pile grass is dry so it not only lights easily but means that there probably won’t be any rain tonight.
Making sure it doesn’t burn too quickly, I keep a watch on the fire as my companions sit cross legged directly next to the pit.
Normally the heat would be burning, but all dragons are pretty much immune to heat so it is impossible for such a small temperature to harm us.
Content with the blaze, I sit down on my butt and let my arms support me as I think of a way to make some small talk.
As usual, Tyler’s just listening quietly to the two twins who are talking back and forth about the weather and hills, there’s not really much to talk about and to be honest, I’m not really much of a social person.
Most of the time I end up talking to people is when they start the conversation, I just kind of keep the ball rolling so to speak, so starting one is actually a pretty rare event for me.
Struggling with my brainstorming, I think deep about anything I could say that would be interesting.
After about 5 minutes of my deep thought I remember a piece of information that I definitely should have asked earlier.
Interrupting thee two girls’ talking about how cute their ears are, I slowly tread on what might be a touchy subject.
“So, how did you guys do in your past lives? I forgot to ask, but I’ve been wanting to know for a while now.”
None of the three really look too distressed about the question, but I can see Tyler’s eyes lower and close slightly as if remembering something painful.
Still with that strange look in his eyes, Tyler speaks up
“Well, after you died I continued my service until I was 40 and then settled down and retired. I was out of work for a while, but I got a job as a high school football coach in Texas. It was fun work, I liked it doing it and I had a good set of kids to teach. After our second playoff win I went to celebrate at a bar and met a good woman named Lauren. We hit it off nicely and continued seeing each other as I coached for a couple months. She really was a good woman, tall, blonde, smart as hell too, I really loved her. After a year we tied the knot and bought a home together in the town I coached at in Southern Texas.”
His eyes close and he pauses to sigh, tilting his head up to the sky
“We stayed together until she died of cancer at 59, it was terminal, deep inside her brain. It hit me hard and I lived the rest of my life doing nothing but traveling to see the world until I passed myself.”
He slaps his cheeks a few times and opens his eyes, good as new.
“It’s all in the past now, a new life and a new world. No point in dwelling in my old memories when I have this schmuck with me.”
He’s had a hard life, much worse than how I had it. I feel sorry for him, but I wouldn’t dare let myself show it, no matter how tough it gets pity makes it that much worse.
“I’m surprised you tricked some poor girl into marrying you, I can’t believe my best friend brainwashed someone…”
That gets the response I wanted and he laughs out loud for a short time before replying
“Hell yeah I did, better looking that anything you could ever get. Good in bed too, pussy was bomb.”
I laugh in return and look over to the two twins who are slightly blushing, brushing off the sob story we just heard I divert their attention to themselves.
“How about you two, what did you do before all this?”
They had already been thinking about it for a while, so they both try to speak at the same time and apologize just the same. Awkwardly freezing, Jasmine goes back to talking after a second or two.
“I got a job in business on Wall Street and lived off of that my entire life as an upper middle class citizen. Unlike Tyler over there I never really married, but I did have a few boyfriends every now and then unlike my sister over there.”
She giggles after that and Carly visibly reddens, even in the dim lighting of the fire I can see the tips of her ears glowing and she looks down.
“She always was too shy to do much, just like a little kid. She never even dated anyone in her entire life, she was a Veterinarian after graduating college. Apparently the animals were enough for her.”
She leans in and blocks her mouth on the left side where Carly is still sitting and whispers softly
“She’s still a virgin too”
That gets a unanimous ‘PHFFFFFFFFF’ sound from Tyler and I and Carly looks like shes about to cry with a ‘kuuuuuuuuuuu’ cry/whimper.
Jasmine bursts out laughing and Carly slumps down with moist eyes and covers her beat red face.
I didn’t think she would be a virgin, that’s really sad but far more funny to feel bad for her. That’s some good shit right there, this’ll be good.
I think I see tears forming so I’ll stop myself before it gets too bad. A couple chuckles later and I have my straight face on as I signal Tyler to stop as well.
By the time he settles down it was a full minute later and Carly already scampered off into her tent, choosing to hide herself and run away.
Jasmine seems like she wants to go apologize to her sister, I think she feels bad about bringing that up.
I don’t know why it was so funny, I guess the way she reacted made it that much better, it was still funny as hell though, probably the biggest laugh I’ve had in 10 years.
As the mood dies down I get up and stretch, saying my goodnights I ask Tyler to stay on a 2 man night watch rotation with me.
He nods as he gets up as well, walking around for a bit before sitting back down atop one of the small bumps in the field.
I’ll be back up in 3 hours so I should get as much rest as I can, even though I shouldn’t be tired dragons have some weird natural ability that lets them sleep whenever they want. Its a pretty weird trait, but convenient nonetheless.
Tomorrow we’ll try to get a better idea of our location and find a town if we can, we might have to walk for a very long time…
(Hello comrades, I apologize for the delay with this chapter, I had it all typed out and finished last night but I didn’t like it and had to redo it completely. To make up for it, this chapter is about 1,000 words longer than my usual chapters so that’s a plus I guess lol. I also put in some information about their past lives in this chapter too, I didn’t want to put too much detail into it but I might not have put enough into it, not sure. I guess we’ll find out xD Let me know what you think in the comments and thanks for reading!)