They had filled every bag, which now hung like bloated, misshapen fruit from the backs of Ru, Juri, and Sumoon. Leo, Lily, and Ru had done their best to estimate the value of the stuff they had stolen, and it was close to forty thousand gold. With Lily, Leo, Neha, and the ‘kingdom’s eighth’ all adding to half the total, even after taking out the items that they were using the kingdom’s share was going to be around seven thousand gold.

People had told Leo that his adventuring wouldn’t be able to replace a real taxation rate in his kingdom. Leo knew they were right in the long run. However, he couldn’t help but think they weren’t going to be right nearly as soon as they thought. He had just snagged over twenty years of his current taxation rate from raiding a single dragon lair.

Between that and the levels his team had gotten, Leo exited the swamp days later in extremely high spirits as he walked with his team inside a giant bug.

His mood was immediately wrecked when he saw a fifty-foot-long azure-blue dragon with three eyes that was sunning itself on the mountain-side over the path that led directly back to Dayblossom. Fortunately, the dragon was huge and not trying to hide, and they were able to see it from miles away.

Unfortunately, it was clearly taking the gear from and then eating a team of elves. Judging from the glint of magic Leo could see even from here, he was pretty sure it was one of the raid teams that the Empire of the One Land had ended up sending. Even more unfortunately, the dragon had caught them on the way back from a successful raid.

But most unfortunately, if they passed along the direct route, the northern mountain face path, the dragon would probably see them—and Leo had no doubt that a dragon as large as the longspeaker Poct, empowered by the dragonflight, would destroy their group with little trouble. Or that it had learned that more teams were coming back, since it had obviously settled in to wait.

Leo felt like he was vascillating between being a nearly unstoppable badass on his home realm and an ant among the dragons of this new dimension. Perspective about what might be coming, Leo supposed, but he far preferred being an unstoppable badass.

“What do you know about that dragon, Ru?” Leo asked as they all stared at it from beneath the bug illusion.

“Well, I don’t know the dragon at all, but that’s a Divine Gaze of Judgement Dragon—”

“Love the names you guys have on this world,” Hugh quipped.

“—probably around three hundred years old. It can, um, see right through illusions and invisibility and such with its powers, as well as having very powerful pyshcic attacks and a nightmare inducing breath weapon. It was around Level Thirty or Thirty-Five before the dragonflight boost.”

Leo grimaced. Practically tailor made to screw our group and far higher level to boot. Joy.

“We have to go elsewhere,” Leo said, pulling the rolled-up map he had gotten from El when he first done the gifter quest. “This path is almost certainly closed to us in its entirety.”

He put it onto the ground and unrolled it. It showed the huge inner sea that most of the empire of the One Land was based around. Leo put his finger on Dayblossom, at one end of that giant sea, and traced a line north of it to the dragon swamp. “We passed through the northern pass all three times we’ve done this, on the upper slope of the part of the mountain wall that forms the Valley of the One Land.”

Then he ran his finger from the dragon swamp south to the edge of the huge sea. “If we head directly south from here, we can reach the huge inhabited low-lands around the sea where the vast majority of the Empire of the Inner Sea lives. That’ll put us into territory that the dragons have been raiding, which may be leaving the frying pan for the fire—”

“Ooh, another new one,” Lily said. “I should write these down. At least that one makes sense here.”

Leo laughed and kissed his lover before continuing. “As I was saying, that may cause trouble of its own. But we’ll arrive only a couple days before the dragonflight ends. Once it ends the great dragons will be forced back to the Eighth Vale, and anything that can survive outside the higher magic area of the Eighth Vale will be easier to hunt once again.”

“I’d still rather kill the bugs,” Hugh said. “Maybe we can just wait around here and level for a bit?”

“Aye, it was very easy lev’ling,” Andul added. “I can’t believe I’m Level Nineteen. I could handle roughing it for a bit longer.”

Leo nodded to everyone. I can’t believe I’m Level Twenty-One either. “I know—but we should get back, get everyone out of Star Port and back to their own empire, and stabilize trade relations and immigration rules. Most of the bugs have found caves and such anyway.”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

His team nodded.

Leo continued. “Besides, we can come back and farms the bugs for experience later.”

“We already agreed,” Zun said. “You can stop arguing.”

Leo rubbed the back of his head as he stared around the sparse mountain forest around them, and down the side of the mountain. “Yeah, sorry. Let’s head South then.”

“And pray to Merdrek that the dragons don’t have any more weird members that are prepared to ambush us.”

Remy shuddered dramatically. “Most of the time I like this gig. But knowing that any moment a veritable god can descend from the sky and squish us…”

Leo had to admit that he questioned the wisdom of his own decision to play bandit while the dragonflight raged, but he had gotten so much wealth. His adventuring team and realm was going to be empowered greatly. Additionally, the crown’s affect on his aura’s alone would make this worthwhile.

“C’mon, quit bitching and let’s go,” Leo said, reaching out and giving Remy some scratches. Neha reached down and patted him as well from where she rode him.

The group turned and headed down the mountainside, toward the sea around which all of civilization in the Empire of the One Land seemed to thrive. Leo wondered if the other seven vales of Tsao’Tu were organized the same.

***

As they descended the mountainside, Leo was struck by how little damage had actually been done by the dragonflight. It quickly became apparent that the largest form of agriculture on this world was terrace farming, with huge swaths of territory carved into long, relatively thin terrace that housed a potato analog of all things. Each set of farms was built around a small central fort of stone half-built into the ground, and the vast majority had a small irrigation network from some central reservoir.

From what Leo could see, once you were close to the central sea of the Vale of the One Land, there was no unused land. All of it was city, road, irritation network, or mostly, farms.

It was a bit surreal traveling through the lands. There were a few burn or blast marks, a single fort that had been shattered, and one or two people had been killed in a couple places, but mostly he received warm welcomes, a bit of food, and the advice to ‘stay away from the cities, because that’s where the dragons went.’

Leo had been thinking of the dragons as an evil menace, but he had been thinking more ‘comically evil’ than the reality. As he went down the mountain, he even saw a few dragons flying back and ignoring most of the people beneath them, as well as their farms.

It’s all a bandit game! Leo thought, struck by the realization. When they become veritable gods and the dragonflight lasts for years, the real problem is the dragons get forever to loot, and their actions carve everything to pieces. But in this lesser dragonflight, they’re just taking their two weeks to snatch everything valuable they can carry, which means they’re only attacking major urban centers.

“What’re you thinking?” Ru asked as they walked beneath the illusion of a larger dragon that had replaced their bug illusions.

“That we’re bandits and the dragons are all bandits. This realm is being attacked by uber-bandits, not by an evil army, essentially. That dragons are greedy evil, but not evil for its own sake.”

Ru tilted his head. “Well, yeah. What’s the point?”

Leo shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t change what we have to do, but it does likely mean that the realm will recover quicker than I thought, since the food regions are being left alone. Nobody seems to be going after the tiny rituals to move water and such.”

“Is that important?” Neha asked.

“Could be,” Leo said. “It could be in two directions. It means our kingdom will have a very advanced neighbor with a lot of power again quickly, but this realm will also become a trading mecca again soon. Given its population and advancement, I think that the raw magical resources we’re importing from Ice Pines will find a very willing market. We can buy very cheap and sell very expensive, essentially. Huge profit.”

“That sounds entirely positive,” Lily said. “Why the thoughtful face?”

Leo bobbed his head side to side. “Well… a dark piece of me had wondered if perhaps we would have been better off if they had been knocked back further, to give us more time to establish ourself fully.”

“Whoa,” Ru said. “That’s a bit dark for you… why?”

Leo rubbed the back of his head. “Having an economically and culturally advanced neighbor will cause issues. They might come to dominate our people, or our culture. O all our citizens will want to migrate. My only solace is that this realm is truly built for winged people, and none of them except a few magical ones can fly in our realm. That will likely limit both their urge to conquer us and our own citizens urge to immigrate to the Empire of the One Land.”

“Hmm…” Lily said. “That makes sense.”

“I half-regret not having studied more history and philosophy,” Ru said. “But at least with pure magical theory no one wants to kill anyone over it. Or let them die.”

Leo frowned. “I’m not going to be evil or even indifferent. I let them move their entire command structure to my realm which will help them get back years faster most likely. But if it happened to happen, beyond my control…”

“Dark,” Lily said, shivering. “But I understand.”

As they were talking, the group crested a ridge and found themselves staring into a huge city, probably of a couple hundred thousand—once. The main keep had been shattered, temples collapsed, and a fire had gutted most of the city. Leo could faintly smell burnt flesh and blood from over two miles out, and the faint wails from the loved ones of the dead reached him. Multiple dragons dug through the city, clearly still searching for treasure, and a pair guarded a giant pile of loot in the town square. A second pair also flew in the skies, keeping most of the citizens from fleeing.

“Not evil, huh?” Hugh asked.

Leo grunted.

Ru added, “Now’s your chance to prove you’re not going to just let them get knocked back extra far.”

Leo fingered his new sword and crown. Perhaps it is.