A long time later, when he finally made it to Veronica’s abode, he was greeted not by a scary creature that was so large it could swallow him in a bite. Not by a beast with claws the size of a house. Nor was it a being so powerful that it made it hard to breathe. Instead, what greeted him atop this mountain was a lithe humanoid figure, not just any figure, but a familiar one.
For you see, what the rumors don't say is Veronica likes to use illusion magic. What one sees differs from person to person. What the young nobleman saw was his dead first love. Aged and tired looking. As if she had traveled for miles on foot, without rest. Skinny to the bone, lips dry as if neither food nor water was a known concept.
“What can I do for you?” The dragon spoke.
“Why is it you?” Was the nobleman's reply.
“Who I am is something you should know, quickly speak what it is that you want?” With a snide comment, the dragon replied.
With heavy breathing, the nobleman had no words, even if it wasn’t her, even if it was any other of his childhood friends that lived on his land. Every one of them looked just as weary. The emotions that had been bottled up all came out at the same time. At last with tears leaking from his eyes and his breathing choking at every other word he finally managed to spit out, “What I want is simple, what I need is simple, what I can give is simple. Simple is the need of a source of water. Simple is the need of a source of food. Simple is the body and the soul that is before you.”
Finally, with a surprised look the dragon’s tone finally held a bit of interest, “Tell me human, is it true you’re willing to give it all just to help those in need? While it is said, true nobles are the heroes not to the world but to those under them. Very few people are willing to be true nobles in my eyes. Those that say they are, are those that speak nothing but vain.”
With this reply, the nobleman smiled and responded back, “I don’t consider myself anyone’s hero. Nor am I qualified to say I am a true nobleman. All I wish, is to protect those that call my lands home. Since so many have already died, how can I, a nameless peasant, say I am any of those things?”
To the surprise of the dragon, unlike those that called themselves king, queen, prince, princess, noblemen, or noblewoman, they were all those that proclaimed themselves this or that. Yet every single one of them wanted more than they were willing to offer. So the amount of wishes she had granted could be counted on one hand. The rumors about her were exaggerated by all those who came before her. They were too scared to say anything bad about the dragon, the only thing they could do was fabricate stories to make themselves seem better than they were.
While she was thinking this, the nameless nobleman took it as her not believing him. So to prove it, he took his sword and stabbed himself in the heart. Before the dragon could react, he was already too far gone. It was not that she couldn’t heal the injury, one cannot heal the will to live. Not even dragons can force one to live when they have already given up on life. With a smile, he looked at the dragon in front of him and spoke, “I must say you are not as beautiful as the woman on my land, nor as handsome as the gents that plow the fields. I must say the people of my land are the best.”
Not knowing rather to laugh or cry, the dragon simply looked at the human before it. After he stabbed himself, the dragon already dispelled the magic. Now she stood in front of him in her true form. As the body slumped as if a sprouting flower from the ground, a clear, watery like substance grew from the man's back. Once it fully stood up, one would see it was a transparent version of the nameless nobleman.
Not even the reincarnation cycle that is said to be the most powerful force in the world could take his soul. For it now belonged to the dragon. Refusing to budge even a single inch. He simply waited for the dragon to do what she wished with his body and soul. With a sad sigh, Veronica stepped forward and took the noblemen's soul and body, each in a claw. After this, she followed the path to the nobleman's land.
Once she found it, she crushed the body, after crushing it to the point only a powder was left, she sprinkled it across the land.
“With this let the body feed the lands, in return the people can eat of the land.”
Taking a final look at the soul, she saw no regret or even hesitation, only determination. Sighing once again, she crushed the soul. Even her mighty kin would cry out when they received an injury to their soul. Yet the nobleman didn’t even let out a peep.
After which, she swiped her other claw and created a long crevice that traveled the entire area of the nobleman's land.
“With this, let the soul watch over the lands and forever protect it.” After which she once again spread the powdery remains of the soul in the crevice.
Looking down at the crevice with but a small amount of hesitation, she spoke again. “I am tired of the mundane world, let me rest in these lands said to have men more handsome than me, and women more beautiful than me.”
With that, she closed her eyes and fell into the crevice. Soon, storm clouds gathered and swept through the nobleman’s land. After the crevice was filled, it had never emptied. The food grew abundant. And no violent creatures had ever come within a few miles of the nobleman’s land.
“Bullshit. Way too many holes in that story. Even for a legend, it feels really far-fetched.”
She was still looking at the fire with cloudy eyes. And yet, the atmosphere she was sitting in front of was dashed too quickly. With a frown, she couldn’t help but look at the boy with annoyance. Even if you were going to be cynical, you should still read the room. Being a piece of shit served no one's self-interests.
Snapping at him, “You can question and deny it all you want. What remains is that while singularly it is true, there is still trouble in Green River. Anyone that does anything violent or overly malicious ends up dead in a very vicious manner. Not physically but almost magically. And not the magic of mana but superstition. Like an untold force is watching the land and righting wrongs.”
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To this the boy had nothing to say. He knew very little about this world, instead he believed in logic, and it was the thing holding him together. Even when it came to mana he didn’t see it as a magical force but simply an unknown energy he had yet to come to terms with understanding. But a superstition type of force that didn’t follow a set standard of logic was difficult to understand. Even so he had no choice but to believe it, in the end it would make it more interesting to come to understand it himself.
“How long will it take us to get there?”
“If we are left alone, maybe one or two days. If we can find a ride, likely a span of six to twelve hours depending on the cargo.”
With narrow eyes, he had to say he wasn’t against the long-winded way she talked. When speaking of definitions, she had a tendency to be broad-minded. She didn’t calculate a single time but estimated possible branches of possibilities. Soon he started to frown again as he looked up, he couldn’t do anything when he felt someone staring at them.
“What is it?”
“Something is coming this way. Unlike before, this thing is coming straight here. It was faint at first, but I can feel a mana signature, and it is moving in a straight line. There are no questions about it, whatever it is. It is coming here and not just in this direction like before.”
Jessica frowned slightly, but at the same time wanted to laugh. He doubled down before tripling down. It was important but at the same time, the incident earlier seemed to hurt his pride or had embarrassed him. There was already a fire and if they were coming straight here there was nothing she could do. If they came because of the fire or because of her, then running would only make things worse.
As a Grade F if, she suddenly started to run when she had no reason to know anyone was there. Best case scenario, whatever it was believed, there was someone powerful here. But there were a lot of problems with this assumption. Worse was that she had something, whether it be a technique or treasure, to sense the danger ahead of time. Which could incite the others' greed. Ultimately, she decided to forge ignorance.
They were days from Green River, because of what she said earlier, trouble was something that tended to and actively tried to avoid this place. Since the deaths were seemingly done by a superstitious force, there was no rhyme or reason why people mysteriously ended up dead. And while nothing has been found to happen this far away, are you willing to bet your life on this chance for no good reason?
In the beginning, she was rather amazed by the distance the boy had felt this presence. A little later, she started to grow nervous. Soon there was the sound of humming coming from the surrounding woods. She had trekked a good hour away from the road to avoid encountering someone. But when the person showed up a good distance from the fire and stood there to show they had no ill will, she was rather baffled by what she saw.
The hummed tone wasn’t happy or sad, instead it was a small ditty that she swore she had heard before but didn’t know where. Only once the person stopped in a gap around twenty feet away did they stop humming. Raising both of their hands, they smiled gently at her as he opened his mouth to speak, “Hi, I seem to be a bit lost. Do you think I can come over and warm myself up using your fire? In exchange, I came across this, and I'm willing to share.”
While both of his hands were empty, he didn’t reach into his robe but grabbed his outer coat and drew it back to show a large rabbit hanging on his belt. But she wasn’t paying much attention to that. While, the first thing that drew her attention was the light beige color outer robe. People don’t wear light colors while traveling unless there are three types of people. First were those of an alleviated status, for they were in the carriage most of the time it didn’t matter if the dust and the dirt was kicked up as they were always inside. He was a bit pudgy...
Second was the most common. They were those that didn’t have a choice. This combined the poor with those that just didn’t care. Not everyone really cared if their clothes were dirty. Those that didn’t have a choice were obvious, but so were those that really just didn’t care. Though the former was far more common than the latter.
Finally, the third and the least common, and yet it was obvious this man fit into this category. It was the powerful. They didn’t need to worry about such things. As the man's smile turned a bit stiff in awkwardness, he seemed a bit uncomfortable. While still absentmindedly, she just nodded her head. With this, the man smiled as she noticed that every single one of the man’s steps were the exact same distance from each other.
When he sat down next to the fire, he pulled out a small knife and grabbed a stick before sharpening one end before putting it aside. With an awkward smile, he tried to make it gentle before he spoke, “Uhm, you might want to turn around for this.” His voice was soft and didn’t contain anything malicious. She knew why he said it, but she just kept staring at him absentmindedly.
As the man started to skin the rabbit, he didn’t say anything about her staring. In fact, he too was surprised when he saw her. The man in front of her had light blue hair and gray-ish blue eyes. If she was there when John had taken out that picture, she would recognize the man in front of her was in the picture.
It was strange to her, blue hair was very rare. It wasn’t like it didn’t exist, but amongst humans it was rare. If she went north, where the animal tribes were more active, she would find numerous royals with differing strength bloodlines that were known for blue hair. But it was the eyes that got her. Blue eyes were far more common, only combined with the hair it really threw her off. But there was just one problem…
“I know you two might look alike, but you two aren’t very much alike. I am very sorry to have to tell you this… But that man is far more attractive than you.” After saying this the boy stopped slightly as he felt he had been a bit too straightforward, “Ah it’s not that you’re ugly… I’m sorry, you’re just not very beautiful in my standards.”
The worst was not the words but the tone… There was so much pity and even a little bit of sorrow mixed in. The man had been glancing over as he smiled a bit awkwardly from under her staring. She was just surprised, she had never seen anyone that shared these characteristics with her before. It wasn’t like she was staring just for that reason. She estimated that he was somewhere around Grade C, but that was a blind guess she couldn’t confirm, still she was fairly confident she wasn’t terribly far off.
Once the man was done, he used the previous prepared stick to cook the rabbit using the fire. Very quickly, the juices had started to drip into the fire, making a lot of noise. Soon she could feel her stomach grumbling as she tried to suppress it. In the end she failed as there was a soft audible growl. The man didn’t say or do anything as if he didn’t hear it. She wasn’t embarrassed, at least not at first.
Realizing that she was slightly used to this feeling did make her a tiny bit ashamed. Usually she could hunt for her own food, unfortunately she was still exhausted from the laboratory and put a priority on getting to Green River. Taking the first parts of the cooked meat, he cut them off with the knife before offering her the first few pieces. As time went on, the rabbit started to slowly disappear as the two enjoyed a decently cooked meal.
When all was said and done, she couldn’t help but get quiet. As the man was warming his hands, he just sat there quietly, as if ignoring the awkward atmosphere. In the end, she had confirmed that none of the boy’s words or actions seemed to be apparent. It was only after this, she couldn’t help but open her mouth, “Why… are you here?”
Just as she spoke, there was a loud pop in the flames. She didn’t repeat herself, nor did the man answer immediately. Only after a moment did he try to smile to not seem hostile, only the words were hard not to seem that way, “For you. I came here looking for you.”