“Verde? Are you in?” A female voice calls over the mountain. I panic. My best option is to replicate his voice and lie. “Uhhh. Yes.” A dragon with green translucent scales pokes her head over the top of the mountain.

“Eep!” She noticed I wasn’t Verde. As she turns to leave I fly up. “Wait. Let’s talk.” Her scales glow green and her body begins to turn invisible. I lunge for where her body would be and collide with her invisible self. “Where are you going?” She makes herself visible again. She’s skittish, not looking me in the eyes. She doesn’t speak. “Tell me.” I command, but this only serves to make her more resistant. I change my tune, I should befriend her not threaten her. “What’s a cute dragon like you doing around these parts?” I wink. She blushes but still doesn’t speak. I loosen my grip on her. She doesn’t attempt to run. Eventually I release my grip all together. “Can you tell me why you are here?” She looks at the ground in between us. “Did you need something?”

“Verde.” her voice sounds sad.

“He’s not here right now. Hasn’t been for a year-ish.” I soften my tone. There is only one other dragon that I had heard of. “Were you his mate?”

She nods.

“Sorry for your loss.” I’m trying to be considerate. This causes her to laugh.

“Not much of a loss.” Good job, me. Unintentionally using humor to defuse the situation. “He was just who my father had chosen as my mate.”

“That’s kinda fucked up. Arranged marriages are icky. Love should be free.”

She looks up. Her emerald eyes meet mine. “Are you sure you’re a dragon?”

I look down at my claws and back at my wings. “I don’t know. I might just be a giant flying lizard.”

She laughs again. “Well congrats on killing Verde and taking his mountain. Really ruined my plans for mating season.” She sounds more off put by not getting sex than the loss of Verde. “Now my dad will assign me to some other prick.”

“I take it you’ll report me to your dad?”

“Why are you looking for a mate?”

“I’m not really into girls. It’s more a matter of national security. I am a solitary dragon with a fresh nest. I have no ties to dragon society.”

“Are you a good or evil dragon?”

I pause to think for a second. I’m not evil. My morals are just. Sometimes I take a machiavellian approach, but that’s not evil. The ends justify the means, but burning down villages for levels is not something a good dragon would do.

“Morally ambiguous.”

“Might as well say evil. If you’re not a peacekeeping helper of humans then you get the evil tag.”

“And what are you?”

She winks at me “Morally ambiguous. I hoard knowledge on protection magic. How I acquire that knowledge.” She shrugs. “Not always human loving. What do you hoard?”

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“Nothing. I use what I get.”

“All dragon’s hoard something. It's a drive to keep us sane in our long lives.”

This is another question that makes me think. My driving force is my people. Kobolds, goblins, my few demihumans. I needed to get this strong to keep them safe.

“Followers.”

“That’s rare for a black dragon. My father will have to hear all about you.”

“Could you not?”

She shakes her head. “You’ve got land. Either by making a debut or by word of mouth you must claim your land.”

“Word of mouth is the safer option?”

“How astute.”

“Then tell your dad that the kingdom is mine. I will be shortly burning it to the ground.”

“Claiming land with humans in it. I reckon that the other dragons will love hearing about you.” She disappears. This time I make no attempts to go after her. I got the information that I needed from her. There are other dragons. They might be hostile. Now that I knew that my quest for power had redoubled. I needed to be the strongest of the strong.

The king had called a meeting of all the Chosen in his land. His one knight now a seasoned dungeon crawler. Earning an B+ rank at the adventurer’s guild. His one drug dealer. A young chemist who he allowed to operate in the shadows provided that he also brought in knowledge of medicine to the Kingdom. Then there were the two paladins that the church had taken in and trained.

“A dragon is attacking my lands. I need you four to team up to defeat him.” His knight went straight into asking how large the reward would be. The paladins eyed each other then looked to the door.

“I’m just an alchemist, how am I supposed to help you kill a dragon?”

“Poisons are a part of alchemy.” Relaed, the drug dealer, paused. He could extract cyanide from seeds, but how many seeds would it take to kill a dragon?

The door swung open. “So this is where you are my paladins.” It was that dreaded voice again. “Pray tell Kind, what did you want my paladins for?”

“There is a dragon attacking my outer lands. I would like them to help my champion slay it.” His champion was strong, but not slay a dragon single handedly strong. The cardinal thought for a moment. “No. They will not.” The paladins breathed a sigh of relief.

“They are in my lands. I have some agency over what they do.” The king pleads with the cardinal.

“The kingdom has become a den of monster worship. They do not want to partake in it any longer.”

“You’re withdrawing them from my lands?”

The cardinal nods. “The temple is withdrawing all support from the Kingdom. You attacked the dragon first. We will not send our followers to die in your battle.”

With that the cardinal took his paladins and left the room. The king’s champion approached the king. “Did you really attack the dragon first?”

“No! But actually yes. The cardinal ordered it. We had no choice. It was to go to war with one dragonborn or go to war with an entire nation.” The king lifted his crown. Robbing his sore head. He then pulled out his thinking gold. The click and clacks filled the room.

“What do you two know of Anon?”

“Barely anything. I think we smoked once, but he was really standoffish.”

“He liked isekai anime. That’s about it.”

The king sighs. No great secrets he could use in a ploy. Useless information. Relaed puts two and two together quickly. “Is Anon the dragon?” The king nods.

“Not only a dragon, but one of us. Well, not like we can fight him.” Champ, the king’s champion, shrugs. They don’t stand a chance at their current power level and power farming isn’t a term either of them know. Champ was in the anime club because of romance anime, not isekai, and Relead just like the atmosphere of the place. The only anime he had watched was The Boondocks.

“Is peace an option?” Champ asks.

The king throws up his hands. His thinking gold flies into the air “Not without drastic action!”