When Abri finished dismantling the corpse of the dragon, she realised a problem. She didn’t have the space to store anything.
Abri thought for a bit, before deciding on the evergreen solution: spacial expansion. Swinging her backpack around, she inspected every inch, ensuring no hole was present. Verifying the security of the bag, she gathered mana into the fabric. When all of the bag was filled, she began to rewrite the universe, making space function differently. It took a while, with the townsfolk watching occasionally, before getting to work restoring the town.
But soon it was done. Satisfied with her work, Abri began shoving scales, bones, and whatnot into the bag, leaving the meat.
“Anyone want dragon meat? Only 4 dollars a pound!” Abri called, hoping to use some of the perishable goods.
The town was hesitant, with only a few individuals rushing to try the new experience. But those few began to tell everyone how delicious it was, far better than any other meats they’d tried. What started with maybe 10 people eating soon turned to 20, then 50, and then the entire town was lined up, hoping to get a sizable chunk.
Abri for her part was quite happy, being left with a reasonable chunk of meat for her own uses. As she packed up, she headed over to the future dragon slayers.
“I should inform you, but the dragon will also revive, given its strength, I’ll estimate a month. As the world's mana increases though, it’ll revive faster and faster. You should prepare for one of two things, killing it each time, or making it reside within a dungeon.”
“How would we get it in a dungeon?” A member asked.
“Good question… do any of you have a magic stone? I could link the dragon with the dungeon.”
“I do!” A younger member excitedly yells, handing the stone over.
Abri grabbed the stone and searched for the dragon's soul. Finding it, she searched for the nearest dungeon in the formation queue. Draining the stone of all of its mana, she bound the dragon's soul to the dungeon, making it the boss monster of the dungeon.
“All done. When a dungeon forms over there, the dragon will be its boss. If you don’t clear it in time, the dragon will breach again. Well then, I’ll be off.”
Abri immediately headed over to the train and headed back to her hometown. Who knows what’s going on there?
*_*_*_*_*_*_*
Cain’s plan had developed far faster than he could’ve dreamed. Between the time Abri left town and returned, all the materials were prepared. Cain quickly picked a suitable spot for the seal itself, choosing the depths of the forest dungeon. Hiding the room itself, he quickly got to work building the shape. When that was finished, Cain quickly got his allies to fill the seal, making the temporal lock function. No point in making Abri suffer in the meantime.
*_*_*_*_*_*_*
“Hey Jane!” Abri called.
“Hello. Cain left a message for you. ‘Come to the depths of the forest dungeon.’ He’s planning to seal you.”
“Why?”
“You made monsters, magic, a system, removed the ability to stay dead, etc. You are, as he said, ‘a disaster’.”
“Fair enough. Am I going to be sealed for eternity?”
“Just a couple decades.”
“That might disable the system. I’ll head over to fight when I get the system running without me.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Not running away?”
“Well, if I lose I enter the future. Win, I get a lot of materials. Win-Win for me. Besides, the fight could be really fun!”
Jane just laughed lightly and watched as Abri went home to prepare.
*_*_*_*_*_*_*
Abri quickly investigated the relevant paperwork and legal necessities to keep her home even if she got sealed. While setting up the legal defences she also cleaned up the house. After sweeping, Abri noticed a problem. If she just got sent to the future, she might have nothing. She checked her cash, and quickly divvied it up. Some in immediate cash, some in non-perishable supplies, weapons, everything needed to become an adventurer, and the rest in investments. She’d either be rich or quickly become rich.
Her future secured, she needed to prepare everyone else. Focusing, feeling the system talent, she isolated it and carefully removed it from herself. However, as she started taking outside her body, she noticed a very big problem. She lacked the power to make it stand alone. She hurried out, the forest should have monsters, any mana stone is sufficient.
She sent her mana out, feeling the strength of ‘wild’ monsters. A bear, on par with the last one she hunted, popped up in her senses. Hurrying over, she leapt high in the air and pierced the head, killing the beast in moments. Hurriedly extracting the stone, she imbued the System into the mana and released it, making an array-like phenomenon that spread out.
Talent Lost:
System
Blessing Gained:
System
“Blessing now? I guess it makes sense. Was it a blessing for everyone else?”
“Yes,” the System replied.
“Alright. I’ve prepared for the future, and I’ve set up the system. All that’s left is to make a last stand,” clapping, Abri set forth.
*_*_*_*_*_*_*
“You’ve finally shown up. I thank you for coming here. You may be wondering why I’ve called you,” Cain announced.
“No need. You’re worried I’ll make the world worse or something similar. So you’re planning to seal me for a while. Well, what are you waiting for?” Abri smiled somewhat unnervingly.
Cain’s eyes narrowed, and he hand flicked some fingers forward. From behind Cain dashed out 7 front liners, with a variety of weapons and armor. Some had shields, and within that was a variety of sizes, but only a couple of materials overall were used. Some were great shields, made of quality metals with intricate enchantments, obviously to keep their allies behind safe. Others wielded masterworks of weapons, clearly the physical attackers. The question remained, Where were the back liners? The mages, and the archers. Maybe healers, or other supporters. They must be hiding behind the other rocks in the area. No matter, they would show up soon enough.
Abri dashed back, and swung around the columns, ending up behind the ‘tanks’, and swung her sword, infused with flame. The flame quickly spread, turning them quickly to ashes, but failing to spread to the others. The sword wielders quickly encircled Abri, striking together. While Abri managed to incinerate 2 of them, the remaining 3 injured her back, backing off after getting a hit in. Abri rushed her mana to her back, restoring the essentials to keep her fighting. As she spun around to go for the remaining sword fighters, the other shielder blocked her, as some mages and dagger wielders got out from behind the rocks. The mages swung their staffs and wrapped chains and vines on Abri. The two assassins hurried at Abri, hoping to finish the fight. Abri freed her arm by wrapping it in flames and slipped the chains off. She pierced the first assassin's throat, and missed the second, but avoided any blows. It did allow the swordsmen to recover, with them forming a group with the shielder and a couple of new mages joined them. A mage gathers mana, throwing a ball of scalding water at Abri, with a companion preparing a bolt of lighting. Stealthfully cutting her bindings while masked by the water vapour, she reflected the lighting back at its caster and cut down some swordsmen. With one swordsman remaining, the shielder being unharmed, and the remaining mage also unharmed, Abri heard a rustling of fabric and more supporters climbed out. The two restrainers joined the front liners, with seemingly more attack mages, some healers, and two unknown types. One of the unknown types made some sparkles around the group, and the other made such sparkles around Abri, who started feeling weaker, with less strength, and control over mana. Expelling mana to free herself from the debuff, she quickly cut down the buffer and debuffer, before getting stabbed by the other assassin she missed. The remaining swordsman also attacked, with the two attack mages preparing their strongest attack. Abri swung as much as she could, as such missing fatal blows on the assassin, and the swordsman, as she tried to kill the mages. She managed to kill one before the other incinerated her arm. Rolling away, Abri got up to see all the wounds she inflicted healed by the mages behind them. Deciding to leave her arm incinerated as it wasn’t her dominant, she prepared to make a final attack. Wrapping her sword in a great flame, she swung, but with the shielder's sacrifice, it harmed no others. But Abri wasn’t finished. With the restraint mages trying to bind her again, she struck them down, and with a final swipe, she finished all of the remaining enemies.
Abri collapsed, completely exhausted. She heard a clapping noise and realized a problem. She never dealt with Cain.
“Well done. I will admit, our planning wasn’t very good. And with your instant kill strikes, the healers weren’t very helpful. But, all together, they did manage to stop you, if not tie against you. Thankfully, you just killed them, so when they revive, I’ll tell them they were successful.”
“Well, I did lose, so I can’t complain. See you later!”
“See you later,” Cain said, dragging Abri to the Seal and activating it.
With a flash of light, Abri was encased in a golden prism. Cain gathered the belongings of his employees and headed out.