From afar, I heard the humming of birds. The air was thick with the scent of a wet forest. In front of me was a beautiful sight of only green.

It has been three months since I traveled with them, but this all still feels so new. I admit it was frightening at first. After all, all I knew about the forest was that it was a place with a lot of trees. As to what a tree was or what it would look like, I was aware, but I wouldn’t say I had much opportunity, to see one for myself, being confined to the constitution I was born with.

That time, when I awoke from that, I was tossed into a completely foreign place with people and monsters that were completely foreign to me. That time, when I tried to run away, it was night, and I never would’ve imagined that what was called a forest would be so intimidating at night, I knew from Papa's stories that monsters were teeming in places like that, so that day, I returned back, abandoning the idea of running away.

What was going on with me that day, I couldn’t tell. Maybe I just wanted to throw away the fault of my father and my separation from someone. Whatever it was, I didn’t regret having made the decision to go back to where I was.

That being said and cast aside, I like this place, this environment, this forest. There are so many colors and so many smells. I at times missed the tower, but this place's vastness and freedom leaking from it are such a unique experience.

I was sliding through the forest at a very steady pace, and we came to a sudden stop.

"What? Did you find something? "

I was not alone in this forest, riding on the back of a giant black wolf.

"..."

Only a certain person was capable of understanding the language of that wolf-like creature. Most of her communication was through growling and grumbling. Somehow, a certain part of me was expecting her to bark, as Papa said wolves do at times, but apparently only a dog does that, so in my confusion about what she wanted to convey, I assumed it was a yes.

Much to the wolf’s clearly visible surprise, I climbed down her back, "Go, Heon, I will stay here. After all, if I go with you, all I would be is a burden. "

I wasn’t certain, but the wolf displayed what I believe could be interpreted as doubt and uncertainty, but also a concern.

So, in an attempt to ease it, I conjured my barrier all around me, "Look. I’ll be just fine".

My persuasion efforts appeared to have paid off, as she vanished deep into the woods after a few breaths and a hesitant glance at me.

Today, being more or less bored with my training with him, I requested to go with Heon, who most of the time, when not in the headquarters, is somewhere hunting by herself. This thus leads us here.

Left alone with nothing to do, my eyes went toward a staff-like piece of wood. It had several branches, ruining its staff-like appearance, but it took me no time to remove them, so I was left with the perfect object to waste time on.

Swinging my newly crafted staff in midair, along with a series of kicks, produced a very pleasant "swoosh".

There are two kinds of power in this world:

One being magic fueled by mana and the other being aina-wielding. I was already quite familiar with magic. With Papa, I lived surrounded by magic. It was only later, on my eleventh birthday, that I learned what it entailed. Although inaccessible to me, especially magic, because of how I grew up surrounded by it, I grew up thinking of magic and aina-wielding as something normal, given how casual Papa was with using it.

It is only when I was freed from the dream that I first experienced for myself how it feels to control Aina and use magic.

I was, as a matter of fact, never an athletic child. Back in the tower, the very few instances of me running would almost immediately lead to me getting scolded by Papa.

When I awoke, physically, I wasn’t particularly in great shape, yet with Aina I could do things I never assumed I would ever be able to do. The journey we made to reach that place where I was asleep was a good example of that.

I didn't know how fast, or how strong the average man was, but when I first used Aina, I never felt so strong.

I felt so strong that I thought I might be able to defend myself, but it wasn't until I was on the run in the middle of those dark woods that I realized that maybe I wasn't as strong as I thought I was.

Thanks to Papa, I am now able to use both Aina and Magic. With Aina, I could pull off things that even someone with a healthy body couldn’t, and with magic, just like Papa, though being inferior to his, I could create a barrier which usually takes the shape of a bubble.

Hôn told me that I should be able to do more with both aina and mana, but I was only capable of the most basic use of this gift Papa entrusted to me.

I could only create barriers with magic, I could only enhance my body and my senses with Aina, I couldn’t even simultaneously do both. According to Hân, I should be able to, as long as I kept training myself, but I myself was quite unsure of that.

Still holding my staff at one end, I tried to summon what I imagined would be an offensive shockwave. Of course, I was never able to pull that off, but the idea somehow pleased me.

With a small shout, I threw my hand forward as if to expect something else but a bubble to appear magically out of it.

I repeated the process over and over until I got really bored.

"As expected, it doesn’t work like that." I sighed.

After being done with my futile attempts, I resumed playing while enhancing on aina with the staff. Then, in an attempt to mimic a weird midair body swing, I saw a certain person performing with a sword, I ended up losing my footing and landing face-down on the ground.

"Aie!"

I knew it was my fault for trying it, but the moment I stood back, I threw away my staff in frustration, which went slamming against a tree, snapping into two equal parts.

I went to sit under a big tree.

Like one of those things you do when bored, I picked up a random piece of wood that was strangely shaped like one of the wooden toys I used to have when younger.

Using magic, I trapped the wooden piece within one of my magical bubbles. When I was young, to entertain me, Papa used to do these kinds of tricks, making objects float with his bubble. Sometimes, when he deemed I was in good enough health, he would even do that to me.

Back then, I was always looking through the eyes of the one whom magic was being used on, but recently, things have changed. Today I was the one who was using that curious and strange magic that only Papa mastered.

I knew I wasn’t him, that this all, this ability to use magic and aina, belonged to him, and it was all handed to me, but I’m happy to have it. Not only did this remind me of Papa, but this magic also reminded me of the tower. Every time I use it, wherever I am, I feel at home: at our tower, our home.

Still fooling around with the piece of wood, a noise from something apparently not so far away was brought to my attention.

It came from the opposite direction of where Heon disappeared.

I immediately stood up and thought about beginning to investigate what it could be, but then I realized that to do so, I’d have to leave this place, in which Heon was supposed to.

"What do I do?"

I was curious about the strange noise but was also unsure if I should leave this place.

Finally, after much thought and consideration, and after hearing the noise again, I made a decision.

I would just look at the thing and get back here as soon as I discovered what that noise was.

Venturing through the woods, I soon found a water stream. The noise I heard was indeed the sound of water splashing, but it clearly wasn’t from this place, so I decided to follow the water flow.

I soon found myself in the area where the water stream was emptying.It was an enormous mossy swamp. With countless rays of sunshine leaking from the forest leaf filter, it was truly a magnificent sight to behold. Strange pink flower-like plants floated in the swamps by the thousands. The swamp water was so green that it was almost impossible to tell how deep it was, but since there were rocks protruding here and there out of the water, I assumed it couldn’t be too deep.

Still enthralled with the sight, I was suddenly interrupted by the sound I recognized as the one from earlier.

A bubble leaked from the swamp's bottom, fizzing at the surface, as if some kind of creature lurked deep within the water.

Normally, common sense would scream at one to immediately back off, but that didn’t work, I didn’t feel fear, nor any particular need to run away. Whatever was inside that water, I harbored no urge to run away from it.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Jumping from rocks onto rocks, I approached the source of the popping. As I got closer, the pace at which the bubbles were popping onto the surface was getting faster and faster.

I was only a few meters away from it when I stood still.

The entire swamp's water waved with weak ripples, then something came out of the swamp, a monstrous claw, followed by something on the surface here and there around me, which I assumed was a single creature's tail.

Soon, the other front limb came out of the water, and soon it was the entire half of the monster’s body that could be seen.

It was a dragon-like monster. It possessed two front limbs but no back limbs. Instead, it had a long snake-like lower part.

That creature was known as a "wyrm."

The wyrm uttered a strange screech, and with its mouth still wide open, it approached me.

It was now only a few meters away from me.

This creature was only a weaker individual of a lower species of dragon, but proportion-wise, its skull alone was almost bigger than my entire body.

I had a clear conscience that this scene should be extremely frightening, but strangely, I felt no single ounce of fear.

I slowly reached out my hand onto the creature. Soon, I touched the bellows of the wyrm’s huge mouth, and I patted, or to be exact, scratched, it.

The wyrm appears to appreciate what I did because it remains completely still while also breathing, I believe quite happily and quite powerfully. Each of his breaths blew into my face and sent my hair into the wind, which was quite pleasant.

"You’re a kind boy, aren’t you?"

After my words, he let out an indecipherable screech.

"I don’t know what that was supposed to mean, but I’ll take this as a yes."

There was no doubt that dragons were cute.

This wyrm and Ezra are both adorable; some may disagree, but that doesn't change the fact that dragons are awesome.

I remember Papa telling me stories about dragons, and no matter how many times they were portrayed as the bad guys, I couldn't help but think they were far cooler than the protagonist; they ruled the sky, the lands, and the waters, something that no other species would ever be able to do. That was something I always wanted to do. Soaring high into the sky, running freely on beautifully landscaped fields, and swimming in water to my heart's content, I think I can do most of these now, but that doesn’t change the fact that-oops, I almost repeated myself.

Still patting the wyrm, I suddenly remembered that I had promised Heon to not move from where I was.

"Listen, I think I need to leave now. Someone is going to get angry if she doesn’t find me where I should be. "

As soon as I took my hand from him, I heard a strong noise from not too far away in the woods. It couldn’t be Heon since it came from another corner of the woods, not the one I came from.

Suddenly, a strange white and extremely cold stream of ice magic was fired into the water, icing the entire swamp.

I was completely unharmed by the sudden occurrence, but I couldn’t say it was the same for the wyrm, for half of his body was stuck within the now-frozen swamp, from which he debated ferociously in an attempt to break free, but to no avail.

Another weird noise came from the same corner from which that attack was fired, and soon the culprit revealed itself.

An enormous white snake emerged from the woods.

I did say it was a snake, but as far as I’m aware, I don’t think snakes are supposed to be this big and nor do they have seven eyes, among which one was particularly white compared to the other six, which were jet black.

The snake, upon coming out of the wood, immediately had his sight focused on us. It was obvious that this was a planned attack, presumably aimed at the wyrm.

Slithering and slowly, it approached us.

What do I do?

From here, there were two options that were left to me.

One, to fight and defeat this big snake, and save the wyrm.

Two, to run-

Let's go with option one.

Putting myself between the snake and the wyrm, I immediately conjured one of my bubbles, which I then sent flying at the snake.

That bubble was slightly larger than a man's fist, and was propelled at quite an impressive speed, so I was, stupid as it may have been, expecting the snake to not be able to avoid it or to simply not avoid it because of how unimpressive it looked, yet the snake, upon my attack, deftly contorted its body and evaded my bubble.

Yes, it evaded my bubble, but so what?

The moment my bubble passed by, it grew in size, enveloping the snake's body as a whole tightly within.

This is a trick I've learned thanks to our three months' worth of training.

Trapped, the snake was contorting, unable to break free of my prison.

Just as I was about to rejoice, the snake did something that completely shattered my barrier.

"What!"

Still tightly trapped within my barrier, the snake fires a powerful fire-breath attack.

Not only did its breath shatter my barrier, it also came streaming at me.

I immediately summoned a barrier around me.

I within my bubble-like barrier, was sent flying several meters away, but I did survive.

It all happened so fast, so fast that I almost forgot for whose sake I was fighting the snake.

Where the wyrm was, nothing was left but a gory, putrid, incandescent mess.

What have I done?

While the snake fired his fire-breath, I only thought about myself and forgot to even protect the wyrm.

I let it die.

The snake once again slowly slithered its way, this time toward me, completely ignoring the remains of the Wyrm.

This! What happened. There was no one else to blame but me.

Anger and frustration coursed through my body, as if to raise my blood pressure, and yet my mind was frighteningly calm.

At the time, all I could think about was unleashing my rage on something.

And that something was just in front of me.

I was standing there and I was watching in front of me the sight of the snake shriveling and hissing in pain in every sense. It was obviously undergoing some sort of damage.

At the moment, I didn’t even know what it was, nor when it even started, but I knew that I was the one doing this. It wasn’t magic, it was more like using aina. All I had to do was to imagine this snake being slowly torn apart and it would happen.

I believe I even started to get pleasure out of this when suddenly something emerged ferociously from the woods, this time from where I came from. It was Heon. As an enraged beast, she bolted toward me, growling with a bestial rage, completely ignoring the snake's existence.

This had the effect of almost instantly snapping me out of the trance-like state I was in.

Falling on my butt off, I saw the snake seemingly being freed from what I did, fleeing away. I tried to stand but stopped due to Heon’s reaction.

It’s been several months since I’ve traveled with them, but never have I ever seen Heon so angry. No, angry was an understatement. Right now, I felt like if I were to make a single move, she would attack me.

I’ve never been subjected to it, but this time, even though it was my first time having something like this directed at me, I could tell she was emanating with murderous intent.

Why was she so angry? I did break my promise to stay where I said I would, but somehow I could tell that wasn’t the reason for her wrath.

While wondering as to what was causing her to react this way, I got a glimpse of something wrong happening in the surrounding area.

Trees were withering. No, it would be more accurate to say they were literally rotting into nothingness in a matter of seconds. The frozen swamp was evaporating. It didn’t even revert back to liquid, it simply went from solid to gazed state in the blink of an eye.

"Is this... my doing?" Looking back at Heon, I asked, "Is this why you were so angry?"

All I received as an answer was an angry growl, which I could assume was a yes.

"I didn’t…"

I couldn't put my finger on why tears were streaming down my face and I began sobbing uncontrollably like a child.

With my sight still clouded with tears, I saw Heon opening her mouth, and grabbing me into it. The way she grabbed didn’t contain a single ounce of her earlier ferocity, instead it was gentle.

She brought and gently deposited me on the nearest shore.

Calming myself down, I wiped my tears.

"I don’t know what I did earlier, but I'm sorry... I am also sorry for not having honored my promise to stay where I said I would. "

"Would you forgive me?"

Her response was a lick on the face, which could have come across as disgusting, but it wasn't; it was viscous, yes, but it was also strangely warm and tender.

Suddenly, a strange-sounding explosion was heard somehow in altitude, then immediately followed by the sound of something crashing heavily onto the ground, causing a small smokescreen.

It took the smokescreen several seconds to dissipate.

Soon, a youthful figure appeared out of it.

"Here you were."

He said as he casually approached us.

That person was the first person I saw after I woke up. He was the one I traveled with over the last few months.

"What are you doing here?"

"I just- Are you crying?"

"No, I’m not."

Approaching me and tilting his head to my level, he said, "But your voice soun-"

"I’m not crying."

A strange gray fog danced from one of his shoulders to the next; this happened so frequently that it became completely normal to me.

"Okay, okay, you’re not crying then."

"So, what are you doing here?"

"I- I don’t know, I was kind of unsure and worried about leaving you two alone, you know, with monsters and all, but it seems you two are doing fine, or at least I think so.

He started walking around, taking note of how weird the surroundings were, "What happened here? A monster attack? This is weird. This doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen before. "

As he put the puzzle pieces together, his attention was drawn to the now fully evaporated swamp, then to the forest, then to me, then to Heon.

"Humph, I don’t know what happened, but I think that’s enough errands for a certain person today. What about you, Heon? "

To no big surprise, her answer was simply a growl.

"I don’t see it, but good luck."

Between these two, I always thought that they had a magical way of talking to each other, but over time, I realized that they didn’t. They were simply guessing each other's thoughts.

With these words from him, she turned her back and headed back deep into the woods.

"I think it is time to go back now."

With these words, he crouched to allow me to jump onto his back, on which I climbed in. It was, at first, weird, but once again I grew to accept this as normal. Since I didn’t have a way to travel as fast as he and Heon could, I often had to be on his back or Heon’s.

"Hey, Hôn."

"Hum?"

"I think I’ll be more diligent with your training from now on."

"... I see, may I ask why so suddenly?"

"No."

"I see. So, are you ready? I’m going now. "

"Yes."

The moment that word left my mouth, he jumped into the air, propelling him high into the sky. Then, with a strange midair maneuver, he propelled himself toward the place he had been settling in for three months now.

Later that day, we ate snake meat. It was absolutely horrendous tasting, but unarguably one of the most satisfying meals I’ve ever eaten in millenials.