Charles had expected his friend Atho to have changed a lot in the lengthy time he had been trapped away from Ubeta. However upon seeing Atho again, he was still shocked by the transformation. A long time ago, Atho had a lanky, almost malnourished build. Now, he looked like a swollen ball with pudgy limbs jutting out. His silver hair was cut short, but he was sporting a beard that felt out of place on his patchy, scaled face. His golden eyes barely seemed open as he peered at Charles due to the folds of his brow.

“You’ve gotten fat,” Charles bluntly stated.

“Thanks. You’re the same somehow,” Atho replied, his voice a bit deeper than Charles remembered.

“Is this just your current presentation or…?” Charles started.

“Stop calling me fat already. The ages you’ve been gone were prosperous for me. I’ve gotten to eat really well and mortal cuisine has come far in that time.”

Charles glanced over at the female who had irritably welcomed him in and jerked his head in her direction.

“Prosperous is an understatement, I suppose. You have enough meat on your bones to feed the child for a while.”

She started blushing as her hand shot up and grabbed the yellow crystal around her neck. Once it was hidden in her grasp, the scowl from earlier returned. The redness and anger combined with her own silver scales made a uniquely cute sight, even though Charles was supposed to be intimidated.

“Who is she? She wasn’t around last time,” Charles asked.

“I am Irla. Atho and I have been together now for centuries,” she answered.

“A pleasure. And congratulations?”

Irla’s hard gaze softened a bit.

“Thank you,” she quipped with a snort.

Atho cleared his throat.

“She actually came here originally thinking she was going to take over the place. I couldn’t have that so we fought. I remembered something you said once and I actually won!”

“What was that something?”

Charles had said a lot of things over the course of his long friendship with Atho.

“You told him to do that!” Irla cried out.

“Do what exactly?” Charles asked, panic starting to set in.

“You said if you’re losing in a fair fight, then you have to fight dirty. In the end, what matters is that you win.”

“What did you do?” Charles asked.

“He grabbed my boobs!” Irla yelled.

Charles barely dodged the stool that came flying at his head. It was a remarkable feat to challenge him, given his skillset.

“Why were you fighting in these human forms? You’re both dragons!”

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“So that’s my wife, Irla,” Atho said a short while later.

Charles and Atho had retreated to the deep section of the shop, as the storefront selling magical items was the public face of the shop. Here, Atho conducted what he considered to be his ‘true business,’ decoding the System. Charles, having Chariel’s memories, knew that Atho’s endeavor was pointless since it required knowledge beyond the realm he was a part of, but he had still felt encouraged by Atho’s dedication to the task. He had even been instrumental in Atho’s early work of understanding some of the bounds of the System.

“A lovely woman, I’m sure,” Charles replied.

Charles had been forced to do his best to avoid being hit by Irla’s wrathful outburst at finally understanding the source behind her defeat all those years ago. Atho had attempted to intervene, only to likewise become a target. As such, their retreat had been enough to calm the storm for the time being.

“She’ll be fine later. I never told her why I had done that before, I guess. She called me a pervert for so long after that that I was surprised when she finally accepted her defeat that day.”

“How long did that take?”

Atho scratched his chin.

“Twenty years or so?”

“You don’t remember?”

“Are you kidding me? I beat a female! One a lot stronger than me. By our laws, I got to claim her as my mate. She’s really pretty too. So when she finally accepted her defeat I was ecstatic. I remember that day vividly.”

Charles had to admit that in her humanoid form, she had certain appeals. She was a little short for him though, something which made Tess a good choice.

“You get married at any point?” Atho asked.

Charles spat out the sip of water he had just taken.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“Why would you ask that?” he coughed.

“You were pining for that church girl back then. Even after she died. I hope that someone came along and healed that part of you, is all.”

“I didn’t. I was… let’s call it stuck.”

“Stuck?”

“You know how you were thinking there had to be a mastermind behind the System? In short, there is. And he took me hostage and forced me to do things elsewhere, which I could not escape from. Recently though, there is someone else attacking the System that has the mastermind flustered. He released me and I’m here because I’m training someone like me to… be me? Does that make sense?”

Charles had watched as Atho’s face went through many expressions. Curiosity had morphed into excitement, then concern and sorrow, finally ending with confusion.

“Where are they now?” Atho asked.

“She’s outside the city.”

“She?”

“Yes, she.”

“Let me guess, you didn’t tell her about things here?”

“I… didn’t not tell her, but I left out some things that I didn’t think she would want to know. So when the city’s policy changed and my statements weren’t good enough, she found out as they explained it to her.”

Atho smiled, then burst out laughing. Charles scowled as Atho rocked back and forth with laughter.

“What?”

“I’m happy for you.”

“Why?”

Atho stopped laughing suddenly, then peered directly into Charles’ eyes.

“Oh, you’re serious,” Atho said, “Dude, you love her.”

Charles was stunned into silence. Love? Tess? His thoughts raced. She was a lot like Therese, kind and gentle, but feisty when agitated. She did not hesitate to do what she felt was right. Circumstances may have forced them together but Charles wondered if they would be spending time together if such factors were absent. That was not even mentioning how much they did not know about each other despite lengthy conversations. There was just no way that it was possible.

“Maybe I should have snuck her into the city. She’d turn your hide into armor.”

Atho leaned back.

“She would?”

“She has dragon scales incorporated into her armor now.”

“Okay! Fine! I’ll drop it.”

“I wonder how many she might need for…”

“I said I’m dropping it!” Atho shouted, visibly distressed.

Charles smirked in satisfaction at his victory. He was certain that Tess would never be violent towards Atho and Irla as they were now, probably.

“Back to the other point,” Charles said, steering the conversation back towards what he truly wanted to discuss.

“I confirmed the mastermind’s existence a while back, so that isn’t as interesting as something capable of threatening them. What is going on there?”

Charles considered how much to tell Atho. He was a smart dragon, but even a fraction of everything Charles could tell him was likely to strain his capabilities. Even so, it was probably for the best if Atho was able to see the whole picture, even if he could not fully comprehend it.

Charles looked at his cup of water, “We’re going to need something stronger than water for this.”

----------------------------------------

Atho sat with his face buried in his hands, rubbing at his aching head.

“That’s a lot.”

“Yes,” Charles admitted.

He had hit all the big moments that were relevant: Ubeta being a testing ground for the System, Charles’ origin and rebellion, his NPC age, the Tutorial and heroes, Tess being chosen by Chariel, the attack by Viktor, and the search for what could stop Chariel within the System.

“I guess my work isn’t completely useless,” Atho murmured.

“That’s why I came to you. I’m sure you filled many more tomes with the skills you’ve found since I was sealed. I bet you remember them all too. If anyone can find the connection, it’s going to be you.”

“I’m glad you think so highly of me, but even I have lost track of the number of skills I’ve found. I stopped writing them down like that about a hundred years after you disappeared.”

Frustrated, Charles grabbed his drink and chugged the bitter ale within. Once the last drop had slid past his lips, he slammed the empty tankard down.

“I was counting on you!”

“As you should.”

“You said you stopped writing them down!”

“Like that.”

“What do you mean?”

Atho’s smirk was large enough that his teeth finally made a brief appearance. With a great effort, he rose from his seat, which almost seemed to sigh in relief, and walked over to a curtain that was dividing the room. Charles had noticed it when they had retreated here, but did not want to pry.

“Behold,” Atho proclaimed while drawing the curtain back.

Charles was unsure of what it was that Atho was apparently quite proud of. It appeared to be a collection of large box frames made of metal and wood. Within each frame, a complex looking assortment of metallic parts sat silently. On some, a number of dials with the letters of the alphabet were prominent while on others there were switches with various words at the positions they could be set to. Lengthy tubes of multiple colors seemed to connect these mechanical devices to each other. Were Charles ever to have seen images of the bombe machine, he would have said that what he was looking at was practically the same. However, he had not seen such a thing before and thus the impact of what he was looking at was lost on him.

“What is it?” Charles finally asked.

“This is my analysis machine. I have painstakingly put all that information I once wrote down into this thing. With it I can look at everything at once, much faster than I can even process things.”

Atho slapped the framework of one of the boxes, which gave off a dull ring.

“How?”

“Well, that’s super complex. But you want to find the skills that synergize to give you that edge against the mastermind, and this thing will do it. Come on.”

Atho waddled into the array of frameworks, disappearing as he turned past one. Charles was intrigued at the prospect that this thing could potentially do what Atho claimed, but was likewise reluctant to believe it as well. He followed along, finding Atho taking another seat at a writing desk. Multiple of the tubes connected to three smaller devices sitting on the desk. The first was some sort of container within which a large manastone was floating. He watched as Atho channeled mana into the container, activating the manastone which began to spark with energy. As it did, the frameworks around him began to hum and whir into their mechanical life. The noise increased quickly, which Charles had to guess was distracting.

“How can you work in this?” Charles yelled over the noise.

“You get used to it!” Atho yelled back.

The second device on the desk came to life, which displayed words. It was practically just like one of the System menus. Atho began tapping on the third device, causing new letters and words to appear on the screen of the second. The screen flicked through to other columns of text.

“Let’s find that combination!” Atho crowed, tapping one particular button with excessive flourish.