Near the end of Origin month...
Origonal party is marching west along a river running along the border of Origin Forest. In the middle of the party, a giant red dragon is singing as he walks.
"♪Through Fire and Death we walk till the end♪
♪Marching forth we are the Godsend♪"
A faint red glow envelopes the party, its brightness change according to the song's rhythm. A white haired kid with angel wings walked next to a brown haired man, both of them have their step match the march like a two-men army.
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"Origo, can you please stop singing that song?" Argon who is walking in front, as usual, turns back to complain. I've lost count of how many time he complain about this march, so I ignore him.
"Why? It's increasing our speed, isn't it?" The hu.. -cough- Rector asks back then looks down at Bened. "Right?"
"Yeah! And it sounds good, too!" The angel kid says cheerfully.
"Firstly, it doesn't stack with my Wind Walk..." Argon explains.
"Of course Taunting-line buff doesn't stack with Stealth-line buff." I interrupt the Lacertian to tell the obvious.
"And that's the problem." Argon points at the forest.
I look toward the left. There is nothing on the other side of the river. Only trees fill my vision. Although I'm a bit taller than those tree, it's meaningless as their canopy are too thick. The green color is soothing to the eyes, though... Hmm, the Nature element is understandable, but why do the trees have Level?
"Orcs aren't even supposed to be in this forest..." Argon says then leaps over the river, stabbing something green next to a tree with his knife.
A screech startled our party, making Rector push Bened to behind him and enter a battle stance. As soon as the screech ends, a thud could be heard as the green-figure - an orc, falls onto the ground. Argon raises his hand to signal that everything is taken care of. It was an instant kill.
"Fortunately, it was a low level one." Argon says after he leaps back to our side. "Your song brought it here."
"Yay! Free Experience Point!" I ignore the stern look from the lizard and continue marching forth. Just as I'm about to continue the song, I spot something in the distance. "Looks like some kind of building..."
"I wouldn't suggest entering a random building in the forest." Rector jumps a few times, trying to get a view of the building.
"Ah, it's the Border guard's garrison." Argon explains. Apparently high DEX means further line of sight. "We reached the border between the Northern Kingdom and the Western Alliance."
"Do any of you have Passport?" I absentmindedly ask.
""What is that?"" Argon and Rector ask at the same time while Bened looks at me with curious eyes.
"Uh oh..." Ah, I ruined the fantasy theme. Still, I wonder if there is an equivalent in this world so I change the question. "Do we have to show any kind of government-issued paper in order to pass the border?"
"Ah, that's for trading caravan." Rector explains. "We are an adventurer party so there wouldn't be any problem... probably."
"Yeah, I didn't even pass any port when I enter the Northern Kingdom." Argon says.
Apparently the main area of Origin forest is considered neutral territory. Argon entered the forest from the west, then the Kingdom from the south. That raises the question about spies from other country and invasion, but I don't want to delve too deep into politic...
"...Wind Walk!" Argon suddenly casts his favorite speed buff.
"Hey! You canceled my March's effect!" I raise my front paw, seeing its scale changing color from red to light cyan. Although I hate to admit it, Wind Walk is surely faster. It's boring though.
"We should pass the border by noon." Argon says then glance at the sun with one hand shadowing his eyes. "I heard that the guards are really grumpy if you make them work during the lunch break."
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"So much for rushing here..." I grumble as we approach the border post.
The border is still the river we have been following, and the post is stationed beside a rock bridge. There isn't anyone on the other side, while there is a small line waiting to pass from this side. It's a caravan of around a dozen carriages. The soldiers are checking each carriages, while the wealthy looking man is working with some papers by a table in front of the building.
Seeing me, the group guarding the caravan tenses up, some of them even draw their weapon. However, as they see my Level, they calm down immediately and also ignore my other party members whose Levels are higher than their average. Am I that intimidating?
"Hello there!" A feminine voice calling to us from the back of the caravan.
Looking down, I see a purple-haired beast..woman. Pointy triangle shaped ears, triangle shaped nose, small but long cylindrical tail. A feline, I assume. However, what caught my eyes is her Element. She is a [Lv31 Dimension]
Noticing me staring at her without answering, she turns her attention to the angel kid, Bened.
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"Owww, what a cute boy~ I didn't know a Winged Beastman can look like human this much." Stretching her hand, she ruffles Bened's hair, while the kid just stares back at her.
"Excuse me." Rector inserts himself between the two. "What business do you have with us?"
How quick witted. I thought it should have been Argon who said that, or maybe Rector just cares a lot for Bened. Speaking of Argon, he is a bit further away, talking with a soldier.
"Ah, sorry." The feline steps backward then raises a hand with a smile. Some would think of that as a cute act, but Argon told me that feline beast-men are very sly. "My name is Limen. As you can see..." She points at the status above her head. "...I'm a Lynx. I am currently guarding this..."
"He didn't tell you to introduce yourself, though." I interrupt her, only to receive frowns from both side. "What? I just spoke the truth!"
"Ignore him." Rector waves his hand at her, signaling her to continue.
"Ah, well. I just think that your party looks interesting." She takes a glance at me and Argon before staring at Bened again. Since she is looking down, I can't see her eyes but I'm sure they are shining.
"Cough..." Rector fakes a cough to bring her eyes away from the kid. "Anything else?"
"Aww~ Shouldn't you introduce your party too?" She says then steps back to look up at me. "Also, where did you get this dragon? Wind Dragon, suitable for traveling around..."
"Hey! I'm not the party's pet!" Immediately realizing her misunderstanding, I yell at it, attracting some attention from the soldiers and caravan guard. Ah darn...
"Ah sorry, he is actually our leader." Rector explains then looks at me with a wry smile. I simply shrug at him. He continues talking. "Anyway, I am Rector, here is Bened, that is Argon, and this is..." Rector pauses as he looks at me. What? Why must I introduce myself?
"Origo the or... Dragon." I almost said 'Origin Dragon' by habit. Because it's hard to hide my ever changing scale, I haven't had any intent to hide it. But since she mistook me for a Wind Dragon, I'd just let it slip to save me some trouble.
"Right." Rector continues talking after a short awkward silence of waiting for me. Well, I don't know what to say to some stranger, though. "We're on a trip touring the world. Our current destination is that guy's tribe."
'Why is he revealing our route so easily?' It's just a random thought, and I see nothing wrong with it, so I just let it slip.
"We're going to the Reptile Capital, so we probably won't go the same way." The Lynx says then turns back and looking toward the southwest.
On the other side of the bridge, the road continuing on but I can't see anymore special landmark even with my height. Why do I feel like she could see that capital from here? I don't think her DEX is high enough to see a nation's Capital City from its border. I have some wild guess though...
"So many kinds of reptile." I say some non-sense. "What is that, the one in front of the gate?"
"Ah, it's a Lacertian, the same as.. your.. friend..." The Lynx answers immediately, but soon slowing down her words are she realizes something.
I grin as she looks back at me with bewildered eyes. Apparently she has some kind of Clairvoyant, probably through the use of Primal Space magic. Well, I don't know why it said "Dimension" instead of Space; but nonetheless, she is one of those 'rare' Primal-Magic-User.
"What is happening here?" Argon returns, seeing Rector who confusedly looking back and forth and the Lynx, whose name I already forgot, frozen in place. "Anyway, I asked that soldier to let us do our paperwork first." He then motions us to follow him before walking back toward the bridge.
Ignoring the still-frozen Lynx, I follow Argon, passing over the line of carriage. The caravan's guards and border soldier give us, mostly me, a curious look. Remember the Currency, I'm sure some of them look at me like a walking treasure.
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It didn't take long for us to finish our "paperwork". All I had to do was showing them the Party Registration scroll. Though they requested me to sing a song since I was a Minstrel. As I was pretending to be a Wind Dragon, I couldn't just sing any song, and the Wind element ones aren't appropriate to sing here, so I told them a silly joke instead. Apparently telling joke about myself is frowned upon.
As we continue our journey on the paved road, Argon, who is walking in front, sometime turns to look behind us. I look back too, but there isn't anyone. The caravan would spend awhile being checked, so I doubt they'd catch up to us.
"What did that feline want from us?"
"You don't like Lynx?" Sensing the irritation in the Lacertian's voice, I ask instead of answering him.
"Except for the rarer ones, they are of the Dark element..."
"That's discrimination." I interrupt him. Well, the element of that Lynx who talked to us wasn't Dark, though.
"They tend to have Rogue or Assassin class, so I always feel uncomfortable around them." Ignoring my remark, Argon continues.
"You have skill to detect those who are hidden or invisible, right?" Rector asks. Thinking about it, Detecting should be part of Navigator's job.
"The Wind is picking signal of someone following us..." Argon says with a low tone. "I suspected that was the Lynx.. but now I think it's just some wild beast wandering around..." With an even lower tone, he quickly chants under his breath before recast the speed buff. "Wind Walk! Let's continue, we might reach my tribe before nightfall."
Without asking the reason for his suspicion nor why he dismiss that thought, we continue traveling down the paved road then turn South into a pathway. The ground become muddier as the further we go. It's full of lizard-like footprint similar to Argon, who is walking bare feet. He doesn't crouch to examine like he did before, so I guess it's his tribe-men's footprints.
Speaking of footprints, I hope no one gets panic when they see mine...
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Back at the border, the merchant is still working on the paperwork. The soldier had him he name all of the merchandise to ensure nothing illegal cross the border. Most of them doesn't worth much, but all of them are just decoy for the real item: The Sun's Egg where any thieving guild in this world would fall head over heel just to take the mission to steal it. That's why he hired a lot of guards just to guard these carriages filled with useless items.
Low rank Deity or not, The Sun is nothing an average human could see in their life time. It was said that it's even harder to meet The Sun than the Origin Dragon. Tho' the busy merchant has never had chance to see the Origin Dragon himself.. or so he thought.
"That was a freaking huge dragon..." One of the caravan's guard says as he remembers the huge dragon who just passed by.
"Yeah. He has to be at least hundreds of years old." A Mage-looking man says.
"Did you forget his Level? He is just Lv12!"
"How could something like that happen?"
"Don't you know? Dragons are virtually Immortal, so they tend to keep their body's age as they Ascend." The Mage-looking man pushes up his glasses as he says.
""Whooa"" The chatty group lets out their voice of amazement just like they do all along the trip. The mage seems to get used to this treatment.
"Wait, so that was an Ascended Dragon? That explains a lot..."
"Are Ascended being always that arrogant? He even joked about the Origin Dragon.."
"Psshh... Why don't they let the Origin Dragon out in the night?..." One guard tried to retell the joke. "Because He would get lost in the Dark! Ahaha..." The man laughed, but no one else bothers joining him.
"Did that dragon angered Limen?" A woman ignores the joking man and looks at the direction the Lynx has gone to. Beyond the bridge, the road goes on but the Lynx has already used Shadow Step and disappeared from sight.
"...Or get lost in the Forest. Get it? Get it?" The man continues joking and laughing like the last time he would be able to enjoy it...