The three of us walked back to the Alewatch wall. I was still carrying Alice in my arms princess style. Or is it bridal style? Well, either way.
As we arrived, we were welcomed with a great applause from everyone here. I didn’t know all of the adventurers, but I did recognize Tye’s party Saber Fang as well as Jack and the rest of Diamond Sword.
And, of course, the guild master Zayaan as well as the Baron Brandon.
“... is it really over? Did we really survive?” Zay was questioning me.
“Yeah. It's over.” I confirmed. If it isn’t, I’ll say a few chosen words to the Goddess when I get to speak with her. You can only have so many emergencies in one day. “Any injured?”
“... a few. Alex, Jax and Henry all took quite a bit of damage, and others took some minor damage from the behemoth’s attacks. A few houses also got damaged from the attacks, so there might be more.” Zay answered.
“... I see. We need to head back to Sawyer, or people there will freak out, so do you think you can take care of this?” I asked Zay, as I handed him a toploader Rain of Mercy.
Spoiler [collapse]“... alright. But you’d better come here as soon as you can.” Zay said. “I think everyone will be up for a party after that. And I don’t think anyone wants another party where the guest of honor is absent.”
“Hey. I’m not the guest of honor this time. That honor belongs to her.” I said as I signaled at Alice with my eyes.
“Of course.” Zay agreed. “... Is she alright?”
“Just sleeping.” Lua answered. “She will likely also have some symptoms of a level-up sickness, so she will likely be in bed for at least a day.”
“Alright. I guess we will be seeing each other in a few days then?”
“Yeah. After we fully recover.” I said, before I turned to Brandon. “Brandon, are you coming with us or not?” I called him. “I think your wife is worried about you.”
“... yes. I am coming.” He said, somewhat stunned.
“Well, see you all later.” I said to everyone. “B.E.S. Big Core.”
Our flight over to Sawyer city was the first peaceful moment in what I felt had to be days, even if it had only been a few hours. Well, I guess I did get to relax a bit after I beat Agunan, but before I learned about Alice missing.
During our flight over, Alice began showing signs of either level-up sickness or evolution, as Lua predicted, so I left her in Lua’s care.
By the way, I was about to evolve too. I likely would have begun an evolution tonight, but now I have that Chosen Evolution thing, so I can evolve whenever I want and I can apparently pick what I evolve into from all of the available options or something. Or more like all of the possible options. I don’t know. I’ll look into it when I have a bit more time.
But before I can work on something like evolving, I’ll have to report all of this.
… yeay. That will be so fun.
As we reached the Sawyer city airspace, I noticed that Agunan was looking straight at Big Core. I wonder how he knows? I know the ship isn’t invisible, only near invisible. But he might be the first one to spot it as I was just flying it like this.
I stopped Big Core around the area where Agunan was, and beamed the four of us down to the ground.
{Welcome back, Master.} Agunan greeted me, as we appeared on the ground.
“Brian! Lua. Are you alright?” Ria asked.
“Hey. We are back. And we are fine.” I answered.
{Of course you are.} Agunan said. {I told everyone as much. Had you actually been in any trouble, I’m sure you’d have drawn from mine health or mana.}
“... yeah. I might have done that.” I admitted, before I turned towards Christina. “Hi. I’m back. And I found the MIAs.”
Her face had lost a lot of color as we landed and her face was a mess, because her make-up had been partially dissolved by her tears.
“B-Brian? Alice? … is Alice alright?” She probably asked about Alice, as I once again was carrying her, while Lua was also using some water magic on her.
“Yes. They are both just fine.” I confirmed, reminding her that her husband does also exist. “Alice is in level-up sleep, I think. Can we take her somewhere where she will be taken care of?” I asked. “I’ll tell everyone what happened after that.”
We soon got a medical team from the knight order here and I was able to transfer Alice to a proper stretcher. I had Lua go with her, just to make sure, while I stayed outside ready to give some information. … too bad Christina went after Alice, so she won’t hear it, but I’m sure Lua will tell her everything. It is better for me to stay here, because here I can actually bring that thing out, without crushing a house or something.
“... the behemoth …” Thomas muttered, after he heard the story.
I’d told what I know, and gotten some information from Brandon as well. He was there before I was, so he does know things I wouldn’t know. It sounded like he was summoned by the Hero Emerges card I gave to Zay before I left Alewatch for Sawyer city, and Alice was brought over by a card Brandon activated called The Heroine Appears. I’ll admit, I’m not completely sure that isn’t an actual card, but I don’t recognize the name. Well, I guess I have other cards that I don’t really know, or that were otherwise unreleased when I was still on earth, so it could be one of those. And yes, I made sure to keep quiet about some things, like the fusion. Well, that won’t matter anyway. I’ll unfuse Alice and Mana when they wake up.
“Can you prove any of those claims?” Viscount Kramer asked me. He had apparently come here to see Agunan and had stayed to hear what I told everyone.
“Don’t you trust me?” I jokingly asked. “Well, can’t really blame you for that. But yes, I can.” I said as I stepped a bit away from everyone, before bringing the behemoth’s corpse out of my storage. “How is that?”
I turned around to see all of the people there with their eyes open comically large. Well, not that I can blame them, when I just dropped off a monster the size of Agunan and told them a little girl had just beat it. … Okay, Alice isn’t a little girl, but she is still a teenager. A teenager who two months ago couldn’t use magic. Taking on an SS-rank monster. Believable.
… okay, I don’t know why I specified magic, because you could use a sword, but good luck with that. Actually, how does a swordsman take down a beast of that size? There is a skill for it, probably. I guess ask Laura about it later.
{That is quite a beast that the girl hunted. Even I would have to go all out to hunt something like that.} Agunan admitted, as he looked at the behemoth’s corpse. Perhaps him saying that proved to everyone just how momentous of a task Alice had done.
Anyway, with the proof now clear for all to see, no one doubted that a behemoth had really appeared. There were some other things they were questioning, like where did it come from and so forth, and while I do know the answer, I’ll keep quiet about it. At least for now. I don’t really know what a ‘dimensional fissure’ is, so better not to tell people about it. Well, I know it is a Yugioh card, but that is different. I hope the Goddess can explain what they are. When do I get to speak with her again?
{I shall now take on my humanoid form.} Agunan announced, after a few more hours.
Everyone had returned to the city, the rest of the party was called off, but at least everything was fine. Relatively.
While letting Agunan recover his mana, I’d left Ria with him, just to be sure. I myself had visited Lua and Alice. Alice had been carried to the Sawyer manor, where she was now being looked after by Lua and other skilled healers. While it wasn’t yet sure if she was evolving, or just in regular level-up sleep, the care for both were the same. Just time and keeping the body cool.
So after making sure of that, retelling a lot of the story so that the second Prince and others who were not outside the walls also heard it, and a few other minor things, I returned to Agunan asking if he could turn into his human form yet. He did say he has one.
As I, as well as a handful of guards and other brave citizens who had come to see the dragon watched, Agunan was covered in flames. But not the same ones he used in the fight. These seemed to be there for visual concealment, as they didn’t feel hot at all. And that isn’t just me. Ria also said they don’t feel hot.
Then, the huge flame began to quickly shrink in size, until it took on a more or less humanoid shape. After a bit more time, the flames disappeared revealing a tall red-headed male. He was a bit over two meters tall, his hair, as I already said, was fiery red and shoulder length. His skin was more like scales, the same dark red color he had in his dragon form. They seemed to be almost all over his body, except the palms of his hands and his relatively human looking face. No snout on this dragon man.
He was wearing a sleeveless black cloth shirt and black leather pants, as well as black boots. From his upper back, a pair of red wings were poking out, and he also had a red lizard's tail. Well, a dragon’s tail in this case.
“... this form … it has been a while since I took it…” Agunan said, as he moved his body, probably trying how it was moving. “Will it work for you, Master?”
“I think so, but I do have to ask others. This isn’t my city, or anything.”
“Of course not. You must be the Master of a wider area, like a kingdom. Do tell me Master, are you the King? Or perhaps the crown Prince?”
“Nah. I’m just an honorary baron.” I answered.
“... I see. Honorary baron… If I recall correctly, that is the lowest position of nobility, isn’t it?”
“Well, technically there are also baronets and honorary knights, so… But they are just pseudo nobles, so I guess you are correct.” I admitted.
“Then I believe it will be necessary for me to work so that Master may obtain a title more fitting his power.” Agunan stated.
“Yeah, no. Not necessary.” I stated, suddenly being quite glad that the nobles had already vacated the area. I don’t want to get into any trouble… any more trouble.
We walked into the city just fine, because the guards knew me and all of that. It was still a bit quiet, but compared to the almost ghost town vibe it had earlier in the day when the dragons were outside the walls, this was better. And I’m sure they will recover in a day or two. Had it actually been more ‘normal’, I might have stopped by a store to pick up some other clothes for Agunan. While there was technically nothing wrong with what he was wearing, at least his shirt had clearly seen better days. The pants were… alright, and his shoes looked fine. I can’t give him one of my shirts, he is way bigger than I am. I guess I could just make him a new shirt with the dungeon. Yeah. I should actually do that. A dragon man in a t-shirt, what a sight.
While we were walking towards the manor, Agunan explained a bit more about his entire dedication thing. I knew some stuff about it, but dragons are outside of the regular system, so system information on them is quite limited.
In short, I can take HP from Agunan to fill my own, and the same goes for mana. Also, if I ever go down to 1 HP, I’ll automatically start pulling HP from him. That means, as long as Agunan is alive, I’m almost unkillable. But I do still age the same, and all of that. And because I could also take mana from Agunan, I had access to just over 20,000 mana between our two mana pools.
Also, I guess worth mentioning. Agunan doesn’t actually have a system status. He is a dragon. Dragons don’t use the system, so they don’t have a system status. The system can still range things about them, like their HP or mana amounts, but they don’t have a full status.
Once we got there, we quickly realized that the manor was in chaos. Not because anything was wrong, but because everything planned had gone wrong and needed fixing. All of the plans were out the window after the dragons showed up after all.
This led to us just staying out of the way. We did have problems of our own though. Mainly, where is Agunan going to sleep? We don’t have a bed for him. I had Ria ask the maids if we could have another cot, but they were all already in use, so no can do.
“I’ll sleep on the floor.” Agunan said.
“... you sure? Wait, I have these.” I remembered that I still have my two travel pelts, as well as Lua’s travel pelt in my storage. But I didn’t want to use Lua’s without her permission, so I just gave mine. As well as my sleeping bag. “It might not be much, but I hope that works for you.”
“I usually sleep on the ground, so this is more than fine.” Agunan said.
Oh yeah. Dragons. He would need a massive bed if he planned to sleep in his dragon form.
… I wonder, could I make one? A dragon sized bed. I should try at some point, for no other reason than for the heck of it.
Because of how hectic everything still was, our dinner ended up being a little strange. We were just told we could come to eat in the ‘family dining room’. I made sure to contact Lua, but she said she would go on blood alone for today. She would be staying by Alice’s side until it was time to go to sleep. Agunan also said he didn’t need any food, as he was full from the kraken I cooked for him earlier, and Ria went with just blood like Lua. Convenient dhampir is convenient. But I’ll have to get them more blood soon. I wonder how angry Agunan will be when he finds out they drink dragon blood. Well, a problem for another time.
My dinner wasn’t lonely or anything, because the single daughters of Thomas did dine with me, but I just ate quickly and peaced out to avoid excessive questions from Mariina. Yeah, it is a bit against etiquette, but at this point, who cares?
Before going to bed, I visited Alice. And so I could take Lua with me. I’m not letting her stay up for the entire night.
We all took turns taking a bath, before hitting the sack and quickly falling asleep.
… what a day, huh. Goddess, can you make sure that in the future, there will only be one emergency per day. I would really prefer that.
The three of us walked back to the Alewatch wall. I was still carrying Alice in my arms princess style. Or is it bridal style? Well, either way.
As we arrived, we were welcomed with a great applause from everyone here. I didn’t know all of the adventurers, but I did recognize Tye’s party Saber Fang as well as Jack and the rest of Diamond Sword.
And, of course, the guild master Zayaan as well as the Baron Brandon.
“... is it really over? Did we really survive?” Zay was questioning me.
“Yeah. It's over.” I confirmed. If it isn’t, I’ll say a few chosen words to the Goddess when I get to speak with her. You can only have so many emergencies in one day. “Any injured?”
“... a few. Alex, Jax and Henry all took quite a bit of damage, and others took some minor damage from the behemoth’s attacks. A few houses also got damaged from the attacks, so there might be more.” Zay answered.
“... I see. We need to head back to Sawyer, or people there will freak out, so do you think you can take care of this?” I asked Zay, as I handed him a toploader Rain of Mercy.
Spoiler [collapse]“... alright. But you’d better come here as soon as you can.” Zay said. “I think everyone will be up for a party after that. And I don’t think anyone wants another party where the guest of honor is absent.”
“Hey. I’m not the guest of honor this time. That honor belongs to her.” I said as I signaled at Alice with my eyes.
“Of course.” Zay agreed. “... Is she alright?”
“Just sleeping.” Lua answered. “She will likely also have some symptoms of a level-up sickness, so she will likely be in bed for at least a day.”
“Alright. I guess we will be seeing each other in a few days then?”
“Yeah. After we fully recover.” I said, before I turned to Brandon. “Brandon, are you coming with us or not?” I called him. “I think your wife is worried about you.”
“... yes. I am coming.” He said, somewhat stunned.
“Well, see you all later.” I said to everyone. “B.E.S. Big Core.”
Our flight over to Sawyer city was the first peaceful moment in what I felt had to be days, even if it had only been a few hours. Well, I guess I did get to relax a bit after I beat Agunan, but before I learned about Alice missing.
During our flight over, Alice began showing signs of either level-up sickness or evolution, as Lua predicted, so I left her in Lua’s care.
By the way, I was about to evolve too. I likely would have begun an evolution tonight, but now I have that Chosen Evolution thing, so I can evolve whenever I want and I can apparently pick what I evolve into from all of the available options or something. Or more like all of the possible options. I don’t know. I’ll look into it when I have a bit more time.
But before I can work on something like evolving, I’ll have to report all of this.
… yeay. That will be so fun.
As we reached the Sawyer city airspace, I noticed that Agunan was looking straight at Big Core. I wonder how he knows? I know the ship isn’t invisible, only near invisible. But he might be the first one to spot it as I was just flying it like this.
I stopped Big Core around the area where Agunan was, and beamed the four of us down to the ground.
{Welcome back, Master.} Agunan greeted me, as we appeared on the ground.
“Brian! Lua. Are you alright?” Ria asked.
“Hey. We are back. And we are fine.” I answered.
{Of course you are.} Agunan said. {I told everyone as much. Had you actually been in any trouble, I’m sure you’d have drawn from mine health or mana.}
“... yeah. I might have done that.” I admitted, before I turned towards Christina. “Hi. I’m back. And I found the MIAs.”
Her face had lost a lot of color as we landed and her face was a mess, because her make-up had been partially dissolved by her tears.
“B-Brian? Alice? … is Alice alright?” She probably asked about Alice, as I once again was carrying her, while Lua was also using some water magic on her.
“Yes. They are both just fine.” I confirmed, reminding her that her husband does also exist. “Alice is in level-up sleep, I think. Can we take her somewhere where she will be taken care of?” I asked. “I’ll tell everyone what happened after that.”
We soon got a medical team from the knight order here and I was able to transfer Alice to a proper stretcher. I had Lua go with her, just to make sure, while I stayed outside ready to give some information. … too bad Christina went after Alice, so she won’t hear it, but I’m sure Lua will tell her everything. It is better for me to stay here, because here I can actually bring that thing out, without crushing a house or something.
“... the behemoth …” Thomas muttered, after he heard the story.
I’d told what I know, and gotten some information from Brandon as well. He was there before I was, so he does know things I wouldn’t know. It sounded like he was summoned by the Hero Emerges card I gave to Zay before I left Alewatch for Sawyer city, and Alice was brought over by a card Brandon activated called The Heroine Appears. I’ll admit, I’m not completely sure that isn’t an actual card, but I don’t recognize the name. Well, I guess I have other cards that I don’t really know, or that were otherwise unreleased when I was still on earth, so it could be one of those. And yes, I made sure to keep quiet about some things, like the fusion. Well, that won’t matter anyway. I’ll unfuse Alice and Mana when they wake up.
“Can you prove any of those claims?” Viscount Kramer asked me. He had apparently come here to see Agunan and had stayed to hear what I told everyone.
“Don’t you trust me?” I jokingly asked. “Well, can’t really blame you for that. But yes, I can.” I said as I stepped a bit away from everyone, before bringing the behemoth’s corpse out of my storage. “How is that?”
I turned around to see all of the people there with their eyes open comically large. Well, not that I can blame them, when I just dropped off a monster the size of Agunan and told them a little girl had just beat it. … Okay, Alice isn’t a little girl, but she is still a teenager. A teenager who two months ago couldn’t use magic. Taking on an SS-rank monster. Believable.
… okay, I don’t know why I specified magic, because you could use a sword, but good luck with that. Actually, how does a swordsman take down a beast of that size? There is a skill for it, probably. I guess ask Laura about it later.
{That is quite a beast that the girl hunted. Even I would have to go all out to hunt something like that.} Agunan admitted, as he looked at the behemoth’s corpse. Perhaps him saying that proved to everyone just how momentous of a task Alice had done.
Anyway, with the proof now clear for all to see, no one doubted that a behemoth had really appeared. There were some other things they were questioning, like where did it come from and so forth, and while I do know the answer, I’ll keep quiet about it. At least for now. I don’t really know what a ‘dimensional fissure’ is, so better not to tell people about it. Well, I know it is a Yugioh card, but that is different. I hope the Goddess can explain what they are. When do I get to speak with her again?
{I shall now take on my humanoid form.} Agunan announced, after a few more hours.
Everyone had returned to the city, the rest of the party was called off, but at least everything was fine. Relatively.
While letting Agunan recover his mana, I’d left Ria with him, just to be sure. I myself had visited Lua and Alice. Alice had been carried to the Sawyer manor, where she was now being looked after by Lua and other skilled healers. While it wasn’t yet sure if she was evolving, or just in regular level-up sleep, the care for both were the same. Just time and keeping the body cool.
So after making sure of that, retelling a lot of the story so that the second Prince and others who were not outside the walls also heard it, and a few other minor things, I returned to Agunan asking if he could turn into his human form yet. He did say he has one.
As I, as well as a handful of guards and other brave citizens who had come to see the dragon watched, Agunan was covered in flames. But not the same ones he used in the fight. These seemed to be there for visual concealment, as they didn’t feel hot at all. And that isn’t just me. Ria also said they don’t feel hot.
Then, the huge flame began to quickly shrink in size, until it took on a more or less humanoid shape. After a bit more time, the flames disappeared revealing a tall red-headed male. He was a bit over two meters tall, his hair, as I already said, was fiery red and shoulder length. His skin was more like scales, the same dark red color he had in his dragon form. They seemed to be almost all over his body, except the palms of his hands and his relatively human looking face. No snout on this dragon man.
He was wearing a sleeveless black cloth shirt and black leather pants, as well as black boots. From his upper back, a pair of red wings were poking out, and he also had a red lizard's tail. Well, a dragon’s tail in this case.
“... this form … it has been a while since I took it…” Agunan said, as he moved his body, probably trying how it was moving. “Will it work for you, Master?”
“I think so, but I do have to ask others. This isn’t my city, or anything.”
“Of course not. You must be the Master of a wider area, like a kingdom. Do tell me Master, are you the King? Or perhaps the crown Prince?”
“Nah. I’m just an honorary baron.” I answered.
“... I see. Honorary baron… If I recall correctly, that is the lowest position of nobility, isn’t it?”
“Well, technically there are also baronets and honorary knights, so… But they are just pseudo nobles, so I guess you are correct.” I admitted.
“Then I believe it will be necessary for me to work so that Master may obtain a title more fitting his power.” Agunan stated.
“Yeah, no. Not necessary.” I stated, suddenly being quite glad that the nobles had already vacated the area. I don’t want to get into any trouble… any more trouble.
We walked into the city just fine, because the guards knew me and all of that. It was still a bit quiet, but compared to the almost ghost town vibe it had earlier in the day when the dragons were outside the walls, this was better. And I’m sure they will recover in a day or two. Had it actually been more ‘normal’, I might have stopped by a store to pick up some other clothes for Agunan. While there was technically nothing wrong with what he was wearing, at least his shirt had clearly seen better days. The pants were… alright, and his shoes looked fine. I can’t give him one of my shirts, he is way bigger than I am. I guess I could just make him a new shirt with the dungeon. Yeah. I should actually do that. A dragon man in a t-shirt, what a sight.
While we were walking towards the manor, Agunan explained a bit more about his entire dedication thing. I knew some stuff about it, but dragons are outside of the regular system, so system information on them is quite limited.
In short, I can take HP from Agunan to fill my own, and the same goes for mana. Also, if I ever go down to 1 HP, I’ll automatically start pulling HP from him. That means, as long as Agunan is alive, I’m almost unkillable. But I do still age the same, and all of that. And because I could also take mana from Agunan, I had access to just over 20,000 mana between our two mana pools.
Also, I guess worth mentioning. Agunan doesn’t actually have a system status. He is a dragon. Dragons don’t use the system, so they don’t have a system status. The system can still range things about them, like their HP or mana amounts, but they don’t have a full status.
Once we got there, we quickly realized that the manor was in chaos. Not because anything was wrong, but because everything planned had gone wrong and needed fixing. All of the plans were out the window after the dragons showed up after all.
This led to us just staying out of the way. We did have problems of our own though. Mainly, where is Agunan going to sleep? We don’t have a bed for him. I had Ria ask the maids if we could have another cot, but they were all already in use, so no can do.
“I’ll sleep on the floor.” Agunan said.
“... you sure? Wait, I have these.” I remembered that I still have my two travel pelts, as well as Lua’s travel pelt in my storage. But I didn’t want to use Lua’s without her permission, so I just gave mine. As well as my sleeping bag. “It might not be much, but I hope that works for you.”
“I usually sleep on the ground, so this is more than fine.” Agunan said.
Oh yeah. Dragons. He would need a massive bed if he planned to sleep in his dragon form.
… I wonder, could I make one? A dragon sized bed. I should try at some point, for no other reason than for the heck of it.
Because of how hectic everything still was, our dinner ended up being a little strange. We were just told we could come to eat in the ‘family dining room’. I made sure to contact Lua, but she said she would go on blood alone for today. She would be staying by Alice’s side until it was time to go to sleep. Agunan also said he didn’t need any food, as he was full from the kraken I cooked for him earlier, and Ria went with just blood like Lua. Convenient dhampir is convenient. But I’ll have to get them more blood soon. I wonder how angry Agunan will be when he finds out they drink dragon blood. Well, a problem for another time.
My dinner wasn’t lonely or anything, because the single daughters of Thomas did dine with me, but I just ate quickly and peaced out to avoid excessive questions from Mariina. Yeah, it is a bit against etiquette, but at this point, who cares?
Before going to bed, I visited Alice. And so I could take Lua with me. I’m not letting her stay up for the entire night.
We all took turns taking a bath, before hitting the sack and quickly falling asleep.
… what a day, huh. Goddess, can you make sure that in the future, there will only be one emergency per day. I would really prefer that.
