The power of cooperation showed how humans had managed to accomplish so much despite their pitiful squishiness and brief lifespans. It was almost like friendship had a magical value.

  Cami continued to layer the protections on us as I dove into battle. Elemental Imbuement added a bonus of fire damage to my claws, while Elemental Armor took on a lightning form that only added to the power of my own damage shields.

  The giant I dove at was caught in the slowing power of my aura at the last second, causing the swing of his club to veer off course. My claws raked him, but even with the extra damage and resistance removal, his skin was so tough that I realized the problem here would be cutting through one of them quickly enough to avoid being hit myself.

  Fortunately, my boosted speed allowed me to pull away and leap back into the air before he could counterattack. I grinned as Cami shot off a Fireball which exploded in the face of one of the giants. I, in turn, sucked in all the air I could hold before expelling it to form a massive lightning bolt. My bolt struck the giant with the metal ring in his hands and sent him crashing to the ground, spasming and twitching uncontrollably. It served him right for holding onto what looked like an iron ring while fighting a blue dragon.

  I arced back into the air and made a quick circle around them. One of the giants hurled his club at me, but my boosted speed made it easy enough to dodge. I could definitely get used to fighting with buffs. The power of the magic burned through me and I felt unstoppable. It took everything I had to rein in my desire to flaunt my power.

  Instead, I took the chance to test out some of the abilities I had gained from the wyrmlings when’d we connected.

  Darkness

  A sphere of absolute blackness completely covered the head of one of the giants. This was an innate power of black dragons. Taking another quick spin around the four giants, I activated the ability I had gained from the green wyrmling.

  Suggestion

  “You should help your friend out by smashing that black sphere as hard as you can until you knock it off his head.”

  Sure enough, with his resistances lowered, the giant hardly had a chance to resist my suggestion. His weak mind gave in and I chuckled as he drove his club into his friend’s head. The blinded giant gave a garbled cry of pain as he was knocked down by the first blow. I could only assume that it had crushed his mouth because of how distorted the sound of his cry was.

  The sphere of darkness was, of course, attached to his head and so the target of my suggestion kept hitting his friend in the head over and over—long after his body stopped thrashing. He was only trying to help his friend out, after all.

  Unfortunately, I’d drifted too low in order to be sure my helpful suggestion was heard properly. That meant that the giant who had thrown his club earlier leaped straight at me. He caught both Cami and me off guard and managed to tackle me, wrapping his arms around my rear leg and tail.

  The sudden weight threw me off balance and I was knocked to the ground. Cami Shadow Stepped away so as not to be caught beneath me. Our impact with the ground drove the air from my lungs. The wing that was under pained me, but thankfully I didn’t think anything was broken.

  Just as I twisted around to rip my claws into his flesh and bite down on his exposed neck, another giant attacked. The fourth giant must have recovered from my lightning bolt because he was suddenly on me. Instead of hitting me with his huge metal ring, he opened it and was busy trying to lock it into place around my neck.

  He was trying to place one of those cursed collars on me!

  A moment of panic ripped through me, but then I felt my Choker of Freedom spring to life. Its Curse Bane power activated and the collar in the giant’s hands trembled and then shattered. No item with negative effects could be put on me against my will.

  The collar might not have clicked closed around my neck, but all the pieces clicked into place for me. It now made sense why the giants had not attacked before. It had almost seemed like they were waiting for me—because they had been waiting for me.

  A cold chill ran down my spine as I considered what that meant. But I couldn’t waste any time worrying about what wasn’t right in front of me. I was stronger than these giants, especially with Cami’s spell boosting my stats, but I didn’t want to risk a serious injury. The only good giant was a dead giant, after all. Maybe I was becoming more like my ancestor, Wasnera, than I’d thought.

  My jaw locked onto the first giant’s neck. I ripped back with terrific force and was soon covered in a spray of arterial blood. He wasn’t dead yet, but lacking the regeneration of a troll, he was not long for this world.

  At the same time, I twisted my body around, making good use of my enhanced speed. I lashed out with a sweeping strike from my tail and took out the legs of my would-be captor. It was surprisingly satisfying when I felt his knee give way beneath my strike and saw his leg bend in a direction that no humanoid leg was meant to bend.

  The giant cried out in pain but his leg could no longer support him, and he fell flat on his back. I was immediately on him, biting, clawing and making the most of my speed as I cut him to ribbons. I couldn’t get a good attack on his throat as he struggled to protect himself, but the result was just the same.

  When he stopped moving, I looked up and saw Cami as she, with the help of Galbrecht and his team, finished off the last of the giants. I still considered that one part of my kills, as my suggestion had robbed him of the ability to attack us.

  Raising my head to the sky, I issued a roar of challenge. Someone thought they could hunt me, did they? Well, turnabout was fair play. I’d show them what it was like to be hunted by a dragon.

  Chapter 41 - Political Beast

  When I received the notification at the battle’s end, I wanted to roar in triumph a second time. But given how often I’d disparaged humans for prattling on behind their backs, I kept my second roar to myself.

  You and your bonded have gained both DKP and XP as a result of winning a large-scale military engagement. For killing four Mountain Giants and a host of lesser monsters, you have gained 22 DKP and 14,130 XP. For her part in the battle as your Dragon Knight, Camille Westfork has gained 12 DKP and 28,365 XP. Net DKP gained: 10.

  Note—Your bonded has willingly, but temporarily suppressed her level increase.

  Clean up of the battlefield happened fairly quickly. An older human in enchanted armor just a cut above all the others’ panoplies led a couple thousand soldiers down off of the wall. They quickly began gathering the enemies’ corpses—which was good because giant meat was tough and chewy, ogre flesh had a rancid taste, and goblins were tiny and greasy.

  Of course, not even a dragon would try to eat troll flesh.

  If they wanted to burn the corpses, I wasn’t going to fight them over it. Clearing the corpses the dragon way would have taken much longer—well except for lazy reds, who could just burn them up with their oh-so-precious dragon fire.

  I was standing in the shadow of the wall when Lisella walked up to me. She bowed at the waist. “As your mentor, I’m proud to see how far you’ve come. If we’d encountered you as you are now in the cave, you would most likely have killed us… or at least you wouldn’t have ended up coming to the university.”

  I was tempted to answer the implicit question in her tone, but decided it was better not to rub her flat nose in it—it was squished enough already.

  “I trust that the goddess works in her own way to bring you what you needed and in turn what the world needs,” she continued. “But as a princess of Forlay, I bow before you, great dragon. You will forever have the friendship of our nation for your contribution today. You should leave and go to the capital now, although perhaps in your other form. There will definitely be feasting after this victory, and I’m sure that my uncle will want to give you a suitable reward.”

  Lisella locked eyes with Cami. “And don’t think that your contributions were not noticed. I’m sorry that Modessa couldn’t be here to see it, but you are no longer the farm girl we brought back from nowhere. She would be just as proud of you as I am.”

  The leader of the army headed toward us, but I dipped my shoulder and Cami leaped onto my back. Seconds later, I lifted off the ground, leaving nothing but a storm of dust and swirling snow behind me.

  I heard the leader ask Lisella, “Does your highness know why that dragon came to our aid?”

  “I will address that with my uncle first, General Westin,” she replied.

  Anything else they said was lost to the distance as I flew the twenty miles that separated the wall from the outskirts of Forlay’s capital city. It seemed odd to me that Lisella’s family name was Forlay, the country was called Forlay, and the city was called Forlay. I might have understood the overuse of the same name if it had been something interesting, like Lightning or perhaps Gold, but Forlay?

  Cami cast Shadow Cloak around us, which didn’t make us invisible but turned away any eyes which may have focused on us. This allowed me to land not more than a mile or two from the city’s walls without being discovered. Then I transformed.

  With our stats, we were able to walk or even run much faster than this, but I was hungry and not in a rush to meet more humans. Still, there wasn’t much that I could do about it. I conceded that there were benefits to be gained from meeting her uncle, and Lisella had indicated that the king would give me a gift for having saved their tiny, ugly backsides. That particular expression had always struck me as odd. Why would humans draw attention to their tailless rears?

  When we reached the gate of the city, there was a line. They likely knew about the pending monster attack, because multiple wagons were loaded down with what looked like the entirety of that family’s possessions. Undoubtedly, word of the monsters’ rout had yet to spread. Either way, I wasn’t going to wait in some stupid line.

  Grabbing Cami’s hand, I tugged her with me as I stepped out of line and walked to straight to the front. People stared at first. Our school uniforms marked us as mages in training, so no one said anything. The further up the line we skipped, the more grumbling I heard.

  It pleased me. I found making a few humans unhappy surprisingly amusing. I knew it was petty, but that didn’t remove the grin from my face.

  When we reached the gate, I pulled us into line behind the wagon that was being inspected. I figured I could be generous and not push past them, since they were already in the process of being admitted to the city. As the savior of this city, though, I should have been escorted in on a path of gold coins. I was surprised to realize that Cami hadn’t let go of my hand since I’d first grabbed hers to pull her along with me.

  When the wagon was cleared, the guards stared at us. They were clearly both weary and annoyed. Looking up at the guard towers that flanked the gates, I saw both a wand and several crossbows aimed in our direction.

  One of the guards shook his head as he looked at us. “Are we going to have a problem here?”

  “I don’t see why,” I admitted. “Let us pass and there will be no problems.”

  Each of the guards gripped their weapons. None of their swords were pulled from their sheaths, but I didn’t miss their preparation. Cami dropped my hand and stepped forward. “I believe that what Nico means to say, is that we were invited to the city by Princess Lisella.”

  A couple of the guards scoffed while their leader sneered, “That doesn’t mean you can just skip the line. As far as I know, her highness isn’t even in the city.”

  I pulled a scroll out of my soul space. A couple of the guards jumped back, undoubtedly shocked as it appeared suddenly in my hand. I held it up.

  “This is an invitation from your king asking me to be his personal guest. Surely, you don’t think he would want me to wait in this interminable line?”

  The guard I handed the scroll to had a dismissive look on his face as he took it, but his expression quickly changed as he read it. Looking at the bottom, he stuttered, “Th-that’s th-the King’s S-seal.”

  “Yes. Now kindly return my invitation to me and get out of our way,” I growled.

  He stared at me for a moment. “I’m sorry, Sir…?”

  “This is Lord Sandumas,” Cami offered. “The Emperor personally made him a noble just a couple of weeks ago. In fact, we had a pleasant private visit with the Emperor right before we came to Forlay at his request to dispatch an apparent monster problem it seemed you were having trouble with.”

  The guard captain grew even more pale, if that were possible. “Of course you did. Uh… I’ll have to send an escort with you, M’lord.”

  Then, without waiting for me to agree, he barked at one of his sergeants to get us a carriage. In less than five minutes, it was there, and we were headed to the palace. If I hadn’t been so hungry, I might have requested a tour of the city—just the two of us, of course—as we had done in the City of the Dawn.

  Sadly, Forlay lacked the shining brilliance of the imperial city. Its style of architecture was much more militaristic and utilitarian from what I could see. The same seemed to be true about its humans—from what I could judge of the little we saw on the way to the palace. The buildings would still be easy enough to flatten, but they looked like at least a little effort would be required to do so. There were even signs of dwarven work on some of the buildings, although those looked slightly older than the rest of the city.

  As I thought about the city itself, I realized it was built around a single, high ridge line. Atop that ridge, or rather a peak on that ridge, sat a castle. Just as with the rest of the city, its function seemed far more defensive than ornate. It seemed rather squat and ugly, compared to the imperial palace or even the governor’s palace in Urgoi.

  Soon, I realized that we were being driven up a road that led to the top of that ridge and then up to the castle itself. This was far too cold of a clime for me, but I could appreciate how such a location would have made for an excellent lair. Perhaps the human rulers here were not completely without taste.

  Once we arrived, we were escorted into the castle. There, we were taken to a room with a large table. At one end of it sat a man dressed rather ornately. He wore a crown upon his head, so I assumed this must be the King of Forlay. To his left was another human male of approximately the same age.

  It was sometimes hard to tell such things—squished as human faces were—but I was getting better at noting differences between humans. If I had to guess, I would say the other man was the king’s brother, and thus Lisella’s father.

  Speaking of my mentor, I saw that she was seated on the King’s right hand, directly across the table from the man I assumed was her father. Along that side of the table with her, were the rest of her team—excluding Modessa, of course. Across from them was the man I’d seen in command if all the soldiers at the wall, I think General Westin was what Lisella had called him. Although, if I recalled correctly, General was a human military rank rather than a name. Following down that side of the table, there were two more men and a woman in similar uniforms.

  When we were introduced to the king, Cami bowed. Lisella had come down to the far end of the table with us. She whispered in my ear to bow, but I hadn’t bowed to the Emperor, and I wasn’t going to start bowing to humans now.

  The King of Forlay actually seemed amused. “It’s okay, little Lise. I like a man with some backbone and the Emperor already messaged me about your apprentice being made into a noble. The Emperor’s message also implied that we have him to thank for our victory over the monsters. We won’t make heroes bow.”

  Most of the officers seemed shocked, but they also looked at me differently. We had a discussion about the battle. I found it interesting how Miseria’s protection worked. This time, it seemed like all of those who didn’t know I was a dragon accepted that I won the battle with magic. General Westin was the only one who kept shaking his head, as though trying to clear it of a nasty fog.

  We talked about sending sorties up into the mountains to clear them out, but there was some concern expressed about waking an ancient white dragon which slumbered somewhere high on some peak. I pondered for a moment if I could take an ancient white. Whites were commonly thought to be the weakest of dragons, although they weren’t that far behind blacks.

  Whites also had a reputation for being stupid. In actuality, they were at least as smart as the average human, but it was more about being shortsighted in their pursuits. Each type of dragon had stereotypes that I associated with their colors in my memories. Reds, of course, were lazy. Greens were manipulative. Blacks were fearful and whites were stupid. We blues, of course, were known for our majestic nature.

  As for battling an ancient white, it might be possible. He or she would still probably be around my size, unless they were at the very threshold of becoming a wyrm—and even then, they wouldn’t be that much larger. The benefits of my bond, classes, and Cami should still give me the upper hand.