Chapter 28:
Departure from Rikarisu City

We had spent two hours on this job, with still no end in sight.

"When is this thing going to show up?" Ares muttered. I shook my head, sighing.

I had mostly passed the time here by practicing my Curse Magic on various monsters, letting me get the hang of it for the most part. It seemed to work up to ten meters away from a target with it exponentially decreasing in force any further than that.

I couldn't use my Rot spell on any undead, which was quite blatantly obvious from any perspective. You couldn't rot something that was already rotten, after all. The most I could do was waste one away until they turned into pure bone, but that took so much time that it would never be practical in a real fight.

Monsters that could use poison attacks or something similar like acid also had some sort of resistance to both of my spells. I figured that it had something to do with Curse Magic's origins in detoxification magic. As a Saint-tier Detoxification magician, I could conjure up some fairly low-level poison. I never had a use for it up until now, and frankly, I hadn't even thought about it.

Maybe I could incorporate it into a new Curse Magic spell…

I'm getting ahead of myself. Aside from that, I could stop an average, C-tier monster in its tracks for up to thirty seconds without much issue. B-ranks, on the other hand, were a bit more complicated. There weren't many 'average' B-rank monsters.

All of them had some sort of special ability or were made up of something distinctly unique. The Gaslow Region–or where the Petrified Forest was, held a large number of powerful monsters to begin with. The executioners were much tougher than an average undead, and a monster like an Almond Anaconda was larger than I could handle.

Most of the snake-type monsters were B-tier, and they all had the same problem. The monster we were supposed to have killed was also supposed to be B-tier, but none of us were sure if we had killed it by then.

The task description had been extremely vague, but we had cleared out a decent chunk of the monsters in the forest by now. We had a little battle formation and everything–I held down the average monsters, and Ares cut them down. If there was a B-rank monster, I'd be the support and Ares would be in the front. If we happened to get overwhelmed, Alek served as our vanguard and backed us up whenever necessary.

It was probably safe to say that we had killed the monster that the task was for by now, so we decided to go back. Of course, we needed proof that we killed it, so we picked up any scales that we left behind in our mini massacre of monsters.

As we continued on our way back, we stumbled upon charred ground. I'm pretty sure this isn't the way out of the forest, guys…

The gravel and harsh soil of the Petrified Forest was transitioning to hard rock and completely monochrome dirt that looked to have been burned by a widespread fire spell recently. The scent of stoked cinders pricked at my nose. It was reminiscent of how the ground looked after Sylphie had her graduation exam a few months back. This doesn't even look like a forest anymore. It'd be more fair to say that this is separate from the actual forest.

As we traveled deeper into the ash-covered area, we heard a deafening screech coming from somewhere further in.

"What the hell was that?" I said frantically.

"Don't ask me," Ares said shakily.

That screech was loud. It was like nails on a chalkboard amplified to be as loud as a jet engine. Whatever the source was, it wasn't going to be going down easily.

"Hold it. Wouldn't it make sense for the source of that noise to be the monster that the task is for? I mean, it sounded like the screech of an Almond Anaconda if it was much louder," I explained, trying to keep Ares from turning tail and going home. The job description called it "large and slithering", so that would make sense.

Alek nodded. "While you have a point, the screech is almost certainly from a Black Drake, not any snake," he corrected.

"A Black Drake?!" Ares exclaimed, his eyes brimming with excitement and shimmering like they never had before.

Black Drake? Where had I heard something like that before…? Oh, right! When I was browsing through the library of Roa's Manor, I read a detailed book about reptilian monsters. They had shown up alongside a few others such as the Red Wyrms, the Blue Wyrms, Karentos, and Snow Dragons.

Books aside, what we had heard was a real dragon. Not some boss in a stereotypical RPG game, but one in my reality. The mere thought of it sent a pleasurable chill down my body, as my mind was flipping between 'FUCKING AWESOME?' and "i want to go home."

"What do you two say? Do you want to stay behind while I take care of it, or…?" Alek asked, a grin betraying his thoughts. He wants us to come along, doesn't he?

"I'll go!" Ares cried out. "Same here," I remarked.

"Hmm. I can't say I've heard of a dragon hunt with their members being so young before, but there's always a first for everything. Shall we?" Alek offered, jerking his neck toward the direction of the screech.

I'm unsure if this is a dream come true or a nightmare incarnate. Eh, probably both.


The smoldering embers of what remained of the trees in this area filled my throat with an uncomfortable, gruff feeling. Traces of the dragon's fire were growing more frequent, what with the seared and charred ground now freshly ablaze in flames and ash.

The shrill screeching was also growing louder. We're here, aren't we?

Alek froze, but not in fear. "Ares, Lumina. It's just up ahead, so prepare yourselves. This won't be a simple or a pretty fight for you two," he said, unsheathing his greatsword from his back.

I nodded, and Ares mimicked Alek, unsheathing his sword. My breathing grew ragged as my heart began to pick up the pace. I exhaled deeply, trying to calm myself–it was never a good idea to panic before a fight, especially one with a dragon.

Ares came to an abrupt stop in front of me. I was just about to ask what was up with him when…

I saw it. Its body was short, stout, and clad in giant scales. It looked like a horrifyingly scaled-up lizard, with its underbody and wings being sickeningly smooth but lined with the occasional groove.

It snapped its head toward our direction, freezing me in place. It flicked its forked tongue at us, staring at us with its beady, cold eyes.

I nervously chuckled. So this is a real dragon? I unconsciously stepped backward.

Then, it opened its jaws, revealing a pale bloodred interior. Before I could process anything further, a bright flash of light came from out of its mouth. Rather, it was fire.

Alek bolted forward and held up his greatsword, activating it with a sheen of purple light. The Black Drake's breath, unaffected by Alek's gravity magic, collided with his greatsword. Alek shoved it into the ground, using it as a makeshift shield. The air instantly heated up around us, since we were behind Alek. The breath was spilling over onto the other side, setting him ablaze.

"Ah! Alek, are you alright?" I cried out.

Ares grabbed hold of my hand and turned me towards him. "Of course he's fine, Lumina! We need to get out of here before we get scorched!" He pulled me forward, nearly making me lose my footing. The two of us circled to the Drake's rear end while it was still focused on Alek.

Ares leaped forward into the air, swinging his sword. He brought his sword down, twisting his whole upper body to land a hit. A sharp clang was released from where Ares had struck, but his sword wasn't able to cut all the way into the Drake.

"Haah?!" Ares exclaimed incredulously. He grasped onto his sword's hilt and attempted to pull it out of where it had lodged into the Drake's scales. It was wedged deep in the Drake's scales, and no matter what Ares tried, it was stuck. I gripped my staff tightly as I prepared my next spell, one that would hopefully buy Ares enough time to pry out his sword.

We literally have a tank for this purpose! What's he doing anyway? I peered over at Alek, who was unmoving under heavy fire. I knew he could withstand it, so why wasn't he doing anything? Was he just waiting for a sign of distress so he could swoop in? I could see him doing that…

The Drake craned its neck backward, now noticing us. It shook its tail, trying to whip Ares off of it, but it couldn't reach him. Ares was too nimble–he ducked out of the way, his reaction time seeming almost inhuman. I took this as an opportunity to release my spell.

Paralyze! I could feel my staff coursing with mana and the uncomfortable sensation of it steadily draining from my body. I fired off my invisible spell at the Drake, anticipating it freezing in place. But all it did was stop its breath from spilling out of its mouth.

I should've known it wouldn't work on this thing! Dammit!

I hadn't trained Curse Magic for long enough to hold up for long against a B-rank monster, not to mention an A-rank! The best move would have been to start with an offensive spell instead of doing that. Instead, I got so caught up in the novelty of Curse Magic that I decided to use it first. I furrowed my eyebrows at the Drake.

Having retrieved his sword, Ares leaped off the Drake and landed near me. He exhaled deeply as the Drake peered at us. With a flick of its tongue, the Drake deemed us not worthy of its attention and refocused on Alek. It once again began breathing fire at him, covering him in another sauna bath.

I stepped back and held up my staff in the air with both of my hands. I was going to be casting a fireball, one so massive that it couldn't miss its target. Exodus Flame. I pictured it in my mind and stirred my mana into starting the spell. The fireball formed above my head, slowly growing and expanding as the scalding mass of flame lit up the surrounding area.

However, something didn't register to me, even though it should have. This monster was much more intelligent than I gave it credit for. When it glimpsed my spell, it immediately whipped forward and began charging at me. In my panic, I released a half-baked spell into the air, utterly missing in a bout of harsh irony.

Ares, seemingly trying to save me, rushed toward me. Before he could, the Drake whipped its tail at him, tripping him and sending him face-first into the ground.

I'm in for it now! I attempted to dive out of the way, but it seemed my luck had finally run out. One of the Drake's claws drove into my ankle and tore itself out of my leg.

My nerves screamed at me as my mind registered my ankle being clawed into.

I wailed in agony, grasping my gaping wound, blood pouring out of it whilst I writhed in pain. I panted heavily as my befuddled mind began screaming at me to do something about my injuries. Clumsily painting a picture of my healing magic in my head, I silently cast an advanced-tier spell on my leg.

The shattered bone and ripped muscles weaved themselves together, sealing my injury without leaving so much as a scar. With my heart beating so fiercely I could feel it in my ears, I looked at the rest of my party. Ares was rushing over to me, panic in his eyes. Alek was now not holding back, slicing through the monster with his greatsword and lopping its entire neck off with an effortless, clean stroke. As Ares reached me, my vision began to blur.

Ah… I know what this is… I had healed my injury with recovery magic, but something that it could never do was replace my lost blood.

I flopped to the ground, my ears ringing with a headache-inducing pitch.

Dammit… was I always this useless..?


I awoke to sunlight uncomfortably shining on my eyelids. My eyes fluttered open, and I saw the familiar sight of the ceiling of our room in the Wolfclaw Inn.

Back here? How long have I been out, exactly?

I wiped the sleep out of my eyes and sat up. My eyes flickered to places around the room, finally resting on Ares.

"Ah, you're up!" Ares said, getting up off of his chair.

"Y-yeah," I stammered out.

"How are you feeling?" Ares questioned.

"I'm fine now. My head hurts a little, but besides that, I'm okay," I answered. "I'm sorry I couldn't have been more use in the fight, though," I muttered.

"It was a dragon, Lumina. I don't think anyone blames a ten-year-old for not being able to take down a dragon," Ares said.

I exhaled softly at that. He was right–I was only ten years old. I shouldn't be placing such high expectations on myself, especially not now. Our goal is to get back home to the Central Continent, first and foremost.

"T-thank you, Ares," I said, fiddling with a lock of my hair.

Come to think of it, when was the last time I cut my hair? I haven't looked in a mirror for a while, so I don't know if it even looks decent right now. Well, this is the Demon Continent–nobody cares much for appearances. Still…

I pushed myself off of the fur bed and stood up. My robe had been taken off, so I was clad in shorts and a loose shirt for the time being.

I cast a water spell so I could see my reflection. It came in handy to know how to cast a portable mirror, oddly enough.

Yeah, that's fine. Maybe if I trim it here…

I could feel a gaze on my back. I turned around to see Ares smirking at me.

"You should grow it out and tie it into pigtails. They'd be fun to pull on at night," Ares said, without breaking eye contact.

I shot a blunt rock bullet at him, making him flop onto his bed. He groaned and reached up to rub his forehead.

You've never had your hair pulled, have you? I huffed.

As I sat down on my fur bed, a dull pain overcame my whole body. I felt sluggish as well, and not the 'just woke up' type. I laid back down on my bed and pulled my blanket over myself.

I want to eat the pastries from my birthday party so badly right now…

Several hours after that, Alek returned to the inn. He brought with him gifts from the skies above and beyond–lots of money.

I counted the money mentally and came to a staggering total.

"Fourteen iron coins?!" I exclaimed. That's almost triple the amount we were aiming for!

"It seems that particular Black Drake was occasionally entering into the Petrified Forest because of how close its nest was to it. That's also most likely why so many people took the quest and perished. Additionally, Drake scales of any kind go for a large amount of money," Alek explained.

"Also, I managed to get your figure sold for another seven iron coins, so that's twenty-one," Alek said. That much?! Maybe I should be making these more often…

Now that we had gotten more than enough money to live comfortably for a while, we had no reason to stay here in Rikarisu. I didn't want to delay our journey any longer. I promised myself that I would find and apologize to my mother, and I wasn't going to make her wait any longer if I could. Even if I feel terrible because of the blood loss.

"Then, does this mean we're leaving now?" I asked.

"You are correct. On another note, you two have ranked up to E-rank adventurers," Alek said with a hint of pride in his voice. E-rank? Well, everyone has to start somewhere, I guess.

"We're leaving already?" Ares said, his hair now ruffled.

"I suppose if you two are ready, we can even leave right now," Alek said.
Ares placed his chin on his palm, humming in consideration. "Well, I don't see why we should stay here anymore."

Alek nodded. "Then, pack your things."


An hour or two later, we were buying some things for the road. Mostly just food, since I had protested to both Alek and Ares about my anguish over monster jerky. It took so long to convince them that I thought it was hopeless, but they eventually gave in. Our travel palette was now upgraded to… raw potatoes and bread.

Look, yes, it doesn't seem like much–but compared to the monster jerky, it's like a godsend to my tastebuds.

I was browsing through a few stands, looking for anything that caught my eye, and I found something. It wasn't necessarily anything special, just a titleless book. But when I flipped through it, it was empty. A journal.

It'd been a long while since I had thought about journals at all. It had been over a year since I had written in my journal from Buena Village, mostly because I wasn't keeping up with it much. Of course, I couldn't write in it anymore–it was half a world away.

But whenever I used to look through it back when I still had it, I found myself smiling at the contents. Being able to preserve memories like that in a world without photography was something I took for granted. I wanted to keep on doing that–recording my life so I could look back on it later and see how much different it was then.

It was just a small thing, but thinking about it made me miss Buena Village. The times when I would spend nights working on tutoring lessons. The days when I helped out my mother in her clinic for hours. The times when I take care of my baby siblings and have fun just talking to them about random topics that floated into their innocent heads.

I picked up the journal and paid for it. I held it close to my chest as we continued.

Just before we went through the gate to leave the city, Alek stopped by a rugged-looking establishment. There, he bought a large reptile, one of which I had seen after being around the city for a bit. They had six legs and bulgy eyes which strangely reminded me of the eyes of a horse.

These particular reptiles were like the continent's version of camels and horses. They carried the passenger's luggage with ease, as they were pretty bulky. It cost our party ten iron coins, leaving us with twelve and a half iron coins in total. Alek conversed a bit with the merchant, and then Alek got onto it to try to learn how to control it.

And of course, he did it perfectly.

I didn't expect any less, naturally. We loaded the thing up with our bags and headed out of the city. On our way, I overheard some guards whispering to themselves about something or someone they were watching out for.

"Dead End… Demon Continent…" was all that I could make out. Hmm… I've heard that name a bit. Maybe Alek knows a little more about it?

"Alek, do you know the name Dead End?" I asked.

"Hmm? Of course. That name's famous all over the continent, and has been for years now," He said.

You act like I was supposed to know that.

"Then could you tell me a little more about it?" I asked.

"Sure. The name's synonymous with disaster and fear, from what I've heard at least," Alek explained.

"Have you seen it?" I asked. I expected Dead End to be some sort of natural disaster or something thanks to the name itself.

"Can't say I have. I've heard some nasty rumors about it being a Superd, though," Alek explained. A Superd? I thought they weren't alive anymore!

Roxas had told me all about their actions. How they rampaged near the end of the last Human-Demon war. How they killed both foe and ally alike, not sparing a thought for women or even children. It was the world's boogeyman, and he hammered that fact into me.

"I set out on a long hunt for it. Even after years of searching, I could never find it. I killed a few things that were rumored to be Dead End, but it was never the real thing. It's part of the reason why I was so hesitant to leave the continent. I would be leaving my hunt unfulfilled," He continued.

"Oh, I-I'm sorry," I stammered out. I hated leaving a task half-done in both of my lives, so I sympathized with him.

"It's fine. There's much more opportunity out there in the world than just here, after all," He said, gazing off into the barren terrain.

I nodded silently. Ares was looking at the landscape as well, scanning the horizon while shading his eyes with his hand.

I exhaled as I looked back at the city of Rikarisu. It was the last we were going to see of it for all I knew. It was time to get to the next city.

Opportunity, huh?


Author's Note:

Thank you for reading this chapter, and for being patient. Lumi vs Dragon was a fun idea I thought of, and decided to put it here. Of course, she isn't strong enough to take it down by herself, so I wanted to take her ego down a few notches. This is NOT the last chapter of Volume 3, the next one will be. Stay tuned!

I wish I could upload faster, but my personal obligations don't let me do so. Expect the next chapter, Chapter 29, to be released by next week-Before October 16th

I'd also appreciate it if you checked out the Ao3 version, as when the chapters eventually have more mature content, I will only be able to post the full uncensored chapters there. Additionally, they have better grammar and retouched events. Thank you again!

Next Chapter: The Odyssey's Dawn