Chad put down his drink and furrowed his brow. He turned his head to the side, and the three red horns on his forehead nearly impaled someone who was walking by. He stood up and walked to the window, the people in his path parting like water. A nearby demon with silver horns sprouting from her temples approached the window as well, and the two demons arrived at the same time. They both looked up at the sky and frowned. In the distance, three objects were falling from the sky.

“Dragon?” Tina, the leader of Swirling Winds, asked.

“Do you think the Edward family tamed one?” Chad asked. He turned his head to face Tina. “Shall we check it out?”

“Pass,” Tina said and shook her head. “Nothing good comes from interacting with dragons.” Her eyes seemed to glaze over as she sighed. “Do you remember that human child we encountered a decade ago, the one that was adopted by dragons?”

Chad’s eye twitched. “How could I possibly forget? He’s the king of the humans now, and I heard from some people that he was ruling the dwarves or something along those lines too.”

“I wonder how strong he is now,” Tina said and placed her hand on the windowsill. She frowned, and her horns glowed blue. A wall of ice emerged from the ground in front of the bar, large enough to block the sky from view. Not long after, there was a crashing sound, and the ice shattered. A harsh wind blew past, causing the two demons’ hair to flutter. The building shook, but that was all. Other buildings in the distance, ones that hadn’t been protected by Tina’s ice wall, were on the verge of collapsing.

Chad shrugged. “Who knows?” he asked. “Maybe he hasn’t gotten stronger at all. Dragons take centuries to mature, don’t they? He’s Tafel’s husband too. Why don’t you just ask her?”

Tina rolled her eyes. “I haven’t spoken to Tafel in a long time,” she said and pursed her lips. “It’s like she forgot about us, the ones who taught her; she hasn’t even sent us a single letter.” She drummed her fingers against the windowsill. “I wonder how she’s doing.”

Chad shrugged again. “She’s probably having the time of her life,” he said. “Imagine having a dragon as your significant other. Would there be anything in the world that you couldn’t do?”

“I imagine she wouldn’t be able to kill a dragon and wear its scales as armor,” Tina said. Her brow furrowed. “Do you think that dragon has anything to do with the Dragon Slayers? If it happened to be passing by and saw those arrogant assholes wearing the skin of its fellow kin, it’d probably attack them, right?”

“Like you said,” Chad said. “Nothing good comes from interacting with dragons.” He turned around and headed back to his seat.

Tina followed him. “You’re not going to see what’s happening? I thought you were a curious individual.”

Chad snorted and picked up his drink before sitting down. “I drank too much,” he said and shook his head. “Besides, this is the Edward family’s auction. If a problem arises, it’s up to them to resolve it; otherwise, if I went out there and had to clean up a mess, wouldn’t I just be working for free? I hate working for free.”

Tina smirked. “What if one of your party members gets curious?”

“Mine?” Chad asked. “Your party is the one full of busybodies. If anyone’s party members shows up to fight the dragon, they’ll be yours.”

***

Vur tilted his head and stared at the smoldering remains in front of himself. There was a clumpy pit in the ground ahead, and blackened rubble lay smoking on top of it. He frowned and used his tail to sweep aside some smoldering parts, some still glowing orange. “Did they escape?” Vur asked and scratched his head. “Where’d they go?”

Stella came out of Vur’s snout and sat on top of his forehead. “Don’t you think three meteors were a bit overkill?”

“Impossible,” Vur said and dug through the rubble. “They killed three dragons. Three meteors should be nothing to them.”

“No one said they killed them at the same time,” Stella said. “Think about it. Are dragons really that easy to kill? They probably prepared a lot of specialized equipment like the dwarves’ thunder shooters. It’s not like they can bring those around with them everywhere they go. Your meteors probably killed them.”

Vur scratched his chin, leaving traces of soot on his scales. “They were actually that weak?”

Before Stella could reply, the rubble shifted, and coughing sounds echoed outwards from a tiny hole that appeared. Vur bent down and picked up a large slab of stone, what used to be the wall of the room, and tossed it to the side. In the space below, there were six sorry-looking figures in various states of consciousness.

“See,” Vur said and nodded. “They’re not that weak.” He took in a deep breath through his nose and drew his head back, his chest ballooning outwards.

“Uh, I really think they’ll die if you do that,” Stella said but didn’t do anything to stop Vur from continuing. After all, she was such a tiny fairy, even smaller than one of Vur’s scales. What could she do?

Joseph stared up at Vur with despair in his eyes. His face was covered in a layer of black dust, and his armor was cracked, dozens of scales missing from it. His party members had been rendered unconscious from the impact despite the multiple layers of barriers they had erected, and Keith looked like he was on the verge of death. The ocean-blue dragon’s chest swelled even further, and its mouth didn’t look like it could hold back its breath any longer. Joseph closed his eyes, hoping the end would be quick; however, after a few seconds had passed, he realized he wasn’t dead. He opened his eyes and was greeted by an expensive-looking robe. A demon holding a staff was standing in front of him, and a barrier shielded the hole he and his party members were laying in.

Joseph cleared his throat, watching as a layer of frost covered the barrier, obscuring everything but the demon’s back from view. “You’re….”

“Delphina, Swirling Winds,” the demon said without turning back. “You can thank me after we survive this.”

“Is anyone else coming?” Joseph asked.

“With such a huge commotion, every adventurer on this island will be heading over,” Delphina said. “It shouldn’t be too hard to defeat a dragon if we all work together.”