“Twenty bronze coins.”

Nur looked at the clerk with a large grin on his face and said “Of course, right away!” he put the exact amount on the table with a loud slap.

Then, after taking his membership card, he proceeded to walk out of the library while laughing like a madman.

The clerk just looked at him and muttered “Why does this place only attract weirdoes?”

After he went outside, Nur looked at the sky and sighed.

“Desolai, where are you when I need you the most? I am stuck in this crazy reality that keeps spinning around and around….I just.” He paused, in deep thought. “I just need to find a solution to this in order to survive!” The pieces of the puzzle seemed to fit together now.

This was the day the knights have shot down the dragon with the giant spear, but they only brought the Dragon’s body after two days, meaning they did not find the dragon yet. The body marks that the dragon’s corpse had in his previous loop made it clear that Dragon did not die from the enchanted spear, but it was grievously injured, the killing blow was administered by swords. That meant that the Dragon was alive, injured, but alive, somewhere outside the city.

“Come to think of it, that big red dragon was angry about massacre of his children, could it be?” That red dragon the knights have hunted down, could it be the reason the usually non-aggressive Red dragons have sacked the city was because of them?

It was very plausible and it did make sense. Telling the citizens that Red Dragons would come in six days is a wasted effort. Nur’s attempts to do so in previous loops had showed him just how ignorant the people in town really are. Tell them that their lives are in danger and you get either thrown out or beaten up.

Using the same gate he entered before, Nur exited the city walls.

“Huh? Didn’t you just enter the city? Why exit it so quickly?” one of the guards had asked him, to which Nur could only shrug and say that something urgent came up.

When he came in to the city, he used one of the roads to come in, but surrounding the roads were forests. The question was whether to go towards the right or the left. Nur remembered the direction the band of knights came from, so he chose to go to the right.

As he entered deeper and deeper into the woods, the sounds of the city ended up being left far behind. Climbing over countless ponds, hills and bushes, Nur looked for anything that could even remotely resemble a dragon.

As he looked at the woods, he saw that the tops of some trees had many broken branches, almost as if something crash landed, bulldozing right through them. Nur followed the trail of damaged trees, deeper and deeper into the woods, now entering the area that was almost completely covered by the leaves, with trees like walls surrounding an open area.

There, on the ground, lay a large red dragon.

Nur approached it closer and was able to take a better look. The dragon did resemble a large red lizard with wings, muscular legs and tail, spiky back, and very sharp teeth. Its eyes were yellow, staring at Nur with a focused gaze; obvious killing intent could be felt. The only thing preventing the Dragon from moving was the gigantic spear that was embedded through the left wing into the body of the dragon, pinning it to the ground.

With a growl, the dragon opened its mouth.

“HAVE YOU COME TO FINISH ME OFF, HUMAN?”

“No” Nur replied, looking at the large eye that was size of his own head.

“YOU CAN HEAR ME?”

“I most certainly can.”

“JUST WHO ARE YOU? IF YOU ARE NOT HERE TO TAKE MY LIFE, THEN WHY HAVE YOU SHOT ME DOWN WITH THE ACCURSED SPEAR?”

“Hey! I was not the one who shot you down, ok! I mean, I knew you were shot down, but it wasn’t me who did it!”

“HMMM” The dragon looked Nur in the eye. “IT SEEMS YOU ARE TELLING THE TRUTH, BUT HOW CAN YOU A HUMAN CAN UNDERSTAND THE VOICE OF A DRAGON?”

“I don’t think that is very important right now. Anyways, can you get that spear out of your body yourself?”

“THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE. THE SPEAR WAS ENCHANTED TO BE DEADLY TO DRAGONS. IN MY CURRENT STATE I CAN BARELY MOVE.”

“Then, do you want me to take that spear out of you?”

Red dragon looked at Nur with confused gaze.

“WHAT DID YOU SAY?”

“I said do you want me to take that spear out of you?”

“THAT WOULD BE KIND, BUT…”The dragon’s eyes now narrowed into slits. “ARE YOU TRYING TO USE THAT SPEAR IN ORDER TO KILL ME WITH IT?”

“No, in fact I want just the opposite.”

“YOUR EYES ARE TELLING THE TRUTH. IF YOUR INTENTIONS ARE TRULY ARE NOT MALEVOLENT, THEN….”

“Ok” Nur proceeded to climb on top of the dragon, before the dragon even finished its sentence.

“WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STEPPING! I AM A PROUD RED DRAGON, NOT A STEPPING LADDER!”

“Give me a break, this is the only way I can reach for the spear, I am not exactly a giant, you know!”

Dragon reluctantly complied, now flexing its body slightly to allow Nur to move towards the spear. Now Nur’s hands were touching the spear.

“Wow, it really is deep there.”

“IT ONLY IS INCHES AWAY FROM PIERCING MY HEART.”

“I will try to pull it out, but I warn you, this might be very painful.”

With a mighty pull he proceeded to pull the spear out of the dragon’s body. It was a rather excruciating process for the dragon.

“IT HUUURTS!!!!!” dragon was howling in pain, breathing flame on the ground.

“Just bear with me for one more moment!” The spear was very long, so taking it out entirely took a lot of pulling. After pulling it with all his strength, Nur finally managed to get the entire spear out of the dragon’s body.

“Phew…” Nur sighed as he threw the spear down towards the ground. Curiously, he noticed that the wound on dragon’s body quickly started to heal as soon as the spear stopped touching it. The large wound now became closed by skin, the skin on the damaged wings seemed to be slowly regenerating.

Nur climbed off the Dragon. Now face to face with it.

The dragon rubbed the spot on its chest where just moments ago was a large hole. Now the dragon focused its eyes upon Nur, standing tall on four legs, it bent its head slightly to look at Nur directly.

“I DON’T UNDERSTAND, YOU HAD THE PERFECT OPPORTUNITY TO KILL ME, HUMAN. WHY DID YOU HELP ME INSTEAD?”

“My name is Nur, Nur Finnerman. Not a human.”

“NOT A HUMAN?” the dragon sniffed the air around Nur with its snout. “YOU SMELL OF HUMAN BUT NOT QUITE. YOU REEK OF DEATH.”

“No surprise there” Nur shrugged. He was the servant of Shinigami, an angel of Death, so it was quite natural for him to be associated with it.

“YOU GAVE ME YOUR NAME, ALLOW ME TO DO THE SAME. MY NAME IS AIDA, AIDA HARU, AND A PROUD RED DRAGON OF THE NORTHERN MOUNTAINS.”

“I see.”

“NUR FINNERMAN. FOR HELPING ME TO ESCAPE DEATH AT THE HANDS OF HUMANS YOU HAVE MY ETERNAL GRATITUDE.” The dragon bowed its head down which reminded Nur a little of how people bow in respect. Seeing a dragon do so was rather strange on so many levels.

“Likewise. By the way, can you escape? There will be dragon hunting knights coming here in less than two days, if they find you they will kill you, and then dragon papa is going to show up and…”

“DRAGON PAPA?” Dragon looked at Nur with puzzled look.

‘Oh, right. That didn’t happen yet, so she doesn’t know.’ Nur briefly remembered the gigantic Red dragon; there was one distinguishing trait he had. The top of his head, three horns, and the one horn on the right was slightly chipped making it shorter than the other two.

“A Red dragon just like you, with three horns on its head, a horn on the right side is chipped a little. Do you know of him?” Nur asked, half expecting to be proved wrong.

“THAT DRAGON IS MY FATHER.” Aida said with a grunt. “WHY WOULD HE SHOW UP HERE, I TOLD HIM I WOULD FIND PARTNER MYSELF!”

“A partner?”

“A MATING PARTNER. RED DRAGONS LEAVE THEIR NEST IN ORDER TO FIND A SUITABLE PARTNER FOR THEM.”

“Don’t red dragons only fall in love with other red dragons?”

“NOT NECESSARILY, BUT THAT IS WHAT MY FATHER WOULD WANT.”

“Don’t tell me…” Nur looked at the dragon with cringed look; the dragon seemed to fidget a little from nervousness. “You ran away from your folks because you wanted to find love? Are you kidding me?” Nur was rather shocked that many of his deaths were caused due to the dragon’s search for love. It sounded so ridiculous to him that he kind of snapped.

“IT’S NOT LIKE THAT. I MEAN I DID FLY AWAY, BUT NOT LIKE THAT!” dragon seemed rather flustered from what Nur said to it. “I HAVE MY PARENTS’ APPROVAL, MY FATHER DISAGREED WITH MY DECISION BUT HE WAS SUPPORTIVE OF IT.”

“Reaaaallyyy???” Nur purposely said it with tone full of disbelief and extended the phrase to empathize his point.

“IT IS TRUE! I AM NOT LYING!” the noble dragon seemed to be acting more like a flustered girl, which gave Nur a slight hunch on who he was dealing with, but he wasn’t too sure.

“If you are looking for women to take to your cave, there are plenty inside the city.”

“IT’S NOT LIKE THAT! I AM A FEMALE DRAGON.”

Nur just stared at Aida Haru with blank look.

“Really?” he wasn’t really sure of the dragon’s gender or how to even differentiate between them, for all he knew they were one gender giant fire breathing flying lizards!

“YES. I AM A BONAFIDE FEMALE DRAGON.”

“Then does that mean you are going to kidnap men instead?”

“WHAT IN THE WORLD DO YOU THINK DRAGONS ARE?”

“Giant monsters that kidnap people for snacks and harem?” Nur said without a hint of shame.

“YOU TRULY ARE ONE STRANGE HUMAN.” Aida said with a sigh. “ONLY SOME DRAGONS SEEK MANY MATES, I AM ONLY LOOKING FOR ONE MATE.”

“Sorry, I don’t know any other dragons in the vicinity.”

“IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE DRAGON, YOU KNOW?” Aida said with a chuckle, now the scales on its body started to glow, and in a moment the Red Dragon was gone. In its place was a woman with some scaly patches of skin, a tail, spikes on her body, and horns on her head. She also had wings. “Dragons are shape shifters, so we can take any form we desire.” She said that without a hint of embarrassment about her bare body

“I see.” Nur muttered, he took off his shirt and approached her and with half closed eyes said “you may want to put this on.”

“Oh” she now realized her state of undress and calmly put the shirt on herself. Her legs and tail still were visible. “Apologies, I have not taken on this form ever since I have left my home.”

“I see.” Nur muttered. Now that he took a closer look at her, she seemed rather stunning looker, those yellow slitted eyes, and those sharp fangs in her mouth, her red hair. She looked like some beautiful human he never could imagine in his dreams. “We may have gone off topic. Just as I was saying before, can you leave this place?”

Aida looked at Nur with a puzzled expression before saying. “Nur, do I look human to you?”

“You would if you hide your tail and horns and put on some pants.” Said Nur.

“I see, in that case…” Her form changed back to her dragon form. “I WILL EXPLORE THIS PLACE TO MY HEART’S CONTENT.” She started to flap her wings causing wind to push Nur, making him cover his face with his hands.

“Wait! What about going back home?”

“I SHALL DO THAT AFTER FINDING A MATE. FAREWELL, NUR FINNERMAN. MAY FATE MAKE US MEET AGAIN” The dragon’s body now flew up towards the sky, without a doubt going towards the human city.

“Oh boy, what the heck have I done?” instead of making the dragon leave, he ended up having the dragon go towards the city. “Now without a doubt she will be killed and dragon papa is going to burn this place down to the ground.”

When he got back to the city, he saw a person wearing mismatched clothing, with a scarf on her head, a long sash on her waist, gigantic pants several sizes too big. She was wearing a cloak that had a large bump. The entire body concealed everything except her face. Those razor sharp teeth gave away her identity rather easily.

“Well, maybe not.” Nur just pretended to not notice the poorly disguised dragon walking in plain sight.

“I did not see anything, it’s just in my imagination…” as much as he wanted to deny it, there now was a dragon loose inside the city. He may have altered the events so that red dragon attack would not happen in six days, but now there was a bonafide dragon hanging around the city. Still, she was in her humanoid form so none would suspect her of being a giant monster, so it was not a complete loss for Nur. But he was hesitant to call this a victory either.