“Raccelline. The tree you waited at with your uncle, what did it look like?” Mala asked this question once more to make sure the girl’s memory had been right, but the group already had a rough idea of where to go in the Evelard range.

“It was white. And the leaves were snowy,” she replied with two simple descriptions of the tree, and a few of the group instantly recognised what sort of mana gatherer tree they were searching for. Rather than make trouble with the local beasts, they used her other bit of information to quickly head towards the central mountain, albeit haphazardly as a great encasement of ice completely covered it.

“We stayed at the tree next to the biggest mountain for a few days,” she told them a while back. It had been a glaringly clear piece of information, and with an adequate description, they just had to move towards the central mountain and find the Winter’s Hope trees that many knew of.

Now all that remained was finding that dragon. Compared to a three-month journey, it seemed almost trivial!

* * *

Back in his underground home, the dragon removed the two new corpses from his dimensional storage and tried to figure out where he should even go now. They could provide food for the days to come, but that barely helped in killing the wyvern. Well, either way, he had to take on a new form now, it would be stupid to assume nothing saw him run away from the battleground. With the sheer amount of mana used, he might have drawn every last creature from the surrounding node tree!

Of course, he left fast enough that none came before the battle’s end… None capable of stopping him that is.

He also had the corpse of a sea-freezing crab in hand, enough for a day or two of food given his voracious appetite from the life essence. Speaking of essence, he also needed a way to speed up its collection, there was a very real possibility of the wyvern simply hunting him across the mountain range. In which case, he needed a place to stay safe…

The very outskirts? No, that was a stupid idea, it was just a waiting game until one of their Intermediate true spells scanned over him.

He also considered hiding deep within the battlefield. That stone chamber could block out even a Sage’s mana, so how could a gold tier wyvern hope to compare? It was an option, and perhaps the best for the moment as it provided the deepest level of safety.

But, lastly, a rather risky choice. Hide in the ruins themselves. At least, after they checked for his body, it meant there would be no reason to ever return as he took everything of value! The steel tiers probably valued the knowledge to some degree as well, but the lords certainly didn’t. Their clans possessed books on all those topics, except its history, and could even just teach subordinates over time anyway. Which meant… in a few days it may as well prove to be the safest place in the whole mountain range!

If not for being so close to the wyvern’s residence, he might have journeyed over right this instant.

But for now, he saw it better to hide in the battlefield. The stone deep below provided a more than adequate defence at night while he spent the days focused on gathering bones right above.

With a decision made before the lords took their chances, he packed away the corpses and made a run for it. He overlooked it before, but every second truly mattered and he berated himself for not acting faster, instead lazing about and even returning to this barely hidden home!

It worked well against mediocre humans without any true search methods. But anything with Apprentice true spells saw through such a crummy hiding spot with ease.

In just minutes, everything of value had been cleared from the underground home and he used Instant Shift to escape without any digging. With a simple, “Merge,” he already rushed off to the northwest, and could only hope that this decision hadn’t been too slow. In theory, he only needed a short minute to reach the place, but his opponents were so fast that he might as well be a snail compared to them.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t them who were nearby, but rather a group of humans who already passed by and sat nearby the Winter’s hope tree that Raccelline directed them to. She repeatedly made claims that this was the exact tree that the dragon came to, and reality seemed to agree with her as Mala noted that the tree lacked a small volume of life essence.

Recently, a large amount of it was digested. Unless some other magical beasts had placed their children nearby, it had to be a dragon who entered their growth phase here.

Although, none dismissed the possibility of a beast lord being responsible. An unlikely possibility all things considered.

They did concern themselves that the nearby beasts would create issues following their appearance near the mana gatherer tree, but as everyone stood a fair distance away it was fine as always. Perhaps they’d just been on edge since they technically entered a war between some major beast clans from across the continent. However, it’d been well over an hour and Raccelline grew impatient as no one could tell when the dragon would return. And from what she remembered, the dragon lived nearby in the first place, while no one had any way to contact him. So, she did the obvious thing to get attention.

Shouted at the top of her lungs in hope it reached him.

None of them focused too much on Raccelline, as they presumed her rather well-adjusted and knowledgeable on things. Especially after months of travel she learnt some basics about surviving as an adventurer… And yet here they were, panicking as her voice reverberated throughout the mountain and evidently became known to everything in a multi-kilometre radius.

Mala had been preparing a large ritual to enhance a scanning spell, in hopes it found the dragon… But now?

The high-pitched child screamed out, “Where Are You, Dragon?” Many of the beasts around the tree looked over to the small girl from whom the voice came from, and recognised her from months prior… An incredibly scary girl, as she didn’t seem anything like ‘normal’ humans.

If there was one way to get something’s attention nearby, this was a pretty good one.

* * *

As for the dragon, he already reached the battlefield, descended into the hole left by the Sage, and safely set up his things in the egg-shaped room where the demigod’s corpse lay. But as he prepared to enter his Mind palace to pass the hours, the echo of a child’s voice travelled down the pit and bounced around the stone room.

He recognised it?

“I’m imagining things, aren’t I… There’s no way she could be here. But how am I hearing this then? Why now?” One idea was that a creature somehow tricked his mind into hearing the voice of something he met in the past, but this fell apart considering it’d never happened before in the whole battlefield. Which left just one possibility, and a pretty daft one at that.

For just a few seconds, he climbed back up the pit with his spirit and cast Sky Sight Barrier. At first, he couldn’t possibly tell where the noise came from, but it clearly wasn’t nearby.

Until he saw the upright figures near that Winter’s hope tree…

And then he saw her. The young girl who shouldn’t have ever met him again. A child destined for greatness who should only be here due to her uncle, but was instead with a group of humans he couldn’t recognise in the slightest. Perhaps the Sage was out of sight and silently watched her as to let the girl have her ‘own adventure’... Or had something happened which required her to travel here?

He certainly didn’t have any particularly strong emotions towards her, but if there were any that stood out… It was sincerity.

And of all the things he disdained these past few weeks, it’d been the way his trust had been broken by that wyvern. The question remained if whatever sincerity remained within that girl still mattered, from that princess who pouted but begrudgingly accepted her faults when told off by her uncle. And only then would he learn why she came. Why Raccelline and a group of strangers travelled to this place, whether by teleportation or by foot did not matter in the slightest.

On a side note, Raccelline was the emperor’s child, and if he ever wanted to reside in the empire he absolutely couldn’t allow any harm to come to her.

He cancelled the spell and made an immediate choice.

The humans accompanying her seemed to be somewhat capable. At least, none were mad at her for the sudden shout, although a couple of them did rush over and hush her, but at no point did they actually lay a hand on the child, simply motioning and providing what seemed to be verbal correction.

In his merged state, there was no way he could risk staying outside too long though. That shout might draw over the crab, roc, and wyvern in a matter of minutes, which meant all of them had to hide as soon as possible!

When he bounded over the snowy field, it wasn’t hard for the humans to sense him, and upon nearing, he too sensed their mana. Five steel tiers, so casually travelling with her. They weren’t guards. They couldn’t be with such low power.

In other words, he concluded that this was either an ‘adventure’ with a real guard nearby… Or something bad happened at home.

Perhaps she just ran off because of a falling out with her father. That’d be the ideal, hopeful scenario all things considered. But then it raised the question of why she came to this mountain, and sought him out of all the possibilities in the wide world.

That reminded him of something as he said, “I should’ve practised some more.”

He wasn’t the only one to notice a swiftly approaching figure, evidently at steel tier based on Mala’s readings. They began to draw out weapons, but soon after put them away as most of their faces scrunched up.

It had to be the dragon… But it was also far smaller than they imagined.

Just a waist-high creature instead of the towering adult they’d imagined this whole time. It had been assumed that the dragon she sought out was incredibly powerful, how else could it protect her? But this dragon was a youngling! Perhaps not even a year old! It was suicidal to ask it to protect them on this journey, and as the seconds passed, the group’s despair rose higher and higher.

Who’s to say it felt any loyalty to the empire or Raccelline as well?

Not that any received a chance to talk as it stopped in front of them and spoke in slightly broken Baranot. “Follow. The lords will kill you.” He addressed the adjoining group coldly, still somewhat vigilant of them but also trying to completely transfer the level of danger at the moment. But immediately after, he switched his gaze to the young girl with shining eyes and gently told her, “Talk after hiding, is that okay, Raccelline?”

She nodded and followed behind the dragon, even speeding up alongside him at ease. Had she always known how to move with her full strength? It made this far more convenient.

Everyone else followed behind, unable to really go against what was happening.

Besides, if the dragon was being hunted, then surely it had a place to hide from such forces and survive in this place; none fought against his movements and followed the two children. After a slightly slower return, they reached the battlefield and dropped into the egg. Korridan held Raccelline as they all descended with ease, most of the group shocked out of their minds by the sight. The ring of magnificent corpses which looked down on them all as insects, not to mention the walls of such a beautiful blue stone which blocked all their mana and senses!

For the dragon and Raccelline, it was far less awe-inspiring though. The former saw a Sage break into here, and received the divinity of a demigod. As for the latter… It barely seemed that amazing compared to the magic she grew up with.

“Now, can you tell me why you are here?” As the dragon drew their attention once more, its wafer-scaled body and sweet scents left their mouths watering… But the question caused their minds to blank.

The surprise over their situation was one thing… But this youngling was about to have the most shocking ten minutes of its life.

Albeit, not a very long one.

Before the group even began to speak though, they heard the air crack. Repeated shockwaves like thunder echoed across the mountain range, but the dragon knew better than to check. The wyvern and roc took action and scoured the mountain range for them all. A group of humans who sought out the dragon… And naturally, the dragon in question. They’d evaded capture by a matter of minutes, and as all outside mana failed to pierce into here, they could ignore the wyvern entirely.

Although, the specifics of the material are a bit more special than ‘blocking’, as most detection methods wouldn’t even see the stone!

“Also, how are you?” Raccelline didn’t speak though, as she just walked up and gently hugged him. It was a first for the young dragon, and he didn’t at all know what was going on… except that it seemed serious. Little wet patches appeared on his scales and the dragon didn’t raise any complaints about her hug.

From the group’s similar melancholy, she needed this.