Author’s Note: Hey, still atrociously unedited, chapter 20. Point out any mistakes you see, and enjoy!

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Our brief argument woke up few mercenaries around, and when they heard what was going on, they quickly roused the rest to watch the show. Who could blame them? Two A ranks fighting it out with each other?

We went to the side, where we had some place, and prepared ourselves. I made my claws appear, which was quite nasty to look at, since my fingers skin was stripped and fell off showing bone growing solid and sharp. My opponent took her sword from behind her back and threw them away. Bitch! She wanted to humiliate me more? I would definitely use this chance to grope her.

She looked at me with condescending smirk on her face, and gestured me to come at her. Fuming with anger, I complied, running at her as fast as I could, extending my hand towards her breast as I grew close. Ha! I got her. Or at least that was what I thought. Her image before me faded. Afterimage. I lost my balance and fell, supporting myself with the other hand at the last moment.

People were laughing around me, and my face grew hot. I quickly stood up and turned only to meet fist. I faintly heard cracking sound as my nose broke, and I flew back. That punch almost made me lose my consciousness. What was with that power?! Due to pain and humiliation I lost all my reason. I willed my body to change and it grew covered in scales. My nose was still broken and bleeding, but now I had armor on me. Let’s see what will she do now?

Remember the spiders in Lower Passage? The big ones that could pierce my scales? Turns out she was at least as strong as them. When I charged at her in my scaled form, she avoided swipe of my claws and with her extended hand she punched me again, this time in my jaw. Normally I would feel only slight discomfort when receiving strike to my scales. Her punch however, rattled my brain and I could feel that a bit more and my jaw would be dislocated.

Before I lost consciousness I could faintly hear her voice, saying that I was even weaker than she thought.

I woke up on the cart, among weapons and other cargo, still in my scaled form. My nose and jaw still hurt, but not as much as my pride. Sun was shining up high, noon must have passed by now. I lied there for a while, staring at the sky and thinking, when female voice interrupted my thoughts.

“Good morning Dragon Slayer. Did you sleep well?”

FU…ahh, whatever. When hearing her voice trickling with sarcasm when calling me Dragon Slayer, I had urge to kill this woman. But I calmed as quickly as I flared. The events of the night were still before my eyes, and I couldn’t do anything to refute her condescension. I still decided to ignore her, though, to save at least a bit of self-respect. She didn’t seem to mind, and continued.

“Anyway, I hope you will honor our agreement and tell me how you defeated the dragon now.”

“Agreement? We didn’t have any agreement, woman.”

Contrary to what I decided, I had to refute her statement somehow. I put as much venom as I could into emphasis on her being female. But when I looked for some reaction on her face, there was none. God damn it. Or rather she was looking at me as if I were child who did something silly. Gentle smile and pity. Oh fuck me, I behaved like butthurt kid. I think Adaptability finally kicked in. Why didn’t it yesterday during fight? I had no idea, maybe it worked only in some cases.

Calmer now, I decided to ignore her obvious lie about an agreement and simply answer. Maybe she would buzz off. So I told her whole story, how it was all due to lucky strike after being swallowed. She seemed dissatisfied.

“There must be more to that than luck! Did you have some kind of magic weapon? Or Artifact?”

“No, nothing. Simple steel blade.”

“You are lying! You must have casted some kind of spell at least!”

“You are free to believe what you want, I already told you what you wanted to know.”

When I finished talking I got off from the cart and went to the front of caravan. I could see smirks on faces of mercenaries I passed. Let them laugh. I won’t be bothered by it. Not even a bit. I absorbed scales and reshaped claws into fingers. Everyone here knew my identity, but elsewhere I would just scare people.

This bloody woman! She followed me, and started conversation again, as if nothing happened. But her tone changed to an apologetic one.

“Hey, Rob. I am sorry. I was a bit over the top during the night.”

What was with her?! I couldn’t read her at all. Didn’t she just a minute ago laugh at me? I looked at her suspiciously and she fidgeted and turned her eyes away.

“I didn’t mean to offend you when saying you were weak, I just can’t help it but speak my mind. It’s a bad habit of mine, sorry.”

She was really apologizing! Either that or she was the best actress I have ever seen. And I have seen many, lazing on Earth and watching movies all day long, believe me. I didn’t know how to respond so I simply told her not to worry about it. Her next words however…

“Would you like to travel together with me Rob?”

WHAT?! Where did that come from?!!!!! I stared at her in disbelief, and she grew red from embarrassment. My mind couldn’t process the information I just received. The mules behind me almost ran me over, because I stopped from shock. This elf really tested limits of my Adaptability. She waited for my response while fidgeting nervously under my stare.

“Why…why would you want to? Travel with me?”

“Actually, I came to HammersVille looking for you. I mean, not for you, for Dragon Slayer. Which…is you. Aww, what am I saying…”

She was showing her cute side. Her whole face was flushed, and she was speaking incoherently. That’s probably how I looked in her eyes yesterday. But her version was adorable, while I must have looked like an imbecile.

“But how did you know I was the man you were looking for?”

She calmed a bit, and answered normally.

“Oh, that was easy, I asked certain people to look for a man with eyes like yours in HammersVille. Then, I joined same mission as you did, in hope of making your acquaintance.”

She grew red again, when saying last sentence. Well, making acquaintance and punching someone’s lights out wasn’t really synonymous. Even though it was partially my fault. After I apologized as well, we made peace, and I decided to feel her out a bit before accepting or denying.

She was in elven forest to the north of HammersVille, when she heard from passing dwarfs about dragon being killed. She became an adventurer to explore the world and other continents, against the wishes of her family. For that purpose, she travelled around, doing missions and training herself, while looking for strong individuals to become her companions. Though I wasn’t strong, I had great luck and potential since I managed to kill the dragon.

In turn I told her about my goal, and that I needed to go to Depository of Knowledge to learn about my skills. And about Academy and Magic Guild, and my training. She said she didn’t mind accompanying me, since she already took the request for convoy. I finally agreed to become her companion, when she offered to train me in combat. But since I wanted to be free to do what I wanted, our agreement wasn’t eternal, I could leave her whenever I felt like it.