Standing elsewhere in the surprisingly large subspace was the young child in a red and blue polka-dot dress with leather shoes on, very similar to Rebecca’s. In her right hand was a sword, this one a High-rank magical tool for Gold ranks, but in her left was a small compass which had no outer markings yet pointed in a direction to her top-right. She questioned, “This points to Mala, right?”

Before entering, the group knew that leaving a child to navigate the pillar alone was a foolish choice. As such, Korridan suggested a pair of linked tools, and in the end, Mala picked out one she deemed best.

The compasses always pointed to one another unless blocked by a set of specific effects. With three primary ways to search for each other, it wasn’t exactly easy for someone to inadvertently block the effects. And so, Raccelline rotated to make the compass point right ahead and began walking forward, taking the group’s advice to heart.

If she saw a beast; kill it. If she saw a glowing object; take it. And if she saw an elf; also kill them.

“Should I ask them questions too… Maybe I could find out something?” She remembered what they said quite clearly, but all of them also agreed that most people hesitated when attacking a child. Maybe they’d answer her questions too!

For now, holding the large sword only caused it to snag on weeds and the trees around her, requiring constant effort to hold it up even if she found the blade easy to carry.

Right as she let her guard down for a mere moment, Raccelline jumped back in fright as the foliage nearby rustled.

Through it, she saw a young girl only twice her height walk out. With long brown hair, and in a rather cute shirt and skirt combination, the girls stared at each other in confusion for a second before baring their teeth. Raccelline stepped back with her weapon drawn, and compass stored, while the girl’s dainty nails transformed to inch-long claws with sharpness no less than the sword.

Not blood red claws though, just black with a faint hint of redness.

By no means an unlikely occasion… Raccelline ended up meeting the second-most dangerous being in the subspace. The only other dragon she’d seen in all her memories.

* * *

Elsewhere in the forest, tens of humans quietly journeyed towards the centre with little problems. By evading the native beasts, and rarely coming across one another, it was actually extremely easy to completely avoid combat!

Mala, Jaren, and Rebecca did everything in their power to avoid it, as it only became loud and messy, but Korridan did not share such luck as he lacked the sight, stealth, or complete vision of the other three. And unlike Icy, he could not instantly overpower foes…

Which left him fighting an opponent very early on, but forcing them to run right after, as the far lighter attacker realised that opposing a figurative wall like Korridan wasn’t going to end quickly.

But such noise alerted several nearby individuals rather quickly.

As well as several beasts, which led them to all scatter as the groups of gold tiers approaching were already an imposing threat. Fortunately, Korridan didn’t have to worry for too long as the noise of this battle also brought over Mala, who accelerated him and hid their presence from the following beasts. It was fortunate they appeared somewhat nearby, but it was already clear from her compass that Raccelline was on the complete opposite side of the subspace!

“Jaren is nearby, no clue where Rebecca’s gone. I’d bet that only those three can find her at least,” Mala whispered while they travelled through the forest at breakneck speeds, dashing past the thick trees with great agility.

“Three? Who else… Ah, the demon.” Korridan took a few seconds to pick up on the specifics, but he too agreed.

Rebecca’s stealth had actually reached a point where few Gold ranks could possibly see her. Even as a wizard, she required spells to see the sneaky girl, in which case, they knew that the female dragon wasn’t something to worry about. But the demon… Even without spells, he likely ignored such stealth.

Mala suddenly turned her head and glared into the distance, clearly mouthing out the sentence, “Jaren, if you release that arrow, I will leave you a fucking eunuch.” In the far distance, past more than a few lines of trees, a familiar archer with his bow drawn could be seen laughing silently to himself.

He believed every last one of those words.

The group continued to the centre, throughout the time not encountering Icy or Mala, but killing a few of the demon’s followers. Perhaps innocent in this matter, the group talked about this beforehand and opted to not take any chances as Icy tested a few bloodlines. At least three of this large group had also been ‘demonified’, which raised the question of just what the fuck happened.

How did no information about these demonified beings come out? How did the dragons not know?

But for now, survival deeply depended on everyone reaching the pillar as soon as possible. Hopefully, Rebecca and Icy would reach it first and things would end well for everyone.

Hopefully…

* * *

“Huhhhh, so you actually came in with your own dragon? And he’s just slightly weaker than me? That’s pretty interesting. I’m guessing you also wanted to get to the pillar then?” Two girls casually walked through the thick overgrowth, unperturbed by the surrounding beasts. The taller of the two spoke up more often, and posed far more questions.

“Yeah… That’s why we followed your group,” Raccelline replied carefully. She wanted to speak more, and explain things better. But then she thought about how dangerous the elf behind this dragon girl was, and she gulped, hard.

She had to lie. Had to hide things. And completely new to her, had to act.

It was strange, uncommon, and tough. As a result, she remained oddly silent after the two sides dropped their hostilities, but after spending so much time with Icy and the group, Raccelline was able to pick up that this girl wanted to know stuff. Specifically, she asked about her group’s strength, especially how powerful Icy was.

Was it because he was also a dragon? Raccelline initially thought she might want to be a ‘mom’, but the way she stared when talking about him looked so… Evil? Devilish? Just plain bad.

She really couldn’t figure out a better way to phrase that.

“That’s good then. We can all just meet up at the pillar and take the tests! It’ll work out great. I’m surprised that a young one like yourself is in such a dangerous place. You’re definitely strong enough. Definitely,” that same horrible staring almost sent a shiver up Raccelline’s back as it focused on her now.

But as she stared into the dragon girl’s eyes, she couldn’t help but think of something she desired for quite a while.

It was a chance to be extremely useful.

Turning back to the dragon girl walking beside her, Raccelline gave out a hearty and warm smile before replying, “Yeah! Can’t wait to see them again… Could I hold onto you, it’s a bit scary on my own.”

What was it that Mala said? Abuse her cuteness?

She didn’t really understand what that meant, but right now, getting next to this enemy meant everything. A flame lit inside Raccelline, one no different to the one ignited after the battle with that wyvern so long ago.

* * *

“How interesting, it seems some guests followed in.” In his signature turquoise robe, which scraped against the ground, a stunning elf walked through the forest. A few times he met with gold tier beasts, but simply punching towards it released a burst of mana which gored it instantly. Those who survived, ran in fear.

As there was no need to rush, he casually made his way towards the pillar, already having mapped out the distance and realising that he once more started furthest from the darned thing.

“I wonder… If they have a dragon, can I convince it? Likely not, that girl’s a real freak.” With a derisive smile, he continued on his way.

To the dragon pillar.

…

No one else could really be so casual though, and it was made obvious by the fact of a rather lengthy dragon firing off another spell to a nearby individual.

Another straight edge of light shot out from the underbrush and instantly decapitated another warrior.

[Killed Level 38 Gold ranked Demonified tracker! Received 3% EXP]

It was almost insulting how something merely 3 levels lower gave such a pittance, or perhaps the experience increase at level 40 was quite a bit higher than usual? The Nexus never gave numbers, so he could only guess.

Once more, these elves didn’t stand a chance without a skill active, and so few of them activated skills in advance. Icy could see that all of these lackeys cycled their mana, ready to enter battle at any time, but what did that matter when an attack moved several times faster than the speed of sound?

Light Blade was too weak to actually move at light speed, but hypersonic? That was child’s play for a light element spell, especially given its Intermediate true spell level.

“This damage is stupid though, why can I instantly kill Gold ranks?” He wanted to continue muttering to himself about the insanity, albeit with an obvious joy hidden in his voice. But a sudden prompt suddenly changed that.

[We can decrease the effects of ‘Nexus Aid Bonus’ if you feel this way]

No… He definitely didn’t want that. How stupid would he be for intentionally neutering himself.

Shaking his head intensely, he quickly replied, “No, no, it’s a fair reward for the work. I was just making a joke… That’s all.” The reply didn’t exactly inspire confidence so much as a cold sweat. Perhaps ‘warm sweat’ would be more accurate given Icy’s natural body temperature though. “It’s a lot less than I imagined, why wouldn’t he just bring a hundred or so with his identity?”

It had taken a while, proving a massive pain, but this demon elf actually was an official of the empire. Not as high rank as he claimed, or a Sage would’ve accompanied him here, but at the very least someone comparable with mid-level nobles like a marquis or count.

That sort of identity is still massive when compared to the smaller nations which weren’t a part of that empire, and it was no surprise that a single official garnered such status with ease.

Regardless, he neared the dragon pillar.

The thick forest suddenly came to a stop with a large barren plain opening up. It must have been around 500 metres in diameter, albeit slightly elliptic for some reason, but what stood out was the object at the centre.

A literal pillar cast of a creamy-white metal. It stood high at 10 metres, several times that of a normal elf, but far smaller than the trees which formed the forest. With a thickness of about half a metre, the thing was a massive, beefy construct which also descended into the ground a fair bit to stay upright. Not that it could ever possibly fall over.

On the pillar, one could see eight clearly divided major sections, as though individual pillars stacked up to form the whole thing. Each major section could further be split into 12 engravings of various wild beasts. But rather than messily draw all of these on every section, they were neatly arranged for convenience.

He rather casually sat beside the pillar and waited to see who came next. Unsurprisingly, he was greeted by Rebecca first. She crossed the field in stealth and simply nodded to him in that state, his tail’s slight swaying did its best to indicate that he noticed, but chose to keep her position hidden for now.

Neither of them talked, but it was immediately clear when someone finally appeared at the fringes.

“Icy!!!” Raccelline called out enthusiastically from the side, and he turned to greet her, expecting Mala to have met up with her in advance. Too bad the young girl forgot that calling him out in a place full of enemies was a rather bad idea.

At least she didn’t shout any…

His eyes opened wide and legs immediately flexed in preparation to jump, his spirit reacted fiercely and somehow moved its aura no differently from the cycling of mana, it too prepared to jump for combat.

Rebecca noticeably recoiled and braced for combat too, holding her breath and completely reducing her body’s movement to that of a stone. Even the blood flowing within her veins slowed to the point of a dying corpse, because some of their worst concerns came true.

Attached to the young girl’s arm was another older girl… The very dragon all of them wanted to avoid for now. And both of them could tell from that disgusting smile she had no desire to release Raccelline from her grip.

However, as Raccelline didn’t pull away, there was nothing he could do.

“So you’re the dragon that crawled in with us? Though, you seem more like a pet from my position.” She spoke in Draconic, further confirming her identity, and gently tussled Raccelline’s hair, much to the child’s dismay. It took quite a while for Mala to fix her hair every morning, and for a brief second, it revealed her unhappiness to Icy.

Too bad neither side knew how to really insult one another.

“No need to hide things, I’m sure some dirt can pick up Elvish? Looting the pillars like they’re your hoard, do you have no respect for your lineage?” Starting a rather pointless preamble, Icy looked for a way to move Raccelline away and kill his opponent. With magic surely more powerful, it came to a matter of evading her attacks.

At least, that’s how he thought things would go.

“Do you?” She replied with a simple remark, and one where he should have refuted her statement… But it just caught him so off-guard. Honestly, he didn’t respect his lineage; the methodology of dragons, while understandable, left him frustrated for quite a while now. And she picked up on that quickly enough, “Bit hypocritical aren’t we? Besides, you were so incapable of finding the pillar yourself that you needed to follow us inside?”

She didn’t give time for him to respond this time, as she tightened her grip on Raccelline’s wrist and pulled the child in front. Her spare hand moved in front, gently stroking the young girl’s neck with the back of her fingers, nails lengthening and transforming to dark claws.

“Now, now, now… Don’t get hasty. You’d hate for your master to die like this, right? She has so much mana as well, it’s a real mystery, but the scent alone really makes my heart flutter. Actually, I wanted to make you watch as I had my first taste.” She saw the aggression in his eyes as the claws pressed down on Raccelline’s neck and…

Icy’s gaze turned to one of both confusion and shock, eyes opening wide before sharpening once more. He released a deepened growl, but simply stood in place, watching as the sharp tip cut through Raccelline’s skin with ease and coated itself in blood. The bleeding continued and left stains on her polkadot dress.

But still, Icy did not move, and his tail swayed in a gentle motion to remind Rebecca to stay still. The desperation and anger in his mind already quietened as a great curiosity instead filled him.

Because, while a distance away, his senses vaguely caught Raccelline’s mana move. It was far from the precise imagery of his mana sight, but he could never be mistaken about this. In an unnatural fashion through conscious effort, the young girl actually moved her mana with intent. A child completely skipped the arduous process, which asked humans to evolve into a warrior, and met the basic requirement to use skills and spells.

She purposely weakened herself to let that dragon draw blood… But why? For that matter, how as well?

That dragon’s pale finger, coated in a thin film of matte red, entered her mouth, and it took all but three seconds for a moan of pleasure to escape her lips. It did not fit her appearance, not that it mattered, as she greedily covered her hand in more blood and swallowed every last drop in an increasingly degenerate manner.

The blood of this young child was the best she’d ever encountered. Even better than the one who gave her this wonderful opportunity, someone far above a useless Mithril rank.