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With that, I spent the rest of the day reading with Aquarina. She had a hard time learning, but she got through some words without much problem. At some point, she got sleepy and ended up sleeping on my shoulder…
Such a cute little girl, I'll make sure to protect her and become her good friend. I'm sure she'll become a talented young magician sometime in the future.
In fact, even right now, she's exuding a powerful aura of mana within her. Although I can't properly discern it, her mana aura is blue and white. If I infer her attribute through the colors, then it's possible that she has affinity for Water and Life.
There's also the fact that she' incredibly acute to energy fluctuations, even more than any of us, or our parents who are such strong Heroes. She was able to sense the malice within Beelzebub even from down here. Not only that, but she's even capable of seeing through the intentions of people.
It's a very strong ability… from one perspective, it's as if no one can deceive her. In other words, people can't lie or trick her. She'll always know what they truly intend to do. Of course, that doesn't mean she can read minds or something, but she can definitely emotions and intentions.
Speaking of which, her parents told me that if she got close to me so fast, then that meant she had seen through my intentions and found out that I was a good person... I don't particularly think of myself as a good person, but I guess I don't have bad intentions at the very least.
As I was continuing to read the book, I slowly moved her over my bed and left her there. At some point I got sleepy and moved to her side… and just slept. While sleeping, I didn't appear in the black landscape with the System in there. Instead, I found myself in a place blazing with fire everywhere. A volcanic landscape.
I looked around and I noticed that my skin was burning. It hurt. I tried to move around, but I was barefoot. So, my feet were also burning. It hurt… a lot.
Suddenly, as I tried to hurry and run away from this place in desperation, I sensed something big. A presence behind me. It glared at me with its two bloodshot eyes. I slowly glared at it… only to notice that…
A gigantic, red-scaled dragon was glaring at me.
Is this the guy my parents killed? But how?
"Grrr… how frustrating… how hateful! How come I cannot rest in peace?!" he roared.
"…"
"You trapped my soul, accursed witch! Free me at once! I fought bravely and died like a warrior! I want to die in peace! You've imprisoned me here… free me at once or I shall burn your soul!" he roared.
How come he's here? I don't remember seeing him in the system before.
Is it because of the necklace made with his magic crystal? Or is it because I ate him?
Or is it a combination of all of that, plus the EXP I got from him that made this possible?
I've read from some book back then that magic crystals possessed a part of the soul of the monsters they belonged to, becoming one of the main reasons why they're so strong, containing their very essence.
With that being said, I wish I could free him, but I don't really know how to do that.
On top of that, the system still hasn't appeared. Though, I don't think she can come here… wherever this place may be.
Guess I'm all by myself against this thing…
At this moment, its intimidating presence was so strong, I couldn't help but fall to my knees.
Soon, the flames began to consume my body. At this point, I question myself as to how I'm resisting this pain. I definitely have no clue how, that's for sure.
Is it because I blew myself up in my previous life? At the very least, it was more powerful than what I'm feeling right now.
"Answer me! Why are you ignoring me?" he asked. He had a masculine voice, so I assumed the dragon was a guy.
"I don't know how you appeared here, nor do I have a way to free you," I replied.
"Tch…! The Dragon King will come for your soul one of these days and free his son Ignatius!" he roared in response.
"Say whatever you want, I guess. It's not like you can do much other than cause me pain," I responded.
"What?! How come such a little ant is so resistant to the searing flames of my soul?!"
"I don't know. They just lack a little bit of… something."
"H-How dare you!"
He roared angrily as he opened his gigantic jaws before grilling me alive.
Oh man… it got pretty hot all of a sudden.
Unngh…
When he finished scorching me alive, he looked at me again.
At this moment, I was a charred corpse on volcanic land. I bet this would have been a traumatic experience for most. On other hand, the only thing I could think about was…
"Pretty good fire. Have you thought about becoming my familiar instead?"
"W-What… you survived my flames?!"
"We're not in our physical forms here. Instead, we're in our astral projections. I won't receive true damage no matter how much you torture me, only pain…" I told him. After that, my body suddenly emerged from my charred corpse anew.
"A-Ahh…"
I slowly walked towards him. At this moment, I saw a hint of fear in his eyes.
"Get away from me, you accursed witch! GROOOARR!"
And soon, he began to throw fire at me again.
No matter how much I tried to calm him down, he was furious, so I ended up ignoring him and somehow found a way to escape this strange astral landscape after a few hours of digging around the place.
After that, I ended up in my usual soul landscape with the system on it.
The dragon seemed encapsulated inside a fiery red bubble atop the black space.
"Sylph, are you okay?! I tried to get you out of there so many times, but I was powerless against that dragon's will…" the System muttered.
"Oh, so I guess you tried to come for me… yeah, I'm fine. He just tried burning me for a few hours, nothing much," I responded.
"N-Nothing much? Normal people would have gone insane from the pain at that point…"
"Well, I'm definitely not a normal person. I live with the pain. In my previous life, I had to live with a giant wound on my skull with a missing eye. You know how deep and agonizing the pain was? Especially when it got infected? Oftentimes I had high fever to the point I thought I was nearing my death… after going through all of that, being burned alive only seems like a trifling matter…"
"…I see."
"And uh… I also blew myself into bits if that helps," I added, chuckling.
"I-I don't think that's a laughing matter!"
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