"Hey there. Sorry, I am late," said the man with spiky red hair.
"Why are you bringing that?" asked Lyra. She pointed to the inflatable inner tube.
"This? I thought I would blend more perfectly with this in hand. Is that not the case?"
"Did you see someone bringing an inner tube on your way here?"
"Hmm… I'm not sure," replied the red-haired man.
"Of course, you are not sure. There is no one else that brought that thing around. You make yourself stick out more."
"Is that so? There was no culture like this in my home, so I don't know how to blend."
While Lyra and the man are conversing, Linden is observing the red-haired man from head to toe. He is looking for some unique characteristics of a dragonkin. Maybe some scales, horn, or who knows, perhaps he breathes fire when exhaling air?
"And this gentleman here is?" asked the dragonkin man to Lyra.
"This is Linden, our newest addition to the group," explained Lyra.
"Nice to meet you, senior," greeted Linden.
"Right, I heard that the manager wanted to recruit another person. He finally recruits somebody, huh?" said the man.
"Nice to meet you too. I am Traekshaeg. You can call me Traek. Also, my name might be hard to be pronounced, so you can call me anything."
"A-Anything?"
"Track, Trake, Treik, Traek, anything. As long as it still sounds somewhat similar, I understand that you are calling me."
"Okay, I will try pronouncing it correctly," said Linden.
"Then, where is the summoning circle?" asked Traek. "I was in the middle of another job when I got notified about your circle. They said that they want for me to check the circle. So, I want to finish the work here as soon as possible."
"It is in the basement of this building. Follow me," said Lyra.
Lyra leads the way inside the building. Traek follows soon, and Linden is on the backmost.
"Linden, Traek here is a master in reading magic circle. He can understand what a magic circle will do when it gets activated. In this case, he can know where the summoning circle will be connected to," said Lyra.
"Eh? Really?" asked Linden. He put his hand on his chin, thinking before asking another question, "What is the reason to learn about where the summoning circle will lead to? Is it so that we can expect the summoned creature?"
"That is… not the reason. The real reason is to notify the related dimension manager. That way, they can also check the breach in their dimension," said Traekshaeg.
"I see… Then do you need to check all summoning circles? I don't think that is efficient?" asked Linden.
"Me? Checking all summoning circles? That is surely not happening," said Traek. He laughed a bit, "the ones that I check are summoning circles that were not recognized by the system. Most of them are made using newer methods not known by the system."
Linden nodded. He now knows that Traekshaeg will only get notified if the system can't determine how the circle will work.
It didn't take long for those three to reach the room where the circle was located. Traek started analyzing the magic circle by looking at its shape and mark.
The summoning circle is 'written' on the floor. And it was not using a marker, chalk, or other writing tools. Instead, the floor is carved in a certain shape to make the summoning circle.
"I see," muttered Traek. His hand traced each part of the line. Meanwhile, his eyes are focused on that part that he touched.
"Ah," a short gasp escaped Linden's mouth.
Traekshaeg's body has changed from the human form to the dragonkin's body. The smooth skin of a human has changed to a scaly snake-like skin, with those scales dominated in red color.
Traek's neck also changes in length. It is more than triple of a human neck. There is also a tail around a meter in length that come from behind his body.
Traek's face also morphed into a dragon head with sharps tooth that can be seen. There are also a pair of hard horns that grows from the back of the head.
The transformation surprised Linden, making him gasp. Luckily, Traek didn't seem to notice Linden's gasp.
"Don't worry. He will not notice anything whenever he does his work," said Lyra.
"I see. By the way, what should we do now, Senior? Just waiting?" asked Linden.
"Yes. But also keep an eye on the surrounding. We are the ones that defend him if something happens."
…
Ten minutes passed, and Traek finally finished his analyses.
"Ah- I formed back to my dragon form," said Traek. He noticed the gaze from Linden and smiled, "Is this your first time seeing a dragonkin?"
"I'm sorry. Yes," replied Linden. Linden can't move his eyes from Traek since Traek changed to his dragon form.
"Do you want to touch?" said Traek. He pointed his arm to the scales on his arm.
"Can I?"
Linden moves his right arm slowly to the pointed place. He softly touches the scale of Traek. Linden can feel the smooth and cold feel of the scale. Yet, he also senses that each scale is imbued with undeniable strength and resilience.
"Woah… This is so cool," said Linden unknowingly.
"Is it? Well, thank you," said Traek.
"Ah-"
"Hahaha, don't worry. I also did the same when I first met with a human. Lyra also did the same when she first met me. You will meet with other species sooner or later. At that time, maybe you will get less shocked."
Linden looked at Lyra. There is no movement from her. Maybe she agrees with what Traek said.
"Anyway, I have found where this circle will connect to. It is a world that is dominated by a creature specialized in magic. We usually call them Demon. We are lucky to found this before this becomes a bigger issue," said Traek.
"Lately, I have found many summoning circles that lead to that dimension. I wonder what happened that makes this pop up everywhere?" wondered Traek.