As I plopped out of the gate, it closed almost right as I got out of it.
I started looking around to find myself in a very familiar place.
While at the same time it looks different, bigger.
This is a lot of expanding to do in just the month maximum I was in there.
I bumbled around, somehow not running into anyone until I found one of the bigger houses and started peering through the window.
I would be scared to see a dragon outside my window staring at me, but I hope I can just say sorry if they catch me.
I spy a bed, a desk, and a girl that looks like she's in her teens sitting at the desk seemingly not noticing me watching.
And... wait a minute, what the hell is that laying on the bed?!
I lean all the way against the glass, only to spot a little stuffed dragon that looks eerily similar to myself.
It's splayed out on the bed, with an exaggeratedly adorable smile, wide eyes, and a long neck that droops slightly to the side. But the thing that blows it so egregiously out of proportion is the little forked ribbon it has sticking out of its mouth to make it look like it's sticking its tongue out.
Oh god, they turned me into a teddy bear for real!
Why do I look so cute?! I have to resist the urge to want one.
"Hey! Who are you?!" I hear a voice call from the side, I turn to see Mino standing there with a sword, though he looks kind of different than the last time I've seen him. I'm not sure why though.
Huh? I can't look that different, right?
"It's me-"
The commotion attracted the girl to see what's going on as well, but she just freezes there when she sees me.
I'm not sure why they don't recognize me, I just need to find Ria.
"It's Lava! It's the real Lava! She's back!" The girl shouts and jumps around while almost tearing up.
"What? Do I know you?" I ask through the confusion.
"Don't you remember your sister?! You can't forget me!" She wails at me and starts hitting my legs.
"What? Ria is supposed to be little, so who are you?" I ask again out of bewilderment.
"It's been years! You never came back and that made me sad! You've been such a bad dragon! Bad!" She cries harder at me.
"Would you have rathered I let the world be destroyed just to stay with you?" I snort as a joke.
"Yes!" She screams.
Jeez, you're such a selfish sister.
"I was only gone for like a month from my point of view. I'm sorry I couldn't come back sooner." I tried to apologize, but I couldn't really help it. I don't even know why so much time passed.
Did time pass faster in the demon world, or was this because of the gate instability Elestra warned me about?
Ria seems to pause in her sobbing and starts shaking Mino with an oddly sudden glee.
"Do you know what that means?!" She squeals.
"Uh, should I?" He responds while trying to push her away.
"It means I have a little sister now! Yay! Lava is my little dragon sister!" She screams joyfully.
Even after years she hasn't dropped the dragon sister thing.
"Hey! That's NOT what that means!" I deny but she starts ignoring me until she remembers that she wants to start cuddling me.
"Lava! Bring your head down here so I can pet you! You have to listen to your big sister now!" Ria demands.
I've gotta let her enjoy doing that so she doesn't stay mad at me for being gone so long.
Luckily she's too busy admiring my presence to keep telling me off for almost dying.
So I just wait there, and wait, and wait...
Alright I think that's enough hugging.
Trying to pull my head away from her isn't working as well as it used to. Instead of losing her grip on me and then crying, she isn't letting go at all.
"You're never going anywhere without me ever again!" She wails in a commanding tone.
That doesn't sound very fun.
As I'm yanking my head away from my LITTLE sister (not big), another woman comes running up.
She has black hair, black eyes, partially scaled skin, and a black tail too.
"I felt an unsettling energy here, what's going on?!" She exclaims.
"Who's that?" I pause trying to escape Ria to stare.
"Oh, that's just Liza." Ria answers and resumes tugging me closer, "Liza! Look at my little sister!"
Wow, the Abyssalix use transformations now. It's not as good as mine, as made clear by the obvious tail and scales.
I won't deduct any points for the coloring, though. Even when I do it my hair and eyes match the color of my scales.
"You look the same, but your Mana feels different." Liza observes.
Indeed, now that I have Arcana inside me too, I don't really feel the same.
Ria just doesn't care and keeps exploring me until she touches somewhere that hurts.
I forgot I still have that scar from the first time I got stabbed, I should have had Liora try healing that first.
"Lava still has a scar right here." Ria says like she's trying to pity me. "Don't worry, the pain will go away soon, little sister. Your big sister will heal you!"
She starts repeating
Being called a little sister is going to get irritating too. I don't have to listen to a little dummy that can barely reach my chest.
"How did the village get so big?" I ask while looking at how much more there is to the place.
"After you won against that demon lord, most of the benefits of maintaining an orphanage disappeared. Our country is one of the few that still provide financial support. But since it's not immensely profitable a lot of them just gave up and left the kids to find somewhere else." Mino answers.
"Ah, so Gramps is taking care of more kids then." I mutter.
"My dad isn't with us anymore, I would like to say he left happy but if you saw him you would disagree." He says.
This is crushing news I don't even know what to do with.
I wasn't even here for Gramps at all, but I'm sure he could understand why I had to do what I did.
"He understood, right? Was it too hard to move on?" I question.
"It's not hard to move on from death, but you aren't dead now, are you? Just the possibility of you being alive had him obsessed with saving you just to solve Ria's depression." Mino explains, "He tried every combination of words to find a spell to do it but no one would help him risk damaging the veil. Making toys of you was the best he could do."
I'm sorry Gramps, don't give me vegetables in the afterlife please!
When I look back down to see where Ria has gone, I bump into something soft and see the stuffed dragon in my face.
Ria is holding it up and trying to make it lick my nose with its ribbon tongue.
Damn me, it looks so cute but I have to resist it!
The solution is to ignore it and try to look elsewhere.
Find something else to look at, anything else!
Like, uhh, the huge statue of me in the middle of the village!
"Stop! Don't go out there scaring all the children like that!" Mino scolds as I try to go out there.
"Come on, there's a statue of me right there!" I pout.
"There's a difference between hearing a story and seeing the real thing." Mino responds, "Either use transformation or wait until we actually introduce you to them properly."
"Fine." I mumble.
Transformation would still feel super uncomfortable, of that I'm sure.
"Don't worry, you won't have to hide anymore." Liza interjects.
"Why not?"
"Dragons aren't feared as much anymore. What you did removed most of the barrier between them and other races. Now that they have their own kingdom to the west, it shouldn't be too hard to explain you to outsiders." She answers.
That sounds incredible. I hope I get to visit that place soon.
There's a lot of history I have to catch up on.
But to put it short, country relations are in a pickle because there's no more treaty forcing them together. Now that they won't have to suddenly send military aid to people they might hate, they can actually start wars now.
But I'm sure people smarter than me already expected that to happen.
Ria isn't going to let me get involved with any wars any time soon, since now she thinks I'm some kind of little sister.
The only thing I didn't consider was that the demon lord's army didn't just disappear when I defeated him, thankfully the village was defended by a team of people sent by the neighboring city, which was apparently not Yeste.
Mino and Liza seem to both have things to do, they walk off and leave me with Ria and her stuffed dragon.
Not even just them, Ria apparently has other things to do now too that aren't all just bothering me.
"I have to go make everyone take their baths! And you have to be a good little sister and stay right here. You can even play with this!" She commands and gives me the stuffed dragon before leaving me there alone.
I guess I'll just hide behind here then.
No one's looking, maybe I'll just nuzzle this soft little dragon a couple times.
It even has a scaly texture to it. How did they manage that?
"I am so, so sorry for what you had to go through..." I mutter to myself at it.
What a poor little stuffed dragon to have to keep Ria company 24/7, that can't be very fun when you're cute and squishy.
If I were a baby dragon I'm not sure if I'd think I had a new friend or if I would be terrified of being replaced by a blissful bag of stuffing.
-- Saer
Saer was certainly rich, it's inevitable when you have deals with all the shady businesses in your city.
He was rich enough to hire mercenary armies to defend multiple cities from the demons.
That alone could be enough to grant him noble status, but the reason for his goal of becoming a noble no longer existed.
As he predicted, the church was almost useless.
Even with the new saint, anyone they brought to the fight had no idea what to do if their first spells failed.
If it wasn't for his goal of becoming filthy rich just for this purpose many cities probably would have been overrun.
Sometimes the past still comes back to haunt him with regrets, it's hard to forget them after that dragon was memorialized, even if Jora Village was the only one to make a statue that actually looked correct.
Saer expected maybe it would have protected the village from any minions, but sacrificing itself to take down the demon lord was a surprise. Perhaps if he sent some strong assistance at that time the outcome could have truly been perfect.
Sending expensive mercenaries and adventurers to protect a small village could be seen as a massive waste of resources, and it was.
But no one ever saw the body of that dragon, and there are definitely rumors that a dragon could have still survived what was witnessed.
The previous saintess was definitely worried of it coming back with the demon lord's power.
Saer didn't share that worry, clearly if it would sacrifice itself for a small village there was nothing to worry about.
It angered him that despite those rumors and just generally being saved by that dragon, Yeste didn't bother to send their extra manpower to protect it even after being the fastest to defeat their attackers.
None of them ever considered what would happen if it returned to a destroyed village full of bodies.
Not even he can predict what a traumatized dragon might do.
There hasn't been any that cared about a human enough to be traumatized by such a thing, after all...
What brought him out of his thinking space was the door to his great hall barging open, a young man with a short sword coming through the doorway.
"I've finally found you, Saer! We've had enough of living in poverty because of you! I'm ending this right now!" He screams.
This scene gives Saer a weak feeling of deja vu, only this time his intruder has genuine resolve. It looks like he went through his guards the hard way.
The young man lunges at Saer with enhanced speed and stabs his blade through his body.
"I've waited for this so long, it feels so surreal! Scream, beg for mercy!" He demands, but instead of even changing his expression, Saer disappears from the chair and appears with his own blade to his neck.
"You destroyed my chair. I could execute you right now just for the attempt." He says.
"No! How?!"
"Sorry, I'm not the best illusionist. There were probably many flaws that you weren't paying enough attention to see." Saer responds, "But I'll take your thoughts into consideration. Now get out of here, you're lucky you didn't kill anyone to get in here or I wouldn't let you go."
Improving his city from what he made it into was progressing too slowly, this incident was the sign that he should just rush it.
"Recherta, tell Zaster to gather everyone."
...
Now the hall was filled with all kinds of shady ringleaders, all connected by the leader of the local black market, Zaster.
"Why have you called everyone here? You know we hate being in the same place!" They demand.
"I thought it was time to clean up the city." Saer says as he pulls a string connected to multiple crossbows fixed on the ceiling.
Bolts rain down from the ceiling, leaving only a few with good combat sense remaining.
"You backstabbing bastard!" The cloaked figure that used to be in charge of the assassin group lunges at Saer, before being stopped by a female figure.
"Meet my advisor, a former assassin. She outclasses you, though." Saer speaks as if simply narrating the action.
"You still have to face me yourself!" Zaster yells.
"
Soon the entire room was filled with just bodies.
"There we go, now that we have control of all the illegal businesses, we can entrap their clients and then shut them all down. They never should have let me so deep into their operations."
-- ?
"Get down there, you inferior waste!" Voices yelled as they dumped a young adult into a cave and sealed the entrance.
He knew there was nowhere to go but further in, an ominous and unsettling energy growing stronger with every step.
It was pitch black, and he couldn't even create a light because his talent for magic was so bad he could barely create a spark.
After an hour of wandering through different pathways, a sudden voice startled him.
"A human? It's been so long!" A mysterious voice reverberates off the walls.
"Who's there?!" He called, knowing there was nothing he could do with his nonexistent magic. All he had was a silver dagger he once received as a gift.
"Oh, that's right, you need light!" The voice resumes, before the cave is suddenly illuminated fully and forces his eyes to adjust.
Before him stands a rather striking female form.
"What are you? Are you human?" He questions suspiciously.
"No, I'm a spirit. I've been trapped down here for so many years." She answers.
"Why don't you just leave?"
"Whatever's coming from deeper in this cave system is degrading my Mana, so I can't make it all the way to the surface. The only thing sustaining me is the Mana from minerals and ores." She responds, "It's only a matter of time before that runs out. I don't even remember how I got here anymore... What about you?"
"Some bastards threw me down here because I was about to take a prestigious job position from a noble brat. They told me I would be devoured by monsters in this dungeon, but I've yet to encounter a single one of them." He answered with a tone of hate.
"So what are you gonna do now? It's a shame I'm going to have to watch my only company starve to death. My name is Sheya, I think... I wrote it down long ago just in case I ever had company." The spirit mourns in advance.
"Mine is Vesper. I'm going to be the first to see what's at the end of a natural dungeon, at least I'll know something special before I die here." Vesper states with acceptance and continues further. The spirit wasn't able to follow, but at least lit a torch for him by igniting some cave moss.
The feeling gets more and more uncomfortable the further he goes, he's heard stories of people trying to uncover the secrets of a natural dungeon passing out. He's still able to move forward, maybe it's because of his lack of magic power?
That's when he sees it, an ominous orb of red floating over the ground.
He had no way to tell what it was, but he knew touching it was a bad idea.
However, in front of it laid an eerie black book, wedged against a rock as if it had been thrown with force and forgotten.
Picking it up, he noticed the unrecognizable symbols all over the surfaces of the book, and as he tried to open it realized it was locked shut, but there was no visible mechanism in sight to lock it.
Seeing that there was nothing left here for him, he returned back to where he met the spirit.
"So, anything fun happen down there?" She asks, hoping for something interesting but not very expectant of it.
"Yes, this book. Though I can't even read the-" Vesper started, but as he looked back down at the title of the book he realized that it was suddenly readable. Magic? He couldn't use magic, but that doesn't mean he doesn't know how if he could. His memory was the only thing he was gifted at.
But still, he's never even seen runic magic capable of something like this.
"Grimoire of the Soul..." He reads, yet still can't get it open no matter how hard he pulls it.
"I can't believe you actually found something so incredible! What's inside it must be amazing!" Sheya gawks at the book, clearly excited for the first time in what must be years.
Vesper wasn't as thrilled, after all it was called a grimoire. Even if whatever spells were inside this thing were truly unique, it's not like he could use them.
"Does it matter what's inside it if we can't get it open? It's not like it's going to open itself just by saying 'unlock'." He scoffed flippantly, but as soon as he spoke the word, the flap immediately loosened from the book and left them both shocked.
"This is... impossible! None of this should be possible with magic!" He flips through every page, each one containing impossible feats from raising the dead to creating artificial spirits.
But one page in particular makes him stop...
"This... this is the one-- With this, I can stop what happened to me from ever happening again." He mumbles to himself, unbelieving of what he's reading.
His thoughts linger around the reason he's in this mess in the first place: his lack of Mana.
There have to be more like him as well, even the opposites of him. There's only one solution.
"I have to remove magic from this world completely!" He resolves, a little louder than his previous whispering.
"What? Have you lost your sanity already or something?" Sheya interrupts in confusion at his sudden mutterings to himself, as if she isn't right there to hear it.
Vesper doesn't waste any time with the spell, he had everything he needed right here, and it doesn't even require him to have much Mana at all.
"From the very essence of my soul, I reject this existence and discard order of this world to spite countless gods; I alone choose my destiny!
Sheya wasn't sure what was happening, but she didn't read the spell, otherwise she might have dodged the dagger that quickly reaches her back.
"Ahh! No! What's happening?! Stop!" She screams, but is completely absorbed into nothing within seconds.
Vesper is also on the ground grimacing in pain, but doesn't lose focus for a second until the spell completes, where he finally collapses in relief.
"It's done..."
If he hadn't had a silver blade, or even pronouncing a single word incorrectly, he definitely would have died.
But his faith in his last hope had succeeded.
For the first time, he was as strong as an average human, no- even stronger.
Not only was his capacity enhanced, but he could feel it, his efficiency was even greater than normal.
This was only the beginning, he needed to collect other pure sources of Mana and assimilate all of it into his power until he was unstoppable.
It was him or the spirit, he knows he better get used to it, it's impossible to achieve this without resolve.
Thankfully for him, the incantation and pain were only required for the first time. This was going to be a breeze!