[Flynn's Pov]
Who would have known that taming a dragon could almost threaten my life. Honestly, l thought it would be easy peasy, but l was wrong. It took everything l had. I could hear everyone talking around me. I was still conscious, but I was unable to move or talk.
I just felt incredibly frustrated when I heard that hypocritical leader of the church calling Mimi an enemy of their god. What nonsense! Who cares about their god? Mimi means so much to me, and if someone threatens to lock her up without cause, then that person becomes my enemy. I don't care if the entire church turns against me or the kingdom itself.
Just then, l heard them organizing their troops, and my big brother was the one leading the army. I'll crash him too without hesitation if he so much lays a finger on my servants. The dragon I tamed was still standing in front of me. No one in the kingdom was brave enough to even poke it with a finger except for my sister Victoria, who didn't seem to care about it. She was only worried about me.
A while later, l don't really know why or how, but l started hearing distant voices in my head. At first, it was unclear what they were saying, but then I listened attentively and heard, "If there's a god out there, please protect us."
I was shocked to hear these random words popping up in my mind, but what shocked me the most was the voice. I recognized it as that of the girl l chose as my mistress during the festival. I instantly knew that something was wrong and they were in danger. With the little mana left in me, l casted a telepathy spell and ordered the dragon to go and save them. Dragons are naturally fast when they are flying, but l just also boosted its speed in case they were in great danger. Soon after casting those spells, the dragon took off like a bullet. I felt the very soul of my being fading, and before I knew it, l completely lost consciousness.
[Writer's Pov]
Just when Mimi and Athena were falling down to the dark cliff holding on to each other, the red dragon appeared at an incredible speed and picked them up just a few meters from the ground. It flew back up and levitated on the air, looking at the knights that just tried killing its new master's servants. It wanted to burn them all to a crisp, but it wasn't ordered to do so by its master, so it couldn't do it.
The dogs that came with the knights started barking, and the knights couldn't help but gasp in shock at the sight before them.
"Isn't that the red dragon that destroyed the kingdom?"
"Yeah, it is."
"I'll make it pay for what it did to my family and friends."
"Yeah, let's kill it!"
The knights picked their bows and arrows and started shooting at the dragon, but of course, it's scales were too hard to be penetrated by a mere arrow.
"Just ignore them, dragon. Let's go to the forest of Dryads,"Mimi ordered it, and as if it heard her, it started flying, heading to the long mountains far in the west.
In a matter of an hour, Mimi and Athena finally arrived at the forest of Dryads. The journey that was supposed to take them 5 days by foot, they made it in an hour, thanks to the incredible speed of the red dragon.
Both ladies had never been to this forest before. They've only heard about it in tales and books, but seeing it in person was a whole other experience.
The forest was stunningly beautiful with big green oak trees and flowers everywhere. There were rivers that flowed with clean water that almost looked magically blue.
There was a big cave in the beginning of the forest, and Mimi ordered the dragon to stay there, and it went inside and slept.
"Hey, cat. Does that dragon really understand our language?,"Athena asked as they walked side by side, going deep into the forest."
"I think it can understand me. As the master's most trustworthy servant, the dragon knows that it should listen to me and me alone,"she responded, taking a pompous tone. Unknown to her, the dragon can only understand if you spoke to it telepathically, but at the same time, it's able to read a person's mind, which makes it easier for it to understand what they want.
"Ha! Don't feel like you're special, kitty. I'll be the one doing the talking when we come back. You'll see, the dragon will obey me."
"Huh! Keep dreaming, human!"
The two ladies kept walking and arguing with one another for hours without meeting anyone or at least a single dryad. They had hoped they'll come across one dryad at least.
"Something isn't right here, human!"
"Yeah, I can sense it too. I noticed that we've been walking straight in the same direction for hours now, and we didn't even turn, yet we see our footsteps."
"If my intuition is right, we're trapped in a dangerous spell called 'The Loop'. It traps its targets in a loop, forcing them to walk endlessly, only to find themselves back where they started walking. To put it simple in the words a mere human peasant like you could understand, we're trapped in what looks like a barrier. Every time we try to cross it, we're brought back to where it began."
"Huh! That's rough. So what now?"
"I don't know. I've never been trapped in a loop spell, but I've heard that it's not easy escaping it. Plus, not everyone is capable of casting it. Only the highly skilled with immense magical prowess can do it. Which means...."
Athena sat down, trying to come up with an idea to solve their situation. "If we're trapped in a spell, then the person who casted it is out there. Let's just sit here and relax while we wait for the person's mana to run out. If they run out of magic to keep the spell running, then we might be able to escape."
Mimi scoffed. "You peasants with your little understanding of magic. Do you honestly think if it was that easy, I would even be worried right now?"
"Huh! What was that? Is it my problem that cats like you don't have the ability to think?"
"You're naive, human insect!. Do you know what makes this spell dangerous? It's not its ability to trap its targets in a loop, but it's the fact that it doesn't require the caster's mana to keep standing. It uses the mana of its victims. As we're speaking right now, it's sucking all our mana out — slowly but surely. Didn't you feel like it's strange just how we easily got tired ever since we started walking in this forest? "
That's when it hit on Athena. She's been getting weak faster than usual but she didn't want to tell Mimi about it, otherwise she would have thought of her as nothing but a weakling who is unworthy of being her master's mistress, so she kept quiet and suffered in silence.
"What should we do now, kitty."
"There's one thing we can try out, but it's risky, and it's a gamble. One silly mistake - we're goners."
Athena's heart skipped a beat as she realized that the life outside her village was filled with dangers every now and then.
"What's the plan?"
"We'll have to attack where the loop starts with our most powerful attacks. If it works, the loop barrier will break, but if it won't work, then our mana will be drained at a faster rate than the way its draining us at the moment."
"Yeah, the plan is good and risky, but the problem is... l can't use magic, so l don't have any powerful attack to help out. The least l can do is use brutal force."
Mimi sighed. "Good grief. You're really useless, aren't you. Well, no matter. I'll do the attacking because brute strength doesn't work on a loop spell."
"Okay, then. Try your best pussy...,"she paused. "Pussy-cat l mean."
Mimi hissed in annoyance as she moved forward to where the loop began. She bowed down and started chanting a spell. "O spirt fox, wise and strong. I call upon you, hear my plea and ignite everything in flames."
After chanting her spell, a spectral figure of a fox appeared in front of her. It looked bigger than a normal fox, almost the same size as a horse. What shocked Athena the most was that the fox spirit had something that looked like a horn on its forehead.
"Fire!!,"Mimi ordered and an immense amount of fire emerged from the spirits horn, burning all the vegetation on its way until Mimi ran out of mana and passed out. The fox spirit then disappeared as well.
"Kittie, are you alright?,"Athena asked running toward her. She was weak and exhausted.
"C_ check ....if we did it,"she whispered in a weak voice.
Athena ran in an opposite direction as fast as she could, but to her shock, she appeared back to where Mimi was lying down. Her heart sank as she realized what that meant.
"Mimi!! What should we do now!!,"she yelled but Mimi couldn't respond. She was unconscious and all her mana was gone. Athena started crying and calling her name, but before long, her mana got sucked by the loop barrier as well. And she lost consciousness and fainted just right beside Miriamelody Imogen Mistralina.
Tbc