Reincarnator RB Dragons, ch 49

This was the first time Kevin had moved at maximum speed since fighting the ruin guardian.  And since he wasn’t distracted in the same way as before, he could fully appreciate for the first time how much his physical capabilities had improved.

As he dashed through the forest, closely followed by Lydia, he reviewed all the powers and abilities he’d acquired since leaving the mountains.

Dragon Life Skills

Clerical Support (Cleric of Morrigan)

-Lion Iguana Neurotoxin Venom

- Wall Climbing Fingers

- Ambush Camouflage

- Uncanny Balance

- Beastly Stamina

- Poison Resistance, Minor

-Elvish Acuity

-Werewolf Constitution, Minor

-Perfect Seasoning

-Arcane Surge

Soul Magic

–Soul Windows

–Soul Shock

–Specral Weaponry

–Soul Speak

–Soul Mend

–Soul Ward

Seeing it all laid out like this gave him a sudden burst of pride that could not be denied. He’d come a long way in a very short time.  Most importantly, now he had his own magic!

The sounds of combat grew louder and more frenzied.  Finally, he burst from the forest into  a meadow where a group of adventurers were surrounded by three large beartrolls.  

Seven adventurers were still up.  One was down, and the others were surrounding him to protect him.  They all looked exhausted and had full packs on the grounds.  They’d likely been heading back to Clearmine to report a completed quest.  Actually, Kevin remembered Branch had said so.

The beartrolls were big and shaggy, with thick, claw-like nails and shaggy hair that was more like fur.  Something like primordial bugbears, they were monsters that were more animal than thinking-creatures.  They were also known to very rarely venture down from the nearby mountains that they inhabited.

As soon as Kevin ran  into the clearing, he’d immediately observed the situation, and so he’d noticed when all the monsters flinched the moment Lydia stepped up next to him.  The creatures had been focusing on the adventurers, but now they were also glancing towards Kevin–no–Lydia.

“You’ve been hunting in the nearby mountains, haven’t you, Lydia?  The small ones.”

“Yes.  Of course.  It’s out of the way and I like the higher elevation.”

“Every time you go out to eat?”

“More or less.”

“And do you usually go to the same area?”

“Sort of.  Why?”

Kevin sighed.  “Because these monsters shouldn’t be here.  They usually don’t come down from the mountains.  I think you scared them down here because they thought you were claiming wherever it is you’ve been hunting.”

“That…might actually be plausible.”

In the distance, the adventurers had noticed them.  A few were yelling for help. The healer, who was tending to the downed man, waved his hands to get their attention.

“I was going to rush in there, but now I don’t think it’s appropriate.  Lydia, you caused this mess, you should fix it.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes.”

She shrugged.  “So be it.”  Lydia shot forward, far faster than Keven could move, and when she was about halfway to the fight, her form blurred and grew larger in a familiar way.

Oh no, thought Kevin.  He realized that he hadn’t specified what Lydia should do.  In a lapse of judgment, he’d relied on his cousin’s common sense while forgetting that what common sense she had could be spotty at best.  It was easy to forget since she was so intelligent and already older than a human could normally live. 

But she was a hatchling.

Oh no.

Lydia tore into the closest monster in her dragon form, effortlessly ripping the creature apart.  Her tail cracked out, slamming into the second beartroll, beating the creature to the ground and nearly severing one of its arms.  The last beartroll howled as it turned and ran away.

The young dragon stalked over to where the second beartroll was still on the ground, crying in terror.  She raised one taloned hand and brought it down with finality, ruining the monster’s head and ending its life as easily as a cat kills a mouse.

“Well that was easy,” she said.  Even at a distance, her speaking voice was loud and traveled enough for Kevin to easily hear it.  She hadn’t mastered toning her voice to lower levels like mature dragons could.  “Are you all okay?”

One of the adventurers, a big man with a mustache, fainted.

Kevin facepalmed.

***

The next morning, Kevin was unsurprised as he and Lydia got surprise guests while they ate breakfast.

Fili, George, Jagna, and Tomo all slowly approached their table, hands very noticeably away from their weapons.  Interestingly enough, now that Kevin was a mage, he could feel which of the adventurers had their own magic power.  

He glanced around the rest of the inn and felt grateful that there weren't many other people present. Even though Lydia had exposed herself and it seemed obvious now that the news had already spread, Kevin was still hoping to keep some of the information contained. In his heart of hearts, he wasn't entirely sure if that was a good decision. After all, since his job was to be an ambassador and hopefully prevent war, it might be helpful for everyone to know that he was backed by the dragons. However, Kevin knew that could be a double-edged sword.

Over the last twenty years, he'd studied history with some of the same zeal that he'd studied magic and arcane knowledge. One lesson from history that he had taken to heart was that mortal people feared the dragons. They might even respect the dragons, but they didn't love them. 

Nobody wanted to be yanked around by powerful outside forces. Everyone wanted to feel in control of their own destiny. 

Kevin didn't think that making the full extent of his relationship with the dragon public knowledge would help him do his job, at least not if he was the one to propagate this information. Not only that, he had a good amount of pride himself. He didn't want to enter this world as a young goblin known merely as the son of the Paxdraconis. What he wanted was to build a reputation in this life for his own accomplishments, his own decisions, the same as he had in his lives before. How realistic that was, he wasn't entirely sure. A secret like this one had a way of escaping, but he could sure try.

Not only that, seeing his friends creep up to the table and noticing the nervousness and apprehension on their faces hurt. Dragons were born with a certain level of arrogance and disregard for those they considered beneath them. As a result, dragons were all but immune to the opinions of mortal races. From the perspective, Kevin felt like they would have been great political pundits back on the Earth he remembered. 

However, although Kevin had been raised by dragons and inexplicably had learned a certain number of dragon-like skills, he was not a dragon. In fact, he wasn't entirely sure what he was. Some days he felt more like a human, and some days he entirely felt like the goblin that he currently was. It was something he didn't think about too often, or else it could lead to madness.

The Mountain Fingers finally got close enough to the table to bow, and George said, "We greet the Esteemed One."

Lydia lazily waved her hand as she held a sausage biscuit in the other. "Don't be so formal. I'm eating," she said, around a mouthful of food.

"That's rude, Lydia," said Kevin. He frowned in disapproval at his cousin. She shrugged at him, winked where the others couldn't see, and then began eating her sausage biscuit again. Kevin held his irritation inside, but the last ten years came rushing back to him. Despite being over a century old, and also looking like a woman in her early twenties in her human appearance, Lydia could be surprisingly immature and irresponsible. It was truly the double-edged sword of the dragons that they could live so long and keep growing in power, knowledge, and wisdom, but seemed to stay so young for so long.

After talking to Lydia about how she left home, Kevin had all but confirmed his uncomfortable theory that his parents and Lydia's parents had pushed them together to force them both to learn more quickly. They were treating him like a hatchling, even though he was a goblin.  Dragons! he thought, with equal parts irritation and fondness.

The four Mountain Fingers stood still, all obviously uncomfortable. Kevin sighed and waved in front of him. "Grab a chair or pull one up. I refuse to talk to you when it seems like we're having an audience."

"Good idea," said Fili. The dwarf's usual good cheer suddenly manifested itself again. He swiftly moved to the side and grabbed a couple of chairs for himself and for George. George, in the meantime, kept staring at Lydia with almost stunned eyes. Kevin looked upwards briefly and prayed for strength. He knew that quite a few lizardmen thought of the dragons as gods or the next thing to gods, and he desperately hoped that if George was in that camp, he would keep his mouth shut for the duration of this conversation. 

Lydia already had a big enough head; she did not need people worshipping her.

When all the Mountain Fingers were settled, surprisingly, Tomo was the first to speak. "Kevin, I'm sure you can guess why we're here."

He nodded. "The fact that you greeted Lydiamsominica the way you did makes it pretty obvious." He hooked a finger at his cousin who pretended that she wasn't listening.

Tomo nervously smiled and was about to speak again, but Kevin held up a hand. Then he stood and shouted, "Jonathan!"

A young, heavy-set man with blue eyes and an honest grin trundled out of the kitchen. "Oh, you have friends today, Kevin." He beamed at everyone around the table and seemed not to notice the tense atmosphere. "I'm sorry that Pasha is still not at work yet, but you know, I'm sure she had to take care of the baby and all."

"It's not a problem," said Kevin. "I was just going to order some drinks for my friends."

"Anything special?"

"Just water for now," he said.

Jonathan nodded, turned, and headed back to the kitchen.

Fili muttered, "I could have used a beer."

"It's too early.  Quiet, you," said Jagna.

Nobody at the table said anything before Jonathan came back with the four waters for the Mountain Fingers. After he was gone, Kevin said, "I appreciate it is all of you and not somebody else here. But can you tell me clearly what's going on? Like you said, I can already figure some of it out, but we can probably save time if you just say it bluntly."

Almost as if on cue, all the adventurers glanced at Lydia. "Don't worry about her," reassured Kevin. 

George and Tomo weren't able to school their expressions and blinked in surprise. Lydia was still pretending not to listen to the conversation as she read a book that she pulled out from somewhere, but she grumbled a little bit under her breath. The noise she made caused the Mountain Fingers all to grow more wary.

"Oh, for crying out loud," said Kevin. "What's going on, George?"

The lizard man coughed into his scaled fist. "Well, we are one of the highest-ranked adventuring groups in town. We also know you. And the mayor has been told about what happened yesterday. Some of the adventurers involved in that have taken magically binding oaths, so there is no doubt."

“Lord Alex is nervous,” said Fili.

Jagna’s grin was lopsided. "I'm guessing because he treated you about as well as he's rumored to treat everybody. And then on top of that, you're a goblin."

"Oh, that's right," said Kevin. He'd already forgotten about the annoying mayor. "So he thinks I'm going to hold a grudge. And he might also be worried I'm going to ask dragons to ruin him or something, huh?"

The Mountain Fingers all exchanged glances, and Kevin was aghast. "Is that really what you're here to find out, whether I'm going to do that?"

"Well, sort of," said Jagna. "The truth is, it's not just the mayor who's nervous. A lot of the movers and shakers in town found out there was a dragon here last night, and now they're extremely…worried."

"Worried? About what?" asked Kevin. "She's been here for weeks. Staying in an inn like other visitors.  She's just eating good food and paying for everything like everybody else."

He didn't mention how she'd accidentally scared monsters down from the mountain, but she hadn't done it intentionally. Even though at the time he'd decided it was Lydia's fault, he didn't think so quite as much anymore.

The moment he got done speaking, Lydia murmured, "It's always like this, Kevin."

The others might not have caught it, but Kevin did since she was right next to him. The Mountain Fingers looked highly uncomfortable again before Fili blurted, "Esteemed one."

Kevin rolled his eyes. "I am not a dragon. I am a goblin."

"Oh, okay. Because after, you know, we found out about the esteemed one, we were kind of wondering if the reason you were able to kill the ruined guardian was because you were a dragon. You were kind of out of everybody's sight for a while, so you know?"

Kevin laughed, and Fili frowned, showing irritation for the first time in the discussion. "What's funny?"

With a grin, Kevin said, "The truth is too ironic. I'll just tell you guys, since you already know that Lydia is here. I didn't want to show you my abilities back then because I can turn into a chipmunk."

There were blank stares around the table.  "A chipmunk?" said Jagna. "Like the small furry animals?"

"Exactly," said Kevin.

Looking strangely unaffected by the revelation, George merely nodded, and the lizard man said, "That does explain why we saw the bite marks on the beast."

"I didn’t know you saw those," said Kevin.

“We thought they were from the tip of your dagger, or your claws. We argued in private about it for a week,” said George.  “Fili thought it was from Tomo’s arrow.”

Jagna gave Kevin a disbelieving look. "Are you saying that you bit a ruin guardian to death when you were transformed into a chipmunk?"

"Well, something like that, but I used venom."

"Oh." All four Mountain Fingers leaned back in their chairs as, judging by their expressions, missing pieces from several mysteries all clicked together. Kevin grinned in spite of himself. It was an amusing thing to watch.

Suddenly, Lydia spoke, and unlike her usual expression of curiosity or angst that Kevin was used to, there was pure business on her face. Kevin was unaccustomed to seeing her like this and grew as still to listen to her as the others.

She said, "You won't come out and say it, which I appreciate at least for Kevin's sake, but it seems fairly obvious to me that your masters would like me to leave."

"Not just you, Esteemed One.  Kevin too, I think," said Fili helpfully. He held out both hands at his glaring team members. "That's not what we think, but we all know that's what the mayor wants. He's so scared right now, he's forgotten that he's supposed to hate us! You have no idea what they promised us to talk to you. Everybody else, the adventurers, are too scared."

Kevin breathed a soft, sarcastic chuckle. He deeply appreciated that Fili was willing to cut to the heart of the matter.  It helped put the situation in perspective. He shared a quick glance with his cousin and then said, "Well, go ahead and tell the mayor and the others who are concerned that I just need to say some goodbyes. And then I'll be leaving in maybe a day or two." His expression hardened, "But also tell them that if any of my friends, and that includes you, are mistreated after I leave, I'm going to come back with a whole goddamn army of dragons and level this place."  It was an empty threat, complete bullshit, but he had a feeling it might work.

The Mountain Fingers all winced as if they'd been stung, while also looking somewhat touched. But Lydia gave him an appraising look.

“Oh will you now?” she asked.

"I don’t see why not," said Kevin. A bit of irritation crept into his voice, and Lydia hid a smile with one hand as she turned and found something suspiciously interesting on her plate to stare at. Damn hatchling dragons, he thought.

Fili hesitantly raised a hand and said, "I have to ask something.  It's probably because I'm super nervous while talking to a real-life dragon for the first time in my life–something most people never do. And it's probably making me more honest than I normally would be."

"I doubt that," said Kevin, but the dwarf steamrolled right over him.

"Anyway, I have to ask. Are you really just a B-rank Magi Guild member, Kevin?"

"No," he said. "I'm an ambassador, and I'm on a mission."

Lydia suddenly turned.  Her eyes glowed.  “He tells the truth, and the dragons gave him the mission.  Her expression grew mysterious, her voice deepened, and her mannerisms suddenly became more animated as she continued, "And some of the greatest ones even were—" 

Her words were cut off as Kevin poked her in the side of the head with one finger, hard. He knew his cousin well, and she was about to throw gasoline on an otherwise uncomfortable situation just because she thought it was funny. He would have slapped her in the back of the head, but that wouldn't have hurt her either, and at least the finger poke would catch less attention in public.

The display of familiarity had been too much for at least one person, though. George's eyes were wide open.  He didn't quite faint, but he breathed heavily through his nostrils as his limbs locked rigidly.  The lizardman almost fell off of his chair. Jagna caught him, though, straining under his obvious weight.  

"Get it together, George," she muttered. "Although I know it's not every day you get to meet one of your gods and then find out that your goblin friend is higher on the pecking order."