Chương 1: Waking Up

Melia sighed deeply, which was incredibly obvious because her body was so incredibly large and heavy. She was doing her best to ignore the fact that she had been awake for nearly 24 hours despite the reality that she shouldn't be awake at all. It was easier to disregard her awareness for the moment than it was to ignore her body. Or, perhaps, put more accurately, her body was very hard to ignore. It bears emphasizing: she was a dragon. Dragon! With a capital D!

By measurement, her body was 100 feet long not including her head or her tail. Including those, her full length was closer to 200 feet, probably somewhere around 205 if everything was straightened and stretched out. She had black, obsidian-like scales that glistened in the moonlight filtering through the courtyard's open sky, massive leathery wings that ran from her shoulders down the length of her body, and four, powerful legs protruding a hand or foot full of incredible, razor sharp claws.

She was a quadruped and her long, slender neck, thick with muscle, flexed to allow the monstrosity of her head to observe every inch of her body. She had two great horns that jutted above her colossal eyes and a long snout of spikes promising doom in a mouth that, on occasion, belched steam. And Melia knew this about her body because that was exactly how she created it. Though, in the game, her exact size had never been specified.

It was only listed as "large", which she confirmed when she tried to discover which buildings she could fit inside. The answer was not many. Still, she wondered how she knew precisely how big she was now… sort of how she intuitively understood that the delightful, sweet scent she was smelling in the wind was mana. Earth didn't have mana, and even if it did, she never heard of it being smelly. But she wasn't thinking about that because that would remind her that she was dead and shouldn't be thinking at all.

She wasn't in denial. No, she knew exactly what happened and it happened exactly as the doctors said it would. She couldn't disagree. She was simply… confused. But she wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth–as the saying she never truly understood went–and if she wasn't dead, she'd take it. She'd take it very gladly, because laying on the floor, doing nothing except breathing and existing, she felt more alive than she had in the last decade. Which scared her.

Not because she was afraid to be alive, but because she was terrified her new chance at life would suddenly disappear as if some cosmic entity might realize its mistake and take it back. But it didn't. As the minutes ticked by, Melia slowly started breathing easily, eventually letting out a victory roar in celebration. It had been long enough now that every rationalization, no matter how flimsy, fell apart, and she had to accept this impossible reality: she was alive.

She exhaled heavily again, but this time her sigh was something closer to contentment. She continued to simply lay on the cold, hard stone, feeling neither its hardness nor its coldness, and… sat there. Doing nothing. Because she didn't need to! She was alive! And she was going to take it. She wasn't going to second guess her second chance any longer or spend any more time stressing over it. Would she miss her old life? No. Mostly.

She could already feel the bitter ache of the gaping hole that the absence of her friends and family left forming. It would be that way for a while. Melia didn't see it fading any time soon, but she would do her best to grieve their loss and remember… but move on. She would never forget them. She snorted… and a tiny gout of flame illuminated a nearby wall. She eyed the new scorch marks carefully and thought about her memory. She was a dragon, meaning, she probably couldn't forget.

She recalled tiny details of events half-remembered from outings when she was barely able to crawl; they began presenting themselves for her perusal, like the time an enthusiastic aunt she hadn't seen for years visited her family just to show embarrassing baby photos. Her eyes began to sting, as her tears evaporated into steam, so she put aside the memory of her mom crying while waving, her dad putting on a brave smile. He would surely break down as soon as he left the room, but he was strong for his baby girl.

So Melia turned her attention to the small room that fit her like a turtle shell. She recognized the space instantly as the "grand ballroom" of the abandoned mansion located on the western side of the Frostrim Mountains, within the human kingdoms. Of course, it was a location inside Fantasy World, on Ebonvale, in which Melia was slowly coming to terms with being alive. But this wasn't exactly the same Ebonvale she was used to. For one, as she already realized, she wasn't used to being quite so… huge.

Just hours ago, by her recollection, she had been practicing her role in this hall for an upcoming session the RPers were planning and she had fit into that room. Perhaps she did not fit comfortably, but at least she could stand up on all fours, flare her wings, and swing her tail, which was the extent of the emotes her dragon form allowed her. Now, however, she feared that if she tried raising a wing, let alone standing, that part of the roof might come crashing down on top of her head!

Not that she would get hurt or even feel it… but this was a secondary problem at the moment. But before considering a new problem, she noticed that there was another issue with the room: besides being too small, the mansion hall also looked far too… worn. Having suddenly woken up in a world suspiciously like one she was familiar with, she expected that there would be differences transitioning from virtual to reality. The developers were keen on details when creating their world, but not that keen.

The virtual building was never meant to be seen by human eyes (rather, players), and as such, it was little more than a huge, empty square. A surprising amount of care was given for parts not visible from air where directed flight paths would take players through, such as the building intricately designed to mimic a once grand manor fallen into ruin. But no developer had time to devote to recreating each and every individual brick in a house that probably held over a hundred rooms. So while Melia knew this room…

she also didn't. It was changed in a way that felt all-too-real, perhaps because it was real now, and she could almost taste the centuries of disuse and neglect. Really. Her new senses were very strange. She could only guess, but if she had to say, if this world was based on the virtual world she was familiar with, then there were definite and not-so-subtle differences. The most obvious and glaring change: her level. Because, yes, the first thing she did once she stopped panicking was check her status.

It came up, which gave her a mild surprise, even though no "game system" menus did. No "help," "bug report," "summon GM," nothing like that. Certainly no "logout." And Melia wouldn't have tried it even if it did. But "character" did come up, though Melia understood it wasn't about her saying the words as much as it was about her focusing intently on her status sheet. What floated in front of her–so only she could see–was her very familiar status screen. So why was it so… inflated? Melia was maxed character level.

That was never in question. Neither was the fact that she had multiple characters at that level. She had to achieve multiple characters at max levels in order to unlock the dragon race. Over the years, Fantasy World had moved the goalposts for what "max level" meant. When the game was originally released, the highest level that players could achieve was level 60. No experience was gained after that and their stats reflected it.

As expected, expansions raised the max level, usually by 10, and the stats bloated along with it. Eventually, the numbers spiraled out of control and needed to be wrangled, so the devs implemented "stat squishes" several times in order to keep the levels from soaring into the hundreds and an individual stat from measuring into the billions. The max level eventually stabilized between 80 and 100.

Currently it was due for another squish and was sitting at 100, with individual stats varying in the mid thousands, sometimes up to 10 thousand depending on the class specialization. Tanks, for instance, had an ungodly amount of health, especially those geared for being "meat shields" instead of relying on a heavy armor class. They also had Constitution in the high 18, 000s, giving a player somewhere in the 6-12 million health range.

A dedicated spellcaster would have split-focus between one of three stats and would usually have about the same total split between each stat. One stat would obviously be larger than the others depending on whether the class prioritized a deeper mana pool (Intellect), higher chances to critically hit or apply secondary effects (Wisdom), or simply higher regeneration (Spirit). Back when she played it, Melia's preferred brand of [Mage] wanted Intellect and nothing else.

It should be noted that despite having a ludicrous amount of all three stats and not just one, Melia didn't feel any smarter and a large part of her was relieved that those particular stats didn't imply smarts. But she had stalled long enough, so she pulled up her stats screen once again. And it sure said a lot. Name: Meliastraza Obsidianheart Title: the Magnificent Race: Archdragon Class: Destroyer of Worlds Level: 3700 HP: 257B Mana: 3.

9M Rage: 0/500 Energy: 1000/1000 Constitution: 1, 000, 030, 744 Strength: 793, 242, 877 Dexterity: 403, 966, 152 Agility: 398, 125, 009 Intelligence: 8, 752, 461 Wisdom: 2, 650, 039 Spirit: 2, 602, 998 Melia flinched just like she had the first time she saw her status screen. At the very top was her name. This was the simplest, easiest to rationalize, and least complicated to understand.

Her name was Melia, and she got into the game early enough to reserve that username without having to resort to xXx's or a host of numbers trailing off it. When she created the dragon, she had to put in a last name, and, in doing so, she also spiced up her first name to make it sound more draconic. She had originally considered misspelling "Obsidian" on purpose, like with a Y as in "Obsydian" or "Obsidyan", but she kept failing autocorrect.

Now that she was a little older, and, more importantly, living in this body for real, she was extremely glad she discarded that idea. She would have become Meliastraza the Anti-Social, the world's first shut-in dragon! If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. The fact that she was called "the Magnificent" made her cringe too.

It made her sound pompous, which was exactly what her roleplay group were going for when making their skits, but arrogance didn't fit her personality at all. Melia would never consider herself a social butterfly. She was more meek than outgoing. Whenever they weren't acting (so long as she didn't forget), she would change her title back to "of the Shattered Sun."

It wasn't a particularly hard to acquire title, but it was old, and most people didn't go out of their way to get it anymore (if new players even knew it existed). And, crucially in her case, it was long. Sometimes she enjoyed standing around in main cities, looking for people taking selfies, and conveniently placing herself in the background. If they didn't have nameplates filtered off, her name alone would take up half the screen.

Smiling fondly in reminiscence, Melia thought briefly about activating it again, but instead opted for the safer, "no title" option. Just "Melia" she would be. The thing that wasn't as easy to digest, but also impossible to avoid, was her race. She was a dragon alright: a big, heavy, magnificent dragon. She didn't know exactly what an "Archdragon" was, but it wasn't hard to guess that it meant something along the lines of "big and nasty"… if her size alone meant anything.

When creating this character back in the game, she had several options to choose from for the dragon form. Since these options were completely cosmetic, the archetype didn't matter. Her humanoid form had a bigger gameplay impact than her dragon form (and, as always, she chose to be a gnome), but, even so, there was only one choice in Melia's mind when it came to her draconic form. There were Chinese dragons, Japanese dragons, Western-style dragons of various shapes and sizes…

and, indeed, Melia chose the Western type mostly for its size. It was something called a "behemoth dragon." This type had no relation to the mythic-level, world-boss monsters, named only for its size and ferocious looks. It was so heroically fantasy that it practically screamed, "I will eat all of your dwarves and your Hobbit if you so much as look at my shiny pile of gold". Her current body didn't completely ooze murder and mayhem. Yes, her scales were pitch black.

Or perhaps more accurately, the color was a purple so deep that, unless the sun shined directly on her scales, she appeared black. And her ridges looked sharp and immovable as a broken mountainside, but she was not entirely an edgelord. She loved bright things, pastels and cheerful hues, and all of her gnomes rocked bubblegum pink hair. When it came to Melia's dragon form, this vibrancy included a very visible strip outlining her belly, the supposed "soft spot" on a dragon, which was blinding white.

What Melia couldn't understand was her level. There was no reason she should be that high. The max level in the game was 100, but even if she ignored the "stat-squish" eras and added her level up continuously, it would only reach 150. 170 max. As popular as the game was, they only released an expansion every 22 months or so. About two years to players who didn't wait on them religiously.

As of Melia's last login, they had successfully released 5 expansions and another was due for a new one next year, and when it came, it would up the level cap by one more increment… if they didn't do another squish. However, this would be something that Melia would never know. No, there was no reason for her to be level 3, 700. It was such an oddly-specific number. It was as if… and then it hit her. Technically, her character had been level 3700. Or rather, she had accrued 3700 levels on her dragon.

Each of her 37 classes and professions were maxed out… at level 100. Even for somebody keen on watching numbers go up, 3700 levels seemed overly excessive. She sighed and wanted to cup her face in her hands, but realized she couldn't, due to the constraints of her body. Besides, who wants to see a whiney dragon? While it didn't exactly explain all of her stats, it was her best guess given the circumstances. That and her race.

Dragons, in most myths and fantasy tales, were generally quite strong; they were nearly invulnerable and invincible creatures of might and magic. Melia could only guess that her race acted as a multiplier on her base stats, combined with her outrageous level, to create the utter monster that she now was. If she wasn't too busy being morbidly fascinated by her whole situation, even she might have been afraid.

If her stats in the game were anything to go by and could be compared with the stats she had now, then she was more than just "strong". She was more than overpowered. Calling her a natural disaster or a calamity would be closer, but that still felt like calling an ocean a puddle. Her stats weren't just greater by an incremental order of magnitude. In some cases they had risen exponentially… and then doubled on top of that. The strength on her [Warrior] alone used to be slightly over 18 thousand.

Now it was almost 800 million. She imagined crushing mountains under her claws, grinding them to dust like breaking apart a particularly crumbly cookie. She shuddered. Eventually Melia realized that she couldn't stay frozen in place forever even if something in the back of her mind told her that she could last a really long time as a dragon.

She waved away her status screen and did her best not to think about all the ways things could go wrong for somebody with her bulk of stats, especially when it came to interacting with fragile, tiny mortals. A tiny mortal... she still very much identified with and considered herself one of these.

And yet, she shuffled minutely to the side, and where (once upon a time) such an insignificant movement would have been imperceptible even to people looking for it, her massive size said otherwise in an already cramped room. Her right wing, still folded comfortably on her back, had tried to stretch a little… and brushed up against one of the support pillars supporting the crumbling roof. One of Melia's eyes swiveled up to stare warily at the pitiable building as several bricks tumbled down her back.

No, she could not remain a monstrous, hidden mountain forever. Melia wasn't the most outgoing person in the world, but she craved company nevertheless. She didn't want to be alone. And one of the most difficult parts of remaining not alone was to avoid terrifying or crushing new acquaintances. She had yet to access it so far, but she knew this body came with a humanoid form. All dragons did. For a host of reasons, according to game lore, even lesser dragons sometimes took the form of the mortal races.

Sometimes taking the form of a mortal allowed dragons to infiltrate a society they wished to take something from more effectively. At other times, it was for the simple purpose of moving around more conveniently. And besides all that, Melia was actually excited. She knew what to expect, having created the character herself. However, a fraction of her mind was worried that she would transform into something completely different or unknown.

Nevertheless, she brought up the picture of her gnome in her mind and her body started doing the rest. There was no great, ominous transformation sequence where her body started twisting, groaning, and reshaping itself. No unnecessary destruction of her environment to assuage her cooped-up limbs for being cramped so long. No horrific amalgamation of body horror as her size imploded on itself and she shrunk down to a fraction of her size.

Her form simply glowed white, turning her into a mostly recognizable silhouette as if somebody had cut out a dragon-shaped section of the world and the background radiated pure white. The light instantly compressed itself, and in less than a blink, the white mass re-formed into a tiny figure: small, spindly, and unassuming. Gnomes were one of the smallest sapient races, and, by far, the smallest sapient race that made up the "Alliance of Man".

This Alliance was, as one might guess, not only made of humans, but also included other free, harmonious folk that worked together for the benefit of all. For example, it was composed of gnomes, humans, elves, dwarves, and beastkin who collectively referred to themselves as "Humanity." They were set apart from the monsters who were born of mana and held no love for things other than themselves. In this world, if it followed the game, "humans" were the base size, the average, and everything was adjusted from them…

not politically or historically or anything to do with lore, but attuned strictly to size. That is to say, a human that stood between 5 and 6 feet tall was considered average. An elf would be considered "tall" even if a short adult of their species was, at shortest, 7 feet. Beastkin followed humans nearly exactly: they only differed in looks, having obvious tails and ears that primarily emerged from the tops of their heads. Dwarves were stout and sturdy, ranging from 4 and 1/2 to 5 feet tall.

They were usually as wide and as well-built as the strongest humans. Halflings, on the other hand, resembled human children. And then there were gnomes. They were an inquisitive race, exuberant and explorative, with an unfortunate penchant to let their curiosity get the better of them, despite the consequences. Their personalities were huge–in stark contrast to their physical size–and they were known for their minds, producing great [Tinkerers] and [Engineers] with the occasional [Enchanter] or [Archmage].

But gnomes were almost never known for their strength. … Said "almost" was almost entirely attributed to Melia's [Warrior] who had some manner of fame within the game. Although she probably didn't know it. But, above all, gnomes were tiny. Standing between 2 and 1/2 to 3 feet tall, their heads alone made up a good portion of their bodies.

At a glance, they were not often mistaken for children; they were too short, their bodies were too mature for their tiny composition, and they were far too expressive, even compared to a child. Their eyes were huge, even on their large heads, and they generally had round ears like humans, though, proportionally, they were much larger. They were not, however, misshapen or disfigured. Their heads, large though they might be in comparison to the rest of their bodies, were still proportional.

And their limbs, though short and sometimes a little chubby, were not restricted. Melia, for instance, stood all of 2 and 1/2 feet off the ground and six of those inches were her head. When the light cleared, she blinked the stars from her eyes… and felt her mouth falling open in wonder. While she felt claustrophobic beforehand with her body pressing into all sides of the building, she now felt herself lying on the floor of some great, forgotten auditorium.

The roof (thankfully not crumbling down onto her) loomed miles above her head, though she could see exactly where her wing had previously scraped it. She stretched, yawned, widening her mouth comically large, and sighed. A glint of light caught her attention from several yards away. Her tiny gnome steps took far longer than she remembered, especially compared to her actual steps when she was walking, but that was partly to be expected since playing the game was not like living day to day.

She approached an object lying on the ground, and, after a few curious seconds, she was hit by dawning understanding. There was a triangular, oblong object positioned in front of her that, at first glance, she had taken for a very strange table. Laying as it was on the ground, it came up to her thighs, and, as she circled it, she noted that its length was several times her height. As soon as she understood the shape of it, she thought it might be a discarded kite shield.

She had a collection of shields for her [Warrior], though she never used them because she preferred to dual wield. If this was indeed what she thought it was, then a shield this size would have to belong to one of the "big races," someone or something over 7 feet tall, such as elves or northern barbarians, which were essentially huge humans. Melia's take on size was currently a bit hazy, but it looked at least 8 feet long and 4 feet wide.

If this was a shield then it was the strangest looking shield without design or any sort of hand or arm straps… and that's when Melia noticed. It wasn't a shield at all. She had an idle itch on her arm several hours ago, so she scratched it without thinking. She remembered hearing something fall to the ground but thought nothing of it. A scale. This was a scale. More specifically, this obsidian piece of armor was one of Melia's arm scales. Not the largest. Not the toughest.

Yet it was something akin to a flake of skin and it dwarfed her current size. Her awe redoubled as she rounded it again and again. She was unable to find words to properly describe how she felt. Just moments ago, she was that huge? No wonder her stats were grossly inflated! Melia bent down to pick it up without thinking, probably because she subconsciously recognized the scale as something that came from her body. It should not have budged. It had to weigh over a hundred pounds.

And Melia was probably a third of that. And at first it didn't. Melia was shocked, more so from the second burst of strength that hit her, as if her body remembered that it needed to put in effort. When she didn't think about it, she was weak and tiny, but as soon as she focused her effort, she could call on her monstrous strength. This was good to know; it boded well for future interactions when she didn't want to crush people with a hug.

She dragged the scale over to the wall, which was mercifully close, and propped it up… side down, technically. On her body, the flat part of the scale was usually on top while the point… pointed down. Her scales, at least the obsidian scales not covering her belly, were deep, deep purple bordering on pitch black. They were polished to a sheen and unblemished by any scratches or spots.

Looking at her reflection in the glinting scale, she recognized that it was, perhaps, a shade darker than it would have been in a standard mirror, but she could see her new body perfectly. As was her intention during character creation, she was not of average, mundane appearances. But what else could be expected of a gnome? Melia had lost her real legs by the time she created her first gnome, and it was at that point that she decided she didn't want to have an average body.

She could have chosen an elf for its incredibly tall, slender, and lanky form. However, at that early stage in the game's life, the northern barbarians weren't a playable race yet, so she couldn't be a hulking Amazon. Still, she set most of her sliders to their limits. She chose the shortest option, but also the curviest. She may have been bed-bound in life, cursed to an early death, but she was still a young woman after all. She could admit jealousy to the fuller chests she would never have.

She could admit to maddening envy at hips of any size as her legs deteriorated and rotted away to the bone. But there were limits to any game slider, so she ended up looking closer to a plus sized model rather than a blown up cartoon exaggeration. Her legs were "long," at least according to her tiny frame, standing slightly more than a foot at her waist. The rest of her torso was another 10 inches to her neck, bringing that part of her body to 2 feet in length.

Like any other gnome, her head (probably the size of a small child's) was her most characteristic feature, lending to a chibi character rather than a small human or halfling. Gnomes had huge eyes, taking up a good portion of their face, and they usually had either comically large noses (with incredible facial hair in the case of males) or extremely petite ones, which Melia had chosen. Her lips were full and almost always pulled into a playful smirk or smile.

Her rounded ears, like satellite dishes, were visible even through the strands of hair that escaped her ponytails. Melia's hair was a compromise. Originally, and for every iteration of character creation with the exception of her dragon, she wore bubblegum pink hair. However, to accommodate her dragon form, her gnomish form had to match; this accounted for the reason she had a brilliant white belly and a bright pink boundary where it ran into her obsidian scales.

In her gnomish form, her skin took that pale, milky color without appearing sickly and would likely attract attention from a certain sparkly, nocturnal crowd. Her hair, on the other hand, was that purple of endless night. However, she had two natural streaks of bubblegum highlights on her bangs that represented her roots, and she would not forfeit them.

She generally kept her long, waist-length hair pulled into twin ponytails that managed to flutter all over the place and would likely get in her way now that they were real. Her eyes, subtly draconic, were large, round, and expressive with elongated irises that hinted at her true heritage but didn't outright scream "large flying reptile." They had the color and sparkle of freshly polished amethyst. Currently, she had on deep purple mascara and black lipstick, accentuating her pearly white teeth as she smiled…

teeth that were, in some places, perhaps a bit too sharp. Her eyes drank in her form greedily, barely able to contain her excitement.

"Holy cow, I'm amazing!"