Chương 170: Reborn as the Dragon — Chapter 170 - Rolls-Royce

Early the next morning, before the sun had a chance to get vicious, Su Nian broke camp. Anna was still asleep, little mouth puffed out in a pout, completely dead to the world. He carried her along with the rest of the monster procession and set off without waking her. She'd earned it. Yesterday she'd washed a dragon, a whole dragon, and then drank enough dragon milk to knock out something twice her size. Dragon milk had that effect. Sleep quality went through the roof, and it wasn't optional.

The procession moved into the heart of the Morigan Plains. It was desolate out here. The magic element saturation had turned the region into a wasteland, all cracked earth and open sand under a sky that felt too bright. The air carried a sharp, acrid smell, desert heat mixed with hot metal, like someone had poured engine oil into a pan of scorched sand. Su Nian's frown deepened. He raised his guard. That smell was not a good sign....

"The sun! Praise the sun! Glorious, beautiful sun!"

"ROOOAAR!" The excited bellow rolled across the desert, startling a handful of sand sparrows that had been pecking around for insects in the dirt. Most of the birds didn't even flinch. They heard this every morning. The cave faced east, cut into the face of a sheer cliff. Each dawn, the first rays of sunlight came spilling through the entrance on the morning breeze, and that moment was the highlight of Rolls-Royce's day.

Rolls-Royce was a juvenile Brass Dragon, right on the cusp of young adulthood and a proper fifth-tier classification. In the endless sprawl of the Morigan Desert, that made him more or less invincible, and he knew it. He crawled out of his Dragon's Nest, shook out his wings, and crossed to a slab of crystal he'd polished to a mirror finish. His reflection stared back: the plow-shaped head crest, the deep-set eye sockets, the sunken cheeks, the forehead that radiated gravitas. Wise eyes. Fierce, curved chin horns.

Heavy brass scales with a rich matte texture. Still devastating. Still, frankly, magnificent. Rolls-Royce gave a satisfied nod and settled in to squint at the warm morning light. On a normal day, he could stretch this out for five or six hours without complaint. But today was not a normal day. Yesterday, he'd extended a personal invitation to an adventurer. As a hospitable Brass Dragon, neglecting a guest was simply out of the question.

He gave himself thirty minutes of sunbathing, a significant personal sacrifice, then headed back inside. He came to a stop in front of a human head. Just a head. The rest of the adventurer was buried in sand, packed in up to the neck, right there in the middle of the cave floor. Whether this qualified as inhumane treatment was genuinely difficult to say. There was a plate of food in front of him, a clay cup of milk, and, because Rolls-Royce had worried about boredom, a small wooden horse figurine he'd made himself.

"Oh, my friend! I've come to talk with you!" Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. The adventurer heard the dragon's voice, turned his head, and looked up with an expression of profound misery. His lips trembled. He said nothing. His name was Tar, a middle-aged desert adventurer with a square jaw, a big beard, and a lifelong habit of chasing treasure. He'd come into the desert yesterday looking for the legendary Virtue Gold Coins.

What he'd found instead was this Brass Dragon. He hadn't panicked, at first. Brass Dragons were Chaotic Good. They didn't massacre intelligent creatures for sport. There were conditions, of course, small ones, really. A Brass Dragon's conditions were always the same. Chat with me. So they'd chatted. From noon straight through to nightfall. The desert was brutally dry, the heat relentless, and even Tar, a second-tier warrior with solid physical conditioning, had felt his mouth turn to sandpaper by midafternoon.

But the dragon showed absolutely no interest in stopping. Out of options, Tar had tried to run. He'd failed. The Brass Dragon had interpreted his escape attempt as a personal rejection, a wound to his dignity. The response had been a faceful of sleep-inducing breath. Tar had woken up in his current position: neck-deep in sand, staring at a wooden horse.

"My friend, I've come to keep you company — aren't you happy?" Rolls-Royce tilted his head, studying Tar with earnest concern.

"Is the food to your liking? If not, I'll have my troglodytes prepare something else."

"And the milk — proper Desert Fire Cow milk. It holds its temperature on its own, nice and warm, no heating needed."

"Oh! And the wooden horse! Do you like it?" His chest puffed out.

"I made it myself." He gazed at the human adventurer with bright, expectant eyes, clearly hoping for enthusiastic feedback. Tar's face was a study in quiet suffering.

"Thank you, great Brass Dragon. The food is excellent, truly. It's only — being buried in the sand is... quite uncomfortable. Would you consider, ""Oh, my friend! Being buried in the sand is one of life's great joys!"

"I bury myself regularly. It's warm. It's dry."

"The feeling of sand flowing over one's scales, like water, like silk, it rivals sunbathing itself!" As he spoke, Rolls-Royce used all four legs to shovel himself into the sand. He stopped when only his head was above the surface, positioned directly across from Tar. Dragon head and human head regarded each other across three feet of desert floor. Tar drew a long, slow breath.

"What would you like to talk about today? I only ask that when we're done, you let me go home." Rolls-Royce's eyes went wide.

"Go home?" He looked genuinely baffled, as though Tar had suggested something mildly insane.

"Is my Dragon's Nest not luxurious enough for you?"

"Why would you want to go home?"

"Here you have excellent food. Here you have me."

"Oh! Greedy human, your life here is the envy of any creature in this desert. Show a little gratitude!" Tar said nothing. The light went out of his eyes. He pressed his lips together, lowered his head, and went very, very still. Rolls-Royce watched him. He was a good-natured dragon at heart, genuinely good-natured, and the human had clearly reached a point of spiritual collapse. Going further seemed excessive. He cleared his throat and attempted diplomacy.

"Human. You came to this desert for treasure. That much is obvious."

"And treasure is the one thing I have in absolute abundance."

"So, here is my proposal. You keep me company. In exchange, I will pay you three copper coins per day. No, one. One copper coin. Per day. Plus full board. Three meals. Eight hours of sleep outside of our chat sessions." He leaned forward slightly, eyes bright.

"Well? Well? That is an extremely generous arrangement." Tar's head sank lower. One copper coin a day, room and board included. He was a human being. He had a family, presumably. He had, at minimum, a soul. Mental torment of this particular variety was simply not something he could endure indefinitely, not for one copper coin. Not unless the rate went up considerably.

"... Two copper coins?" Rolls-Royce gritted his teeth. That was his absolute ceiling. He knew his finances. He had maybe ten thousand gold lions to his name, every one of them scraped together over years of desert living, earned by driving off bandit groups one at a time. At two copper coins a day, ten thousand gold would cover this man's conversational services for... a very long time. Humans. Bottomlessly greedy.

Rolls-Royce was still silently composing his counter-offer when a sand-scaled snake wriggled up out of the ground nearby. It raised its head and hissed at him in rapid, urgent pulses. Rolls-Royce's face changed. The brass drained from his scales, replaced by something darker, almost bronze.

"What?" He reared up out of the sand.

"A Black Dragon? Invading my territory with monsters?"

"The audacity!" His eyes lit up with sudden, focused energy.

"I'm going to catch him and bring him back for a conversation!" ➤ Next: The Weak Black Dragon