Chương 54: Chapter 55: Dragon

My eyes shoot open when the logs fall. I don't know how much later it is, but the sun is significantly higher in the sky, so it's been at least a few hours. I look down at the tree I had originally prepared with all the traps, but I don't see anything. I don't see anything moving around, prodding at the tree, or looking upset at setting off the traps. All I see is the sign of a wild rush through the area. The underbrush is trampled and broken. As I'm watching, another beast goes running past.

This one looks like a bear with bone protrusions at its shoulders. Only it's absolutely enormous, easily twice the size of a normal bear. It's six or seven feet tall at the shoulder, and it's running on all fours. That thing would be at least fifteen feet tall standing upright. Dire Bear. Very Rare Advanced beast, level 24. HP 6, 000/6, 000. Normally, bears are somewhat quiet in the way they move. They aren't exactly what you'd call stealthy; they're too big for that.

But they slip around trees and move with the forest pretty well, so they don't make a huge ruckus either. This dire bear is crashing through the underbrush, knocking smaller trees aside with its paws and basically moving without care, going as fast as it can rather than as quietly as it can. It's running from something. It doesn't have to look back over its shoulder for me to figure that out. It just needs to keep barreling ahead, moving with a panicked speed that is terrifying on a number of levels.

On the one hand, having that thing charge at you would be absolutely terrifying. It's snapping saplings in half rather than weaving around them. I don't want to even think what that monster would do to me if it hit me. But that's not the really scary part. The really scary part is that something else scared that monster. Something scared it enough that it's running in absolute terror, not paying any attention to what's in front of it. And it's not the first thing that came running this way.

There is fresh track from a number of other animals that I can see, a whole new trail blazed through the forest, all leading back in the direction that the dire bear came from. I climb down from my resting place, earning a third point of climbing, and start to go the wrong way down that fresh trail. I start heading towards whatever danger they're all running away from. The way I figure it, whatever is causing them all to panic is likely to be interesting.

If it's something like a fire, I'll be able to smell it long before I see it, and I'll be able to turn and run away from the flames just as easily as these animals have been. But if it's not something like that, if it's more something like a bigger, badder monster, then I want to see it. I want to see what it is. And I want to see if I can kill it. A dire bear is strong, no doubt about that. I can see its strength from the way it tore through the forest. But it only has six thousand hit points.

So it's not that dangerous. I could take one of them on without difficulty. Probably two of them at once if I was careful. But I want to see the creature that made it run away in terror. It's bound to be higher level, and my quest is just to catalog. But even if I do catalog it, I might be able to kill it. I might be able to get another level out of whatever it is, putting me almost back to where I was when I died. I was at level 28. If this thing is scary enough to get me to 23, I'll be happy.

If it can get me higher than that, even better. I keep my eyes up as I'm moving, trying to catch sight of whatever is making the local fauna run in terror before it sees me. I focus on the scent, trying to catch the hint of whatever it may be. After maybe five minutes of travel down the path, I see three large feline forms heading towards me. I don't think they're what I'm after. Greater Leopard. Rare Elite beast, level 17. HP: 4, 250/4, 250. Not surprisingly, they don't move to attack me.

In fact, they don't seem to notice me much at all, other than an obstacle to go through or go around. They roar at me, but when I step off to the side and draw my bow, they don't move to attack me. They just keep going, following the path the dire bear blazed. They're running too. I don't know much about leopards, but I'd expect them to be more likely to sneak around than to run this out in the open. They seem more like ambush predators, if I'm remembering my animal planet correctly.

So that's another creature that is running for its life for whatever is happening at the other end of this path. I make sure that my Shell is full and ready to be recast, then enter into stealth and start moving alongside rather than down the trail that was blazed. I activate Camouflage and sneak my way forward, one arrow nocked in the bow and four more in my hand, ready for Rapid Fire. It's the single most damaging attack I have, and I want to be ready. I'm not sure if I'm going to even try to kill this thing.

It scared a group of greater leopards and a dire bear enough that they just ran, and seemed to be running long after getting out of sight of whatever monster I'm creeping up on. I'm not sure if I'll be able to kill it. I want to see it just to make sure, but I don't have high hopes. Still, if I can get close enough to it to identify it, that might be worth something. And then, once I do that, maybe I'll go back and hunt down those greater leopards and that dire bear for the experience that they're all worth.

There's a clearing over a fallen log, but there's something wrong with the log. As I get close to it, I see what's wrong: it's still alive. I mean, technically it's probably dead now, but it was a living tree not very long ago. In fact, I don't think this clearing was here when I went to sleep. Whatever is scaring those other creatures so much is big enough, and strong enough, that it made this clearing for itself. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

I hear the sounds of something eating, and I start moving even more slowly. You can tell a little bit about the size of something that's eating by the way that it eats. The way it opens its mouth, the sound of it ripping flesh from whatever it's devouring, is very distinctive. As is the smell. It's a strange smell, getting stronger with every step that I take. On the one hand, the smell is musky and thick, like a wyvern. But at the same time, it's crisp and airy, like you'd expect a bird to smell.

It's hard to put into words, but the smell is very distinctive, tickling my nose with the desire to see what it is, even though I'm starting to suspect that I already know. There's a trumpeting roar that splits through the air. It sounds almost celebratory. That makes me slow down even more, and makes me reconsider whether or not I really want to see this thing. From the sound of it eating, the origin of that trumpeting sound as far as height, and the size of the clearing I'm moving into, I'm not sure that I do.

I come around a hill that I think is also new, and I see it. And my blood freezes. Green Dragon. Legendary rare elite dragon, level 30. HP: 148, 000/150, 000. It's chowing down on a dire bear without a care in the world. Thankfully, the wind is with me, and I don't think it's smelled me just yet. But if it does, then I don't know what I'm going to do. I guess I'll just die. Again. I have forty thousand experience worth of quests to turn in, so that should get me some of those levels back.

But I'm not going to kill this thing. No chance. It takes another big chomp out of the dire bear and then chews the meat with its mouth open, savoring the flavor. It looks like it has a smile on its face. Its gigantic face. This dragon is huge, even curled up around its kill. It looks like it has a wingspan of at least forty feet, and it has claws that make the dire bear look small. It reminds me a cat playing with a mouse.

Thankfully, it seems to be a very satisfied cat, enjoying ripping pieces off its mouse and eating them, maybe thirty feet away from me. I should really back away. I should use every ounce of stealth that I have to sneak away before it notices me. I should creep my way back to the path that the other dire bear blazed, and I should start sprinting down it, until I catch up to the dire bear. I can't kill this thing. I'm not sure that the five of us together could kill it.

I turn my foot, just a little bit, and the dragon stops. I stop. I hold as still as my body has ever been, wishing I could make my heart stop beating, sure that the dragon can hear it thudding in my chest.

"There is no point," the dragon says.

"I already smelled you." Suddenly, I really wish I'd put more points into charisma.

"I'm not currently hungry, and I would rather not stop eating just to fight you. We are engaged, but to what end remains to be seen."

"If it's all the same to you," I say, "I'd rather you not stop eating to fight me too. I'd really rather not fight you at all."

"Then I can trust you not to attack me? Not even with that bow of yours?" He turns his head towards me, and I get a look at his eye. It looks like a tiger eye. Not the eye of an actual tiger, but like the stone. The eye is about the size of both of my fists together. His jaw looks like he could bite me in half if he wanted to, and it's already splattered with the blood of the dire bear. I nod quickly, taking the arrow out of the bow and returning all of them to my quiver.

"I won't attack you if you don't attack me," I say.

"I have no desire to kill you. You can provide a bit of conversation, which would make this day complete."

"Okay, so we're settled on not getting violent," I say.

"That's good. What, um. What did you want to talk about?"

"You are not from this world, are you?"

"How can you tell?" The dragon makes a huffing sound.

"Lucky guess, wolf blood."

"Yeah. I mean no, I'm not from this world."

"How recently did you arrive in this world?"

"It's been about four or five days, I think," I say.

"Not very long."

"Was the god dead when you went through the portal from your old world?" That stops me for a second. This is the second conversation I've had with monsters, and it's the second conversation about the dead god. This is clearly important.

"Yeah," I say.

"It was dead before I was put into the system, I think." The dragon nods, then takes another bite of the dire bear.

"I see. How long ago were you put into the system?"

"Maybe two weeks?" I say.

"That fits the timeline," he says.

"Twelve days ago, something killed a god. It was one of your kind."

"It wasn't me." There's that huffing sound again. I wonder if that's laughter.

"I am aware of that," he says.

"I doubt you would be capable of such an event."

"I take no offense to that," I say.

"I'm not the kind of person who wants to kill gods, either."

"Does it take a specific type of person to want to kill a god?"

"I don't know," I say.

"I assume it would. The kind of person who would've tried to kill you while you were eating."

"That would not have gone well," the dragon says.

"I am sating my hunger, but I am ready to fight should it come to that."

"I'm sure," I say. I unstring my bow and slide it into my spatial bag. I'm still not sure if I'm going to get out of this alive, and if I die, I want to keep my bone bow as well as whatever else the system decides that I should get to keep. I'd put my sword into my bag too, but I'm too afraid that the dragon would think that I'm drawing my weapon so that we can fight.

"You already said that you were not the type," the dragon says.

"It does not smell as if you are being deceptive. Yet the fact remains that there was someone who was that type. And they likely had others at their disposal to assist. Did you go through your training more than once?"

"Yes," I say.

"We didn't make it to the portal in time, because no one told us that we needed to. So all of us died, and then we had to go through the tutorial a second time."

"Tutorial. This is a new word for me. I like it. It has a pleasant mouth feel." The dragon smacks its lips (such as they are) together as if getting a taste of the word. It is not a calming sight.

"I think likely a great many died when killing the god," the dragon says.

"It seems unlikely that a god could be killed by a newly spawned group, no matter how large it may have been."

"My first time through, I made it to level 10," I say.

"My second time I made it a lot further. I think we were level twenty four by the time we finished our second period."

"Interesting. What was the difference?"

"Just knowing what we were doing. Being more careful but at the same time taking more risks. And the fact that we didn't lose our skills."

"You don't lose your skills when you die? Your attributes decrease, but not your skills?"

"That's right." The dragon reaches up a blood soaked claw and scratches itself under the chin. The claw is about as big as my open hand. I find myself simultaneously thinking about what I could sell that claw for and how easily that claw could slit me open.

"Interesting. That might be how they were able to take on a god. A strange thing to neglect. I would have reduced your skills by the same ratio as I decreased your attributes." Glad this dragon isn't in charge of the death penalty, then. That would absolutely suck, and make progress almost impossible when we died. It would be the height of unfairness. Wouldn't it?