A Benevolent Evil Dragon

I wake up, feeling refreshed. At least I do for the first five seconds. Afterwards I collapse and roll around as I feel my body burning, but the sensation doesn't go away. I roar out in pain and the room lights up a bright bioluminescent blue. My body is rotting. The wounds those anglers inflicted are filled with necrotic tissue. I flash my mana, a thick layer of vibrant chaos wrapping around my scales, scorching the rotting parts.

The pain subsides and I look myself over again. It took a quarter of all my freshly recovered reserves, but my wounds are cleansed and I can feel them slowly knitting together, an itchy but at least not painful sensation. Something I do notice however is that my underbelly is already healed, even if I have some softer scales that showcase the claw marks and bite marks. The necrosis isn't from the wounds and their venom, it's from my own spell. Whatever protection my scales provide against magic does not fully cover open wounds.

This is why I didn't want to mess with life and death mana, they both can lead to death so easily. Still, I have to admit, flame that also rots and decays flesh is quite useful as a last resort. I add practicing more breath combinations and useful spells to my to do list, then look around.

It seems I went on an unconscious binge. Torsos ripped open, eggs mostly gone… It's clear there's no other anglers left so I can check the place out. Loot? Nada. Well, the heads are nice and not fully destroyed, but yeah, this was a shitty experience and I got nothing from it, aside from eradicating a colony of fishmen.

The only remotely precious looking thing is some silver and gold plated jewelry spread about, but again, plated is bad. Tasting the metal I take my guess that it's some poor quality iron, which as I see it, doesn't interact with mana. Basically I get a whole ring with the effect of half a gram of gold. It's not even worth hauling around. The only other object around is one chipped sword that is already mostly rusted. Not exactly a useful haul either.

Time to finish this chore… As macabre as it might be and with pain fresh on my mind, I start cutting up heads, preparing to deliver them, but then realize something is wrong. The lights are still on. I know I roared quite strongly, but the way these algae, or at least I guess it's algae, function is that they shine up when there's strong, foreign movement. Sometimes the fishmen lit them up as well, but they mostly reacted to me or to things I moved.

I try to shush it, but realize that I can't form proper words anymore. Without a second thought I breathe out flame, then chaos, then drink some water for good measure. Death fire sucks for the throat, who would've guessed?

I shake my head, annoyed that I managed to hurt myself worse than the veritable swarm of fishmen did. That annoyance doubles as I am forced to look at all the corpses floating in the water. Jan lied to us about most of the facts. He knew how heavy the opposition would be, the fishes themselves are weak, except for the big one. They were flimsier than an equivalent human, since I doubt I could split a human in two with just some water breath attack, unless I poured most of my energy in it.

More victims, long standing nest, great numbers and even a big guy… My throat rumbles, but I can't do anything about it. I expected deceit, I should have simply expected more… Now, what is up with the lights?

I slap the water and there's no reaction. Light shines from everywhere all the same and it is quite confusing. The more I focus on the glow, the more I feel something bubbling in me. Eventually I touch the surface of the biggest pool of water and I feel water mana leaving me in a short burst, after which the entire place darkens again. I tilt my head, then move my hand a bit, thinking of only the part around it glowing, and it happens.

Huh, eating… what was it? Fifty? Sixty? Eating all those cores made me figure out instinctively how to do this little trick. And not only that, I think back of how silently the damn fishmen moved despite being quite large and clumsy, then I step through the muck. A bit of water magic envelops my limbs and I can hear almost nothing. It's like those videos of fish that rapidly swim close to the surface without making a sound or breaking the tension. It's weird, but could be quite useful eventually.

With my new control over the local lighting implements, I get just enough shine to be capable of gathering the heads, then start swimming back to the hostage area. Once there I make sure no light will shine aside from the little lightning the girl creates occasionally. I am quite lucky, her light comes in short bursts and it is quite weak. I expect them to start talking when they hear the heads dropping to the floor, but they don't. They remain silent.

That's actually better for me. I am incredibly low on air mana, I can't even use it to boost my swimming speed, so I would rather not be forced to keep talking. This is going to be a long process anyways, so I will deal with them when I am done. Or at least that was my plan. By my third round, I hear people talking, but of course they use Kamish, so I do not understand anything. In my fourth round however, I hear the boy whispering in Vernian.

"Do you think… Hemmy, do you think the lady is alright?" Twice now Jan's kids showed they're much kinder than their progenitor. Maybe he's a good dad and a shit person. I should still drop a boulder on his head when I get the chance…

"I am sorry, young master." The man groans, panting as he holds the stump. I bet he's suffering from the venom. Even though it affected me, I am mostly sure I have a high tolerance for stuff like this, especially considering my filtration system. I am guessing it must suck tenfold for him. "The anglers keep moving around, I can only guess that she died. A lone girl fighting all of these monsters is impossible."

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Huh. They think I'm an angler. Makes sense, I am moving almost silently now, just like them. And the human thing to do would be to come over to them and see if there's any assistance I can provide. I do wonder why they're speaking Vernian… but then I remember that Jan spoke it too, when he was with his family. Interesting.

I let them have that misconception while I go around stacking heads into a pyramid. With this occasion I go back and finish my count. A grand total of fifty eight heads remain. Some were too mushed up to even carry over and some I outright ate in my blackout frenzy. It's decent. It would be many times our current value once everything was said and done, but it's far from fair compensation. Still, that is between me and Glozko.

I breathe out air mana, weave it into sound, then construct the spell. I make it gravely and tired, but still Edith-like. It startles the people, though I see some hopeful faces.

"It's done. I killed them." Arnold and Anka seem to be the first to react, followed by the knight, then a few other people that likely knew Vernian.

"See, Hemwick! The lady is fine! Did daddy send you, miss? Is he here too?" Anka speaks out then gets pulled back by the knight.

"Wait, my lady." He first addressed his charge, then turned to my general direction. "Miss, are you certain you killed them all? And if so, can you come closer? We can't see you all the way over there." He's the careful sort. Understandable.

"They're dead. Over seventy. Was hard. Clothes ruined. Very bloody. Rather not be snatch in the wind in front of all these people, especially the kids, you know? Plus, we have a problem. Is everyone here from Glozko's town?" This causes the man to frown, but somebody behind him replies instead.

"No, no, few of us from Gorski Sen, handful from other places. They all came from the wells and rivers and pulled us here." I nod along since I already thought it might have been like this.

The underwater tunnels seem to be quite sprawling, no wonder the town didn't seem to be as on edge. It's likely that at most two or three people other than the twins and knight were taken from there, everyone else coming from the other, more isolated places. Big, old issue that was likely ignored because it was cheaper than to hire competent travelers.

"Anyone dying?" Talking from the shadows seems to have put the people on edge a bit, but it's not like I have options. They look around, a woman shaking a sleeping man a few times, then she holds a hand to his nose, then listens to his heart and she tears up. It is the same man as before that replies.

"Only the knight and this man were wounded… this one died quietly, we didn't even realize… Sir Knight?"

"I'll live. Venom isn't strong enough to push any further. We need to evacuate everyone for now, I can just visit the witch for this." The man got up, a bit wobbly on his feet, but stopped as a small flame appeared in front of his face.

"I didn't say you could leave yet." The man reaches with his missing hand for a missing sword, then curses.

"What is this? Did Lord Glozko not send you here to rescue the young masters? How dare you stop us from leaving!?" The man has that righteous fury in him, but I don't really care.

"He didn't." It's that simple. As I say that, the entire cave becomes silent, as if waiting for an elaboration. "I got paid to come here in two days and kill a handful of fish men that showed up a week ago then started harassing a few peasants. You see, then, why I may be less than happy about this situation."

"Daddy didn't want to rescue us…?" "N-no that can't be right…" The children, true to their age, did not seem to understand the situation, but the knight did. Tale as old as time, hiring someone, lying about the job but still expecting for them to get it done and accept the extremely low pay and be grateful.

"You are lucky I overheard the lying bastard or I would have waited that long and then left when I realized how many of them there are. But no, I came after you, into an old den, despite all the lies and the tens of monsters. In return I want you to stay here a while longer. I will leave, rest and heal up, then come back in a day or two with the lord and his men after I have my payment in hand. You have water to drink, after all. You can survive a bit longer." I curse inwardly as I feel the structure holding up the rune starting to collapse. I am running out of sound mana. Annoying.

"I understand your anger, but please don't be rash. At least take the children! They have suffered eno-" The knight doesn't get to finish as a rock flies and bursts against the wall behind him.

"I am out of patience. I told you what will happen. I leave now. Don't try to find the exit, you might fall in a trap and die." And with that I leave.

Honestly, as much as I like to imagine the bastard stewing as he thinks of his kids while having his family screaming at him to do something, I wouldn't have normally done something as cruel as this. The problem, however, is that I can't do anything myself. If I do, people will talk about the dragon and suddenly gods will come knocking on my door. The reason it took so long for that goddess to find me is because she's not omniscient, but she found me nonetheless, so she must have ways to look around and any rumors will probably lead to my death.

I shake my head and walk away. I thankfully remember the way, but I don't exactly run. Even mostly recovered, I have a lot of open wounds that I need patched up. Running will only rip them open, hurting and exhausting me all the more. I end up leaving the caves after about two hours, which matches up with my clear speed. That alone is rough. At least my blood will start drying up. The moisture and the constant dips into the water made it hard to heal up properly.

With my bag of goodies recovered, I focus on my surroundings as I go back home. My path is lit up by all three moons… or at least two of them, since the third one really reflects basically nothing. I sometimes wonder what it is made of, to be so dark, but that is a question for the eventual astronauts to answer, not myself.

I make my way close to town, which takes a bit less time, my wounds having properly closed at least, then I fall asleep. It's way into the night, Edith had long since fallen asleep and I won't wake her up yet. I'll wait for morning. Until then, I rest and recover my mana. I will need it for tomorrow.