A Benevolent Evil Dragon

I yawn as I walk through the woods, finally seeing the road. It took me most of the night to catch up, but I did nonetheless. I poke my head into the back of the wagon and I see Edith, startled, looking at me with tired but alert eyes. The pile of gold that's under her raised bed catches my eye more than her exhaustion, but that's par for the course. This is… a lot. Nowhere near the absurdity that mother had given us when we were barely born, but this, minus a bit of the fire that will go to Edith, is more than enough to keep me awake, especially after I pour the rest of my spoils.

"I'm glad you're here…" Her voice is meek, her eyes are teary. I'm guessing she didn't sleep well. Or rather sleep at all.

With most of the coins, crystals and jewelry being spread out all over the wagon floor, I climb up, putting the sacks of scrolls and books into a corner, then curl up next to her. Good thing I relayed the design for this perfectly. I will eventually outgrow it, but for now we can sleep quite well like this, with her not having to step on the valuables. I was planning on putting a fake floor, but I didn't know how much we'll end up accumulating, so I am stepping on them for now. It shouldn't be a problem, the crystals are absurdly hard unless I bite into them and the metals aren't showing signs of collapsing and deforming just from my weight.

I shake my head, stopping myself from delaying things any further. "You were magnificent, Edith. You can rest. I will watch out for the both of us." I immediately see relief wash her expression away, making her nod and turn over. Even though it's not needed, I spread a wing and hug her tight. I may have been the closest to death, but she spent the entire time in that town with a boulder over her head because of Glozko.

Still, as much as it sucked, we came out on top. I try to guesstimate how much gold we have, but that's hardly a skill I have. Even with limited volumetric calculations, I end up with a very simple answer. We're short. Once I count the money from the small chest, the reward for the men and the songstress, then the money for all the items and the 300-ish gold for the heads alone… We should be well into our 500's but I see about 400. Thinking back to the fact that I only saw a handful of gold left in his vault, which I anyways took, makes it clear that he didn't even have that much on hand.

Huh. Guess that makes sense. The town is decently developed and he's lucky to have commerce with the empire, but the path of the gold leads over to the proper city Lech mentioned, not his fringe village. Quite annoying, but I got way over my price in jewels and books, so it's ultimately fine. I just hope he won't decide to mount a hunt for me… And I hope the maid will stay silent.

I shake my head and do a final rundown of what I have access to. With everything pooled together and after my raid, I now have access to quite a lot of useful mana. I have the four basics, light, lightning, nature, death and the new goodies: darkness, bone and lava which looked like a black crystal with red cracks bleeding through. Out of all eleven of these, I can only somewhat use seven of them, but that is more than enough. I also know how to make sound out of air, so I technically have eight types to work with, but that is hardly perfect.

I need to set up new priorities. I don't always have a say in my mana, since I am reliant on outward sources, so I will need to have spells readied up for everything. Sure, I have the components of every spell I could make, but I can't build the frameworks of something complex mid battle, and relying on voice is also a bad practice, since I could have my mouth tied or simply not have air in my lungs after a nasty hit. Plus, even though draconic can order mana to snap into place, it consumes more mana and can even backfire if the spell is too complex or if I slip up and misspeak the words. Speaking is a crutch to spam easy spells, not my heavy hitters.

With that in mind, I need to both make powerful spells for every element and mix I can imagine, and try every breath I can. Even if it is good, I will stay away from death for now. Both death and life are elements that will absolutely murder me if I mess up. My wounds kept rotting until I personally intervened, if I pass out fully, outside a mana rich area, with wounds covered in death I will die, so for now I will put the death mana stone in a separate box or something. It's not worth throwing away, it's a great modifier in a life or death situation, but I don't want it to fill my new hoard's mana generation.

Now, the suns are up but Edith needs rest, so instead of starting to train deadly spells, I train by playing with the elements, as quietly as I can. I won't ignore earlier wisdom just because I am in constant conflict. I need to use magic for more than just murder. If I reduce it to strength it will lose its wonder and I might cripple my creativity. I need to live as much as I survive, or I will end up a hollow husk by the end of things.

Now, first things first, I decided to test out lava magic. I expected to get this just from combining fire and earth, but it ended up as a separate element altogether, or maybe it could be both? I can do sound magic by using raw air, it'd just be clunky, so I could use lava magic while using fire and earth, it'd just be slow and expensive. Yes, that lines up.

Either way, I have a will and a mana source, so despite not knowing the rune for it, I push the mana itself out and focus entirely on envisioning. My head is peeking out the back of the wagon, so I get to see the ground. I look with all my eyes and I see how the cloud of lava mana flows out, reaches the vegetation and with my ideas shaping its effects, it lights the grass on fire and seeps into the earth.

It works. I make the tiniest puddle of melted dirt, which radiates heat. My only problem is that it took all the mana I accumulated in the walk here in order to just start the process, so I can't even shape the puddle. Well, it's not an issue, I needed to stop the fire anyways. With a quick forming rune, I condense water from the air and move it like a slithering snake over all the flaming plants, extinguishing the fire, before pouring it into the puddle of lava. The water turns to steam, but a bit more mana going into the spell forces it right back into liquid, cooling it down as a side effect. It takes three more uses to cool down the surface, though I do not mind it much as it helps with practice.

After that I spend the following few hours doing basic manipulation tests with all the elements, followed by using basic runes, then for more complex ones, to see how each feels and reacts. I am unable to test every combination possible, a good mana regeneration doesn't mean infinite mana after all, but my repertoire of ideas of magic grows, as does my understanding of my own mana as my reserves get emptied and refilled. Each time I get low I start absorbing it faster, observing the circulation and flexing my control to make things even more efficient and swift. I am not able to keep up the experiments forever though, as eventually the exhaustion doesn't go away.

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I am forced to stay half-awake for a while, waiting for Edith, but when she wakes up I take her place and collapse.

When I wake up, the first thing I do is slip my head out and look at the passing landscape. We're on the move. I don't know where to, we didn't really discuss that, but it's better than waiting there and maybe being pursued by the Baron. The second thing I do is make a fire rune, working on mimicking Edith's butterfly of sparks, unsuccessfully. Sure, I am moving and using a whole different magic framework, but it feels bad that my supposedly superior magic is worse at doing a pretty light show… I need only train it further, I'll get it eventually.

With the test done, I turn around and sneak my head out the other end, looking over at Edith, who is handling the horses like a pro, despite not knowing anything about them before I told her how to control them.

"Are you feeling better? Was the time you spent with the nobles and soldiers that rough? I am sorry for leaving you on your own, it was the best way to get even with the bastard baron without starting a conflict." I speak as earnestly as I can, but it doesn't seem like Edith needs excuses or explanations.

"I'm alright, Heart. I'm alright. I slept like a log, you know? The inn had a nicer bed, but it was harder to rest, you know? Thank you." I frown as I am about to mention that she's clearly not fine, but a strong gust of wind and the scent of humidity stops me.

Above the clouds roar and I see lightning. Sudden rainfall. Great. The horses shake a bit, but they are still well trained, so they will keep their course. Edith may not do so well with a storm, though. I quickly check our surroundings, before the rain makes it impossible to look too far. We are, sadly, in an open field, on an incline. This is a very, very bad place to stand in, so we need to keep going through the rain.

"Get inside. Horses won't mind me much, since they have blinders on. Get in and try to keep the place tightly shut. Tell me if water is getting in. I don't want the books to go to waste." She nods, passing by me. My tails swish around a bit, nervous thoughts settling in as we speed up slightly. I am lucky that Edith catches on to that and nudges me out of it.

"You're very close to turning me into a dish here, Heart. Problems? I know the rain will be rough because of the mud, but you seem more worried than normal." She is a really good actress. I wonder if she can try to learn from a bard or theatre actor, because she switches from misery to care in a fraction of a second.

"The mud is dangerous because the horses could slip and hurt themselves, or the wagon itself could slip and fall in a ditch. It would be best to not ride on an incline like this, but we're in an open field and we're sitting on a pile of gold." I speak with a slight tremble in my raspy voice.

"Are you worried that the lightning mana will call the lightning on us?" Edith, however, doesn't seem to be too emotional about the possibilities.

"No, I am thinking about the conduc… Wait, I did not even think about that, but it could happen too… Now we're in double the trouble… I am worried because gold is a great conductor. Sitting on it, while being the tallest thing for a few kilometers, is just begging to be smited." The faint idea of this being some godly attack does pop up in my head, but I dismiss it. "Either way, the woods start not too far in front of us, it should be safer there."

She doesn't argue, but still stays close, a hand pressed on my lower back, keeping me grounded. I realize why the panic set in over something as simple as a little rain. I have a hoard now. I have a lot more to lose. It helps me stay alive, awake and strong, but it is a cause for paranoia. How great, everything has a double edge nowadays.

I smell it before it hits. Lightning strikes the ground not far from us. I can smell the ionization as the path is carved. Useful, but not overly so. I have to rein in the horses as they get spooked by the strike, though to my relief they also want to get out of here, so we just start going faster, instead of going sideways. My eyes are peeled, my sense of scent is as active as it can get.

I have that bad feeling, the hairs raising down my spine, though now I guess scales or spikes would be more adequate. Regardless I am ready to foresee the strike and magic stirs in me as I try to think of how to protect us. I don't have metal manipulation, sadly enough, and earth has yet to move metals around despite the fact that I am firmly aware they make up the vast majority of the ground. I can't use plants, I can't simply shield us, I need to redirect it. Electricity, direction, strength… that should do it.

I luckily have it prepared by the time I smell the ozone right on top of us. I don't really block it, or parry it, or move it myself. To put it bluntly, I can't. This isn't magic lightning, this is the real deal. Raw energy, courtesy of Mother Nature, not some off brand clump of mana with the visuals of lightning. So, instead, I poured every bit of lightning mana into making a tunnel through where electricity already goes, directing it to the side and into the earth, keeping us safe.

The third strike hits a tree, two kilometers away, going by the delay. I breathe a sigh of relief as we get into the woods, slowing down and taking us off the path to hide under some trees. No more travel for us today, but it doesn't matter. It's better to play it safe. I use magic to dry my upper third, where I got rained on, then get inside, curling up next to Edith.

"Well that was... too close for comfort." I sigh and catch my breath, smiling wryly. "Thunderstorm will last a while. It's still summer, so it will likely be a quicker one, but that will still take hours. At least we have time to think. We're moving North, right?" As I speak, I rummage through the sacks for a particular book.

"I went east first, made it seem like I would go to the local count's town, but yes, I moved North, especially now after you caught up. You said we're going how far away? Five days at least, more based on where we can find a large town after?"

I nod, passing her the most useful book I could have found. A fire exclusive tome, from the looks of it. It has the picture of a roughly anatomical view of the human body, half with skin half cut open to the blood vessels, but these ones have a few notable differences from what I remember a body looking like on the inside, including the fact that it has fire drawn in the veins.

"It should keep us out of range for retaliation. I want to go deep into the kingdom to be safe from the empire. Five days sounded like far enough away to take a break. We have a day's headstart and advantage in knowing where we're actually going, so it should be alright and they should lose interest even if they chase us. Unless they have magical horses. They don't have magical horses, right?" I give a half joking look to Edith, but the fact that she simply shrugs puts me on edge a bit, at least until she laughs earnestly.

I laugh too, then open the book and pass it over. "So, about the witch, you said you learned the letters in Vernian at least, right?" She nods and I smile. "Good, because we have nothing but books and plans to occupy us for a decent while."