Nihility [ Isekai • Dragon Evolution ]

"Yeah. This makes sense" I said out loud. It's not like I had access to any kind of clothes since I was reincarnated, and I don't think there exists any kind of clothes that can grow with me. I had grown from the size of a small dog to half the size of a standing human in about three months… No, scratch that. My body was resetting every time the loop repeated so I couldn't count using it. That means I grew more than five times my original size in about two weeks time. Take into consideration that these growth spurts happened in three singular instances then I don't think there would be any kind of cloth that would be able to fit me. And I didn't have any way to transport them. The bag I had exchanged with Henry was left in his tent when Amity, the witch of pride, tried to kidnap me.

Actually. What the hell happened to her? She had told me she was going to bring me to her castle and after stepping into her teleportation circle I felt like something got inside of me and then I was free falling out of the sky. I didn't think my skill would give me anything useful but I gave it a try either way. You never know.

[Teleportation circles work by having the relative coordinates of the desired destination and enough magicules to be charged with spatial elemental energy to be able to translocate the target to the destination. Wrong coordinates or lack of spatial energy can lead to misplaced teleportation]

Oh. It did give me something useful. As I highly doubt she would have the wrong coordinates, as she didn't appear with me, then the problem was the lack of spatial energy… When I was in the loop, the cave filled with temporal energy, some of it was always drifting apart and being absorbed by me, and I think the same happened during the teleportation. The feeling of something getting inside of me was probably the spatial energy of the teleport, and as it ran out it spit me wherever I am. It's the only thing that I can think of, but I think it's what actually happened.

As I was thinking about it, another part of my mind controlled my body to search for clothes in the wagon but found nothing. The only thing I found was a few pouches with a lot of coins of different metals with the bandits. I couldn't decide if I should take it or not, but the sound of another wagon in the distance made me pick just one of the pouches and then jump towards the forest. I was trying to not leave footprints of me going in the forest.

I then sprinted towards the city I had seen earlier in the horizon and, after a full thirty minutes of continuous sprint I was exhausted. I felt as if I could go more if I was in my true body, but this was the limit this one had. I slowed down to just a walk and then returned to the road.

At the same time I separated part of my mind to create an illusion spell for clothes so I wouldn't appear to be naked. Another option would be to just dirty myself but the attention I would get if someone started asking too many questions would be too much, and I'm not that good at lying. I could get away with it easily enough with Henry as he was mistaking me with someone else, but here I wouldn't have this.

After another hour of walking and changing the spell to match the clothes I was used to wearing, that being a normal t-shirt, shorts and shoes, I heard someone walking fast behind me. Before I could look back, however, I heard a masculine voice calling out to me.

"Hey, kid" The voice said. I turned back and saw an elf with yellow hair and eyes.

"Yes?" I answered.

I noticed he looked at my clothes strangely, but decided not to comment on them. "Have you heard anything unusual?"

"Hmm, no? Why?" I asked. I had a suspicion about what he was referencing.

"It seems a large monster attacked a wagon a couple hundred meters from here. Have you truly not heard anything?" He asked again.

Yeah. I was right about what he was asking, but I decided to play dumb. "Not really, no"

"I see. I will head off for the city now to report the incident. Be careful out here, okay? It's dangerous to be alone in the woods, even though you're on the road creatures might still attack you if you're not careful"

"I understand. Thank you, sir" I said while nodding my head at him. He gave me a small nod and then took off in a jog towards the city.

Well, I didn't know how this would complicate things for me, but in the short term there wouldn't be much I could do, so I decided to keep walking and changing the style of my clothes to match the style the elf was using. It was dumb of me to create illusions of modern clothes when I was in what appeared to be a medieval world.

Another half hour later I was out of the forest and in a small line to enter the city proper. There were small houses out here, but they seemed rather poor and not in a decent shape. Surrounding the city were stone walls with at least twenty meters in height, and from what I could see in the gate, at least five meters thick. The road I came from was not the main road, but one of the many side roads that connected to it after a few couple dozen meters away from the gate. There was a constant flux of people leaving and arriving at the city.

When there were only five people before me in line, a soldier in full armor approached me.

"Kid. Can we have a talk?" He said, I could understand from his voice it was not a question but an order. Then he made a gesture for me to follow him and entered a door near the outside part of the wall. I followed behind him, feeling the gaze of the other soldiers on me. Had I done something wrong? I had just got here. It couldn't possibly be racism as I saw other cat people walking before me, so why was I being called into what looked like a questioning room?

As I entered the room, the soldier closed the door behind me and told me to sit on one of the chairs that were in the middle of the room with a table. I sat down and waited patiently as the soldier grabbed some crystals and placed them on the table near him as he sat down.

"As you're only a kid I'll be lenient and ask directly what are you hiding" He asked me.

"What do you mean?" I was honestly confused about this. What was he talking about?

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"Don't try to play dumb, kid. One of our sorcerers felt the magic around you and is certain it's an illusion spell" He said.

"Oh" I said.

"Oh?"

"You see… I… Kinda don't have clothes… The one's I'm wearing are an illusion I made" I answered embarrassed.

The soldier didn't look impressed. "If that's how you're going to play with us. Then I'm sorry but we're going to have to be a little tougher" He said and then injected a miniscule amount of magicules in one of the crystals on the table.

Instantly I felt the anti-magic field set into place around me. The tingling sensation on my skin, but none of the pain I had felt before. I looked at my own chest as I saw the clothes dissipating as the spell structure was blended with the ambient magicules and only now noticed the golden pendant over my chest had vanished. I couldn't believe I hadn't realized it didn't hurt anymore to use my skills or magic.

"Oh… You weren't lying" I heard the soldier say, and then remembered the situation I was in. I immediately covered my private parts before answering,

"Y-yes. I wasn't. If you do not mind. Do you have any spare clothes you could give me or turn off the anti-magic so that I can make another illusion?" I asked.

"I'll see if we can spare a piece of clothes for you, if you don't mind waiting that is."

"Okay. I can wait."

He then got up and placed the crystals on a panel on the wall, which turned off the anti-magic field, then left the room. I casted another illusion spell, just so if someone were to enter the room they wouldn't find a naked person.

After a while he entered again and, after giving me a look and lifting one eyebrow, placed the clothes he said he would on the table.

"You can leave after you put them on. We'll waive the entrance fee for the trouble. Just head to the guard near the gate" He said and then left the room.

I quickly dispelled the illusion spell and put on the clothes he had given me. They were a little larger than I was, but I didn't care that much. I didn't even know if I would keep them for too long as they wouldn't fit me if I were to return to my true dragon form.

Leaving the room, I found the soldier he was telling me about and went to him. He looked at me like one would look at an abandoned puppy.

"Hi. Could you please give me your name and the reason for entering?" He said as he moved the pen he was holding to write whatever I said.

"Denaru Theris. Just passing through" I said.

"Very well" He said, writing what I had said, then gave me a small piece of paper. "I will need a bit of your aura for registration. Just insert a small amount of magicules in the paper. If you don't know how, just a drop of blood will suffice"

I nodded and, placing a finger on the paper, injected a small amount of my magicules into it. The paper immediately went into flames, the guard quickly dropping it and then stepping on it to extinguish the flames.

"I said a small amount. That was too much!" He said a bit louder.

"Sorry" I said, not really understanding. I had placed a small amount.

He just shook his head and wrote my information again and then handed me another piece of paper.

"Small amount this time. Okay?" I nodded once again.

I placed my finger on the paper and, remembering how I had felt the guard use a miniscule amount of magicule before, took hold of the magicules at the top of my finger and pushed them into the paper, not letting the rest of the magicules in my finger go with it. The paper turned blue for a moment and the guard nodded.

"Welcome to Flamecrest," ge said.

"Thanks. Do you know a place where I can stay and where I could get information?" I asked before continuing.

The guard placed his hand on his chin as he thought. "Hmmm. There is a small income inn near here. Following the main road, turn left after five streets, then after three streets turn right. It's called the Water Boar. For the information, you'll probably have an easier answer if you go to the Guild society building near the portal plaza. It's the biggest there. You won't miss it."

I was about to ask him where this "portal plaza" was but he was already calling the next person in line.

With a sigh, I officially entered the city. The first thing I noticed when entering was the drop in ambient magicule compared to outside, and it didn't take me too long to figure out the ambient magicules were being drawn into what looked like street poles and then channeled to somewhere underground.

As I walked, I noticed the buildings in the main street were made out of solid pieces of stone, probably using magic to shape the stone itself or merge stone bricks. The places that I could easily see were stores had what I felt like were magical protections on them, as I could faintly feel the circuits and then nothing on the inside.

The architecture itself was different from what I was used to. The buildings were higher than I would expect from a medieval age, but again, they had magic. They probably could reinforce the buildings to hold more weight than back on Earth and build more things on top of it. I also noticed they tended to use more stone than wood, as well as a lot of glass windows. What threw me for a loop was noticing the street poles that were drawing in the ambient magicule were also fitted with crystals that produced light at night, something I learned after checking with [Knowledge Library].

I walked towards the place where the guard had told me about, with one part of my mind confirming my position and where I was heading and another part just admiring the city itself. I was sure I was being called a tourist by the city inhabitants, but I didn't care. It was the first time seeing a city proper in this world, and I would see every bit I could.

Eventually I arrived at the inn. It was a building made more of wood than stone. I noticed that the furthest from the main road I was, the more wood was used in the buildings and smaller they were. I opened the door and walked in.

The inside of the inn was mostly wood. There was an area with lots of tables and chairs, currently empty, and a set of stairs right besides a counter with a human woman behind it. She looked at me with a raised eyebrow, but I ignored it and walked towards her.

"Hi. I'm looking for a place to stay. One night, please" I said.

"It's 35 copper coins for the room with one bed. If you want accompanying food, it goes up to 50 coins, one strip" She said.

I opened the coin pouch I took from the bandits and looked inside. There were an assortment of metal coins and two other metal pieces, one bigger than the other. It was certain this currency had levels, I just didn't know them yet. I picked the bigger piece of metal that had a copper color and gave it to the woman, who grabbed it and gave me a smaller one in return.

[50 copper coins are equivalent to 1 copper strip. 2 copper strips is equivalent to 1 copper bar. 10 copper bars is equivalent to 1 silver coin. 50 silver coins are equivalent to 1 silver strip. 2 silver-]

I cut the skill short the moment I noticed it was going to repeat itself just changing the type of metal. Considering this, I had a few gold coins, a few silver strips, coins and an assortment of various copper changes.

I grabbed the copper strip the woman gave me and then she passed me a small card that I almost mistook for a credit card before remembering they probably didn't exist.

"Your room is the fourth. Just go up the stairs and is the second to the right. Dinner will be served at 18, five hours from now" She said. I nodded and headed upstairs as a timer appeared in my vision counting down from five hours. I was really starting to like that skill.

I found the room which I was going to stay in, opened it up, took one look at it and sat down on the bed to think about what my next step should be.