Chapter 836

Chapter 836

Shinar settled her lungs in the silence and pulled herself up.
The Dragonkin, his eyes fixed on her, questioned,
“By what means did you achieve that?”
His sense of mission was still linked to the fire lizard—more accurately, to fulfilling the yearning of that elemental spirit.
“I fashioned a sanctuary for it, a place where it can rest and linger in stillness.”
Shinar’s voice was steady, though her face remained drained of color. The Dragonkin fell into thought. Was this sufficient to call his task complete?
His initial plan had been to remain as a guardian until the spirit beast departed for its own realm.
What had driven that intent?
It was the desire to ensure the spirit beast did not suffer. That, he felt, was the core of his responsibility.
So—was the objective met?
Perhaps in part. The remainder was clouded by uncertainty. Nevertheless, the Dragonkin concluded that a significant portion of his duty was fulfilled. His own hands could do no more. If the Salamander was now cradled in a stable dimension, no malicious entity could hope to fracture its spirit.
His obligation wasn’t necessarily to see the beast return home, but to secure its tranquility. The Dragonkin reconciled himself to this truth.
“Curse it all, but this won’t end in the entire city being reduced to ash, will it?”
The marks of the Salamander were undeniable. Great pyres were still raging across the nearby landscape.
“It is under control.”
Shinar replied. What followed was a display that might have even caught Esther off guard.
With a simple motion of her hand, the infernos lost their strength, coalescing and then fragmenting until they vanished entirely. The violent fires simply ceased to be, as if they had been wiped from existence. While the charred ruins remained and the atmosphere still held a heavy, sweltering heat, the feat was nothing short of miraculous.
A few stray sparks flickered on, but when Esther tilted her head back and whispered an incantation, a soft rain began to descend.
The droplets extinguished the final embers. The rhythmic sound of the rain served as an anthem, signaling that the ordeal had finally concluded.
“We should visit the higher ridge. There is a basin there.”
It was Shinar who made the suggestion, gesturing toward the looming mountain peaks.
“If we don’t go now, I won’t be able to lead you. This little friend will soon descend into a profound slumber.”
As she spoke, she turned her palm upward—and the faint, shimmering image of the small fire lizard they had encountered before materialized above it.
By bonding with the Salamander, Shinar had gained deep insights and sensations. Her words were born from that connection—and from the perspective she had gained while living among mortals, specifically Kraiss. As a fairy, she now possessed a keen sense for things of genuine worth.
Even before her time with Kraiss, she had understood the power of currency.
And at this moment, she was certain that something of great value waited above. That conviction prompted her to speak.
“What lies up there?”
Rem questioned. Shinar paused, searching for the right phrase, before answering.
“What is it humans say in such moments? Ah, yes. Lady Luck has just given us a nod.”
Hearing this, Enkrid shifted his focus toward the heights. Though everyone was drained, they still possessed the strength to continue.
“Then we shall see for ourselves,”
Enkrid declared. Ragna seemed unconcerned but fell in line with the group’s direction.
“I can feel the excitement. It’s like finding a hidden hoard beneath some ancient stones, Sister Fairy,”
Audin remarked with a wide smile as he began the ascent.
“The greatest prize has already been won. What we seek now is merely a bonus.”
They had gained the friendship of the Salamander. Shinar could sense a transformation occurring within—a shift in the fairy essence she carried. She suspected she would soon be capable of wielding remarkable new powers.
The mental image of her fiancé’s shocked expression when he witnessed her new strength gave her a second wind.
As a group, they navigated the mountain trail.
During the climb, they crossed paths with a strange creature—a fire-breathing drake—but after their struggle with the Salamander, it seemed almost harmless.
Crack!
With a clean stroke of his axe, Rem crushed its skull and kicked the body down the ridge, checking their elevation.
Typical drakes lacked the ability to breathe fire. The fact that this one possessed the trait suggested its skin and internal organs were highly resistant to heat. Dismantling it would likely yield valuable materials.
“That pelt would make for some sturdy garments, wouldn’t you say?”
Only someone like Rem would view such a predator as potential tailoring material. Well—not just Rem.
“A practical thought, my thick-headed brother,”
Audin chimed in, and the others offered no dissent. Enkrid saw no reason to argue.
For their company, harvesting monsters for gear had become a standard procedure.
After dispatching a few more creatures, they reached the upper ridge. The basin was vast.
It was large enough to house hundreds. Shinar led them through the space. As they descended into the depression, it felt as though they were being cradled by curved stone ramparts.
Mist and humidity clung to them as low clouds drifted through the basin. While Esther’s rain didn’t reach this spot, they were drenched by the damp air in minutes.
Looking up, the sky seemed within reach. At night, the celestial bodies Esther adored would surely be vivid here.
They stood at the summit—close to the heavens, distant from the earth.
Scanning the surrounding walls, they noticed various natural grottos. Shinar paused at a cave mouth and retrieved several pebbles.
“Look at these.”
To the untrained eye, they appeared to be common stones, but they were far more. The Salamander, a spirit of pure fire, had nested in this basin for ages. It had spent years radiating intense heat into the soil and rock. For how long?
A century at least. Likely longer.
The stones in Shinar’s hand were bone-white and radiated a soft warmth—they had discovered a vein of a previously unknown magical ore.
“That bug-eyed fool is going to weep with happiness,”
Rem noted, and the rest, Enkrid included, nodded in silent agreement.
The surrounding caves were packed with these white stones, some embedded deep within the walls, all emitting a gentle thermal energy.
‘A mineral vein was birthed here?’
It was undoubtedly the result of the Salamander’s long-term presence.
Shortly after, they began their trek toward the Border Guard. Along the way, Rem hoisted the drake’s remains and asked, seeking clarification,
“This doesn’t count as slaying one of your kind, does it?”
He was speaking to Temares, the Dragonkin. The warrior replied without hesitation,
“Dragonkin are a distinct, self-contained evolution. We share no lineage with drakes or the dragons of myth.”
After a moment of reflection, Temares added,
“Though, our origins do trace back to the dragons of old.”
“You really have no sense of humor,”
Rem grunted, letting out a dry chuckle.
“We need to commit this path to memory,”
Ragna observed, and Enkrid made a mental map of their coordinates. They would need to return to harvest the ore.
“If you require a scout later, I will handle it,”
Ragna offered. Despite his usual apathy, he was always the first to volunteer for pathfinding—which presented its own set of difficulties.
“That won’t be necessary,”
Enkrid replied softly.
The Dragonkin fell into step beside Enkrid, and the commander, speaking as if to a long-time comrade, began to inquire about his past.
“Have you always resided in these lands?”
“No, my home was once in the northern territories.”
“Where specifically?”
“In the frozen reaches of the glaciers. I served as a mentor to those who lived there.”
“The Glacier Rangers?”
“That is their name. I was a leader among them.”
“For what reason?”
“It was my self-imposed duty. Long ago, I encountered a human during my travels. I gave my word to watch over his offspring, and thus, raising him became my purpose.”
The Dragonkin’s rigid adherence to duty was a concept many humans found baffling, but Enkrid accepted it without judgment.
Given that people like Rem existed, this didn’t even seem that unusual.
After his ward had grown old and passed away, the Dragonkin resumed his travels until he crossed paths with the Salamander.
He lacked the fairy ability to merge souls, but he could still perceive echoes of the spirit beast’s internal pain.
Believing that destiny was a myth, he simply chose to treat this coincidence as his new life’s work.
The greatest fear for a Dragonkin was the void of boredom. This was why he required a constant occupation.
For that reason, even when his ward died of old age or when he witnessed the spirit beast’s torment, Temares had remained composed. His internal world was governed entirely by his sense of duty.
As the city walls came into view, Enkrid asked with an easy tone,
“Shall we conclude the business we started earlier?”
There was no hesitation in his voice—only a calm, sharp sense of anticipation.
His features were still marred by soot from the battle with the fire spirit. His hair was singed and uneven, desperately in need of a cut.
He might have looked disheveled to a stranger, but none of his companions saw him as anything less than formidable.
“You have the look of one who is haunted,”
The Dragonkin remarked, searching his vast memory. He had lived through ages he could no longer count, yet he had never met a mortal quite like this.
Faintly, he recalled his father’s words from his youth before they went their separate ways.
“Rare moments and rare individuals—those are the sources of true delight. When you experience that joy, my words will finally make sense.”
Temares finally grasped the meaning of a sentiment he had once ignored.
A Dragonkin’s existence was a cycle of repetition. Without the anchor of a duty, life was a hollow thing.
A person capable of disrupting that stagnation was, to him, the most valuable thing in existence.
“Is that a no?”
The man who had shattered that stagnation asked.
“I accept your challenge,”
Temares replied instantly.
Enkrid met the answer with a grin. It was a look so full of charm and vitality that—
“That is the kind of smile that makes a person consider changing their gender.”
Crafting a domain from fairy essence and relocating the Salamander had been an exhausting ordeal. Combined with the climb, Shinar was struggling for breath—yet her attention shifted.
“Changing what?”
She asked, and the Dragonkin answered with clinical honesty,
“The Dragonkin are a fluid species.”
Temares was currently in a male form, but he possessed the ability to transition to female, having spent centuries in that state.
He could easily become a “she.”
In fact, during his years in the north, Temares had raised his charges not as a father figure, but as a mother.
Esther’s gaze moved—not toward the Dragonkin, but toward Enkrid.
Whether the Dragonkin was a woman or not was irrelevant. From this man’s point of view, did it truly matter if the Dragonkin had a feminine form or the anatomy of a man?
“Are you spent? Should we take a break before we begin?”
Enkrid asked once more. This human was an anomaly—even in Temares’ eyes. They were coming down a mountain following a life-or-death struggle, and he was already looking for the next fight. Where else could one find such a beautiful madman?
And his drive was so intense it was almost blinding.
“You’ll break your own shadow at this rate, you lunatic. Besides, this ground is all uneven,”
Rem interjected with rare pragmatism.
“Recovery and rest are vital components of mastery—have you forgotten your own lessons, Brother?”
“Isn’t the path this way? Where is everyone going?”
Audin added, and when Ragna attempted to lead them in circles, Jaxon silently took point to guide them correctly.
“I understand. We will settle it once we are on level ground,”
Enkrid conceded with a trace of disappointment. The Dragonkin walked among them as if he had always been there—and no one challenged it.
That in itself was peculiar, but the Dragonkin was indifferent to social nuances, and this crew was long accustomed to their leader’s eccentricities. They were all unphased.
The rain Esther had summoned intensified.
The rhythm of the falling water tapped steadily against the forest canopy. No monsters stirred in their vicinity.
This was partly due to Jaxon’s careful navigation and partly because the Salamander’s presence had turned the surrounding area into a wasteland.
Rem continued to observe the damage along the trail. This area was part of his unit’s usual rounds. Burn scars were everywhere. However, there were no fallen soldiers.
The air held a metallic tang of blood mixed with ash, but there was no indication of human casualties.
“Enki, you must carry me,”
Shinar called out through the rain.
“I find it difficult to walk.”
She made the request again. Fairies are bound to the truth—they may twist it, but they cannot lie. Saying it was difficult meant she was tired, not incapable.
Enkrid looked at her directly.
“It can’t be as bad as you’re making it out to be,”
Esther remarked, walking nearby.
Shinar gave the witch a hollow look, whispered “Spiteful,” and continued walking.
After that, the fairy made no further complaints.
After a few more exchanges and passing through more scorched terrain, they reached the base. The city loomed ahead, and the sentries spotted their approach.
Rem dropped the drake’s carcass in front of them.
“Handle this.”
“Understood, Commander.”
A soldier moved quickly to secure the prize. Salutes were exchanged as the group entered the gates. Behind them, the guards began to murmur,
“Wait, wasn’t there one less of them when they left?”
They had noticed the discrepancy immediately. The Dragonkin had integrated himself into the group with uncanny ease.
“You have finally returned.”
Kraiss met them at the entrance. Enkrid presented him with one of the white ores, and Esther clarified its nature as a high-grade magical metal. After processing the report, Kraiss ignored the presence of the Dragonkin and instead offered a fervent declaration.
“Shinar, have I ever mentioned how much I adore you?”
“You haven’t. And I have no desire to hear it.”
True to her nature, Shinar rebuffed him with cold honesty—but Kraiss was undeterred.
“What was it the fairy realm required? A specialized salon? Whatever your heart desires, it shall be yours.”
“That man’s eyes have lost their focus, fiancé.”
“He is always like this.”
Only a short while ago, Kraiss had been paralyzed by terror, fearing the consequences of defying a demon.
In an instant, that fear evaporated. A massive, radiant wave of joy had washed it all away.