Chapter 183 - King!

Honestly, it was hard for me to believe that I was still even inside the forest with those crooked trees. The difference was simply too staggering. Though I could see far away, it all looked black.

I began walking through this place, forced to walk around the giant trees that were in this place. As for the several dragons flying around here, they were also quite large and intimidating. However, they also didn't seem to care about me, just flying on by doing their own thing.

The three objects were no longer here, presumably because I traveled into a layer deeper than them.

I decided to take off my glasses for now, and suddenly found myself back into the forest.

"Woah! There you are!"

The piece of paper seemed a little astonished that I was able to disappear. I simply chuckled.

"It appears that these glasses travel down more than a single layer. It appears that there is actually a layer deeper than you all can see."

The necklace trembled.

"Wow... what if I put on the glasses?"

I raised an eyebrow.

"Hm. That does sound interesting, why don't we try?"

After I lifted the glasses up, the necklace promptly came over and slipped the handles of the glasses within.

There was a moment of silence.

Then, the necklace sighed.

"What? Why doesn't it work for me?"

I took back the glasses and shrugged my shoulders.

"It appears that you need an organic body in order to do something like that. Regardless, I will try to scout that layer and see if anything is there. Be right back."

With that, I put them back on and sent myself back into the layer with the dragons. After taking a quick scan of my surroundings, I began walking around.

The gusts of wind that stirred up from these dragons as they passed by were strong. That along with the casual roars they would emit from time to time.

However, it was rather peaceful despite the power the living beings had here, which seemed ironic in my eyes. For a while, there were only trees and dragons, making me think that my adventure was pretty pointless.

I was about to take off my glasses, entirely, but I caught onto a blue glimmer in the corner of my eye. The glimmer itself was coming from behind one of the giant trees. Naturally, I ended up walking towards it to get a closer look.

The blue glimmer became brighter, until revealing itself to be a relatively small gemstone lodged into the trunk of a tree. It was a little high, meaning I would have to climb up the tree a few meters to get to it.

This blue gemstone immediately made me think of that blue light emitted by the eye of that skeletal dragon. For whatever reason, while its companions fell, it was able to stand once more, as though revived.

As for whether or not it was harmful, I wouldn't know. However, my curiosity was simply too strong to resist it. I scaled up the tree by wrapping my arms and legs around the trunk and slowly scooting up.

Getting closer made the blue glimmer rough on my eyes, hurting them. Nonetheless, when it was within arm's reach, I grabbed onto it.

...Then found that it wouldn't easily be removed.

I furrowed my brows.

Seeing no other solution, I pulled out the stalk for the black fruit, then grew it until it became a fruit.

Right as it blossomed, I heard several loud roars in the distance. Getting a bad feeling, I hurriedly tossed the fruit into my mouth and hardly chewed before swallowing. When I did so, I heard more roars that were both closer and more aggrieved sounding.

Though the feeling of consuming the black fruit was intense like always, there was no time to bask in its effects.

I got down from the tree and turned around.

My eyelid uncontrollably twitched.

Because there were nearly one hundred dragons approaching me in the distance. Cold sweat immediately formed on my back as I reached for my glasses, aiming to take them off.

"Wait!"

My hand that was about to remove the glasses froze. There was a voice coming from behind me. Upon looking past the tree, I saw a massive dragon. It was the one that called out to me.

The dragon's voice was both deep and had a strong vibrato.

It looked up to me.

"Fruit!"

A violent rushing wind blew over as all the other dragons landed. They formed a massive semicircle near me. They sat upright, almost like children doing their best to straighten their back.

The dragon behind me joined the others.

"King!"

"King!

"Fruit!"

"King!"

I blinked a few times, not knowing exactly how to take in this situation. I stuck out my finger and pointed towards myself.

"Are you referring to me as your king?"

The dragons proceeded to nod.

I couldn't help but half close one eye.

"Um... why?"

The dragons looked at each other. One of them began patting their heads, while the others soon followed.

"King!"

...Ah right, I had a crown on my head. I actually almost forgot about that thing. Turns out that this thing had more applications than I thought.

The tip of my index finger scratched against my cheek.

"Um... I guess I'm your king then."

The dragons hurriedly nodded.

One of them lowered their head onto the floor.

"We good!"

The other dragons soon followed.

"Good!"

"Reward!"

"Reward!"

Their eyes seemed to be shimmering, like they were filled with innocence.

"Fruit!"

"Deserve!"

"Fruit!"

The corner of my lip twitched.

"You guys want to have some of the black fruit?"

All of the dragons lifted their heads up and down, slamming them against the ground. As for their bodies, they paced around uncomfortably, almost like they couldn't take the anticipation.

I couldn't help but smile at how ridiculous this scene looked.

After all, these dragons were about five meters wide by their bodies alone and if they stretched out their wings, it would be nearly double that. Yet, they were all acting like little children wanting candy.

I rubbed my chin with my thumb and forefinger.

"How about this? You get out this blue gemstone for me and I will give you guys the black fruit."

Against my expectations, all of the dragons froze up.

After a moment of silence, I raised an eyebrow.

"Is there a problem?"

The black dragons shivered uncomfortably.

"Dangerous."

"Blue thing... Dangerous."

"Kill many!"

I blinked a few times.

"This thing has killed you all before?"

The dragons nodded.

A soft sigh escaped me. If they were giving me this much of a warning, I suppose it's best I leave it alone. But I still wanted to get something out of this.

"Then is there anything else you could get me?"

The dragons looked among each other, muttering various words.

"Food?"

"Soul!"

"No Soul..."

"Soul Collector?"

"Soul Collector!"

The dragons seemed to get excited. Eventually, one of them soared far off into the distance. A minute or so, it came back and landed next to me. It slowly lowered its head to the floor and parted its jaws to reveal... a black armguard?

It looked like it was made for a human, which I thought was a little strange. The design was much more intricate than what I was expecting. It had the general design of a dragon head, with teeth pointing out at the end.

I raised an eyebrow.

"What will this do?"

The dragon next to me responded quickly.

"Harvest soul!"

The other dragons nodded in agreement.

"Soul!"

"Harvest!"

I chuckled.

"Alright, alright. I will give one fruit to all of you."

The dragons immediately jumped up and down with joy, some letting out roars. Deciding to keep with my promise, I attached the black stalk to the black crystal and began growing it. As the dragons saw several black fruits form, they pushed and shoved each other to get closer.

I held my hand out, to stop the chaos.

"Order, or nobody gets the fruit!"

The dragons clearly panicked when they heard that.

"Fruit!"

"Order!"

"More Order!"

They quickly lined up before calming down. Satisfied, I began handing out the black fruits. The dragons would open their mouths, and I would toss one of the black fruits in. 

Right when they could, their jaws slammed shut. Then, they hopped off to the side happily.

It wasn't apparent at first, but I realized that these dragons seemed to be changing. Those that had eaten the fruit and remained there had... white stripes?

Some of their scales began changing color, prompting me to take a closer look at them.

Thin stripes of white appeared across their body.

It appeared that these fruits did quite a bit for them.

Eventually, I was finished.

All of the dragons bowed down to me.

"Thank!"

"King!"

"Thank King!"

I laughed.

"See you guys later."

Then, I picked up the armguard.