23 Chapter 23

!!!!!!!(Important AN: I noticed that the quality of my chapter started to drop recently, as I kept pushing myself to release at least two chapters every day. So I made a hard decision. I will mostly upload one chapter per day, except for weekends when I will release two chapters and bonus chapters. It was a hard decision, but I want my novel to keep some quality standard, not just release a ton of subpar chapters. Please understand that I believe that it was the right decision for the story. Also, the new chapter will be longer than the old ones.)

The black dragon covered in smoke was standing on a flat stone terrace close to the peak of the second tallest mountain in the Azerlisian mountain range. Sharp winds were whistling around, bringing the surrounding temperature below zero. Normally he would be a little uncomfortable in such temperatures, but as a volcano dragon, he was a walking furnace. In front of him was a tall stony cliff. He brought up his clawed hand and poked a nearby stone.

'Quality of the stone is passable, and the view is also good. As a bonus, it is highly placed, so it will take a while until someone finds this place.'

The dragon dug his claws into the mountain. His claws easily dug through the hard stone. Then he scooped out a chunk of a stone cliff with his front limb and threw the dug-out stone down from the mountain.

"Bang!" loud noise echoed through the mountains as a large boulder crashed and shattered on rocks.

Vesuvius dug his claws into the cliff once again, cutting out another chunk and sighed, 'This will take a while... Sadly it isn't easy to find a large enough cave at such a good location.'

"Bang!" another rock fell down from the mountain and shattered on the rock deep below, followed by another one.

Vesuvius kept digging, cutting out a big chunk of rocks before throwing them down from the mountain, slowly creating an oval shape akin to the tunnel entrance.

His dragon instincts allowed him to easily guess how to angle his claws to dig more efficiently without causing his new lair to collapse on his head.

His claws scooped out another rock, slowly cutting out a tunnel into the mountain.

The tunnel had already grown into two meters in depth and diameter big enough for Vesuvius comfortably move.

The dragon opened up his mouth and spat out a nice chunk of lava onto a wall of a freshly dug-out tunnel. Then he spread the lava with his tail like cement.

Lava slowly cooled down, forming a layer of black volcanic stone that reinforced the walls of the tunnel.

This process continued for hours. In the end, there was a black tunnel leading deep into the mountain; its whole walls were covered in black volcanic stone.

Vesuvius opened his mouth to grin, but he closed them almost immediately as he remembered how he got a mouth full of ice the last time he grinned like that, 'Entrance is done, now I will dig out the main chamber.'

After finishing the entrance tunnel, Vesuvius started to slowly dig out a circular chamber big enough for him to comfortably lie in it.

When the dragon finally finished his work and walked out of the tunnel sun was already gone, replaced by a full white moon.

The whole lair was full of sharp and rough protrusion as he didn't take any care to smoothen the walls as they weren't sharp enough to penetrate his armour and scales.

'There is still something missing.' Vesuvius remembered the pouch filled with gold that remained in his old lair.

He jumped from the mountain and spread his wings, slowly drifting towards the ground. He flew around the mountain and approached the canyon with his old lair. As he slowly closed on, he noticed something.

Four unknown people were standing in front of his cave. All four of them were equipped in a chain mail amour with plate protectors for their shins, shoulders and wrists. Through their torso, they wore a piece of cloth with a symbol of a shield with a raven on a green background. On their head were kettle helmets.

Rage and hate erupted inside of the Vesuvius hearth, 'How dare they trespass into my lair with their dirty feet!'

Vesuvius quickly calmed down, suppressing his rage, 'They are definitely soldiers, but what are they doing here?'. The dragon carefully landed on top of the cliff to watch the situation. Wind around him helped him by blowing the smoke rising from him in the opposite direction of the soldiers.

Then two more soldiers and a richly dressed man wearing a sleek black leather hunting cloth with knee-high leather boots. In his hand was a small pouch.

"There was no beast, only a few coins..."

The dragon's eye fell upon the pouch, and rage erupted from his heart so much that he lost all rationality as he growled.

Nothing in the world could enrage a dragon more than stealing his treasure. In the past, there were cases of dragons razing down whole cities because some adventurers stole from their hoard, creating a terrifying reputation.

Soldiers looked in panic, unsheathing their swords and looking for the source of the groan.

Vesuvius jumped from the cliff, landing in front of the soldiers. His eyes glared at the pouch in the nobleman's hand.

"Fuck, that is some mutated variant of drake! Quickly kill it!" a richly dressed man shouted, pointing at the dragon in front of him.

At once, all of the soldiers pointed their swords at the black dragon surrounded by smoke, their arms trembling as it was their first time seeing high-grade magical beasts. Massive droplets of sweat were running down their temples as they were grilled by an immense heat radiating from the dragon's body.

With the last bit of his rationality, Vesuvius used analysis of one of the soldiers.

//

Analyze result:

Name: Ron Windley

Species: Human

Occupation: NPC/Soldier

Level: 12

Danger level: slightly dangerous

//

"Graaah!" Vesuvius growled at the soldiers causing them to shiver even more, 'They are just filthy weaklings serving some lord of some shithole with an ego bigger than his demesne!'

The only thing that prevented Vesuvius from burning them was the pouch in the nobleman's hand and another even bigger pouch hanging from the nobleman's belt.

The dragon's eye glowed up slightly while looking at the big pouch dangling before his eyes. 'That should be adequate compensation for my emotional trauma.'