Chapter 111: A Name

Chapter 111: A Name

After walking along the decimated battlefield with the Dryad for a few minutes, we ended up coming across Erani, who was sitting up on a tall rock looking around for us, too. Apparently she was in contact with the Draconiad as we searched, so it didn’t take long for us to find each other with her help.

She slid down the smooth face of the rock, landing on her feet in front of us. She wobbled a bit upon landing, acting a bit similarly to how she did when I’d first started casting Expedite on her. Strange, considering she was used to the Spell by now, and she didn’t even have it active anyway.

“Hey.” I walked up to her and brought her into a tight embrace. I hadn’t realized that we hadn’t really been separated before, ever since the Demons first invaded. It was a bit of a wake-up call just how much I missed her after such a short time apart. It felt totally unnatural to not have her by my side – like missing an arm. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she nodded and we separated. “Just trying to get used to this Bond thing. You have it too?”

“Right, I do,” I frowned. “It isn’t that bad though, just a couple extra physical Stats. Or, I guess since you aren’t used to getting extra Stats other than Dexterity, the Strength is messing with you, or something?”

“Well, yeah, of course,” she said. “I’d think just about anyone would feel weird after getting an extra 22 in all of their Stats.”

I blinked, not processing what she’d just said for a moment. Had she said twenty-two? My Bond had already been ‘deepened’ once, and it was only at 4 additional Stats!

Erani seemed to notice my shocked expression. “Did you get something different?”

Still trying to process what she’d just said, I read out my version of the Status window. It seemed like I could access it just by focusing, the same way I could access all of the other general information about my Status.

You have a Bond with Level 29 Draconiad.

For as long as you are within 1000 paces of Level 29 Draconiad, you gain the following effects:

-Your Strength, Endurance, and Dexterity are each increased by 4.

-Whenever Draconiad gains XP, you also gain 2% of that XP.

-You gain 11.6% Resistance to all heat-based damage.

My mind raced at what she’d said. Twenty-two in each physical Stat?! Even after accounting for my boost, my totals were 22 in Strength, 41 in Endurance, and 23 in Dexterity. She’d have a 32 in each now, accounting for the base 10 she’d start with. What in the fucking hells caused her to get such an insane buff from this?

“Wow,” her eyes widened, “that’s way less than what I got. I was a bit taken aback when I got it – fell flat on my face the moment the extra Strength kicked in – and it’s honestly taken this long for me to calm down after seeing it. I assumed you’d gotten the same thing, but I guess my case is special, somehow?”

“Yeah, maybe,” I said. “What are your exact benefits?”

“Well, like I said before, the Stat gain is 22, and then the XP gain is 11%, and the Resistance to heat is at 49.4%.”

“Huh. So I guess the XP percentage is always equal to half the Stats, then I’m not sure how the heat Resistance works specifically, but we can probably figure it out later. But, okay, more importantly, did your benefits start out that high? Or did they start at where mine were, and then grow to be where they are now over time or something?”

“What do you mean did they grow? They started out where they are. Is it possible for the Bond to change?”

“Yeah,” I said. “When I first got mine, it started out at 2 Stats, 1% XP, and 6% Resistance. But then, after saving her and talking with her for a bit, it said something about the Bond being deepened, and the benefits increased to where they’re at now.”

“Huh,” Erani brought a hand to her chin, thinking. “Maybe she knows how this works better than we do.”

Erani and I glanced over at the Draconiad. Standing next to her, I still wasn’t totally used to her new appearance. Going from a Nymph to a Dryad, the changes were noticeable, sure, but not too severe. She mainly just got a bit bigger and her hair grew longer. This time, though, I could barely even see who she was before her new look. Her burning eyes, even taller height, even her hair color seemed to have changed from dirt-brown to a deep red. And, of course, the vines wrapping her body were constantly set aglow, embers blazing like a hearth as the wind blew onto them.

It seemed like she could somehow choose whether they were actually hot to the touch, though. When I found her getting captured by those Infernals, their hands were smoldering by the heat coming from her body. But later, when I touched her, it just felt warm. Uncomfortably warm, sure, but nothing that would actually burn me.

But I supposed all of those changes made sense, considering the being she’d just gotten a Tribute from. I was surprised she’d managed to pull something like that off, considering how proud Dragons tended to be. Hells, I knew Astintash by now, and I knew it’d never tolerate someone asking something like that of it. Or, at least, I thought I knew so. Seemed like the Draconiad had figured something out I hadn’t.

Anyway, we needed to figure out what was going on with this. If there was a possibility for me to bring my Bond up to where Erani’s was at, it’d mean an absolutely massive boost in power. Or if we could get Erani’s even higher than it was already at. Good gods, bringing her Bond to an even more ridiculous level... The thought of that filled me with anticipation.N0v3lTr0ve served as the original host for this chapter's release on N0v3l--B1n.

Off in the distance, I could still hear Astintash wreaking havoc among the fleeing army, but I was willing to bet it’d come back soon. And once that happened, I’d at least like to have figured out how these changes would affect me.

And the name also sounded like a Dragon’s in the way it was pronounced. I wasn’t an expert on the species, or anything, but I’d heard a few Dragon names in my life and it lined up well enough. Which made sense, considering a Dragon was the one to come up with it. Still, I was sure it’d seem pretty weird for a Dryad to walk around with a Dragon’s name – well, Draconiad, anyway.

I imagined that anyone who heard me say it would instantly think she was a bloodthirsty, fire-breathing scaled beast, especially if they heard the “Humanslayer” part that came in front. But maybe that was for the best, considering she was getting to the point of being about as dangerous to the Human species as any other Dragon would be. At least the name would work as a deterrent to anyone who wanted to try messing with her.

“So... Humanslayer, huh?” Erani said. She’d apparently had a similar conversation with our newly-named companion that I had.

“Yeah,” I sighed and shook my head. “Whatever, I guess. It’s her name, she can do what she wants with it. I’ll probably just stick with the ‘Ainash’ part minus the title, though.”

“Yeah, that’d be the best,” Erani nodded. “Does your little Index thing know anything about the new abilities Ainash got? Maybe it knows something she wasn’t told.”

“Maybe. Index, can you tell me anything about that?”

“Hm,” the voice spoke into my ear and I barely masked my being startled. It never quite stopped unsettling me to hear a voice so obviously close to my face but that I could never see. “The System really wants you guys to get a bit more familiar with them before giving you any more info, but I can tell you some of the basic stuff. So, basically– wait. Oh, uh, you may wanna talk to me about this later.”

“Why?”

“Company.”

Before I could ask Index what it meant by that, I heard a sound. A Dragon’s wings flapping through the air, coming up the mountain.

“Back up,” I said, anticipating Astintash’s heavy landing.

I watched as it came into view, massive body blotting out a significant portion of the sky and covering us in shade as usual, and slowly lowered itself to the ground.

“Hm, there you are,” it boomed. I suspected it wasn’t trying to be imposing with its speech, but that was pretty much impossible for something its size. “I have chased those pathetic meddlers back to their hideout. You two Humans, you were the ones to help me free myself from those chains they bound me with?”

“Uh, yes,” I said. “We would also like to help you destroy their base and wipe them out.”

“Yes, yes, your owner said something like that,” it said. “Let us depart, then.”

Astintash readied its wings to fly back up into the air and head down to the wall, but I stepped forward, holding out my hands to stop it. “Woah, uh, let’s hold on a second.”

It glared at me. “What?”

I paused, feeling the weight of a Dragon’s ire in full force. “Um, would it be okay if we rested for a bit? We need to recover our Health and stuff. Maybe we could attack tomorrow?”

While it would be nice to recover our Health, my main worry was, of course, getting back my uses of Time Loop before the assault. Sure, Astintash would be doing most of the heavy-lifting here, but I wasn’t keen on moving forward with this plan while having absolutely no protection.

Astintash didn’t say anything for a while, just staring at me. At first, I thought it was just taking an abnormally long time to think about what I’d asked, but then I realized it was talking with Ainash, my “owner.”

“Dragon says okay to rest for little while,” she said. “Maybe one hour.”

“Any chance you could talk it up a bit more?”

“Do not think so. Wants to hurry and kill bad guys.”

Damn. Yeah, seemed like that wouldn’t be happening, then. It’d be much riskier to push Astintash on the subject and take the gamble of maybe killing us for the disrespect, than to just go in and try to stay safe during the fight.

“Okay, fine. Let’s rest then.”

So the three of us sat down in front of an inpatient Dragon, heat from its breaths warming my bones. Honestly, I felt like if anyone saw us in this position, they’d be wondering why we weren’t all screaming in fear. Having something that could so easily kill us sitting around just a few paces away, I could see where they’d be coming from. Really, a couple weeks ago, I’d have thought the same thing.

But at this point, I’d had so many close calls with death – a good number of which ended in me actually dying – that I just couldn’t bring myself to care. We’d rest for now, then get ready for the fight.

The fight to finally allow us out of this gods-forsaken kingdom.