A shadow loomed. Heat rippled. Something massive stepped into view.
It was a dragon, huge and black, with gray-black scales and limbs built like towers. Its claws carved trenches into the earth. Its tail swept through boulders like they were sand. Its jaws yawned open, rows of teeth gleaming like daggers.
Slitted eyes locked onto her, and the pressure hit like a wall. She couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Couldn't move. Her magic refused to respond. A real dragon. A black dragon.
She was paralyzed. The only fights she'd ever been in were practice duels with other students or dummy targets. Not this. Not monsters. And definitely not dragons.
She couldn't even form a spell under this crushing weight of power. And then she noticed, no wings. The beast had no wings at all.
"W-Why does it have to be a dragon my first time out...?" she whimpered. The idea of fighting flickered into her mind, then died a quick, obvious death. "No way. I can't even think of resisting it."
The dragon growled low, a deep, rumbling sound that made her bones shake. It wasn't attacking. It was waiting. It wanted something. Dragons didn't just kill sometimes, they demanded surrender.
Syltra slowly lowered the scroll, signaling that she wasn't a threat. Stories said dragons loved treasure.
Maybe it would spare her if she gave it something. She carefully opened the school's shared storage ring and emptied her belongings, her bag, her mentor's items, anything valuable, into a neat pile on the ground.
Then she bowed deeply, offering it all.
The dragon leaned down, peering at her gesture. It growled softly again and stepped back, like it was telling her to leave.
"Thank you... thank you for your mercy, great dragon," she said quickly, securing her mentor on her back again. She grabbed the scroll and activated it.
The spell ignited, wrapping them in fast-spinning wind. A small cyclone lifted them into the sky and shot across the land in a blur of motion.
Behind them, the dragon watched in silence, lifting one claw to its mouth, its eyes wide.
Belial was confused. He had just taken down the earth dragon and hadn't even started eating when an old man in a robe descended from the sky, holding a crystal ball and glowing with magic.
The guy looked straight out of a fantasy novel, beard, staff, robe, the whole wizard package.
The man started talking, but Belial couldn't understand a thing. Apparently, this world didn't come with some magical universal language, and his system didn't have a built-in translator either.
So, all the wizard's words sounded like nonsense to him just noise with no meaning.
Still, Belial couldn't help but feel a little excited. This was his first time seeing a human. He raised his paw to wave and greet the man, only for the old guy to panic and back off. Next thing he knew, fiery red chains were flying out of glowing magic circles in the air.
"Magic!" Belial's eyes sparkled like a kid seeing fireworks. But the old man looked like he meant business. "Wait, is he trying to fight me?"
Turned out, yes, he was. The chains wrapped around Belial, burning hot against his scales. That was getting out of hand fast.
With a bit of strength, he snapped them off and let out a loud roar, not out of rage but more like a warning. "Hey, I don't want to fight! Can't we just talk this out?"
But the message didn't get through. As expected, the wizard kept throwing spells, fireballs, flaming lances, exploding pillars of fire, and even straight-up energy blasts. They all came fast and hard, crashing into Belial like a hailstorm of fire.
Thankfully, Belial's body was built tough. His scales withstood the heat, and none of the blasts managed to do any real damage. But that didn't mean he was okay with it.
Covered in soot and dirt, he was getting more annoyed by the second. "Guess some people just don't listen," he muttered.
If words weren't working, maybe a bit of action would. He darted forward, aiming a strike that wasn't meant to kill just enough to knock the guy back and hopefully stop this nonsense.
He really didn't want to hurt anyone, especially not a human.
Belial had been careful, or at least he thought he had. But when the old man didn't even try to dodge, just stood there like a statue as the blow came in, Belial's eyes went wide in alarm.
"Wait—are you seriously just gonna take this head-on?!"
But by then, it was too late.
The backhand landed, not with full force, but still hard enough to send a shockwave rippling through the air.
The old man flew like a ragdoll, disappearing into the side of a nearby hill with a distant boom, earth and dust exploding on impact.
Belial froze. "…Crap." He hadn't even meant to swing that hard. It had just been a warning swat, a reflex. But humans were squishier than he remembered.
He winced, staring at the newly formed crater. "Please don't be dead. Please don't be dead…"
Feeling more than a little guilty, Belial followed the faint scent trail left in the wake of his accidental victim.
It wound through the grass, passed a few broken trees, and led him into a narrow clearing near the base of the same hill he'd unintentionally punched a new dent into.
When he finally caught up, the old man was lying unconscious on the ground, right behind a blonde girl wearing a robe and glasses. She had a shoulder bag slung over her side and was holding something that looked like a camera tripod.
Just the sight of another human, especially a girl, lifted Belial's spirits a little. But he was painfully aware of how terrifying he probably looked right now. He decided to stay still and just watch her from a distance, not wanting to scare her off like the old man had.
Still, Belial felt like he should at least try to say something. So, in what he thought was a calm and friendly gesture, he let out a low, gentle roar.
The girl, however, seemed shy, maybe even socially anxious. She was trembling slightly, mumbling to herself in a way that made him wonder if she was one of those people who struggled to talk to strangers.
Could she even understand him? Was there any chance she had magic that could help him speak normally?
The questions kept piling up in his head. His current form made communicating with humans a nightmare. He hadn't spoken a human language in years, and even back when he had formal education, he'd never been good at learning new languages.
Now? He didn't even have a teacher to help him relearn anything.
While Belial stood there thinking, the girl was already moving fast. She searched the old man's pockets and pulled out a bunch of stuff he didn't recognize.
Then she moved on to her own backpack and even the tripod, shoving everything into a small ring on her finger.
"A space ring... she actually has one!"