Chapter 4
811 Words
They gave him a lead plate tag with his name on it. Him. Like he was some mammal.
“This is degrading!” Sen complained to his loyal lackey Kyle, as they flew above the farmlands of Blenheim. The news had put him in a foul mood. “Lead? Lead!”
“Every adventurer starts with a lead plate,” Kyle explained, the wind in his face causing his lips to move in ways Sen found distracting. “That’s the ranks. Lead, copper, iron, bronze, silver, gold, and starmetal. I’m a lead adventurer too, Your Majesty.”
“But you are a human!” Also, why the adventurer guild put that greenish unshiny starmetal higher than brilliant gold, Sen would never understand. “I am a dragon. Can you humans fly? Can you breathe fire that melts stone? Can you live forever? No, so why is that not enough for gold?”
“You are a unique case, Your Majesty,” minion Kyle tried to assuage his wounded pride. “Forgive my poor species, who does not know how to deal with you.”
“Just this once!” Sen said, flying over a vast forest, smelling the presence of trolls, slimes, and other beasts below. Birds and harpies flew away in fear at his arrival. “Are these the troll woods?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. Trolls usually live in caves, if we look for one—”
“Minion, I will not sully my peerless scales with some troll’s dung. I am a dragon, remember?” Sen took a long, deep breath, and then dove towards the woods. The forge in his stomach lit up, the infernal power within turning the air into flames.
The great calamity unleashed his mighty dragonfire upon the forest, a torrent of bright, nearly white flames incinerating trees, animals, everything; Sen flew in a straight line around the forest, intending to make a full ring of fire and trap the trolls – and whatever creatures unlucky enough to live with them – within.
Kyle screamed in surprise, held close to Sen’s own maw. “Your Majesty, what are you doing?!”
“Fulfilling your kind’s request,” Sen replied, after taking back some breath and preparing for a second round. Thanks to the wind, the inferno spread through the forest far north, turning trees to candles and grass to embers.
Sen dove again through a cloud of smoke, much to his minion’s terror, smelling trolls below. A bunch of these savage, green-skinned giants attempted to flee the coming flames, only for the dragon to bombard them, spitting his fire in the shape of fireballs instead of a continuous stream. The projectiles exploded on contact with the ground, vaporizing the beasts, blasting the dirt and forming craters.
Congratulations! You gained a level in [Noble]!
+30 HP, +1 INT, +1 LCK!
Sen awaited the declaration of a new Ability, but nothing came up. Maybe he hadn’t burned the place enough. The forest bordered several hills forming a natural frontier, and so Sen bombarded this area too, intent on devastating the entire forest instead of just the troll’s lair.
After a few minutes of firebombing the land, Sen finished remaking the Woods of Gevaudan into a nice, smoking hellscape. “There, troll problem solved!” Sen said, happy with himself. “All we need is to claim the reward now!”
“Your Majesty, can I…” Kyle pleaded, the ash-filled wind making him scoff, “Your Majesty, flight is terrible when you hold me in your palm. Especially when you breathe dragonfire down my neck.”
“This must be your lack of scales,” Sen said. “I empathize with your situation, I truly do, but what can I do about this birth defect?”
“Can I… can I… can I ride on your back instead?”
Sen looked down on his insolent lackey. “Minion, what kind of ungrateful demand is that? Have I not given you an honest occupation? When I found you this morning you were but a mere thief, purposeless, adrift. Now you are chief of staff. My chief of staff. Do not demand too much.”
Kyle sighed at his master’s scolding. “I guess at least I got a level out of this.”
“You did?” Was that not payment enough?
“Yeah, I got a level in Monster Squire when you made me your ‘chief of staff,’ and now I got another. I didn’t even know this class existed.”
“What is a squire? A human term?”
“It’s, uh, the apprentice of a knight or a noble. They help them get ready for battle, do menial chores for their boss, learn the tricks of the trade…”
“Ah, yes. A minion.”
“Yes, it pays just as much.”
- Writer
