After spending a quick night with Sofia, the next morning came and it was time to set sail. Cain seems to have made his decision about their travel method.

“Where is the carriage?” Sofia asked as she saw the road empty.

“The capital is about a three-week ride from here, there is no way we’re going in a carriage.” Alice smiled, she won’t be able to endure sitting for that long.

“For that reason, we’re going to use this new and improved Carriage.” Cain put his hand on Zaleria’s shoulder.

“I’m not a carriage, I’m just giving you a ride since my hut is in the same way,” Zaleria growled at him.

Cain smiled and looked around, the ones who are going are him, Sofia, Selena, Alice, Gracie, Hati, Mary, Chad, and Ariel.

“You’re going as well?” Sofia glared at Mary.

“Yes, father left last night and said I should stick with Cain.” Mary smiled, everything was already decided.

“If he left then who is going to lead the guild?” Sofia started at her, if Mary was his daughter wasn’t her responsibility to take on the role?_.

“He gave the position to an adventure named Edward, the man is talented enough.” Mary smiled, leading the guild was a chore and not a boon.

“Make sure to come in time.” Marina approached Cain with a smile.

“Yep, every five days is the deal.” Cain was to teleport back to Ourals once each five days for his duty with Marina. She was getting left behind since she can’t protect herself. Having someone manage the Ourals was also a need.

“Leaving so soon? Could have at least said goodbye.” As a surprise, Daraku was passing by. Cain wasn’t fooled, this rouge can’t be here by chance.

“What is it? Didn’t know you can feel lonely.” Cain smiled.

“We’re heading back home soon. Demons are invading our land and the samurai can’t keep them in check. Amaterasu gave Miko another prophecy.” Daraku looked serious, those are troubling news.

“As Ashura spent most of his power on his avatar, the seals on the demon king have shattered. I the sun goddess shall reject them at day and my brother shall empower you at the full moon. With the holy blade that you carry, slay the demon king and gift his heart to the six-eyed avatar of Ashura.” Daraku recited the prophecy.

‘That’s long, I hope Miko is fine after getting It’ Cain thought with a worried face. Someone needs to tell Amaterasu to stop sending long prophecies as they are taxing.

“Let me guess, the six-eyed avatar is Kayden. Did you tell him?” Cain immediately concluded and was expecting an answer.

?[0??]? “He refused to come, saying that he needs to head to the capital for a pit fight,” Daraku replied with a sad face. “He also suggested that you might have a solution.”

Cain sighed, Kayden did know that Cain can teleport and that he has extreme knowledge about magic.

“Fine, give me a moment.” Cain quickly pulled a gold ring from the maze, [Enchanting: Limited Teleport]

After a bright flash of light, Cain threw the ring to Daraku. “It’s a one-use only. It will set up a small portal that I can link with.”

“And you’re heading to the capital, perfect. How much does this thing cost?”historical

“Probably a fine as it will get cursed if you sold it.” Cain smiled and Daraku quickly tucked the ring into his pocket.

“Before I forget, here take this.” Daraku threw a small bag at Alice.

“What is it?” She asked.

“Miko’s old ceremonial outfit, specially woven, dyed, and tailored in Amaterasu’s biggest shrine. It was also left to simmer in her holy water for almost a year so it should be a pretty powerful amplifier to any spells she gives you.” When Alice opened the bag she saw a white and red dress that looked very strange to her.

“Tell her ~thank you~ in my place, I will take good care of it.” She smiled.

“Let’s hurry, we didn’t wake up early just to sit here.” Zaleria transformed to her draconic form scaring all the passengers.

“Sorry but we must leave, our ride is getting pretty agitated.” Cain smiled and Daraku patted him on the back.

Everyone rode on Zaleria’s back and she rushed through the streets, surprisingly she never stepped on anything besides the road.

“You’re surprisingly agile,” Chad said as he was sitting on Zaleria’s back with the girls. Cain was sitting on the back of Zaleria’s neck.

“I can run as well, we dragons can even run without a sound if we put our mind to it. Our joints are extremely powerful.” Zaleria growled.

“Your ligaments and muscles are similar to springs, they can absorb the shocks of your steps and make your steps a bit bouncy.” Cain corrected her as if it was a natural thing to do.

“As if you had seen it,” Zaleria replied.

“You regularly eat humans that we fight, would it be strange if I ate red dragon’s meat before?” Cain smiled at her.

“Dragons are at the top of the food chain in every region. It would be ridiculous for someone to use us as a food source.” Zaleria replied with a skeptical voice, even if someone could kill red dragons. It was never efficient. There was also a second big problem, she had bit other red dragons and tasted their meat. Red dragon’s meat is extremely spicy, to the point it can tear the stomach of a lesser creature like humans and orcs apart.

She was right as Cain has never hunted red dragons for meat before, he instead learned about their anatomy from the dragons’ king lab. It was a given that he will experiment with dragons, his final product, and his test labs the humans.

After flying for about an hour, Zaleria stopped mid-flight and began hovering. “I smell the ashes of a dragon, let’s go down and check.” She said trying to fly down.

“Stop! What if the fight just ended, it doesn’t concern us so let’s avoid any confrontation with dragons since they were leaving us alone.”

Everyone besides Zaleria agreed with Cain, they didn’t want to deal with fighting a dragon at the moment. Their goal was to hurry toward the capital.

With Zaleria’s speed and power, they traversed in a day what they should have in three days. Zaleria didn’t want to speed up too much since she has passengers on her back. If it was just Cain, she could have reached the capital in a day or two at most.

After a full day of travel, it was almost dusk and everyone wanted to camp out. “Find us a nice spot, preferably a bit high and with a thick forest,” Cain asked Zaleria.

The thick forest was to hide the tower his father was going to use while the high ground is good so that his demon scouts can get a better view.

Zaleria hovered down silently like an owl stalking a mouse, even with her massive body, neither her wings nor landing made the slightest of sounds.

Each time Cain saw that he was reminded of how dragons are just messing with humans. When an adventuring party spots a dragon or surprises it, nine times out of then, the dragon was just playing around.

A question that no one asked is why dragons seem to willingly stay on the ground while fighting adventures or knights. The answer was simple, the dragon was toying with them. If they got serious, they are the hardest to detect or counter, their human shape shit is just salt on the wound.

Right now where they are heading, there is a certain beggar. A little girl with blue hair and a scar on her face. Cain was wanting to have her help him take down some hunt some Kraken for their ink. As you might expect, that girl is in fact a bronze dragon, barely an adult but she certainly didn’t need to beg nor was poor.

She might have the scariest traits that a dragon could ever show, in a twisted good way.