We just stood there, shoulders slumped, staring up at that stubborn mana ball dropping back down on us, fast. I’d done everything, drained the dragon dry, hurled the thing as high as I could. There was nothing left to try… until it happened.

  

  We dropped to the ground, hands over our ears as the terrifying sound tore through the air. I peeked with one eye and saw it. The dragon was hoisting its long body into the sky. It let out a roar that felt like it carried its lungs, soul, maybe even its future, and sent the mana ball blasting straight up into the clouds. It wasn’t some mana power up. It was just a raw, natural scream of I do not want to die.

  Only the sound made the mountain shudder beneath our feet. I just froze, dumbstruck, feeling smaller than an ant under the dragon’s sheer power. After sending the mana ball into the sky, it was completely spent now. Its huge, long body trembled, then slowly turned toward us. Midori and I threw ourselves aside a heartbeat before it flattened us.

  

  The dragon hit the ground with a bone-rattling crash that nearly sent us flying. It lay there unconscious, or maybe even dead. I scrambled to get a glimpse of Midori behind its enormous body, but there was no way to see her.

  “Midori! You okay?” I yelled.

  “Yes, I’m fine. You?”

  “I’m good too!”

  “Come this way, near its head!” I yelled, running toward the dragon’s head.

  “Okay!”

  The moment we made it to the dragon’s huge head and she saw me in one piece, Midori threw herself at me, hugging me so tight I realized some dangers were far more suffocating than mana fields.

  “O-okay,” I said, struggling to get the words out, “that’s enough.” I kept slapping her back.

  She finally let go and locked onto the dragon, lying there like it was napping but very much not dead. Spotting a huge rock, she strutted over, wobbled while lifting it over her head, and marched toward the dragon as if she were delivering the world’s heaviest present.

  “Wait, wait!” I jumped between her and the dragon, spreading my arms. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “What?” she said flatly. “I’m solving the town’s problem.”

  “We can’t kill it like that,” I said, blocking her way. “Not after what it just did.”

  “What? Don’t tell me you feel sorry for it. It’s a—”

  “What it is or who it is doesn’t really matter anymore,” I cut in. “If we’re still breathing right now, it’s because of that mountain shaking roar!”

  Midori clearly saw this fight going nowhere. She lowered the rock with a huff, dropped it to the ground, then sat on it. Legs crossed and arms folded. She turned her head away with the face of a very annoyed child.

  “Uh-huh, as if it did it for us,” she muttered. “It only moved its ass to save its own worthless life.”

  “You know this changes nothing, right?” I dropped to my knees and looked at her. “Yeah, we came here ready to maybe kill it. But after this, we owe it our lives. Accept it or not.”

  That life-and-death talk hit me like a slap. It reminded me why we even came to this mountain in the first place. The old man. Then I remembered the dozens of flowers the dragon had crushed near the lake. I jumped up and sprinted toward them.

  “Where are you going?”

  “The flowers. Edelweiss,” I said. “I’m hoping at least one of them survived.”

  The moment Midori heard that, she sprang up too and hurried to catch up with me, walking alongside me.

  “Relax,” she said, trying to sound calm, even after seeing the mess. “There were dozens of them. One had to make it. Right?”

  “I… don't know.”

  We walked on forever, or at least it felt that way. The dragon’s long body stretched ahead, disappearing into the lake. I had no clue how much was still underwater, but none of that mattered. All I could think about were the flowers it had crushed in its sudden rage, the ones I would die to save.

  When we reached the spot, it was exactly as I feared. Not that I expected anything else, the dragon had stomped through them like a lunatic. Not a single flower survived. Every last one was crushed, bent, wilted, flattened into the dirt. My hope seemed dead. Still, I glanced at Midori, just in case.

  “Do they even work after they’re dead?”

  “No,” she said, quick and sharp. “The mana’s long gone. We need it alive.”

  

  A sudden crack of thunder made us flinch. We looked up. Where the mana ball had disappeared, a black cloud spread fast, swallowing the sky. Then the rain came, heavy and sudden. In seconds, we were soaked. I stared at the dark sky, silently hoping it wouldn’t start dropping rocks next. It didn’t, just slowed into a soft drizzle.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “Hayato, look!” Midori said. The excitement in her voice was impossible to miss.

  I turned and saw her pointing. Following her finger, I spotted it too. A flower, not completely crushed, just bent sadly. Rain poured over it, and stubbornly, it straightened. My slumped shoulders lifted with it. I walked over, knelt down, and smiled. Maybe the old man could still be saved.

  “Oh, another one! There!” Midori said, already moving.

  She came back a moment later, holding a flower with roots and a clump of soil still attached. Kneeling beside me, she used the last of her mana to lift the one in front of me too, keeping some earth around it. She quickly opened her bag and placed them inside carefully, like they were priceless treasures, which, honestly, they were.

  “Be careful,” I said, my hands almost shaking. “Won’t those get hurt in there?”

  “No,” Midori said, adjusting her bag. “These things are very tough. Unless some stupid, overgrown worm decides to stomp on them for no reason.”

  While she talked, I noticed the dragon had woken up. It twisted its neck, turned its head toward us, and stared at her as she insulted it. Its face muscles twitched like it was holding back a storm.

  “Uh… maybe don’t call it that?” I said, sweating, my eyes jumping between the dragon and Midori.

  "What? Didn't you say that disgusting creature—"

  The dragon opened its mouth, clearly about to swallow Midori in one clean bite. I jumped forward.

  “Stop!”

  Midori turned around. She didn't flinch. She didn’t even look worried. She stared at it like nothing huge and angry was right in front of her and was about to eat her as a whole.

  Then the dragon sniffed. Once. Twice. Like it was about to sneeze us straight into the lake. It froze, held its breath, and barely stopped. With a grumpy twist, it slid back into the water, sinking almost all the way, leaving only its head and a stretch of long neck above the surface, just to glare at us.

  “If you were allergic to them, you would do the same,” it said in a bitter tone. Then it looked at Midori. “But you are a grass eating, stupid, giant snail. What would you know.”

  “How many times did I tell you not to call me like that?” Midori snapped. She pointed a trembling finger at it like a weapon.

  I paused. I kind of felt like I’d heard that insult before. Yeah, right before she kicked me in the groin in that spider cave, I’d said the exact same thing to her. So that was it. No wonder she’d lost it back then. It wasn’t new to her. And judging by the dragon’s face, it clearly loved poking the bear with it.

  “Ah, sorry,” I said. My eyes bounced between them as they stared each other down like two angry cowboys. “So…” I cleared my throat. “Is there a chance you two might know each other from before?”

  “Yes!” they both shouted, perfectly in sync, with just equal amounts of rage.

  “Even though I didn’t want a single memory with this disgusting, overgrown worm,” Midori sighed, “unfortunately…”

  “Oh, right,” the dragon jumped in immediately. “Same goes for a slimy snail walking around with a giant shell…” It snapped, then paused, eyes narrowing. “Even if you happen to be an… attractive, pretty woman now.”

  It stopped. Its eyes dragged over Midori from head to toe. I could guess exactly which points it was focusing on. Then it leaned in too close.

  “So tell me,” it whispered, pure jealousy in its voice, “how did you end up with that look anyway?”

  “You don’t need to know that,” Midori muttered, quickly turning her face to the other side.

  She folded her arms under her chest, shifted her weight, crossed her legs, and pushed one hip out like it was on display. Then she flipped her hair so hard it could have knocked someone over. She even sighed, soft and dramatic, like this body was such a burden to carry.

  The dragon just stood there, staring like its soul had gone out for a long break. Its nostrils flared, eyes twitched, pride crumpling like wet paper. For a single moment, it wasn’t a frightening ancient monster anymore, it was a pitiful, defeated loser.

  “Ah, by the way… thanks for saving our lives. If it wasn’t for you—”

  I couldn’t finish. My eyes met Midori’s, and I swallowed the rest. They were burning with fury, like thanking the dragon was a crime worse than death.

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” the dragon said, waving it off. “After all, you kept your word and threw it into the sky… even if it failed.” Then it came closer and added, “And you cleared out all that mana that was bothering me for a long time.”

  “Well,” I said, sheepishly rubbing the back of my neck, “this wasn’t exactly intentional… I was just trying to get rid of that mana dragon down there.”

  “Mana what?” the dragon stared at me like I’d lost my mind. Midori looked just as confused too.

  “A giant dragon made of pure mana attacked us and I—”

  “I told you already, there was no dragon down there,” Midori cut in, way too confident. “It was a giant cockroach. A hairy, brown, disgusting one.”

  “I haven’t seen a single cockroach here. And… what would a cockroach even do on a mountain in the first place?”

  “I-I don't know,” Midori said, baffled.

  “Maybe I know,” the dragon said, approaching us with narrowed eyes. “You two… were probably exposed to intense mana, right?”

  We nodded, waiting for it to spill whatever it was going to say.

  “I know that feeling very well,” the dragon continued. “You were just caught in a mana illusion, that’s all. That’s why your stories don’t match.”

  “Mana—” I started.

  “Illusion?” Midori finished, just as confused.

  “That used to happen to me a lot back then,” the dragon said, nodding. “All the time. I learned how to block it later, but it was hard. Think of it like… a nightmare that also feels too real. Sometimes it can even kill you if you don't wake.”

  “…What?” I asked, frowning.

  “Nightmare?” Midori repeated.

  “Yes,” the dragon said. “It’s a nasty kind of illusion. It traps you with the thing you fear most, or the disaster you expect, and makes you live it in an endless loop… until you break out and die.”

  I just thought back on what I had lived through, and suddenly it all made sense. I was scared of seeing a dragon on the mountain, scared of losing control of my mana, and most of all, scared of failing to protect Midori. And, one by one, every fear came true. Then I remembered what Midori had said and turned to her.

  “So wait…” I said, frowned. “Your biggest fear was seeing a cockroach?!”

  Midori looked away fast, then her eyes slid to the dragon. She pointed at it and snapped, “I mean, was I wrong? There’s one right here!”

  My eyelids dropped on their own. I gave her a pretty done look, then decided to ignore her to death and move on. I turned back to the dragon.

  “Then what about the mana?” I asked. “I mean, I get it, the dragon wasn't real, but where did all that mana come from? By the time I arrived here, I'm sure more than half the mountain was already spinning around me.”

  “That’s what surprised me too,” the dragon said. “I was standing here when I felt all the mana below thinning out. Then I noticed you lying there, unconscious, draining all of it into yourself. That’s when I summoned you here.”

  “You summoned me?”

  “Yes. Honestly, you were the gold I was digging for. If you hadn’t gone mad and made that scary ball,” the dragon said, eyes fixed on me, “I was going to give you an offer. One you probably wouldn’t refuse.”