Chapter 75 -
"Please, have rcy!"
I stood there, gritting my teeth while mounted on what I thought was a simple flying lizard.
As the deep and gravely voice of the creature underneath shouted in fear and panic, the black mist surrounding us dispersed, finally letting get a look at it.
The creature I was using as a cushion was in fact pretty humanoid. It had the sa two arms, two legs, and head, but on its back was a pair of wings akin to a bat.
Even from what I could see, there was even skin like a human's, though it was a muted light grey/red. In between the fingers and around the palm of my right hand, I could see the familiar features of two eyes, nose, and a mouth.
But when it ca to similarities, it also ended at that. First of all, the creature was huge. The spot I had ended up planting my knee in wasn't its belly, but its chest. I had hit the base of its sternum. A quick estimate put it at twice my height if it stood upright.
The skin as well, aside from its unusual colour, only covered a small percentage of the creature's body. The chest and belly, front of the shoulders, much of the arms, the outer half of the wing arms as well as the entirety of its webbed mbrane, and most of the face were covered with skin, but the rest with what I could see from my current angle was covered in shiny black scales.
Speaking of the face, while most of it was blocked by my comparatively tiny hand, I could see that its golden eyes were slitted vertically and its mouth was filled with sharp, pointed teeth. Away from its central features, the face was frad with the sa black scales as much of the rest of its body, covering from the neck to the chin, receding from the cheeks, circling around the eyes including a few scales edging in under the eyes. The top of its head was covered in what looked like spiked hair at first glance, but on a second, closer look revealed that it wasn't hair, but thick spines that had the sa general appearance as hair. Those spines were oriented as if they were hair slicked back with a strong hair gel. The spines didn't sway with the gravity nor wind, but flexed visibly against the hard ground.
While I couldn't see its legs nor that tail I had spotted when it was flying, the hand it had loosened from trying to push away my arm might have been shaped like a human's, it was covered in scales and ended in sharp, black claws.
Those claws were certainly big, but mine were way sharper and stronger. I had no doubt about that.
Despite having such a close look, I couldn't even tell if it was male or female. Biologically, it seed to be more reptile than mammal. The fact that there were no nipples on its chest further strengthened that thought, making its deep voice hardly indicative of its sex.
I looked into that amber eye that peeked between my fingers. There was a clear look of fear in that eye that stared back.
"I apologize for attacking you, so please, don't kill ."
(Fuck.)
Things would've been so much easier if I was really dealing with so stupid lizard, but this definitely wasn't such a thing.
At the very least, depending on why it chose to attack , we might be able to deal with this without any further violence.
Keeping a wary eye on it, I slowly nodded, then let go of it and stepped off of its body.
As I backed off of it, the creature lifted its body up and sat cross-legged in front of . It rubbed its arm where I gripped it before turning directly to .
Now that I got a look at it, its facial features were pretty prominent, but well ordered. If I had to pick, I would've said that the word handso fit that face to a tee. That narrow, pointed chin, the large mouth that sohow didn't seem out of place, the flat nose, and sharp-looking eyes. Individually they would've ruined the face, but together they sohow fit to make a whole that greatly surpassed the parts.
(Wait, why am I thinking about that? Priorities!)
I shook my head of that thought before looking square at it again.
Thankfully, its lower body was covered properly with a pair of well worn leather pants. At the end of those pants, scaled legs erged. But contrary to my expectations, the what grew from those legs were less describable as feet and more as talons, four toes ending in long, sharp claws with a single rear-facing toe ending in an equally large claw. In addition, they were much longer than a human's relative to its body size, making this person's standing height that much higher.
A closer look revealed that its aura really was as massive as I had seen while it was flying, as countless tendrils whipped around like flas in the wind. They extended especially far from its clawed feet.
(Looking at things, this creature most likely uses its legs as its main weapons.)
That was probably how it had managed to gore my back as badly as it did. It had been a long ti since I had taken that much damage, though it was still relatively little compared to so of the nastier instances back ho.
Strangely, the pants this creature was wearing was of proper length, suggesting that it was tailored for its dinsions specifically rather than simply putting on whatever it found. Though it didn't exclude the chance that it was a dungeon drop, there wasn't any visible evidence that it was magical.
The fact that it wasn't wearing a shirt and the general look of its facial features suggested it to be a male, but then again, it was clearly a reptile first, with only so features that resembled mammals. It was likely that the females of this guy's race had no need to cover their upper bodies from a modesty perspective, and it was simply possible that that masculine facial structure was considered extrely feminine by its race's standards.
Or their aesthetic standards could be strangely similar to humans and those square shoulders and tight abs could be considered attractive to their people as well.
Along with Alicia's words, a small window opened up at the corner of my vision, showing the creature's information. Skipping through the irrelevant information, I found its level, which happened to have been 223. It was good that I avoided letting Claret take it on. That forty level difference between it and her was quite significant, and risked serious injury.
Conversely, it showed how much a few dozen levels ant even at this range, as the fight wasn't that difficult at all. Mostly just annoying.
(Are they are aren't they?)
Putting my question of how Alicia posed that as a question aside, I glanced over towards Claret in the hopes of getting an answer from her centuries of experience.
But rather than her usual full desire to lavish with attention by being ready to give what she thinks I want at any mont, the dark spirit was hugging a long, black, thick object while rubbing her cheek against it. For a mont I thought I saw her tongue lap it it a bit, but it was probably my imagination. She was drooling though, which was a bit disconcerting.
It took a mont before I rembered that I had ordered her to not move earlier, so while she wasn't following the word of the order, she was, for the most part, following the spirit of it, so I couldn't really complain. About that at least.
"If there's anything I could do to for you to forgive my transgression, just ask."
The creature fell prostrate in front of . While it was nice that it was docile, going this far was just a bit unnerving.
"Damnit. Just as things finally started to look up, I had to piss off a vampire, and a strong one at that. I can't believe I'm doing this, but I can't die, not already. Not so soon damnit..."
The creature mumbled under its breath, but my ears that even put real bats to sha was more than capable of catching its words. Hearing them, I had a closer look at it.
(Huh, its hands are clenched into fists and are filled with tension.)
Leaning to the side a bit, while it was a bit difficult to tell, I was sure that it was gritting its teeth as well. It was a bit strange, but the fact that it obviously didn't like the idea of genuflecting actually made feel a little better.
Turning my attention back to the dark spirit, as I asked her my question.
"Huh? Oh, umm...!"
She quickly got up from where she lay and stood at attention. It didn't escape that there was still a line of drool dripping from her chin.
"Master, dragonkins are one of the dark races of this world. They're generally decent in strength, even the young ones wouldn't be considered weak. They're considered a type of lesser dragon by most, but so of them can be as strong as so of the strongest dragon races. Quite a few Demon Lords have been dragonkins. You might recall, but overall they do tend to have a lot of the common features of dragons like how they have six limbs, how they fly with their wings, spew elental magic from their mouths, are scaly, prideful, annoying, have long lives compared to most races, few in numbers, a little strong, and pretty annoying."
There was quite a lot of important things that Claret had skimd over like they were nothing but common knowledge. I needed to ask her about them in the future, but for the most part I got the bits that were imdiately important. Especially the fact that she felt that they were an annoying species.
"Huh? A spirit is following a vampire? And a greater spirit at that? So I wasn't mistaken before about that? But...?"
The dragonkin looked back and forth between Claret and .
(Oh, it really can see her. Or rather, if it couldn't, then there's be no way for it to have been able to attack , I guess.)
"To think you're such an incredible vampire! In that case, you are a female, are you not? I'm not quite on top of discerning such things of vampires, but I don't think I'm wrong. How about I take you as my mate in exchange for forgiveness? Few ever get to experience the pride and prestige of being the mate of a dragonkin!"
The creature raised its upper body, giving his chest a mighty pound and showed a full-faced smile, flaunting its rows of jagged teeth.
But rather than accept his proposal, my answer was quite different.
"Haaaaa? What makes you think I want sothing like that?!"
I could only shriek at him for making such a proposition. The very way it suggested it was offensive, putting aside how terrible I thought of its idea. There was no way I could accept.
"Wha?! But, there's almost nothing higher of an honour to becoming the mate of a dragonkin!"
"Like hell I want sothing like that!"
The very idea made a chill run down my spine.
"No, but...if you don't want that..."
The look of pure shock that appeared on the creature's face was as if what I had said was incomprehensible to it. Or rather, considering how the conversation went, it was probably safe to presu it to be a male?
"See? So annoying."
While I didn't want to accept such a blatantly prejudiced way of thinking, it was hard to argue with the greater spirit.
Turning to look at her to see her expression, I was instead forced to notice sothing a little unexpected. Claret had pulled that long black thing with her and she had been caressing it like it was her baby or sothing.
(Or rather, that's my shadow, isn't it?)
It took a while to rember that I extended it to break her fall earlier, and had forgotten to release my magic. Dispelling it, I felt a distinct feeling of relief that my shadow didn't have any nerve endings for to have felt what Claret might have been doing while I wasn't looking.
Regarding the spirit herself though, there was a look of regret on her face before she slinked to my back and wrapped her arms around , pulling herself to her usual position and rubbed her cheek against my own.
(Well, it seed like a male to as well, but there was still the chance that I was wrong.)
But with that confird, I was able to move on.
Or rather, considering that I just shot down his proposal, as bad as it was, that one fact didn't really matter at all and was entirely for the sake of self satisfaction.
"So that aside, what are you doing here and why did you attack us?"
"This is my ho. I just moved in to a decent place, but then I thought I saw other dragonkin intruding. Wouldn't you kick out so other guy who tried to take your new place you spent so much ti finding?"
Personally the presumption that the other one was there to move in was a bit rash, and to even attack without at least trying to talk to the other party first was even more hot headed, but it was also possible that this was the norm amongst dragonkins.
"Oh of course, it's a different story since you're a vampire. You can stay here as long as you like. And if you ever decide you're a bit lonely and want soone to mate with..."
"I told you I'm not interested!"
"Eep!"
I shut him down imdiately with a piercing glare.
(Why is this guy so adamant about this anyways? It's like he's desperate to get so. That said, I still haven't had a go with this body yet...or even embraced anyone between my two lives...)
I imdiately shut down that line of depressing thought and forcibly pushed forward the conversation.
"So you moved in here recently, and attacked us because you thought I was a rival dragonkin trying to take over your territory?"
"That's right. It's my bad that I attacked you not realizing you were a vampire. But your wings really are pretty. Those thin lines, the smoothness of the mbrane, and those claws. They're so beautiful that they send a shiver down my spine. Your wings would rank quite highly even against the best of dragonkins."
Frankly, I didn't know how to feel about his complints. It was kinda nice, but at the sa ti they were completely artificial. Was it alright to take it as a complint towards my artistic talent? Or was this so sort of correction caused by my starting settings? If it was the latter, I then I would feel even worse, as it would have ant that even my personal efforts ant little.
Glancing behind the guy at his own wings, I could see quite clearly that his wings didn't differ from my own too much. They were much larger than my own, and had scales creeping up a third of the way up the first joint, but otherwise the overall appearance was surprisingly similar. I had simply modelled my wings off of a bat's, but against my expectation, there was also a non-bat creature that also had a similar wing appearance.
"So you thought I was a dragonkin due to my wings, despite not having a tail."
Looking down from his wings, there was a clearly prominent tail as thick as his legs sticking out from his hindquarters drooping down and resting on the grown behind him.
"Sorry. I didn't even know that vampires could even have wings."
"Fine. It's probably not normally anyways. So what, would a female dragonkin also have tried to take your territory or sothing?"
Considering how much he pushed the mate angle, I would've figured that this guy would've tried to hit on a dragonkin woman rather than attack her on sight.
"There's no way there'd be one this far from any of the settlents."
For so reason the guy suddenly looked real depressed.
I was getting the feeling that rather than getting a quick and simple explanation, I was just getting filled with even more new terminology and questions. But at the very least, it was enough for now.
"So I can't convince you to abandon your ho?"
"Well...if you can find sowhere else then...A nice place high up with plenty of prey nearby."
He sounded a bit timid for making such an obvious demand, but it was hardly a concern of my own.
That said, it didn't sound very easy to find. I only knew of three mountains including this one, two of which where right out due to being frequented by the locals, so this dragonkin would only stir trouble just by being there. The third was my ho, and while I wasn't sure how good of a hunting field it would be for him around the mountain itself, the dungeon would be excellent to the point that it would be harder to find anything better anywhere else in the world.
But leading him directly to my ho wasn't quite sothing I could do without hesitation to say the least. At least not before I got sothing of an achievent of my own first.
"There is one place I know of..."
"Huh? Really?"
"Yea, it's a pretty good place..."
"There's a but sowhere, isn't there?"
"...Yea, though at least it's not a big one."
"Well, let's get it over with. What is it?"
"...I can't show you where it is yet."
"What?! What's the point then?!"
"Well, it's better than here! And just because I can't show you where it is yet, it's not like you can't start heading towards it!"
*Sigh*
(Why does he just presu that it's not viable if he can't take advantage of it imdiately? Is he just that short sighted or desperate?)
I couldn't think of any better places, and the mountain I made my ho at was quite big. We were only using a single fountain room and sharing the rest of the dungeon wasn't an issue. Or rather, there was no way for us to hog the thing and as long as he didn't reach the 80th floor, we weren't likely to actually et very often unless if we deliberately tried to.
Alicia didn't sound entirely convinced. I couldn't bla her as we did go outside quite a lot for the sake of her sunbathing and [Spirit Perception] practice.
If that wasn't an endorsent from Claret, then I didn't know what was.
"Anyways, if you swear to be my ally and help when needed, then I can let you live near my ho. My ho is a dungeon at the base of the large mountain to the northwest."
"That place?!"
The dragonkin seed to be pretty surprised by that fact as he looked off to the horizon where I was pointing. Even from this distance the peak of that huge mountain was still visible, though only the upper half stuck out from the horizon and almost all remaining details were obscured due to the distance.
"She really is my master..."
I wasn't quite sure what Claret was mumbling about, nor what she was doing confirming such a thing at this point in ti, but this wasn't the ti nor place.
"You, you've made that place your ho for long?"
"Well, I don't know if it's long, but I guess for three years?"
"...I see."
The dragonkin covered his lower jaw with a mouth, contemplating about sothing on his own before the corners of his mouth rose and a glint of sothing positive flashed across his eyes.
"Alright. If you really are the master of that mountain as you claim, then I, Magni, will follow you!"
The oversized lizard in front of stood up and pounded his chest with his fist while making an outrageous statent.
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