With that vow, four years passed. I had celebrated my sixteenth birthday.

Not once had I slacked off from my training since then. Running, push-ups, sit-ups, practice swings, climbing, I had done all those and I did so vigorously. I even picked up my father's old sword during his time as an adventurer to start hunting down any beasts near the village.

Besides Dire Wolves, Rock Ants, and Pale Lizards, there weren't any other beasts to hunt. Without a stronger prey or opponent, there was no way for me to improve.

There was another thing that hindered my progress. It was my talent for magic, or rather, the absence of talent did.

Magic essence lingers everywhere in the world and magic dwells within everyone. However, not everyone was able to draw out the magic within them. In order to do so, aptitudes for magic was required. As far as I could tell, I have none but that didn't stop me from improving my other aspects. I had not stop myself in honing my physical skills.

Today, I was about to do some practice swings just on the hill at the outskirts of the village when I took notice of some human-like figures gazing from beyond the dense growth of trees.

Someone was watching me.

I slid back down the hill, out of their sight and I circled around where the hills covered my movements. This was my home, I know this place like the back of my hand. I wasn't about to get outsmarted in my own patch. To prevent the unknown figures from spotting me, I closed in on them from the trees.

Let me tell you this, tree hopping was no easy task. Balance and an unfaltering mind played a major part in it. I was only able to get rid of my mild fear of heights by convincing myself who I was doing all this for. My sister had always been my motivation.

She was the Divine Maiden but the only ones who knew of that fact were me, my parents, and somehow, Josh. Maybe he didn't actually knew but he definitely caught onto something. My sudden wish to undergo a hellish physical training was certainly raising eyebrows but only Josh took my change of behavior seriously. He even prodded me for answer on several occasions.

I didn't know much about a Divine Maiden but I did know everyone wanted a piece of her power. In the tales around the campfire, it was believed a Divine Maiden had the ability to cure one of all wounds and afflictions. She could even restore a lost limb. With that kind of tale going around, it wouldn't be absurd to assume the lengths one would go to get their hands on the Divine Maiden.

While I was arranging the facts in my head, I reached the back line of my stalkers.

They weren't peoples but they certainly were one before.

They were Undeads. Draugrs, to be precise. Undeads were the deceased who had rose from their graves. They were either products of necromancy or products of the dense miasma in the area. Considering how the floras and crops were growing strong and the Undeads were basically stalking me, it was probably the work of a necromancer. Undeads were mindless creatures, they don't stalk people like wolves unless they were someone's puppets.

Before they noticed my presence, I quickly dropped from the trees and lobbed their head off. Decapitation was the best method to deal with Undeads. They soon crumbled into dusts. They were surprisingly easy to cut down. Maybe it's because they were decaying and that made them frailer than any other beasts.

I didn't have any problem killing something that was once human but it would be a different matter if it was a living person.

Still, this might meant that a necromancer was lurking around here. The necromancer couldn't possibly be in the village as everyone knew everyone there. A practitioner of necromancy would have a hard time hiding from the public as their practices have a terrible effect on their appearances. At least this was what we were told around the campfire.

Killing the Undeads were easy but getting behind them to take them out was the exhausting part. I guess I had done enough training for the day. Now, I just want to go home and be soothed by my sister. Pampering her had became my hobby and my father's. I knew it was silly but we were always competing for Aria's affection. In the end, we both loss to the mother.

While heading back to the village, a large roar pierced the sky.

It was a roar of a beast I had never heard of but going by the scale of the affected area from that roar, it could only belonged to one such beast.

A Dragon.

Smokes were rising from where the village was. A huge shadowy figure took off from the midst of smokes. The wings spanned as long as its body from the head to the tip of the tail.

Noble creatures who watched over the world. They were the one who stood up to threats when the humans failed to but I had heard of Dragons that didn’t adhere to such rules.

Why was a Dragon here in such a remote village in the first place?

Fear began to take root in my mind. The faces of my family and friends flashed in my mind. I immediately took off into a sprint and dashed back to the village.

There were something in the Dragon’s claws. I couldn’t tell what it was but I prayed for it not to be peoples. The Dragon gave another roar before flying off, away from the village and right at my direction.

Oh shoot.

With the dazzling sun as the backdrop, the Dragon soaring at my way had an enhanced sense of intimidation. Blood was dripping from it claws, it wasn’t the Dragon’s blood but the blood of its victims.

I changed my path and ran towards into the trees. I would be a clear target to the Dragon if I kept running brazenly on the open field.

But before I could make it to the trees, the Dragon caught up to me. It breathed out flames and cut off my escape path. A wall of raging flames were preventing me from reaching the trees. The earth shook violently when the Dragon entrusted its massive weight to the ground. The Dragon stared at me with a piercing gaze that followed my every move.

“Are you perhaps the great warrior I’m looking for?” asked the Dragon in human tongue.

Now that it was only a few feet in front of me, I could tell the colors of its scales, it was crimson. It was a Crimson Dragon with the sheer size of a two-floor house.

My skin shivered and ran cold. My heart felt like it could stop pumping at any time. My trembling body bound me in place. I choked on every words I tried uttering. My voice only stuttered.

“Are you, human?!” The Dragon roared with its repeated question.

The sword in my hand slipped from my sweat-drenched fingers.

“You’re trembling like a shitting dog. I guess you’re not. Curious, I definitely felt a great power originating from these parts. Have my long age finally caught to me?”

A great power originating from here? I couldn’t think of anyone in the village that met the Dragon’s criteria. There was a couple in the village who practiced alchemy. They were the only people around here that had the aptitude for magic but I wouldn’t go as far as to call them “great.” As my thoughts drifted the past in my mind for any plausible person that the Dragon was looking for, my drifting thoughts stopped at one particular person.

My sister, the Divine Maiden.

When that epiphany struck me, I picked back up the sword and pointed it at the Dragon that was dozen times my size. The blade was trembling along with my hands which were wielding it.

“Do you intend to challenge me, little human?!”

My actions seemed to have roused the Dragon’s battle spirits. I didn’t know what I was thinking. There was no way that I could survive a flick of the Dragon’s talons, let alone thinking of defeating it but that wasn’t a reason for me to back down.

Dragon Knights were noble warriors who protected the people from dangerous threats. It was even believed they were the only ones who could battle on equal grounds with a Dragon other than Dragons themselves.

I aspired to become a Dragon Knight to protect my sister. What kind of Dragon Knight would I be if I backed down right here?

“Do you perhaps know of the great warrior I’m looking for?”

It found out. I guessed my abrupt actions were too obvious of a give-away

“Leave this place, Dragon. There’s nothing for you here.” I implored.

“Fine.” The Dragon replied without a single hesitation.

It was a trick, that was what I thought but before I could confirm my suspicions—

“That is if you can defeat me in a battle!” the Dragon continued.

Of course. There was no way it would comply so easily. Dragons were known to be prideful too after all.

Now, I had to fight a Dragon. Was this my fate? Was this the end of my story? After everything I had done, this was how everything was going to end? What kind of joke was this?

“Here I come, foolish human!”

With those words as an impetus, it spread its jaws wide and rushed its mouth at me.

I kicked back away from where I stood and the rows of fangs crushed down onto the solid ground like paper. Before I could regain my bearings from my tumble, the Dragon had already moved onto its next attack.

In that fleeting moment of breather, I wasn’t feeling discouraged but only regret. I wasn’t despairing but I was only cursing myself for not able to become the person I vowed to be.

Fate is cruel. Cruel enough to put my sister’s future into a turmoil. Cruel enough to devoid me of the strength and chance to protect my sister.

The Dragon who twisted its whole colossal body brought its tail around a wide arc, its spiked tail was coming at my way.

I wanted to close my eyes but I faced that fatal tail whip with my eyes wide-opened. I wanted to be defiant to this cruel fate down to my last moments.

I was ready for my death.

However, the tail attack bounced off. There was now a spherical magic barrier encaging me. Upon a closer look, the barrier was made up of multiple palm-size shields.

“You lack strength and intelligence. You lack dexterity and luck. Although, you do have guts. I suppose it does have some merits with only just that.”

A young voice filled with wisdom reached my ears, it came from behind.

“J-Josh?” I uttered the name of the person who had appear before the Dragon and me.

The supposedly eleven years old who spoke those sentences with a mature tone was just standing around with a nonchalant look.

“J-Josh, is it truly you? A-and did you do this?” I pointed at the barrier encasing me.

He looked at me with a faint grin as he snapped his fingers. The barrier then disappeared. “Yes, to both your questions.” He answered.

“Y-you?!”

The Dragon growled in an unusual way. I had a feeling it was speaking in another language. It looked shocked at the appearance of Josh but in a different sense than mine.

“I will only say this once, Ankryos. Leave this place.”

Ankryos? Was that the Crimson Dragon's name?

I had known Josh since I was just a toddler. His voice sounded like nothing I had ever heard from him before. It was a voice that couldn’t be discerned of its gender.

“Like hell! Now that you’re here, my long trip all the way to this place would not be fruitless.”

The Dragon was definitely speaking in a different language and Josh seemed to understand the tongue the Dragon spoke. Josh was giving a displeased look while rubbing his temple like an old man would.

Just who was he?

While my mind was occupy with Josh, the Dragon had begin its attack. It charged straight at us with its fangs bared. Josh groaned in response as he pushed out his hand. The Dragon flew away, as if an invisible force had hit it.

"Get out of here now, Seth." Josh said to me but I was still too stunned with the overall situation to move.

The Dragon recovered quickly from its tumble. Under its neck, where its throat was, that spot glowed with a crimson blaze. It was going to use its breath of flames again. Seeing this Josh, stood in front of me and waved me off.

"Now, Seth."

He told me again but no words were registering in my mind.

Just before the flames that the Dragon breathed out could reach both of us, Josh calmly put his hand on my shoulders.

“Sorry about this,” he told me and before I knew it on the next moment,—

—I was already back in the village and Josh was no where to be seen.