It was a miracle. There wasn’t any heavy casualties. The victims were only the farms, live stocks, and houses. The biggest injury on the villagers was at most a small scathed mark on old man Robert’s left shoulder. According to my father, Josh spotted the Dragon flying towards the village from afar five minutes before it attacked the village. The village chief had ordered all the villagers to get into the underground shelter immediately which explained the zero casualties.

It must had been the live stocks that I saw the Crimson Dragon was gripping with its claws.

“Seffy!” A sweet voice resounded from my back. I looked behind and saw a little girl with honey-colored twin braids, gleefully trotting towards me with her arms wide opened.

It was my sister, Aria.

I received her weight as she threw her whole self at me. She was singing praises of relief into my chest which kinda tickles.

“She was really worried, you know?”

The one who told me so was my mom, Lily. Beyond her, there was Ronac, Ruu, Loraine, and the others. They were all unharmed. Ruu was stiff which was unlike her usual energetic self. She looked scared by the whole ordeal.

“Where’s Josh?” My father came up to me and asked. Apparently, Josh and Garrus went out looking for me despite the objections. Garrus was the name of Josh’s uncle, by the way.

As I was deciding on how to answer that question, my answers came to me.

“Josh!” Ruu yelled out. She pushed me aside as she ran towards Josh who was back before I knew it.

Putting aside the affection I didn’t know Ruu had for Josh, wasn’t he a little too fast in returning? It would take at least ten minutes to even ran from I had been and back to the village.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere? Are you scared? Do you need my help? Do you need treatment? Do you need medicine? Do you need a bath? Do you need me to touch you anywhere?”

Slowly and slowly, Ruu’s frantic voice of concerns was turning into her unchecked desires. If the Crimson Dragon didn’t appear, I would had been more stunned with Ruu’s unknown affection for Josh. Perhaps the whole conundrum drew out her desperate wishes.

“I’m fine,” Josh calmly replied. “It seems that we missed each other, Seth.”

We? When I looked over his shoulder, I saw his uncle just right behind him. We exchanged glances and at that moment, it told me enough that he was also aware of Josh’s secrets. The two were both uninjured. Josh in particular, especially when he had confronted the Crimson Dragon.

“Alright, now everyone’s fine and the Dragon is gone, let’s get to work so we can have a good sleep tonight.” The village chief announced and his words were met with a chorus of assent. Since their optimism was strange, I asked about it.

I didn’t know what actually happened with Josh and the Crimson Dragon but from what was seen from here, the Dragon seemed to have flew off beyond the hills and range.

Josh must had done something. He must had and it couldn’t be anyone else.

As everyone went about to their own duty, my hand was grabbed. A tiny hand. It couldn’t be Aria as she was standing in front of me.

“We need to talk.” Josh told me and dragged me back all the way to his house with his uncle following suit. It was embarrassing to be seen dragged along by a child few years younger than me.

Boy, Josh was strong. He wasn’t even bulging when I struggled.

His house was just like any others’. A small cottage with six windows and a single door but unlike the other houses, there were two chimneys. No one seemed to have question the need for an extra chimney. His house wasn’t a victim of the Dragon’s pillage.

Through the door that opened by itself, Josh tossed me into his house. The door then closed by itself shortly after Garrus came in.

Josh nodded at his uncle and he nodded back. The silent exchange were understood by the uncle and the nephew. Garrus took a sit on a chair just by the fireplace. Across that fireplace, was another fireplace but it looked more like a furnace crossed with a shrine.

Josh sat on a stool in front of me and offered another one to me which I accepted. I didn’t see any stools when I came in though.

“Who are you?” I finally managed to ask. “And what happened to the Crimson Dragon?”

“Do you know what the Dragon came here for?” He ignored my question and threw back one of his own.

Bitterly, I bobbed my head up and down.

“How long are you going to keep it a secret for?”

I returned a gripping glare at Josh, “I am not handing Aria over to the kingdom. I won’t let her get taken away from her family.”

“It’s for the better, Seth. The capital have ample protection.”

“She’s the Divine Maiden. I don’t think they are trying to protect her.”

“The protection is not for her, it’s for the people around her.”

I wanted to retort but I couldn’t. I didn’t have a retort towards the undeniable truth laid bare before me.

“That Crimson Dragon wouldn’t be the last to come after her. Everything and anything with some good instincts for magic, they will keep coming for her. And she will not be the one in danger for most times, she will be the danger.”

“Even so, she’s just a child. Don’t you remember what the adults told us about the kingdom? I won’t let her get exploited. I have sworn to protect her, as her brother.”

Josh chuckled. “And how did it fare today? You could barely protect yourself, let alone someone else.”

Truth after truth came piercing into my skin like needles. The truth really hurts.

“Just who are you, Josh, really. Are you even human? And is your uncle your “uncle?” Are you really as old as you look?”

“He’s human. I can guarantee that but we don’t share the same blood. As for me, I’m not even close to a human but I am as old as I look. Well, for this life time at least.”

“Life time?”

“I am an eternal being that have transcended time by reincarnating each time my physical body came to its end.”

I couldn’t understand what he was saying but his words sounded awfully familiar. It sounded like something I have heard for dozens of times. A beast that even time could not held it down. Once its body came to the end of its lifespan, the real body, the spirit leaves the vessel and awaits for its next incarnation into the world. Such beast also stood at the summit of power over all other creatures. This beast was call a Dragon.

“You’re a Dragon?”

Or he could be a Phoenix which I find it unlikely.

It was a grand revelation but the subject of the revelation himself looked bored. “Yes. I am one.”

“B-but you look like a….”

“A child, I know. Are you aware of how big a Dragon can be? Do you expect me to live in this small village in my all? Hmm, do you?”

My mind couldn’t quite attune to the mismatched personality and appearance of Josh. It was mismatch before but it was even more so now. I decided to look at his chest instead of his face in order to salvage my scathed mind. “So it’s true then, Dragons do reborn and retain their memories from their previous lives.”

“Umm, no.”

I cast a glare at his unexpected denial. “No?” I asked.

“Everyone and everything do reborn, that’s the cycle of life and death, but only a certain few retains their essence and memories from the previous lives. Besides me, there are only two other Dragons that I know of who share the same peculiarity as me.”

I learned something new. Guess campfire tales are to be taken with a grain of salt. However, I did not care about his peculiarity right now. “If you’re a Dragon, can’t you protect Aria? You love her too, don’t you? Aren’t we friends? We knew each other since we were infants. We celebrated our birthdays together every time. We crawled in the mud together. And--”

With a flick of his finger, I lost my voice.

“Calm down, would you?” It was some sort of magic but I had never heard of such magic. “Yes, we have known each other for a long time but you’re asking me to use my strength and powers?”

“Well, how else can you protect her?” I was baffled at his strange choice of words. And I can speak now, was the magic only temporarily?

Josh straightened himself. “I’m a lone Dragon.” He began a windy explanation. “I don’t belong to a nest and I would like to keep it that way. I like this peaceful life. I get to do what I want and whenever I want. No expectations or obligations are set on me. If I were to protect her, my strength would reveal what I am, and that in turn, rids me of this peaceful life. I can offer a hand to a friend in need but you’re asking me to sacrifice what is essentially my life for someone I haven’t even known for ten years.”

Ten years was a long time but since he was a Dragon, his sense of time must be different too. And somehow, I knew he would say that. Which is why, I was prepare. “If that’s so, then your strength can still be used to protect Aria but just not through your hands.”

His eyes narrowed, his jaws dropped, but it wasn’t a surprised expression but a look of disbelief and vexation. “I knew you would say that.” He sighed while rubbing his temple. He really was like an old man.

“But it’s sensible, right? You only need to teach me. You know why I trained myself to such degree every day. I want to become a Dragon Knight.”

Upon hearing my declaration, Josh planted his face into his open palm. “Seth, do you even know what makes a Dragon Knight, a Dragon Knight?”

“They are strong, fast, and able to use magic?” I answered, hopefully. Come to think of it, I knew next to nothing about what makes a Dragon Knight different to a Mage Knight.

“Well then,” Josh said as he stood up from the stool. No, it was more like he announced it. He turned to his supposedly uncle. “Tell them something that wouldn’t make them worried, okay?”

“Of course, just make sure to come back before supper.” Old man Garrus replied dryly.

“I will.”

Before I get to ask what the setting for their exchange was, the roof of the house was gone and so were the walls. No, the house was gone.

The village was gone too… No, it wasn’t. We simply moved. Teleported. We were now ina wasteland spread as far as the eye could see.

Josh could silence my voice, teleport without any prior preparations, open the doors with his mind, so just how much more was he capable of? Going by his true race, I guessed the sky was the limit.

And where did Josh went?

He was no longer in front of me.

Before I could glance around to search for him, a shadow cast itself over me. It was a vast shadow. Too vast. It drew a pitch black image of a Dragon’s contour.

I turned around to see the caster of such magnificent shadow.

It was huge. Really huge. It might even be bigger than the eldest tree of the forest. Like its shadow, it was as dark as the night sky. Its eyes glittered with shades of violet. It was twice the size of the Crimson Dragon.

“Now—”

It spoke. The Black Dragon spoke and when it did, I instantly knew who this Dragon was.

“J-Josh?”

It growled and I somehow understood it as an affirmation.

I could only stare.

“—let me show you why the Dragon Knights bring terror to the guilty and why it would be only forever a dream to you, Seth.”

And so it began, a lesson that was to be ingrained into my very soul and mind. It wouldn’t be exaggerated to call it a miracle if I came out of this lesson sane.