The trio sat in a circle on the floor as the newborn dragon slept on the heap of cushions. It had been an hour since the shocking turn of events. It took the whole hour for the prince to feed and coerce the dragon to bed. 

During that time, Kai had 'borrowed' Ryuu for a conversation. More like an interrogation. 

"Long time no see. How have you been? I wasn't expecting to see you here," Ryuu was the first to talk. "I haven't met any—"

"What happened with you?" However, he was interrupted. It was just one question, but the pressure Kai had put on it was no joke. He was visibly agitated. 

"I am here on a mission," Ryuu spoke. "It's not going well as you can see. But I can manage. How—"

"But you were a hunter. Why would you be—"

"Well, I technically am but not really. My job class changed after the fiasco. I'm effectively an assassin now," Ryuu spoke with a frown. "My luck has always been the worst. Anyway, why are you here?" 

Kai was a mercenary back in the game. They met on a big hunting quest. Mercenaries weren't allowed to be royal guards. Unless he also had a class change.

"It's not what you're thinking. I'm still a mercenary. He hired me secretly because he couldn't trust the royal guards." Oh. 

Irresponsible. The prince was totally irresponsible towards royal conduct. He shouldn't even be considered for the throne. 

"Anyway, it's nice to see you again. I thought I wouldn't meet anyone familiar around here. I didn't even catch a sign of another person from Earth in the last few months." 

When they returned to the room afterward, the dragon was already sound asleep. 

After thinking for a while, Ryuu came up with an idea that could solve everyone's problem, if it worked out that is. Kai was indifferent about all this and spoke of nothing.

The prince, however, was sweating up a river. His guard went against him, and an assassin was glaring at him as though he had committed treason. He couldn't see the person's face, just his fiery red eyes, which made the impact more powerful.

"You're Highness," Ryuu spoke, "I was given a deadline by the employer, the child's parent. There's less than 25 days left." The first prince, Askr, looked down. "If I fail, I'll get killed even if you survive."

The room suddenly fell cold.

[System: Warning.

Please be mindful of your conduct.]

Am I not being polite enough?

[System: Mindful words can save worlds.]

Get lost. 

"However, I don't want that. All this has nothing to do with me anyway and I don't want to be subject to treason when I'm not even getting paid for it. So my best option would be to go into hiding. But I'm afraid escaping the area of effect is impossible within the time limit." He continued more politely, not caring if the prince caught on to what he meant. "On the other hand, Your Highness doesn't have the resources to raise a dragon as he is now, without help from the kingdom. Do you expect that small thing to bear your burden?"

"No! I just—" He paused midway. Anyone could tell that he didn't think this far. 

"If you want to raise it, you'd have to take up your position eventually. Which contradicts your purpose," pause, "But you still won't be able to keep a dragon around forever."

Dragons were free creatures. Whether they imprint on someone, take over a kingdom, find a lover, a job, or whatever, they'd end up leaving to do something else soon enough. It wasn't possible to hold their attention for too long. 

And they were talking about raising a dragon in a place where even the royal blood didn't want to stay. Ryuu would give ten years at most before the young dragon abandoned Askr due to boredom.

"So there's something we can do." The other two looked directly at him. "Just like I offered before, I can make it seem like you were killed. You can play dead and escape from your worries permanently."

The prince looked at him expectantly. "However, I'm not keen on doing favors. In return, you must return the child to its parents. They'd still be furious, but that much is natural. Do you understand?"

"But how am I supposed to find the parents?"

[System:???]

What?

"How did you find the egg?" 

"It was lying in a corner of the southern forest."

Haaahhh. 

Ryuu's sigh was internal. Why would a dragon egg be lying around in the forest? If Askr was telling the truth, there had to be a middleman in the incident. After all, a dragon would never abandon its offspring. 

But there was no time to look into that. "I'll take care of that." Ryuu already received a checkpoint where he was supposed to return the egg from the system. "You just have to take responsibility for your actions. Clear?" 

With a nod, the deal was done. 

***

The next day, the news of the first prince, the one with the hard-to-pronounce name, death spread like wildfire. No one knew what actually happened, but apparently, nothing was left behind of him other than trails of blood and severed limbs. The one in the know suspected it to be the newborn dragon's wrath, while GREY assumed it was done by Scarlet Eye. Anyhow, the kingdom had lost its crown prince, so it was shrouded in a sense of loss.

At the same time, the said prince, after losing all his authority, was suffering under a moody assassin. 

After escaping the castle, Ryuu removed his basic disguise just to have a reason to kill Askr whenever necessary. It was to be said that Ryuu wasn't an intimidating person appearance-wise and looked somewhat delicate. In modern terms, he could be compared to an idol or such, with his appearance as Aoi, the slender man with wine-red hair and eyes. Those were the things that didn't resemble his original appearance. Unless he was highly irritated, he looked like an innocent person who wouldn't kill a fly.

But circumstances weren't on the dead prince's side.

In just one night, Ryuu acquired not 1, 2 but 4 travel partners. How so? Wasn't it just the prince and the dragon?

There was his friend, Kai. Although Ryuu promised to meet up with him at a later date, he insisted on following saying it was dangerous to go without backup.

For the 4th one, the five-inch cotton ball wasn't a problem, unless someone saw it. Unless a beast tamer saw it, to be specific. But that was out of the question on this part of the continent.

Ryuu was wholly annoyed, mostly with the first creature. It was his fault, to begin with. 

After making a pit stop at a nearby town, they started their journey towards the south-east of the kingdom. Because of their circumstances, Ryuu had to plan a different route through the forest instead of taking the original route. 

Isle Forest was located along the border of the south. It was a famous hunting spot in KS. Being a hunter in the past, Ryuu was quite familiar with the place. That's why he knew it'd take at least ten days to get through the forest and reach the southeastern region unless they chose to sprint for five days. This would leave them with 11 days at hand at most. That was the best bet. 

But with a newborn that got distracted every ten minutes, and its caretaker who wasn't used to this kind of journey, Ryuu guessed that they'd reach the southeastern mountains with barely a day at hand—the best bet. 

"Let's camp here today," Ryuu announced after they were deep enough inside the forest.
Isle Forest wasn't as deep as the Cotton Fairy habitat but was five to six times its size. Despite that, the afternoon here was relatively darker and looked more like early evening. 

Ryuu didn't bother setting up a tent as he usually slept outside or in inns when he traveled alone. Specifically, he didn't know how to, camping wasn't a thing where he grew up. So he dumped the task onto the guy who couldn't sleep outside before leaving to hunt for food. Kai followed him along, which Ryuu didn't argue against because having more people to hunt was faster. With the dragon around, there was no need to worry about the fallen prince.

That's what he thought at first. But the young dragon chose to follow them instead. "Uh, Kai, do you know how long dragons take to learn to talk?" 

"If not on their own, around a month as far as I know." So how are we supposed to communicate? 

In terms of communication, the cotton and the dragon were getting along just fine. "Do you two understand what I'm saying?"

Silent stare.

"Forget it." Focusing on one thing wasn't his style. Even he hated that about himself. If it wasn't working, abandon the ship and move on to the next thing. It saved a lot of time. Sure it left him miles behind in the human relationships department, but Ryuu never bothered. 

As such, Kai was one of his few game friends. "So, what have you been up to for the past few months?" 

"Nothing remarkable." He never admitted doing something remarkable anyway. "What about you? How did you manage the sudden job change?" 

"Farming and stuff I guess. Nothing remarkable." There really wasn't anything that could make a dent in history. "I was more preoccupied with my day job so— hey wait!"

In the next moment, the blue dragon was snatched up from near a bush, looking shocked. "You shouldn't touch that. It's poisonous." Pause, "You probably don't even understand me. Look." 

Taking the gloves off, Ryuu grabbed the holy-looking blue flower by its stem. The parts of his finger that touched the stem began to burn. "See? It'll be worse if you touch here." With a finger, he touched a petal, which made the finger inflamed almost instantly. 

"What are you—"

The young dragon was looking at his hands, surprised. This was decidedly not something you should show a child. But a dragon wasn't like a normal child. 

"These flowers are only nice to look at. You shouldn't touch them...I still doubt you understand me..." But the dragon did seem wary of the flower now. 

After observing the creature for a minute, Ryuu did something out of character. With a gesture, he activated his skill. 

[System:
Skill: Scarlet Night—Active.

Enemies within 100 meters won't be able to spot you. Enemies within 20 meters radius will have their movements slowed by 50%]

It sounded like a fancy skill, but it just made a selected area of his choice go dark. As for the effects, it was yet to be tested. 

The ones around him were surprised by the sudden change in atmosphere. While Kai and the dragon didn't make any rash movements, the puff of cotton took the liberty to hide inside Ryuu's collar. He didn't bother with it as he demonstrated to the young dragon. 

Within the dark, a certain flower began to glow. "Most of the glowing plants on this part of the continent are toxic. Beasts don't approach the areas where they grow, so places with lots of luminescence plants around are safer to camp at." The dragon looked like it understood so Ryuu dropped his skill as well as the flower. 

"You just said it's poisonous, why would you grab it like that?" Kai looked annoyed, probably cause he had cut him off mid-sentence earlier, he thought. 

"I can't be sure it understands what I'm saying. So, I had to demonstrate."

"But now you're injured."

Ryuu looked at his fingers. A few more minutes and his skin would have shed off. With a hum, he took out a bottle of liquid and poured it onto his hand. It wasn't a healing potion but a disinfectant he had brewed as a form of practice. "That would take care of it." He put his glove back on as he stood up. 

"Are you sure?"

"Uh-huh. This kind of thing is pretty mild." Ryuu's both jobs had multiple sub-classes. Dealing with poison and medicine was part of it. 

"Seriously, what have you been up to for the last few months?" This sounded more like a remark than a question to Ryuu. "Do you mind filling me in on the details?" 

"Hmm? Why the sudden interest?" Kai wasn't the prying type as far as he knew. He was such a free soul as if he embodied the whole spirit of this place—not bothering about things that didn't affect him.

"It just seems like you had a very different experience than everyone else. You don't have to if you don't want to." 

"It's not that I mind," Ryuu said with a chuckle. "The most different thing probably would be that I was transported here while asleep. It was very shocking, waking up in a completely different place all of a sudden. The system was all about how I missed the introductory phase."

There was a heavy pause on both sides. "And I somehow ended up with the most complicated character around here—job class-wise. There was always something to do. Yeah, that's about it."

That wasn't about it. Farming, learning to brew potions, getting poisoned, skill training, there was no end to it. Thinking back, it was pretty tough. But Ryuu guessed that it was necessary if he were to go up against someone like Kyros. He would never be enough, but you gotta do what you could, right?

"You had it rough." Ryuu looked back at his friend who was looking at the ground as he walked. The dragon and the cotton were flying ahead of them. 

"You don't need to worry yourself over it. I'm sure anyone who had a sudden character change went through similar problems." Ryuu remarked. "Enough about that. Let's go hunt, the sun will set soon."

"No. They didn't." As Ryuu sped up ahead, he didn't hear the words low as a breath. Kai followed him close behind, unable to vocalize everything that came to his mind.