Dragons Are Chivalrous and Righteous (2/2)

Kalastros widens his eyes, his heart stops for a moment, and his skin goes cold. 'Haalfrin!' he cries in his mind as he steps forward and grips the railing of his balcony tightly.

Being mainly aerial predators, the Drakin have incredible eyesight more than anything else, so the old-looking wizard's subtle reaction puts a smile on Dakka's face, and an evil glint shimmers in his eyes.

Dakka opens his fanged mouth, "Ha ha! I see you care for this boy! Is he your grandchild? Disciple!?" Dakka notices Kalastros' eyes twitch at that, so he knows that last guess was right.

"Well, wizard, if you want your disciple alive… how about you trade me for a treasure of equal value… in exchange for the beauty you've destroyed!" Dakka holds out his right hand, revealing the "Seasong Bird" canvas with a burnt hole in the center.

Kalastros gets angry hearing this dragon's shameless threat… Still, knowing that appearing strong while you're bluffing is important, he shouts back at the dragon, "I can kill you where you stand! Then, I can bury your bones so deep in the earth that no dragon will ever be able to find you and revive you! You're in no position to bargain with me, dragon!"

Hearing all this, Haalfrin figures out that his master had placed an illusion on the dragon. Wanting to help his master in this situation, Haalfrin tries opening his mouth to shout something like, "Dakka's bluffing! He's not going to kill me anyway!"

However, Dakka quickly senses something, and he closes his palm again – not allowing Haalfrin to say anything.

Then, after hearing Kalastros's words, Dakka slaps his tail – crushing the pavement of an entire street behind him. Then, he roars out, "You stole the 'Seasong bird from me!' I don't care if I die! I'm not leaving until you repay me what I'm owed! How could you be so heartless to destroy such a beautiful treasure and not even feel sorry for it!?"

The sad... or perhaps the scary thing about Dakka… is that he's being 100% serious about the painting. To him, humans are the crazy ones… not himself.

Kalastros does some quick thinking, then he says back to the dragon down below, "How about a new deal?! We'll exchange life for life and treasure for treasure. I'll grant you your life, and you'll give me my disciple back. Then, you'll pay me for the damages to the city, and I'll use some time manipulation magic to fix that painting."

Dakka glances down at Haalfrin and the painting, thinks for a moment, then looks back up. "It's a deal, wizard!"

The dragon then gets a shy look on his face; with a scaley, snouted, and fanged head… a shy expression on a dragon looks terrifying in another way…

… "How am I supposed to pay? I didn't bring money with me!" Dakka mutters just loud enough for Kalastros to hear.

Of course in Dakka's mind, there's nothing more embarrassing than admitting that he's poor. To a dragon, being poor is the same as being ugly, old, crippled, and fat at the same time; it's uncomfortable, and you feel ashamed to be seen by strangers.

Hearing this, the wizard up above only smiles. "I hear that in your world, discarded dragon scales are carved up and used to make your coin currency among the beast races… You all shed so often that the value of few horned dragon scales like yours is pretty low."

Kalastros gets a smug smirk on his face. "How about you peel off all the scales on your tail and donate them to me? That should be enough to cover the costs for the damaged buildings. Oh, and the scales of your left hand to repay the families of the guards you killed… and the scales of the rest of your left arm too as payment for terrorizing the citizens."

With dragons having a high pain tolerance, Dakka actually finds this deal a good one. His scales are going to grow back anyway soon, after all.

Even still… dragons instinctually hate being ripped off…

However, since there are no dragons in this world, dragon scales are hundreds of times more pricey than they are on the other side of the world gate. Just a dozen plate-sized scales would've been enough to repay all the damage done to the city.

If Dakka had considered this, he'd instantly have flown into another rage at being extorted for far more than he owes.

Hence… in one fell swoop, the archmage officially becomes the richest man in Alasta - rather, one of the richest in the Brancotte Empire and all its surrounding kingdoms. The only wealthier people would be the emperor of Brancotte himself, the Threshold Commander, and a few select ducal families in the Empire.

Being very familiar with a dragon's chaotic temperament from his tenure in the Threshold, Kalastros knows that with a deal struck and the chance to heal his treasure, Dakka is no longer going to fight.

So, he drops the illusion and starts setting up his spell on the painting while Dakka begins raking his claws over his skin and sending thousands of scales scattering onto the ground below him.

Once the painting is fixed and the archmage's payment is collected, Dakka finally sets Haalfrin down.

Kalastros looks over at his unkempt apprentice, then runs over to him, giving him a big hug. "I'm so glad you're safe."

In Haalfrin's mind, he, himself, is still an old man… so being treated like a child by Dakka all day, then being given a grandfatherly hug by another old dude… It just feels unsettling.

Then, Haalfrin looks around at the devastation to the archmage's courtyard (the damage he can see with his eyes at the moment, anyway) … and he feels incredibly guilty. 'If Freyya's cult has beings as powerful and indiscriminately violent like Dakka,' he thinks, 'then I should definitely be careful and keep my identity hidden… unless I'm by myself out in the middle of nowhere. I don't want others to get caught up in the cult's hunt for me.'

He then looks over at Dakka's receding silhouette on the horizon, and he thinks, 'Better yet, I need to stay far away from dragons; they're completely insane… Though I have a feeling that dragons might just be the ones to kill me someday; they're plenty strong.'

Haalfrin then turns to his master and bows as an apology, "Master. This is all my fault."

They are alone right now… which is just perfect; Haalfrin's statement could have caused some political problems otherwise.

Instead of being upset, his master looks over and asks, "Oh? How could this be your fault? You're not strong enough to damage my property and destroy the city walls."

"Because," Haalfrin explains, "I disobeyed you and went into the woods again to practice with the magical beasts you keep there."

The archmage frowns at this but keeps listening. "Then," Haalfrin keeps explaining, "I met the dragon there. I thought he was friendly at first. We shared a meal together, and he offered to take me home. I tried getting him to set me down at the edge of the city, but he wouldn't do it. Once the city guard fired on him… You know the rest."

The archmage only sighs at this. "It's my fault for not teaching you about the denizens of the Otherworld properly. Knowing your… reckless lifestyle, I didn't want you overly fascinated with the other side." The old man bows slightly. "That was my mistake."

"No," the old man corrects himself as he looks over the city. "This was OUR mistake… and we're going to fix it." He turns to Haalfrin with a devilish look on his face, "I got the funds… and you'll be helping with the manual labor in rebuilding homes. You'll also write an apology letter to all the bereaved families of all the guards - apologizing for the Tower's lack of strength to protect the men in their family."

"Yes sir!" Haalfrin solutes his master then marches off in a way reminiscent of his time in the army.

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Long after Dakka flies away, feeling limp and humiliated, the young dragon hears a loud rumbling in his stomach. Using up a lot of mana and getting injured ALWAYS makes a dragon hungry.

As the wyrm flies over the vast stretches of beautiful green farmland, Dakka looks down and he licks his lips. "Mutton… Well except for the wool that gets stuck between the teeth… mutton tastes pretty good right now!"

Moments later, a few unfortunate farmers look up. "Honey," a tanned farmer in his late 50s says as he looks up, "that eagle looks pretty strange."

Before any of them get to react, a giant scaley monster lands just inside their sheep pasture. The wife and husband both scream in unison and duck down. "Dear!" the wife calls out, "the sheep!?"

The grey-haired farmer physically throws her behind a barrel – out of sight of the strange demon. He ducks down after her and hisses, "Our lives are more important. Keep quiet!"

For several minutes, the two farmers hide behind their barrel with only a small shed wall to hide them away… as they hear disgusting munching sounds and the frantic "baas" of sheep penned in with their predator.

As Dakka continues feasting away on the sheep, he starts to wonder, 'Huh… I'm far hungrier than I should be! What's going on?'

In that moment, the dragon's scales start to peel off his skin unexpectedly. They fall off in trickles at first, then a downpour. Dakka gets scared at this and screams in his mind, 'It's not time for shedding yet!?'

At last, his confusion is resolved when he feels a dull ache on his skull – not because of his injuries, but because he feels another horn growing in. "Ah," Dakka mutters in draconic, "it's time for hibernation. I need to eat all that I can so I can grow up smoothly."

Growing another horn is a VERY big deal to a dragon; it's the human's equivalent to getting another gate open in their soul… except dragons grow stronger by eating a ton, getting older, and having the right bloodline.

Once all his scales completely fall off, a thick shine of magic glows on his bare skin as brand new, glistening scales grow back in their place. These scales are slightly larger to accommodate his new size.

Looking over at the 2 farmers that stink of fear, Dakka thinks to himself, 'Well, dragons like myself are righteous and civilized. Of course, I'll leave behind my scales for these farmers for feeding me at such a critical time.'

Of course, Dakka only thought about repaying the farmers because he couldn't be bothered to pick up his fallen scales. He also thinks they're not worth very much anyway.

As the self-indulging dragon flies off towards the mountains, Dakka calculates on his fingers, "So… I'll need to hibernate near some farmland with lots of meaty treats to snack on, because I'll sleep for many years at a time, wake up a few times super hungry, feast, then go back to sleep. Rinse and repeat for maybe a couple hundred years, then I'll have my 3rd horn in!"

… And once the dragon is completely gone, the two farmers go out to check on what remains of their sheep pasture…

In that moment, Archmage Kalastros becomes the second richest man in the kingdom.