Hibana, Tsu, Solryn, and a retinue of kobolds now sat beneath a brand-new night sky. The stars seemed sharper here, like polished glass shards scattered across velvet. The air felt heavy — warmer, thicker than the chill they'd endured beyond the barrier.
The kobolds had begun gathering branches, piling them in crooked heaps to fashion crude hutches for themselves. Hibana had quietly gathered wood for a campfire.
Now the three of them sat in silence, the flames flickering low.
Tsu stared directly at him — not with curiosity, but with something colder. Judgment. She sat cross-legged, her hand resting lightly on the hilt of her sword. It was Solryn who finally broke the silence.
"How did you do this?" Solryn muttered, never taking his gaze off the fire.
Hibana glanced at him. "I just asked."
Solryn's lips twitched — not quite a smile. More like a grimace.
"He just asked…" Solryn muttered. "Twenty years of experiments. Hundreds of gold spent in research. And all a dragon had to do was... ask."
Tsu scoffed, her voice cutting through the air like steel. "Dragons don't ask. They demand."
Hibana turned to her. "I'm getting that. There's so much I don't know about this world... My only experience with other dragons was my parents and siblings — who immediately kicked me out when they discovered I was an F-tier."
Tsu's eyes narrowed slightly. She didn't speak, but her fingers flexed against her sword.
Solryn shifted, his gaze finally pulling away from the flames. His stare locked on Hibana, hard and calculating. "Yes. Curious, that." His fingers drummed thoughtfully against his knee. "I see that when I appraise you as well. Along with the same stats you've had since I first met you."
He paused. "How much XP have you accrued?"
Hibana stared at the ground. The dirt felt cool under his claws, the heat of the fire barely reaching him. "I don't know," he said quietly. "It always shows zero. My status… it's stuck."
Solryn exhaled through his nose. "That's not supposed to happen."
"I know," Hibana muttered. "Believe me... I know."
"The fact that your stats are stuck indicates that there's something about you that's an anomaly," Solryn said, his voice sharper now — as if the revelation unsettled him more than he wanted to admit. "Divine Law doesn't make mistakes."
"What is Divine Law?" Hibana asked.
Tsu answered before Solryn could. Her voice was low, almost bitter. "It's the force that governs our stats... the will of the gods." She stared into the fire, her gaze darkening. "Your place in this world — what you can achieve, how strong you can become — it's all determined by Divine Law. The gods decide your ceiling, and no one surpasses it."
Hibana frowned. "But… what if someone tries?"
Tsu's gaze lifted, locking onto him with a hard stare. "Nobody defies the Law."
The weight of her words lingered in the air. Not as a warning — but as an undeniable truth.
Solryn shifted uncomfortably, his fingers tightening around the spine of his spellbook. "The people who resist Divine Law… they don't vanish," he said quietly. "They survive — bitter, broken, and forgotten. Cast out from the world. F-tiers, E-tiers — the ones the gods have deemed worthless. They don't die trying to defy the system."
He paused, his gaze flicking back to Hibana. "They just stop trying altogether."
"And most of them become bandits or thieves," Tsu added coldly. "Living on scraps, raging at the world like dogs biting their chains." Her fingers flexed against her sword. "This is the will of the gods."
"Which is why I need to know more about you, Hibana," Solryn said, his voice quieter now, almost cautious. "You are the most curious anomaly I have ever been introduced to in this world."
Hibana shifted slightly, meeting Solryn's gaze. "What would you like to know?"
Solryn's fingers moved to his chin, stroking it thoughtfully. "You asked me a very strange question earlier... about elves." His gaze sharpened. "What did you mean by that?"
Hibana felt his stomach tighten. He looked away from Solryn, his eyes drifting to the flickering fire. "Yes... that." His voice wavered, and memories surged — the crowded train ride back home, the worn paperback light novel in his lap, the familiar hum of the station's speakers echoing overhead.
Swords and sorcery. Magic and dragons. Elves... always elves.
His gaze lingered on the flames. "It's... complicated," Hibana said carefully. "And I may tell you someday."
Silence followed — not awkward, but heavy, like a stone dropped into still water.
"Interesting," Tsu muttered. Her gaze remained sharp, as if dissecting his words for something unsaid.
Solryn leaned back with a tired sigh. "Fine," he muttered. "Keep your secrets. But this... this is going to bother me endlessly."
His words carried no malice — only frustration, thinly veiled by curiosity.
"There's something else," Solryn said, his gaze narrowing. "Just how old are you, exactly? You're nearly twice the size of a normal hatchling... and far more articulate than you should be."
Hibana's mind drifted back to the goblin tribe — Grek, Goroh, Gobo... faces that felt too distant now. He swallowed hard. "I was with a goblin tribe for a while," he said quietly. "They recruited me — same way the kobolds tried to. I lived with them for... weeks. Probably close to three months now."
"Three months?" Solryn repeated, incredulous. "You speak like you've been learning for years."
"I had to learn fast." Hibana's voice tightened. "Adventurers came. Wiped them out. I barely escaped." He paused, his claws flexing at the memory. "My polymorph ability saved me."
Solryn's brow lifted. "Your... polymorph ability?" His voice shifted — no longer just curious. Now there was something else. Doubt.
"Yeah," Hibana nodded. "They were confused. They looked for me — tried to track me down — but I turned into a bush. They even put their hands right on me... and still couldn't tell."
Solryn's face shifted sharply — disbelief, then confusion... then something that almost resembled fear.
"That…" Solryn muttered, his voice low. "That's not polymorph."
Hibana blinked. "It's not?"
"No!" Solryn's voice sharpened. "Polymorph disguises you — masks you as something else. It doesn't change what you are. If those adventurers put their hands on you, they would have felt scales, muscle, bones — even if you looked like a bush. Your scent would've still been there. Your heat would've still been there."
Solryn's fingers clenched tightly around his spellbook, his expression darkening. "But you... you're saying they couldn't feel you at all?"
Hibana hesitated. "...Yeah."
Solryn exhaled slowly, fingers tapping against his knee. "That's... impossible," he muttered under his breath. "There's no spell that does that. Not even high-level illusion magic. Whatever you did... it's something else entirely."
Tsu's voice cut through the silence. "If they didn't know you were there... you weren't just hiding." She fixed him with a sharp stare. "You weren't there at all."
Hibana's throat felt dry. "But... that doesn't make sense."
"Neither do you," Solryn said flatly. "That's the problem."
Solryn stood abruptly, eyes flashing with excitement. "Can you do that again? Show me!"
Hibana hesitated, recalling the strange, twisting energy that had consumed him before. He remembered the stillness, the unnatural quiet... and the taste. That awful, coppery taste. from the adventurers. which was a stronger memory than his desire to hide from them.
Blood.
"Okay," Hibana said cautiously. "Let me get away from the fire first."
He stepped back, feeling the warmth of the flames retreat from his scales. "Just so you know... I can somehow hear you when I'm in that form — and I can sense where you are — but I can't move... and I can't speak."
Solryn's brow furrowed. "No movement... no speech..." He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Fascinating..."
Hibana closed his eyes, focusing on the memory — the instinct, the overwhelming desire to vanish. He grasped for that sensation again — that desperate urge to disappear.
The energy returned, bubbling inside him like a boiling pot, but this time it twisted — different from before.
His thoughts faltered — no longer clear, no longer rational. Memories surged — the goblins, the adventurers, the taste of blood in his mouth. The copper tang rose in his throat, burning like bile. His heart pounded, and panic coiled in his chest.
I don't want to be seen... I don't want to be here...
His body buckled. His muscles twisted and stretched, bones shifting and grinding with a sickening crunch. His ribs cracked and compressed, his spine coiling in ways no body should move.
Both Tsu and Solryn stumbled back as Hibana's body shrank — twisted — changed.
When the pain stopped, Hibana found himself face-down in the dirt. The cold bit against his skin. His skin... Skin?
Something felt wrong — his limbs were unfamiliar, his fingers awkward and soft. His breathing was strange — too shallow, too fast. He tried to move but barely managed to push himself halfway up before his arms buckled beneath him.
His head swam. His chest heaved. His mouth opened — but nothing came out. His tongue felt heavy, clumsy, like it didn't belong in his mouth.
Speak... Say something...
"I..." His voice caught. The sound felt wrong, too thin, too sharp. He swallowed hard, trying to steady himself. His tongue flopped awkwardly, his lips stammering as if his mouth had forgotten what to do.
Tsu's voice cut in. "What... the hell...?"
Hibana lifted his head.
The face staring back at them was human — unsettlingly human. His skin was flawless, his complexion oddly smooth. His hair was wild and fiery orange, and his green eyes — still draconic in their intensity — locked on theirs with a strange sharpness.
And he was naked.
Solryn's hand jerked toward his spellbook as if expecting an attack. Tsu instinctively turned her back on him, muttering something under her breath.
Hibana tried to move again — and nearly collapsed. His legs wobbled beneath him, his body twisting awkwardly. The familiar balance of his tail was gone, and every instinct that told him how to stand felt like it had been yanked from beneath his feet.
How do I...?
Then — a memory. Tetsuo's memory. A crowded train station. The ache of tired legs. A hand gripping a rail to keep balance. Muscle memory flickered through his mind like a lifeline, and Hibana forced himself upright, swaying like a drunkard.
"I... I don't know what just happened," he stammered, his voice still shaky. His tongue felt like a wad of damp cloth in his mouth, each word awkward and slurred.
Solryn's expression shifted — from confusion to something closer to alarm. "That... that's not polymorph."
"It's not?" Hibana rasped. His throat was dry — his own voice foreign to him.
"No!" Solryn snapped. "Polymorph disguises you. It doesn't change you. Your body's still a dragon under the illusion — scales, scent, everything. But you..." He shook his head in disbelief. "You're... human. Not disguised. Not masked. Transformed. Even when I appraise you it says you're a human!"
Hibana looked at his hands. human hands. "no way...I think it was due to the adventurer I killed Saving Tsu. I drank his blood, and my mind fixated on that blood when I was changing."
Tsu's voice, still turned away from him, cut in coldly. "You don't look anything like that man."
Hibana blinked, turning his hands over in front of him. The skin was pale and smooth — almost too perfect, too clean. "I... don't look like anyone, do I?"
"No," Tsu muttered. "You don't."
The fire crackled in the silence that followed, but no one spoke. No one dared to.
Then Hibana looked down again.
His eyes widened.
"...Oh no..." His face flushed. "I'm... I'm naked, aren't I?"
Tsu muttered louder this time. "Pathetic..."
Solryn pressed his palm to his face. "Gods above..."
Hibana staggered to his feet — barely holding his balance — and snatched a discarded cloak from one of the kobolds' supply piles, hastily wrapping it around himself.
"Well..." He huffed, voice still shaky. "That's... that's one way to break the tension."
After a few minutes of getting used to his form, Hibana walked over to a nearby stream and knelt by the water. He stared at his reflection — the face of a stranger. The dragon wasn't there, but he could still see traces of him behind those eyes. His hair was a fiery mess, and his unsettling green gaze felt too sharp, too intense.
This isn't really me, Hibana thought. I still feel like a dragon even in this form.
The spell drained his MP slowly, like last time — a dull tug that gnawed at his senses. His muscles felt wrong, too light and awkward. Even his heartbeat seemed thin and faint compared to the powerful thrum of his dragon heart.
Tsu's footsteps crunched behind him. He smelled her before she spoke — her scent still sharp with steel oil and ash. His dragon senses were just as sharp as ever, even now.
"I have decided to stay," she said.
Hibana smiled. "And you're always welcome here, Tsu. I don't care what you did in the past. I don't care what they said you are. You're a remarkable warrior."
Tsu's expression didn't change, but she sighed. "Don't say that to me. Such things don't matter."
Hibana nodded. "Just sayin'. All the same... my home is your home."
Tsu rolled her eyes and walked away, her steps heavier than usual.
Hibana turned to Solryn, who was hunched over his book as usual.
"Now that you've entered the Fae Wilds... what's next for you?"
Solryn barely looked up. "Hmm? Oh! Well... I was going to report my findings back at the magic academy." He paused, flipping a page lazily. "But honestly? They wouldn't believe me. And they'd be right not to." He snapped the book shut and gave a thin smile. "I've witnessed a few miracles today. And frankly... you are one of the most valuable research specimens I've ever come across."
His smile widened slightly. "But since I'm not some nefarious vagabond willing to whisk you away in a sack... I suppose I'll just have to set up shop here for the time being."
Hibana chuckled softly, giving Solryn a grateful nod before walking away.
He found the kobold chief waiting by a freshly built fire pit, hunched over a worn blade. Hibana sat down across from him, feeling the embers' warmth licking at his skin.
"We have much to discuss," Hibana said quietly.
The kobold chief's face darkened. "Yes... we do."