The Butterfly Effect Begins

I couldn’t believe I had forgotten something so important. I wanted to blame the hours of “training,” but it was no excuse to forget this moment.

Before I was supposed to reach the capital city, I had to face an unbeatable boss.

“N-no way…”

As the developer, it wasn’t a problem for me to acknowledge this reddish-purple dragon. The real issue here was how freaking gigantic it was!

All this time, I’d only seen it as a pixelated hunk of a lizard through a mere monitor. I’d never imagined that dragons could be so much more incredibly detailed and enormous in person.

For the first time, I wholly understood how a mouse would feel in front of a cat, and like one, I remained frozen in place, trembling all over.

The horse scurried off, and the old driver yelped, falling off the caravan and crawling backwards toward the bushes.

“Ahahaha! Now that’s a delightful look you have there!” someone playfully sneered.

Emerging from the back of the dragon was a young woman with pink and white hair, dressed in a black, frilly dress with purple ribbons decorating her spiraling horns. A large pair of bat wings expanded behind her back, and her tail, with a heart-shaped end, swung carefreely. This familiar succubus was none other than…

“Demon General Silvestine!” I blurted out. I immediately cupped my mouth with regret.

“Oh? A human knows my name?” She rubbed her chin, her purple eyes glowing with interest. “Wow, this is the first time I’ve seen a human with… quite a peculiar taste in fashion.”

Oh, come on, I don’t want to hear that from you of all people! I gritted my teeth and forced myself to hold back those words. “Erm, wh-who… crap. Uh…”

In the game, the player was supposed to shout out, “Who are you?!” but I already fumbled that. Nice going, me.

Silvestine glided down until she floated directly above me, still looking down with that arrogant yet curious gaze. I couldn’t help but shrink a bit.

“Not many mortals would dare to utter our names, let alone stare straight into our eyes. So tell me, who are you?”

“Uhm, I’m… uh…”

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Silvestine should’ve spouted some generic villain lines before leaving me to deal with her “pet.”

I didn’t expect things to be so different now. I wasn’t prepared for this at all.

…No, this was reality now. My life was seriously on the line here. I had to pull myself together!

“Wh-why should I tell you anything?” I pointed a shaky finger at her. “You can’t just go around and kill innocent people!”

“Hmm? Kill people? Who says I am?”

You bringing your freaking dragon here says so! “I-I’m not here to play games with you. What do you want?!”

“Oh, don’t be so scared, love.” She pointed at me and playfully twirled her finger. “I just want you to turn around and leave this place, that’s all!”

Okay, good, she said something familiar. “Why should I?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I dunno. Ask Queen Verisette. It’s her order, not mine.”

“Queen… Verisette?”

“Yes. Queen Verisette. Y’know, the ruler of Grovendale?”

Yes, I know. I’m just saying my lines. “Th-the queen is working with a demon? Why?”

“Oh, I’d love to spill the beans, but a contract is a contract. Sorry, that’s all I can tell you, hehe.” She winked.

Cold chills crawled up my spine, and I shuddered.

“Anyway, there’s your answer. Shoo, shoo. Go away. Or play with Sugar Plum, either way’s fine with me.”

I took a deep breath, drew my sword out of my head, and defiantly proclaimed, “No, I’m not going anywhere! Let me through!”

Silvestine’s little smile stretched into a morbid, terrifying grin, baring her fangs like a true demon. “Good, good! I figured you’d say that!” She expanded her wings and soared back up, cackling all the way. “Sugar Plum, iiiit’s plaaaaytiiiiime!”

As if letting out a cheer, the dragon lifted its head and roared toward the heavens. The air quivered, the forest critters frantically scurried away, and the trees swayed, their leaves scattering with the wind. The poor old caravan driver shrieked and hid in a bush.

Oh, god. It’s really happening. A real battle. I’m so freaking scared I could vomit any second now. My grip on the sword wavered, but I kept my eyes on the dragon while it still roared to its heart's content.

…Relax, relax! If the player can survive this, then I can too. I can do this. I can do this! I took a deep breath and lunged at the dragon with a battle cry. One of its claws began to dive toward me. I raised my sword and blocked it on time.

The claw bounced away, and the dragon staggered back, almost falling backward even. For a brief second, I could’ve sworn its orange eyes grew wide with astonishment before it roared and charged again. I promptly blocked and knocked it away again.

The dragon growled as it stumbled around and swiped its scaly tail through the trees. I jumped away, and as expected, I started rapidly teleporting. I didn’t have a game plan for this other than to pray to god I landed somewhere convenient. I teleported to the trees, the ground, up to the sky, before finally falling toward… the dragon’s head?!

“Uwaaah?!” I snatched a scale behind its head and clung for dear life. “Oh, god…”

I was so, so high up now. The trees pretty much looked like broccoli from up here.

I screamed as the overgrown lizard started swaying its head, trying to shake me off. I had only one hand on its scale, the other still gripping my blade. Unfortunately, I didn’t count the amount of sweat on my palms, so I eventually slipped.

I couldn’t remember exactly what happened next, but I was sure I flailed around when I fell. That apparently counted as a sword slash, because the next thing I knew, my blade glitched out of my hand and started doing its thing.

The sword slashed fervently, violently, sporadically, indiscriminately, and randomly at the ground, the trees, and of course, the dragon. The lizard was so huge that it practically took on most of the hits, collecting cuts and scrapes around its body.

Understandably, the dragon tried swatting it away, but the sword kept glitching in and out of existence before it could even touch it. Out of sheer luck, I cushioned my fall through the tree branches and collapsed back on the ground with a soft thud.

I quickly pushed myself up and rushed back to the opening, gazing in astonishment as my blade did all the work. At some point, the dragon finally landed a hit, stopping the sword’s rampage and letting it succumb to gravity. The sword ended up landing by the dragon’s toe, making it flinch and take another step back.

The dragon grunted and breathed heavily, groaning and whining. It turned around and faced Silvestine, who had an inscrutable look on her face, one mixed with shock, confusion, and lacking her usual confidence. She faced me, muttered something under her breath, and landed on her pet’s head.

“Alright, I hear you, Sugar Plum,” she said, patting its scales. “Playtime’s over.”

I snapped out of my daze and gawked at her. “Eh? What? You’re leaving already?”

“Hmm? Why do you sound so disappointed? What, did you already fall for my charms?”

I creased my brows in frustration.

I screwed up.

In the original storyline, the player would barely make a scratch on the dragon. Impressed by their bravery, Silvestine would then capture the player and imprison them somewhere in Cindespoir City. That was how the player would meet an important character and start getting into the meat of the prologue.

To think things would get out of hand so easily. This battle was supposed to be a test of endurance. I wasn’t supposed to hurt the dragon this much, but I should’ve known that’d be impossible in my current state. I was basically a walking wild card, and maybe that was how Silvestine viewed me now, considering how fast she dropped her arrogant smirk the moment my sword went wild.

Showing off my courage was now off the table, so what else was I supposed to do?

No matter how hard I tried, I… couldn’t think of anything.

As I stood there like an idiot, Silvestine sighed and patted her dragon’s head. “Well, whatever. It’s almost time for the meeting anyway. Let’s go, Sugar Plum.”

The dragon quickly expanded its wings and soared away. Silvestine spared one last look of curiosity at me before the two of them disappeared over the clouds.

All that was left was a gentle breeze brushing past the remains of the battlefield… and a sense of hopelessness washing over me.

This… didn’t feel like a victory at all.