Chapter 7: Raining Fire

A dragon...a real dragon? In anime and video games, dragons always came in different shapes and sizes but they shared one common trope...they were threatening. I knew no matter my title and my special sword, I wouldn't last a minute against a dragon...not even a baby one I bet.

"I've never seen a dragon." I said as we continued walking to the mountains despite the warnings of Alna's fellow guards. 

"They don't have them in your world?" Alna looked back surprised.

"No...we have them in fiction, like story books and TV shows but I never seen a living breathing dragon."

"What's a TV show?" Alna asked and I did my best to explain but that left her with more questions which made me in turn give up my explication.

 "Dragon's in this world are scary but more so when they are nesting. It usually means they are pregnant and are in the process of having a baby. When they are in this state...messing around with them is akin to suicide." Alna stated. 

"That's scary...I'm guessing we won't win against one?" I knew the answer before I asked it.

"No...we would be showered with flames and turned into ash faster than we could react. My claws can't even scratch some monsters so I doubt they would do much against a full grown dragon's scales. Your sword too would probably break."

"Great...so maybe we should wait for the dragon to give birth then go to the mountains?" 

"Like a woman's pregnancy, a dragon takes about 9 months to have a baby and in that time we could train you but I'm sure we may anger Mr. Voice." Alna took a swig of water from one of the canteens. 

"Yeah but what's worse Mr. Voice or a dragon?" I said this outloud but more so to myself. I didn't expect an answer.

"Probably a dragon but Mr. Voice does have powers we are both unaware of so...maybe it is worse?"

We walked in silence for a bit after that comment. The forest path was thick with tall trees and strange alien-like bugs. The more I examined this world the more I wanted to curse out isekai writers and creators. Not for making bad stories but for not preparing me for how weird being sent to another world really was. 

When night finally fell, we decided to set up camp. My feet were throbbing at this point and I was glad to remove my armor for a while. 

"I'll take first watch, you get some sleep. I'll wake you up when it's your turn." Alna said as she sat at the fire we started. I wanted to be tough and heroic saying no, she should rest first but I knew that my body wouldn't match my drive. I was exhausted and unlike Alna who had training in this world, I was still inept and unable to match her pace. 

"Hey Alna, before I take you up on that offer...I wanted to ask a favor." 

"Yes?" 

"Can you train me how to fight? I mean I know the mountains aren't far away and maybe this isn't the best location with a dragon not too far away but I need to learn how to hold my own. I won't be a true hero as I stand now." I clenched my fist and looked at her. She starred but then smiled.

"I'd love to hero, now first training, learn to sleep. Tomorrow morning before we set off we will have a mock fight again." 

"Thank you." I laid on the floor and despite this being incredibly uncomfortable, sleep took me. 

Alna woke me up several hours later and we switched roles. She told me to shout if anything even small appeared. I promised I would. Despite being armed with this special katana, I knew I wasn't confident yet to survive even a small dingo fight. 

As I sat in the darkness, the campfire slowly dying out but still bright enough to give some form of safety, I thought about a lot. I won't deny my mind went back into stupid thoughts from before but I dwelled on new ones as well. What would I do if I couldn't go back home? I mean plenty of isekai had characters never return to their world and some decided not to after building a life here. I looked over at Alna, snoring quietly. I wondered if we would fall in love like most isekai stories. Eventually, we might even get married and have kids. In my world I was single so I didn't have a family to really return to. My parents were getting older, they had me later in life, so they lived in a rural part of Japan that I only ever visited once. They didn't want the Tokyo or Shibuya life, they wanted cicadas every morning and land that wasn't plagued with infrastructure. 

What snapped me out of my thoughts wasn't what I expected. At first I thought the sun was rising but then looking around I realized that couldn't be. Darkness was still all around and it had to be early morning still. No, I realized then the sky was lighting up and it wasn't natural.

"Alna wake up!" I got up and Alna too shot up, clearly ready for a possible threat.

"What's the matter!?" she surveyed the land but noticed I was pointing up. She too looked towards the sky and while I was confused at what was causing the light, she wasn't.

"We need to run...NOW" Alna screamed and pushed me towards the way we came.

"What is that light?" I said trying to match her pace.

"That isn't light...that's fire! The dragon is reacting to it's pregnancy!" Alna never looked back as she explained and while confusion still hit me I knew better than to ask a million questions. If that was fire shooting into the sky, then we needed to get out of the forest...ASAP.

Sure enough, after several minutes of running we ended up realizing Alna was right. I didn't need to look behind me but I smelled fire and smoke. I presumed some of the fire from the dragon hit part of the forest and it wouldn't be long before this place was kindling. 

"Are we going to run all the way back to the plains from earlier?" I said threw tired breaths. Walking in armor was hard but running in it was even tougher. 

"Yes, we will need to exit the forest and then take the river path. It will add a few days to our journey but we can't risk being burned alive by raining fire." Alna seemed in perfect health as she kept running. I was falling behind a bit but she clearly noticed and slowed a bit. 

Despite taking almost an entire day to reach the point we did, it only took us an hour to retrace our path to the beginning of the forest. I was glad to be out of the forest though as one look showed the damage was growing...quickly. The sky was still lit up with the fire from the dragon and the forest was matching its hue. I'd imagine if we did try to run deeper into the forest, the path would have become literal hell and could have engulfed us. 

"Good thing you noticed the sky Mizuki...that could have been the end of our journey." Alna patted my back. 

"Well...now what?" I asked. Alna pointed to an unknown distant spot.

"We go that way in the morning. It will lead to a river that we will have to traverse at one point but I know a way we can do it. Still, that path means it will take us three days to reach the mountains now and worse we spent a day on backtracking." Alna sighed.

"Well, there's a bright side to this." 

"What?" Alna asked curiously.

"I get an extra training day with you. Maybe that will make me stronger than only having one." 

"...you could be right." Alna gave a cute wink and we decided to use the burning night sky as a makeshift sun and walk towards the other path. The forest meanwhile was slowly being engulfed in flames and I prayed that no one like us was walking around in its depths.

The river path was about what you'd expect. Just a long flowing river with no path and stones everywhere. If my feet hurt before from walking on a makeshift path, they now cried in agony walking on stones and rubble. We walked a bit but then Alna stopped and turned to face me.

"Why don't we stop here, grab some fish from the river and then have our mock duel?" 

"We can fish? I don't have any rods..." I glanced at the river and did notice some fish swimming.

"Silly...I'm part cat. My species can do this." She removed her armor and was now in just her underclothes. I blushed but she didn't notice as my head nearly snapped turning the other direction. I heard her jump into the waist high river and when I looked, I saw her slashing around in the clear water. It took her literally less than a minute to jump out, soaking wet but with several fish in her claws. 

"That's impressive." I tried to avoid looking at her now wet form and just focused on the fish.

"Thank you, let me cook these up and we'll have a morning meal before we have a proper workout." Alna flashed a wicked smile that made me gulp.