3. so i’m a dragon, so what?

The dragon roared as one of the fake onis said this. However, this sounded exactly like one would think from a teenage girl who was taking the piss. “Nah,” said Yamada. “Nah nah nah. I’m out.”

He and Crystalmoon44 broke out running, and thus concluded our time together. The rest of the actors scrambled about, screaming whenever the supposed dragon ‘roared’, until they slithered into the mushroom woods like bugs under a lamplight. Thus concluded the attack of the mushroom onis.

As for Hisui, as she ran past me, she took my wrist, tugging so hard I almost stumbled. “Run!”

But I didn’t feel like it, so I did not.

“Come on come on come onnn!”

Danger led to stronger awakenings, they’d said. The dragon girl stopped right in front of me. The sleeves of her robe were so long that one of them hung off her hand as she daintily covered her mouth with it. Her eyes were serpentine.

“Why won’t you flee?” She asked with a notably thick accent. “I’m not part of the ‘tutorial’, as your kind refers to this bizarre ritual.”

(Or she was a good actress with a better budget.)

Mystifyingly, Hisui did not let go. She could’ve; she should’ve. Yet she kept her hand on my wrist. “Tutorial?” She echoed. “Huh?”

The dragon’s slitted eyes focused on her. “Have you not noticed anything… unusual about the creatures chasing you?”

Hisui’s expression was blank, and so was mine. Did she actually not notice…?

“No?” The sleeved hand on her mouth did little to hide the dragon girl’s mirth. “Well, no matter. One of you chose to be a god. My brother is testing the other three, but I’m pretty sure the culprit is among us. Is it you, pipsqueak, or you, oblivious one?”

One sixty-eight. I was one-sixty eight.

More importantly, though: it seemed as though I hadn’t been the only one to see and hear the castle and the voice, respectively. Someone else within our group had answered ‘god’ instead of ‘beetle’. Had they been asked the same question? Had everyone heard the same story? Was there a wrong answer? Even more importantly—the other three being tested by the sibling of this dragon girl implied that… wait.

Why was I trying to find logic in a dream?

Iridescent wings burst from the dragon girl’s back, wider than she was tall. Unfortunately, her dress didn’t tear.

As she lunged forward, I jerked back, narrowly avoiding her claws. And why? Because my NOT PIPSQUEAK size allowed me to, thank you very much.

“I told you to run!” Hisui had momentarily released me for obvious reasons, but now she clung to me again. “Ishida!”

Out of our ‘party’ of five, she was, by far, the likeliest to choose to be a god over a beetle. However, it wasn’t for the reasons one would think of at first.

Hisui would never flee on her own. She’d stay until I did; it was because of this that I ended up running after. This ‘forest’ seemed to have nothing but glowing mushrooms and grass. No loose rocks, no detritus. It was jarringly artificial. “Hey, wait!” The dragon called out. “You’re supposed to fight me! Heeey!”

She’d even intentionally left an opening as she’d lunged at us. For someone allegedly unaffiliated with the tutorial, the dragon girl sure wasn’t beating the allegations. We ran while she glided above us, twirling above mushroom tops. If only there was something to throw. Like a fire ball. If Hisui hadn’t been here, I would’ve mumbled possible spell names, but if I did that now I’d die of embarrassment.

“Fight me, cowards!” As if on cue, the dragon girl batted her wings, spawning a sparkly gust with sound effects. The mushrooms bled glitter as they were caressed by the spell. “You liars! You got us thinking we finally found a good one!”

“There’s a bathroom stall up ahead,” Hisui said, “We can hide there.”

A what.

But no—there was, in fact, a bathroom stall up ahead, a gray rectangle with a sign saying ‘AVAILABLE’ in Japanese, and then complete gibberish. It was just… there. A bathroom stall amidst a cluster of mushrooms. As we rushed in, she turned the sign upside down so that it said ‘UNAVAILABLE’ in both Japanese and gibberish.

Either she was catching her breath or hyperventilating. Or both. I kept waiting for the dragon girl to blast the stall off with a gust, but she didn’t. I couldn’t even hear her anymore. The bathroom stall had a toilet with paw prints, a sink with paw prints, and green toilet paper. No comment.

“Connie said…” Hisui trailed off, gasping. “He said that… that these are… safe zones. We have five minutes to make a… make a plan before the spell runs out.” I gestured at the toilet lid so she’d sit there, and she said, “Thanks,” and then she sat. As Hisui tossed her waist-length, black hair over her shoulder, leftover glitter sparkled off of it. “...so what’s the plan?”

I shrugged.

“Oh, I get it, you want me to come up with a plan to see if I’m a worthy leader (what). Connie said that everyone here has magic, and I mean everyone. Since we’re outlanders, we have to tap into it, right? Like, tap.” She tapped the air. “Like that. I just don’t know how. Do you?”

I shook my head.

“That’s fine. So basically, what happened earlier is that I was with the scarf guy until those demons showed up. And then the dragon showed up and they were all like, oh no a dragon! And then we ran away, and then this happened. The thing is… I think I tapped into my magic for a moment.”

From what I could understand, she’d met Yukimura earlier and failed to see through the embarrassingly obvious costumes. Ms. Hiyama and Aoko were apparently nowhere to be seen. This was my segue to talk. However, my throat was slowly closing up. My biological functions were ceasing.

“You don’t have to look at me like that,” she said, so I averted my gaze quickly. “I think I could tap into it again, but not here, because I need plants. Since you can fight, you can come up with the strategy.”

I nodded, then shook my head.

“Oh, um. I don’t know what that—wait, how many minutes has it been?”

I checked my phone, then held three fingers at her.

Hisui raised her eyebrows. “Does that thing work?”

I showed my screen to her. No signal. Shockingly.

“I mean… it’s technically functional. You should turn it off so the battery doesn’t drain. I left mine in my locker.” I did just that. Hisui crossed her legs and her arms. Magnanimous gesture, considering where we were. “How about you distract her while I try to tap into my magic again?”

I gave her a thumbs-up.

“See? I knew you’d come up with a good plan.” Hisui said this with no trace of irony. “Once we defeat the dragon, we can look for the others. I lost the scarf guy earlier. Connie said that it was possible for us to spawn in different areas, but that the forest didn’t have any monsters, so it should be fine, but… what about the demons? I dunno, I’ll have to ask him later. Okay! Let’s do this.”

Hisui stood up.

She stared at me.

I stared at the wall.

“...who’s going first?”

…ah, right.

I raised my hand as if to say ‘me’, but as soon as I reached for the handle, she seized my hand, which froze my blood, then said, “Wait no I’m the leader I’m going first.”

She tackled the door open. The dragon sat with her knees to her chest outside, toying with the grass, but when she saw us, she scrambled up quickly. “There you are!” She said, like it wasn’t blindingly obvious. “Now fight me, cowards.”

I cleared my throat like that would stop my heart from racing, not because of the dragon, or the fall, or the dreadful possibility of this not being a dream, but Hisui.

She proclaimed, “We’re not cowards!”

“Then why run?” Asked the dragon. “I thought you’d be good ones because you didn’t at first, but alas.”

The dragon had also mentioned a ‘good one’ before. What did that even mean? A god, a beetle, or something else?

No matter. I glanced at the stall, but couldn’t find anything that could be used as a weapon. The door handle, maybe? I wasn’t strong enough to pull it out without a lever. If only I could find a way to break it… or maybe tear one of the walls or something. I’d be able to use a piece of wood as a makeshift spear that way. Big maybe. I left the stall whilst weaponless and hopeless.

Hisui and the dragon girl were circling each other now. It was almost endearing. “We are good ones,” countered Hisui, “But… it’s just… like… is this gonna be a fistfight, or…?”

The dragon girl scowled. “Magic duel, you worthless primate.”

“R-right.” Hisui glanced at me from the corners of her eyes. I shrugged, because what was I supposed to do? Scream ‘fireball’ and turn my hands into flamethrowers?

…unless…

Once her staring contest with the dragon girl resumed, awkwardly, I held out a hand in their direction. “F-fire… fireball?”

Nothing.

Did I have to scream it or something…

No thanks…

I’d literally rather die…

“...fine. I’ll fight the pipsqueak first.”

The dragon girl lunged at me. Again, she left a very obvious opening for me to attack. It pissed me off, so I tripped her instead. The dragon girl stamped the ground with her face.

She said, “...my mascara…”

She said, “So you haven’t awakened yet.”

She said, “Well, you will now. Or else…”

And then she turned into a dragon.