Tim's POV
The Quagoa search took a week and produced nothing.
This was, on reflection, not surprising. The Quagoa were a species notable for sophisticated strategic reasoning, Olasird'arc had been the reason the Quagoa occupation of the dwarf kingdom was viable.
Without him, without his wives, without the frost dragon presence that had kept every competing power from challenging the arrangement, the Quagoa had apparently made the entirely sensible decision to move somewhere else.
Hejinmal and I covered the tunnel systems methodically, which gave me time to appreciate the scale of what the dwarves had built over their history.
No a single Quagoa found. Not in the western tunnels, not in the mid-fortress sections, not in the outlying passages that connected the main structure to the subsidiary chambers the dwarves had carved.
I reported everything to the Commander-in-Chief on my eighth day. His expression went through several adjustments as I spoke, the cautious hope of good news, the professional suspicion something not feeling right, and finally he signed in defeat.
"Entirely gone, are you sure?" he said.
"Tunnel system is clear," I said. "They'll have moved their primary population somewhere outside the mountain. I'd recommend establishing a defensive presence in the outer tunnels within the next month."
He nodded slowly, with the weight of someone converting information into action items in real time.
"The Forgemaster finished your equipment this morning."
"yay," I said.
The Forgemaster presented the armour and sword to me.
The armour was extraordinary.
I had seen good equipment. The daggers from the alley man had been well-made. The standard adventuring gear available in E-Rantel's markets was competent. This was something operating in a different category, the Adamantite worked to a surface finish that reflected light differently than the surrounding air, the enchantments layered into the metal with all the pretty colours. The sword matched it too, the size was Huge, as tall as I am.
Hejinmal at altitude was a different experience from Hejinmal on the ground. *I'm scared of heights*
In the air, banking on the thermals that rose off the mountain slopes.
E-Rantel appeared below us as we descended from altitude, the city closing in, the familiar layout of walls and districts and the specific roofline of the orphanage visible in the lower ward where I had started from.
The guards on the wall saw us coming.
The response was mass panic, I could see the activity on the wall from two hundred metres up, their movement, the weapons appearing, the very reasonable institutional panic of people whose job was to protect a city from external threats significant scale, like this one.
Hejinmal landed in front of the gate, which produced a ground impact that was dramatic but not destructive.
I jumped off, walked to the gate, looked up at the wall.
"He's tame," I said. "I tamed him. Everything is fine."
The guards looked at me. Looked at Hejinmal. Looked at me.
Then they slowly opened the large gates.
The city's reaction to Hejinmal walking through its streets was the most sustained public astonishment I had witnessed since arriving in this world. Merchants stopped mid-transaction. Children stopped mid-game.
Adults who had lived through various significant events of E-Rantel stood in the street and looked with the open attention as Hejinmal walked.
I rode on Hejinmal's back through all of it as I waved my hands.
The guild leader came out of his back office when he heard something from the desk staff and was not sure whether to believe it.
He saw me. In Adamantite armour. He saw, through the window, Hejinmal occupying a significant portion of the street outside.
"read this, plz," I said, and showed him the letter.
He read it.
Read it again.
The Adamantite plate was produced from wherever Adamantite plates were stored, presumably somewhere secure, and he set it on the desk between us.
"Murder Hobo," he said, with the careful enunciation of someone reading from official documentation "is the first solo party to achieve Adamantite rank in the Re-Estize Kingdom's adventurers' guild records." He paused. "Possibly the first solo party to achieve Adamantite rank in any guild record. congrats."
"thanks," I said. "I try my best."
He looked at me for a moment. "How did you lose the arm?"
"a goblin attacked me on my way there," I said.
Tim:
I took the plate, thanked him, and went home.
Tsaindorcus Vaision's POV (Platinum Dragon Lord) [level 100]
The servant who woke him was new enough to still be nervous about this, but started explaining the news.
Tsaindorcus Vaision surfaced from sleep as He listened to the report with his eyes not yet fully open.
Olasird'arc Haylilyal has died. His fortress reclaimed by the dwarves. The killing blow by single human adventurer.
He let steam out through his nose in the involuntary expression of mild feeling of boredom.
Olasird'arc, was not a true Dragon Lord. The title required wild magic, and Olasird'arc was borned too late to have wild magic, and a Dragon Lord who could not use wild magic was just a overgrowed lizard. His death at the hands of a sufficiently capable human was not the category of event that warranted serious concern.
He went back to sleep.
The Slane Theocracy - Supreme Council Chamber.
Olasird'arc Haylilyal the frost dragonlord was dead.
Killed by Tim.
The child from the orphanage in E-Rantel whom they had been monitoring since he was five years old, whose Water Church file had described a danger level of fifteen at that age, whom their collection attempt three years ago had resulted in the defeat of the Sunlight Scripture members and the loss of a tier seven angel crystal.
Who was now, apparently, capable of killing a frost dragon lord.
The Supreme Council spoke over each other for the first minute in worry as Tim might be a Go-. Then the Pontifex Maximus raised his hand.
Silence.
He let the silence sit for long enough to be purposeful.
"Our previous assessment," he said, "was that the child's ceiling was hero rank. We chose to observe rather than extract him as a child, pending further evidence." He looked around the table. "We have further evidence."
The Cardinal of Water spoke carefully. "No hero rank human can kill a dragon lord at what age is he now?"
"Eighteen," the earth Cardinal supplied.
"At eighteen years old," she continued, "he most have god-kin blood in him."
The statement carried its own implication. Several people around the table were already nodding.
"His family line," the Pontifex said. "I want a complete investigation. His origins, his parentage, everything the orphanage has or had on record. If there is god-kin blood in his lineage, I want to know whose and how diluted." He paused. "And if there is no family left in god-kin bloodline, then we take him in by Force"
"The extraction question," said the Cardinal of Fire, practically. "If he is a god-kin, we have both greater motivation and greater difficulty. A god-kin is not a target we collect with Scripture alone, only a god-kin can beat another god-kin, We must use the Captain of the Black Scripture [level 65]."
"No," the Pontifex refused. "He isn't strong enough to kill a dragon-lord ." He folded his hands. "We investigate first. We understand what we are dealing with before we decide how to deal with it. The investigation takes priority. Everything else can wait."
The meeting moved on to other business.
Tim
level [50]