(Erza's POV)
I ran with a smile I didn't bother hiding.
The wind slipped past my face as trees blurred at the edges of my vision. My steps were light despite my speed, controlled, measured. A dragon's body was not so easily strained.
That foolish mortal truly believed this was a fair race.
We dragons were not built like humans. Our strength did not fade after a short sprint, nor did our lungs burn so easily. We could run for miles without exhaustion. That was precisely why I had cast the enhancement spell on myself before we began.
He probably thought he was being clever.
I almost laughed at the thought of his expression when he realized he had miscalculated.
I could already hear him complaining.
"That's unfair! You dragons are walking cheat codes! You should've told me sooner!"
And I would answer, perfectly calm:
"Not my problem, mortal. You challenged me."
Perhaps I would even add a condition on bet.
Now that you have lost, you will wash my horns, tail, and wings for a week. And include a proper massage. Three hours a day.
The image of his irritated face almost made me slow down from amusement.
He would absolutely try to plot revenge afterward.
And I would absolutely handle him.
I moved past another old shrine, its wooden frame weathered by years of wind and rain. The forest here was older than the lower paths—less traveled. The air carried the faint scent of moss and damp stone.
Allen was somewhere ahead with Elena. I could hear faint echoes of her laughter drifting through the trees.
Yuuta, however…
He had fallen behind.
On purpose, most likely.
He was stubborn like that—always thinking, always scheming. He probably believed he had discovered some clever shortcut.
I smiled faintly.
Let him try.
Yet, as I crossed a narrow stretch between two stone lanterns, something shifted inside me.
The smile faded.
My steps slowed.
It wasn't exhaustion.
Dragons do not mistake their own limits.
This was something else.
My heartbeat had changed.
Not from exertion.
From instinct.
I stood still, listening.
The forest stretched endlessly behind me—ancient trees, worn stone paths, small forgotten temples resting under layers of moss. Everything looked ordinary.
And yet nothing felt right.
I turned slowly, scanning the path I had taken. There was no movement. No visible threat. Just the quiet weight of the mountain.
Still…
A faint tightening gripped my chest.
Yuuta.
The thought came without warning.
I didn't know why. There was no sound of distress, no clear signal. But the unease grew stronger, pressing against my ribs.
He had fallen behind intentionally. I knew him well enough to guess he had discovered some alternate route and was feeling proud of himself.
Normally, I would let him learn his lesson.
But this feeling—
It wasn't irritation.
It wasn't competition.
It was danger.
And Yuuta had not unlocked his true strength yet. Not fully. Not safely. Beneath all his confidence and reckless jokes, he was still fragile.
If he stumbled into something beyond his level…
My jaw tightened.
I turned and began running back.
This time, there was no amusement in my stride. I moved swiftly, cutting through trees and passing abandoned shrines, lowering my head to catch his scent.
Dragons do not lose what belongs within their awareness.
I inhaled slowly, focusing.
For a brief second, I caught it—faint traces of him lingering in the air.
Then the sky darkened.
Thunder rolled across Mount Fuji, distant but powerful.
A drop of rain struck my cheek.
Another followed.
Within moments, the rain began pouring down in heavy sheets, soaking the forest, washing over stone and soil.
The scent of wet earth rose sharply, overwhelming everything else.
I tried again, breathing deeply.
Nothing.
The rain erased him.
Water rushed down the paths, pooling between roots and steps. It blurred the ground, softened footprints, and drowned every trace of direction.
Even with my senses—
I could not find him.
A strange tightness settled in my throat.
I stepped back and focused, trying to summon my wings.
They did not respond.
I tried again, harder this time, willing the familiar pressure to build along my back.
Pain flickered—but nothing emerged.
I struck my back in frustration.
"Move," I whispered sharply.
And then I understood.
The spell.
Before the race, I had sealed my wings deliberately. I had wanted it to be fair. No flight. No advantages.
I had limited myself.
Now that decision held me down.
Rain soaked through my clothes. Thunder cracked again, closer this time. The forest seemed darker despite the afternoon light, shadows deepening under the storm.
Yuuta was somewhere on this mountain.
Alone.
Injured—my instincts screamed it now.
I clenched my fists.
This was not the time for pride.
I drew in a breath that tasted of rain and moss and fear.
"Yuuta!" I called, my voice cutting through the storm.
The sound echoed against stone and trees before fading into thunder.
Silence answered me.
For the first time since this race began…
I felt something dangerously close to helplessness.
(Yuuta's POV)
The rain kept falling steadily, cold drops striking my face and slowly pulling me back into awareness. My eyelids felt heavy, but the sensation of water running across my skin forced them open.
For a moment, I did not understand where I was. The world above me was a blur of dark branches and gray sky. My head throbbed painfully, and when I tried to swallow, my throat burned with dryness.
As memory returned, so did the pain.
The hidden path. The silence. The feeling of being watched.
Then the shape in the forest—the long neck, the horns.
The crack beneath my feet.
Falling.
I remembered rolling down the slope, unable to stop myself before striking something hard. When I tried to lift my head now, a sharp wave of pain shot through my skull, forcing me to lie back down.
Rainwater mixed with something warm along my temple. When I weakly raised my hand to touch it, my fingers came away red.
So it was not a dream.
I tried to push myself up anyway. My elbow sank into the mud, trembling from the effort, but my strength gave out almost immediately. My body felt distant, unresponsive, as if it no longer belonged to me.
The forest around me had grown darker. It had to be late afternoon, maybe even close to evening. If enough time had passed, Erza would have noticed my absence by now.
The thought of her reaction almost made me smile, though it hurt to do so. She would pretend to be annoyed, maybe even insult me for being careless, but she would search. I knew she would.
I had to at least sit up before she found me like this.
I forced myself to try again, gripping the wet soil and pulling with what little strength remained. The pain in my side worsened, and my vision blurred once more.
That was when I heard a voice.
"You should remain still. Moving will only deepen your injuries."
The words were soft but clear, close enough that they could not have been imagined.
My heart tightened. I slowly turned my head toward the sound.
At first, all I saw was a pale outline through the rain. As my vision struggled to focus, the shape became clearer.
A girl stood a short distance away from me. She had long, slender ears that were unmistakably not human, and delicate wings extended from her back. They shimmered faintly in the dim light, almost translucent against the gray sky. Her hair fell past her shoulders, barely disturbed by the rain, as though the storm avoided touching her directly.
I stared at her in disbelief.
"A fairy…" I whispered, my voice hoarse.
She did not react with surprise. Instead, she stepped closer and knelt beside me, examining the wound at my head with calm attention.
"You were fortunate," she said gently. "The angle of your fall spared you from a fatal fracture."
I could not process what I was seeing. A fairy. Here. On Earth.
Nothing about today felt real anymore.
The horned creature in the forest. The unnatural silence. The storm that arrived too quickly.
And now this.
I tried to focus on her face, searching for some sign that this was a hallucination caused by blood loss, but she looked solid and steady, her presence grounded in a way my thoughts were not.
"Who are you?" I asked weakly.
Before she could answer, thunder rolled once more across the mountain, and somewhere deep within the forest, something shifted.
The fairy's expression changed slightly.
She had heard it too.
To be continue...