"Are you Bachelor Knight?"
"Yes. I believe the clearance to take the quest was sent earlier."
"Yes, I have the files over here."
She then went on to unload a few documents from a pile underneath the desk. When the Knight got permission to take the quest, the quest was removed from the board, as such the Knight was going to get briefing about it.
"There has been a sighting of a horde of dragons up in the mountains south of here. They have been melting the frost mountains, causing flash floods.
The workers in the clearing field have had areas fill up with water, and even after the water had been removed, they still get flooded. The dragons are amongst the weakest true beasts alone, but they are still strong. They travel in hordes, as such they become a problem when situations like this arise. They are pretty aggressive, but they are capable of communications. Due to the sheer numbers, we have a party which you could join.
We do not doubt your capabilities, but dragons are a tricky issue. Their scales make for good armour, and have other uses, as such handling them has been regulated. At first you should try to negotiate a peaceful resolution, if all else fail, you are granted jurisdictional permission to attack. The goal is to make sure they regulate their heat."
"I still do not see the need for companions."
"It's protocol when dealing with dragons, so many true beasts in one location is deadly. These are the red scorches; they tend to be civil but have the wildest temper. There have been cases where the adventurers sent, abandoned the quest after aggravating the dragons which sent them into a rampage on the nearby settlements. This is a measure to ensure that there are enough people to at least defend the nearby areas should dealing with the dragons prove difficult."
The Knight could change this quest, but it had already wasted a day doing this. It had thought with the quest naming a few dozen true beasts, it could serve to increase the numbers of its army, and the reward was not bad either. So, with these companions, this might complicate things. And aren't dragons the nemesis of knights? That would have been so, if the knights did not have to deal with the destroyers which were far more terrifying.
'Just who are these fools? Even though dragons might be lower of the danger scale of true beasts, a whole heard of them still means death, these ones even had a foul temper.'
At that moment one of the people behind the Knight walked up and almost tumbled on her robes, she said something in a faint voice, she had to repeat because the Knight had not heard her.
"… I said I'll be joining you. I'm an ice elemental mage, Cathina…"
You have encountered a level 214 human, Cathina. Type-Mage.
"Our scout is a little late and the tank is still busy…"
The tank walked out of the bar after he noticed Cathina stand up. He was wobbling, and not in the clumsy way Cathina was, but it a tipsy manner. Looks like he couldn't handle the liquor.
"Remove the poison debuff Cathina, I'm done being drunk for the day."
This lug head had even gone further to get himself intoxicated. Cathina rose her staff upwards, after saying a few words, the tipsy man became sober, standing at almost the same imposing height as the Knight.
You have encountered a level 233 human, Leif. Type-Adventurer.
While she was messy haired, short, and quiet, the man had a shaved head, was tall and worst of all loud. She was wearing neat, uniformed clothing, these robes looked like the old and forgotten tossed garments of a royal. Deep indigo tones, lines with blue stitching, which made patterns that snaked up like snowflakes. The man was wearing thick clothing, smelling of beer, blood, and regret. There were plates of armour placed strategically, like floating shields.
She was slightly dark, but on her neck, one could see the tan lines, and something else... The massive man, still shorter than the four metre Knight, the Knight could not compress to three metres anymore. Then was the sleezy looking scout, horrible odour, probably from jumping between jobs. He was wearing full clothing, but on top of these clothes were thin black rags, fluttering as he walked, like the worn-out fabric swaying in the wind.
This was so that people would misjudge his reach and not see the daggers beneath. He could have just used pattern carvings, but some people are not as easily fooled, this gave the Knight the impression that this slouched thin man, with hands in his pockets, was more of an assassin than a scout.
You have encountered a level 211 human, Gold. Type-Assassin.
'What would you know, he is an assassin.'
"Why are you late Redd?"
'Would you look at that; he's not even using his real name. If I hadn't already thought he was shady, by now I'd be convinced.'
"How many times do I have to tell you to stop calling me Redd, my name is Gold!"
'Well, that was unexpected. He is still shady though.'
"You do know that joining us on this quest is the Knight, and not just any, a knight Bachelor."
"I know him. He's the hero everyone from Maroon city keeps talking about."
The Knight heard their introductions and pleasantries and just decided to take the quest and walk out while they were talking, they could just follow. "I am the tank. You know I once tried out to be a knight but…"
"I can help when the dragons use fire..."
"Are you really a…"
'I miss working with my squadron already.'
***
Soon, they left the city walls, and from here it looked like a spec in the far distance.
The adventurers were still talking, Lief was regaling the Knight about its tales of spite against the knights, like how he was at level 233 now, even after being rejected.
The mage was like an insecure child, naming all the ways she can be useful, and what not to rely on when it came to her, at the very least she had a charmingly soft charm to her. The shady looking assassin was scouting ahead, so he had become an occasional annoyance, whenever he came back to warn of the impending encounter. Simply, they were dead weight; with teleport the Knight would have arrived by now and…
"Whoa..."
Just then they made it to the foot of the hill, the Knight had teleported them, it had not thought of it until now. Now that the Vile hunter was at level 250, capped as the Knight was, it could use the teleport skill on others. In battle the Knight's opponents were stronger and had far larger souls, but these were all weaker, so they had been teleported with relative ease. By the weight of their souls, the Knight could tell they had not even learned a power.
"Wow, a teleport skill…"
The Knight ignored them and walked to the work site. Once there one of the workers stopped and walked towards the Knight. There were guards posted around the whole area, but they were not strong enough to handle the dragons, but they were enough to handle the passing monsters and bandits. They were mining a certain type of stone, kilcus, used for most basic pattern craft.
The Knight could see the water they were moving out of the tunnels, and the diverted stream of water, with the water coming from the mountain peak. The major problem with the water is that it made it harder to fill back the tunnels, and everyone knows what happens if a deep enough area is present for long enough, a dungeon forms. "… this is why the dragons need to be convinced to at least stop melting the peaks."
"Cathina, you freeze part of the rivers, divert their flow away from the tunnels. Lief, I want you to join the guards, Gold will stay between us and warn the other should a problem arise."
"…?"
"What?"
"Aren't we here to hunt dragons?"
"We are here to negotiate the peak of this mountain."
"I know you're a knight and all, but all that stuff is just for official documents, the real purpose of this excursion is to hunt for the dragons' scales. With a horde this huge, our clientele will be doing good if we can fell just one."
"So, you launder the goods from the dragon parts. Knights may not be the soldiers or police enforcing law and order, but do you think I will permit such?"
"Then why did you take this quest, we just figured you wanted some extra value points for something on the side, who are we to question the motives of the first knight to go on a dragon hunting quest since ever."
'So, that's why that receptionist was forcing these fools onto me.'
The Knight just ignored the ramblings of Lief and went up the mountain, assuring them that it was going along with this shady scheme. This time though, the trip to the summit of the mountain was silent after their night camping. At the top, this huge heat wave assaulted them. The Knight was assaulted by another wave, the simple realisation of why it had been said that the dragons are amongst the weakest of true beasts.
You have encountered a level 321 True Beast, Red Scorch. Type-Disaster.
'A single introduction for all of them?'
This is because the whole horde of dragons was just one dragon. Red scorch is a disaster class being, meaning that it is way more powerful than the assessment on the quest had said. The Knight couldn't believe it, dragons had a skill which allowed them to create multiple bodies, massive ones at that, and all of them possessed one soul.
Combined they were more massive then Mugaw. Unbeknownst to the Knight, this is no mere skill, this is just a natural form of dragons, each of these was a disaster class being. They reminded the Knight of the Ender and the No-Ends.
When the Knight encountered them, they were multiple life forms, as the grain of darkness had said. But after they had all died, the Ender would split its soul and place it in the husks of the dead, moving their corpses. The grain of darkness did not announce their encounters because they were all just the same being, the Ender.
The whisper of darkness had announced all these dragons up here as one dragon, as such this had become even more dangerous. Since the adventurers said the knights barely fought dragons, and if in all the reports from the adventurers, the dragons always leave when some of them had been defeated. But that's the thing, if they are truly the case, then there is no recorded case of a dragon ever being defeated.
It is the same case with all types of dragons; they are all one. The Knight was even doubting if anyone has ever really slain a dragon, because to do so, one would have to destroy every trace of its soul, by defeating every vessel.
This meant that even though a single draconic vessel could be disposed of easier than fighting other true beasts, defeating the dragon was near impossible, if one escaped it could reform again. The Knight is operating on a high plain of though, higher than that of mortals, this is because of the will of wisdom, as such it gets these intuitions about the answers to things it does not know of.
As such the Knight had a suspicion; the might of a true dragon can only be expressed if the dragon contained all of its soul in one body. That would be a battle the Knight would not rather be in, because just like the dragons, the Knight could spread its soul thin, but only when the dreaded soul is compressed does the Knight really exercise its true power.
And if the Knight was right, then if this and all other dragons decided to compress their souls, they might be a fight that could be costly for the Knight. The only question on the Knight's mind was 'If they are so powerful, why do they abandon battles? Instead of purging the annoying pests in its way. Seeing that they possess intelligence, I should ask.'
By now the dragon(s) had noticed their presence, all were staring at them, and the adventurers were already preparing for battle, showing that, they had truly no intention of negotiating.
A loud roar came from the dragons, and a battle cry came from Lief, charging with his huge shield as it was being scorched by crimson flames.