1 A summary of events past...

"So it will be next week at Tam Ravern, huh? It'll be here before we know it." Jon gave me a firm pat on my back as we walked out of the guild house. With only a week away until our reunion party, Jon and I had quickly finished our quests for the week and were heading home to prepare. "Ahhh, I can't wait to see the look on Laila's face when she sees how much I've bulked up since we last met! I bet she'll have her eye on me this time! Bahahaha!" With a hearty laugh, Jon continued, "Light, even though our rivalry days may seem to be over, I'll get her first. That's what."

I didn't think that much into it. We've been living quite peaceful lives so far living in our prime. Taking quests from time to time when we were bored or when we were running out of money, there wasn't much a burden to our lives at all. Jon's twin brother was coming back next week from the frontlines of war, but even the war never made it past the borders, so I never felt the impending danger of an invasion since the war first broke out 10 years ago. Laela had gone on a pilgrimage to seek the dragon lord of our kingdom two years ago with a friend and they were returning sometime this week, so Jon and I arranged for all of us to meet at the Tam Ravern bar for a reunion. Our adventurer party currently was comprised of six of us but with the reunion, we'd have our original ten.

"Speaking of which, do ya reckon she'll bring any oracle about your class skill?"

Jon was talking about my unique tier class skill which was deemed to be useless for it didn't do a single thing since the awakening ceremony 15 years ago. Laela and the other two girls in our party wanted to at least solve the mystery behind my class skill and that was the reason why they left for an audience with the dragon lord. The dragons were considered to have been descended down from the creators of this world and thus were the closest beings to the understanding of the unique class skills. But even though I persuaded the girls not to go, they were too stubborn to help me out and off they went. Their return could mean anything. Their efforts could have been fruitless or they could have succeeded in finding a clue if not an answer to the mystery behind my class skill. "I highly doubt it. They've been gone for two whole years, I'm just content with the fact that all of them have avoided any harm."

We got to our base of operations where the rest of the gang were resting, and after distributing the quest rewards to everyone we all went to sleep for the night. It would be a long week with barely anything to do after all.

That night I had a strange dream. I normally don't have dreams when I sleep so this one really stood out to me. It was the day of the Awakening ceremony, and there I was receiving my awakening, but in my dream, I saw a shadow of my current older self hanging behind my younger 12-year-old self in the dream. And then a look of shock and fear on my younger self's face before everything faded to black and nothingness. I awoke for a moment pondering about it and then went back to sleep as if nothing happened. After all, there was a saying that the older you get, you start dreaming of the past. I figured it was true.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1 Week Later ~~~

"Five Cheers for the party of Light! Wooohooo!"

Seriously, these guys get drunk too fast whenever they are partying with pretty women. It's good to see their moods are up after being reunited with everyone but technically it's not like the women in our group were exceptional beauties or anything, it's just that all of us were still pretty young. Jon was the life of any party, he was always the loudest and the most enthusiastic. Steva was the brightest mind in our group and always had the fastest strategies come to his head whenever we took a quest to subjugate monsters. But, he and I were the only virgins left out of the guys and he was still so very awkward around the ladies. I only had my sights on one woman since I knew her but I did develop the social skills needed to not be socially awkward around her.

Anyhow, it seemed that even Steva was drunk. That wasn't a good sign. That meant I was the only one sober enough to keep the ladies company. As I thought over what to say to keep the conversation going, a loud crash outside the bar made all of us jump and sober. Before we could spring into action, a huge monster of unknown origin came crashing in. The last thing I remembered before my life flashed before my eyes were: scaly wings.