25 Underneath

Ernesto leisurely walked into the forest where the most feared creature in the kingdom lives. He had been in this forest for a long time, even in his past lives. That is why he was very familiar with the place.

He stopped leisurely walking once he saw the dragon flying towards him at great speed. The dragon was ready to crash into him with his gigantic paw.

"She never changes her welcome attack on intruders," Ernesto nostalgically mumbled to himself and looked at the crashing dragon that had been greeting him the same way in his previous lives.

A loud noise from a heavy object crashing down echoed throughout the entire mountain. The wild animals became chaotic and ran away on their way. The instinct of the forest animals tells them to run and hide, but this human instinct is expressed differently.

The human named Ernesto smiled while caressing the top of the dragon's head. He reflexively dodged the attack and fearlessly landed on top of it.

Ernesto playfully remarked, "Oh my, oh my, Ate Fetahaya, please don't be violent with your cute younger brother," instantly transforming the dragon into something more venomous. The dragon's scales slowly become warm until they become scorching hot. Ernesto jumped off the dragon, and he pulled out the usual shield he uses to protect him from fire breath. This time, the dragon didn't waste any time and rushed after him, unleashing his ferocious breath.

Ernesto has shielded himself from fire breath hundreds of times in his previous lives. He was now quite used to it, and he even smiled even if it slightly burned his long hair and his skin stings from the heat.

The dragon's breath always ends within ten seconds.

He exclaimed, "Wow! That isn't refreshing at all!" and the dragon's response was another casting of fire breath. She formed another cast in his mouth seconds before she released it. Ernesto stopped him with his wit. "Haha! Duchess, please stop! I am here to fetch some magma to deliver to a red-skinned earth spirit!"

The dragon stared down at him menacingly.

"Where did a psycho like you come from?"

Fetahaya admitted nothing and just asked him a question that Ernesto considered as an abstract.

"I am Ernesto Oliva. I am a regressor and human who manipulated time, just like you manipulated life."

Ernesto jumped up to the tallest tree so he could have the same eye level with the nine meters' tall dragon.

"In my previous lives, you asked for a front seat. I still don't quite get what that is, but I still need to give you what I promised."

The dragon wagged its tail, which led to the destruction of some trees and boulders behind her. "I asked for the front seat?" Fetahaya observed him from head to toe until she ended up laughing weirdly, "ohohoho! You're quite a unique lunatic, kid! I will believe you if you tell me whatever you know about me. Calling me Duchess seems like you did some research!" The loud, low voice of the Male Dragon was extremely frightening if Ernesto doesn't know the secret behind his female soul inside that fearsome looking reptile.

"Whatever I know?"

Ernesto touched his chin to organize his thoughts and then monotonously stated, "You are a princess who married a hero. That hero was Duke Cornelio, and he ended up wiping out a good earth tribe. That led him to regrets and depression and made his attention to you less. They called you the pinning duchess, and he then accidentally transferred your soul to a male dragon. You became the substitute of the earth tribe. Because of your frustration, you stopped calling him your husband and ended up just calling him his friend. He died and left you here for hundreds of years of solitude. The end,"

The dragon stomped his feet, and that made the ground vibrate. "Hey, kid! Why won't you tell a sob story with more emotion? How dare you state my worth weeping story in a blunt statement?" Fetahaya protested.

"Oh, I am sorry! I've been telling this story around for so long that I've lost all the excitement about it." Ernesto awkwardly smiled.

"Kid, how many times did you turn back time? You're weird." The dragon was having a weird connection with the child, who suddenly appeared in her forest and didn't feel wary or hostile to its presence.

Besides curiosity, the dragon found it weird that she doesn't have any wariness towards the child.

  "What do you need again?" she snapped her fingers and instantly morphed into a beautiful young lady who looks quite similar to the appearance of a dryad.

"I need magma, madam; my subordinate is a survivor of that tribe."

"It's been hundreds of years. I never thought that there was a survivor of that tribe. How many of them? Can you ask them to take over this forest?"

Dragons have the longest lifespans among other races, but most of the time, they live in solitude. It would be preferable to delegate control of the volcano to races capable of doing so until the next millennium.

Ernesto shook his head and said, "I only found one, but I didn't ask him if he had another tribe member. What I needed right now was a small amount of magma to supply him."

By hearing that the dragon was looking for the other tribe member, he realized the dragon might want to hand back the mountain to its original owner. He then added to his to-do list the revival of the red-skinned earth spirit tribe in the mountains.

"Oh, is he on the verge of death? They need the vulcan minerals to survive." Fetahaya twirled her finger in the air, forming a chunk of molten natural material from the volcano.,"I have easy access to the magma chamber so that I can easily fetch molten minerals from there at any time I want." The dragon boasted.

"Wow, that's great! May I have some?"

"Nothing is free, kid."

"I know, of course!"

Ernesto knew the personality of the dragon after becoming acquainted with her at every turn of his regression. "You want to come and enjoy your front seat, right?" Ernesto opened his spatial magic and stored the shield, then pulled out a rusty-looking kettle from his spatial magic. "You can store it here."

"Wow! Nice! You even have this old item?" The dragon was amused. She placed the magma inside the kettle and jumped up in excitement, saying, "I am now really looking forward to seeing you, kid!"

"Ate Fe, you'll get disappointed easily if you expect too much."

In reality, there's not much he can show the curious dragon. He only plans to show her the abandoned underground city that he discovered beside the labyrinth. The dragon might have some information about that mysterious place and might also give him a clue to the primordial beast's whereabouts.

"Then you're coming with me?"

"Yes, of course! I've been here for a long time! Let me see the new generation of weird nobility! You're a noble child, right?"

Ernesto nodded and looked at the Dragon polymorph's appearance. "But change into something else. Please, try to cover up a bit. You are literally not covering anything properly."

"Oh no! This little kid, does this fair skin of mine turn you on?"

Fetahaya posed seductively in front of a hundred-year-old regressor who was so tired of life that he didn't have any energy for seduction. Fetahaya stopped her seducing act once Ernesto did not show any fun reaction. "You're a bore."

The dragon snapped her fingers and instantly changed his clothes into an old-fashioned maid's outfit.

"That's quite old-fashioned. Is that the way maids dressed a long time ago?"

"Well, kid, this is the only decent outfit inside my storage. I'll change it once I get a new one, but for now, bear with it. It's the latest maid's outfit that I saw." She shared, and in fact, it's the dress of the human maid who served her for the last time.

"But why maid? Is there anything else there?"

"Kid, I'll be easily caught if I disguise myself as a noble; being a maid is the most convenient way to stay with you unnoticed." the dragon said as she felt proud of her ideas.

Ernesto doesn't think much of it and shares the coordinates of Ndulou's house to teleport.

It was already lunchtime, and he was getting hungry.