Awake

Pete and Josh followed the two dragons. Pete was still scared out of his mind, frankly he was surprised that his legs didn't give in just yet. He didn't even know what to do or think.

Josh, on the other hand, was smiling. This is the treatment the MC deserves, he felt as if he already commanded the respect and admiration of these two dragons and it was only a matter of time before he got a few dragon eggs…

At this point his thinking was irrationally idiotic.

Far away they could hear faint echoes of an epic battle ensuing between monsters, dragons versus cyclops. Their battle has not come to an end yet, not even close.

Cyclops and dragons are natural born enemies, both species are considered the most dangerous, but many would argue that the dragons are far more dangerous.

No one really knows why these two species fought for the black mountains. Dragons protected it from the cyclops, the cyclops aimed to conquer the black mountains or destroy it.

The Great Sage even said that the first few years he was summoned to this world, that is when he saw these two species fight for the black mountains and they were still going at it.

The more they followed the dragons, the more dragons appeared before them as they were getting closer to their den. There were dragons of all sizes, in fact the two dragons leading Josh and Pete appeared to be one of the smaller ones.

The two dragons leading the heroes explained to the other dragons how one hero was able to talk to them, and they wanted to wait for their leader to decide what to do with them.

Pete translated to Josh what he heard, and Josh was just smiling all the way.

Josh and Pete also looked around and noticed hundreds of fully grown dragons. There were also various dragon babies walking around their mothers or simply sleeping.

"Josh, how many dragons do you think there are?" Pete really wanted to run away. But he knows he's in too deep in their den.

If he were to run away any dragon could swallow him whole and kill him, or tear him limb from limb. Unfortunately his best chance of survival was to run away from the very beginning, meaning that his chance was long gone.

They all stared at the heroes. Pete could hear their whispering and murmurs, and it wasn't any good.

Dragons kill humans on sight no matter what if they're seen around their territory, no matter who they are.

But this is the first time any human could communicate with dragons. Does that mean that they should kill him, or could he be of use to them?

The majority of the dragons thought that they should kill both heroes anyways. A few of them thought that he should be spared for now. Who knows when another human can communicate with a dragon ever again.

"I heard from Naveah… or was it Felicia? Either way, I heard that each dragon can have up to 4-8 dragon eggs, and they take up to 30-60 days for them to hatch."

"And how long does it take for dragons to hatch eggs?" Pete was simply asking questions to distract himself.

"Hell if I know. All I care about is getting an egg."

They stopped walking as the dragons finally reached their leader. It was an area inside the black mountains, they could see the sky above just barely peeking in from the top of the open mountain. They thought this place looked like a large, dark cylinder with the top exposed.

The dragons, which were more than thousands surprisingly, all sat around the area in a circle, leaving Pete, Josh, and their leader in the center.

Their leader is a golden dragon, and also the largest dragon they had seen yet. This type of dragon would be considered a mutated dragon.

There were wounds on its body as it fought fiercely against a mutated cyclops that was nearly as large as it was, with four legs, 6 arms, and three heads with the middle head being smaller than the other two.

"Pete, translate everything to me." Josh stood next to Pete.

The golden dragon stared at Pete and Josh. He already heard from them when a dragon explained to him that two dragons were bringing in two heroes, one which can communicate with them.

Roydus, which is his name, thought of what to do with the human.

The golden dragon leaned close to Pete, and started speaking in dragon tongue.

"I-I can understand… you." Pete said.

"What did he say?"

Pete stared at Josh in disbelief. Wasn't it obvious?

The dragons around them went into a craze. They appeared to be mad, afraid, impatient, and they started screaming.

Pete covered his ears, Josh did, too.

"Pete, what are they saying?"

"I… it's too loud!" It was like trying to listen to 500 different voices at full volume on a loudspeaker, he couldn't make out anything.

"?siht daer ot troffe eht hguorht og uoy did yhw (Quiet!!!)"

Roydus, the golden dragon, shouted.

The dragons fell silent.

The golden dragon began talking to them.

"What is he saying, Pete?"

"He's saying… I agree. This hero is one-of-a-kind, no human has ever been able to talk with us."

Josh nodded. It Seems that this dragon is smart.

"Which is why I also agree that his hero is a threat, and should be elim..." Pete sat down and started crawling backwards as he whimpered in fear.

'This hero should be eliminated. But we can't do that here.' That was the full sentence.

Pete now knew that they really wanted to kill him. But why is that? He thought that they would want him here, or else why would both those dragons lead them here?

Both dragons didn't know what to do with Pete, as this is the first time a human has been able to communicate with them, and so they thought that it was best to let Roydus deal with them.

"Pete, tell them what I am about to tell you, word per word. And I promise you'll make it out of here alive, in one piece."

Josh started to walk towards the golden dragon as if he owned the place, or more like as if he had plot armor.

"What?"

"Hello, there!" Josh started speaking all of a sudden.

The dragons looked at Josh, there was an eerie silence in the room.

"He-heLLo there." Pete started to translate, part of his voice was cracking due to fear.

"My name is Josh Johns, greatest hero alive, but you probably already knew that about me already since my reputation is far too great and has spread far."

In less than 10 seconds, Josh managed to piss off nearly half the dragons for simply wasting their time.

Naturally nobody has ever heard of him.

Pete noticed all the dragons' dark expressions. Josh didn't notice it and just continued talking.

"I came here to give you the best deal of your life! Hand me your eggs, and I promise that I will take care of them and might bring them back(not) unless they fall in love with me, which will most likely happen, honestly speaking. So come on, gimme your eggs." Josh spread his arms wide as if to receive a hug.

In less than 30 seconds he managed to piss off all the dragons. Some parent dragons covered their children as if this hero was some kind of pervert. They wanted to scream, crush him, but kept quiet and calm for another reason entirely.

Pete was sweating bullets. He didn't know what was the best choice now, but he continued to trust Josh and kept translating for him. Josh is stronger than him, and he believes that he is his best choice to survive.

"Hmm… OH!" Josh began walking towards the golden dragon, a sudden realization struck him.

"If I defeat you, then these dragons will recognize me as their leader, right? And not to mention your body, I mean solid gold! I wonder how much money I'll get from selling your body."

According to most plots Josh has read, by defeating a strong foe, surely the other dragons will see how 'awesome' he is and will want to devote their whole lifes to him, an example would be 'the time I got reincarnated as a slime.'

And since the dragon is made of solid gold, he thought of making money to sell to buy a slave elf next time there's an auction at the black market.

*EEK*

Pete choked on his own fear, somehow. He wasn't thinking and was translating what Josh was saying. It wasn't until the end of the sentence that he regretted translating it.

"Daed er'uoy(You're dead.)"

"Pete, what did he say?"

"You're dead."

"Courting death? Oh, sweet, I've been waiting my whole life for someone to say those words to me!" Josh completely misheard what he said.

Nobody knew if Josh was just that delusional, or he was simply trying to ignore the dangerous situation he was in by ignoring the situation they were in.

"Hm?"

Josh noticed a giant, golden, dragon foot on top of him. Josh jumped out of the way before the foot could crush him.

"Oh, an epic fight scene! Fireball!"

*BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM*

Josh launched three large, and noisy fireballs right at the golden dragon,

Silence soon followed. There was complete silence that one could hear a pin drop.

"Hahaha! I won!" Josh started to do a fortnite dance.

The smoke dissipated, and the golden dragon was fine. There wasn't even a dent in its body aside from the wounds it took before, but it stood still as if it was afraid of something else.

All the dragons stared at Josh in horror.

Why did this hero have such destructive power? No hero, aside from the Great Sage, should have that kind of power.

"Oh, crap. That did nothing." Josh was a bit nervous now.

This would be the second time his fireballs would prove to be useless. The first time was when he tried to force his way to the elves' home.

"Wait, is he afraid?" Josh noticed the golden dragon was stunned, most likely from fear.

"Ahahaha! See that? That's my power! Cower before me!"

"Leurc si efil(everyone, leave)" The golden dragon commanded the other dragons. It was the softest tone he had ever spoken to the other dragons.

"Pete?" Josh turned to Pete.

"He said to leave."

"Leave? Excuse me, I am not leaving without my dragon eggs. Or else I'll continue to fire down my fireballs."

*BOOM*

Josh fired another fireball at the golden dragon, dealing no damage whatsoever.

Normally this would have gotten any hero tired from shooting so many destructive fireballs, but thanks to Josh's second ability, an excess amount of stamina, he would not get tired as easily as others.

"?tnereffid yna eb efilretfa eht dluohs yhw (Stop! Hero, tell him to not do that!)

The dragon looked at Pete, this is the first time he wanted to settle something peacefully through words and not violence..

"He says to not do that, Josh!"

"Do what? This?" Josh started firing fireballs at the golden dragon, believing that he's afraid of his power.

Seeing that Josh wasn't going to stop or be reasonable, the golden dragon started to attack Josh.

The dragons behind the golden dragon started to fly away. Some began attacking Josh to kill him as he continued to fire off fireballs while evading the dragons.

"JOSH! STOP IT!" Pete couldn't tell exactly why they were afraid of Josh's fireballs, but he could hear how those dragons were afraid, not of Josh, but something else.

That got him thinking…

What could cause these dragons to have so much fear?

"Ahaha! You're no match for me!" Josh did the smart think of running away while shooting off fireballs, totally oblivious to everything.

Since his fireballs did no damage to the golden dragon, Josh began killing the other adult dragons. He made sure to not come close to the golden dragon at any cost.

Josh ran around in circles, but the golden dragon was closing in to Josh as it was quickly leaning his pattern movements.

The golden dragon was seething with rage, and also was scared that if he didn't kill Josh soon, something horrible would happen.

'I gotta go asap.' Josh noticed the danger approaching. He darted out of the room and headed outside, but the golden dragon was closing it..

As he was running, Josh had another idea.

Turning both of his palms upwards, Josh fired upwards using both hands, and hit the roof of the black mountains, hoping to cause an avalanche and perhaps drown the dragons in a sea of rubble.

Noticing what Josh was doing, the golden dragon became more and more furious. It wanted to scream, it wanted to do a breath attack to kill Josh, it wanted to use its abilities but couldn't because if he did…

'It' would wake up.

He could fly, in fact flying would be faster than chasing him on foot. But due to his weight and large body, in this tiny cave, he couldn't fly at all.

"Why is there no rubble? WHERE IS THE RUBBLE!" Josh began to panic a bit. He shot out so many fireballs yet there wasn't even a pebble.

Where was the physics in this cave? He thought.

"Crap! Crap! Crap!" Josh turned back, the dragon was getting closer he could practically feel its breath on his back.

'I got it! Why didn't I think of this earlier?!'

Josh cupped both his hands together to create his ultimate move…

"SUPER FIREBALL!"

In a desperate move, Josh placed everything he had into this final attack.

A giant fireball, bigger than anything Josh had seen, shot out from his palms and right into the golden dragon's face.

There was even a large earthquake.

The golden dragon took a few steps back. It felt something, but fueled with so much rage and adrenaline he ignored it and continued running forwards!

"YOU SERIOUS?!" Josh felt that was his strongest attack, and all it did was stagger the golden dragon a few steps back.

Josh continued to run, but he was sweating bullets from how tired he was getting. He didn't believe that he could fire anything stronger than his ultimate attack.

'Plot armor, help me out HERE!' Josh begged. Was he really going to die here?

Even till now he firmly believes in the power of 'plot armor' and that he is the chosen one.

Then…

It happened.

*Rumble*

Josh and the golden dragon lost their footing as the cave started to move irregularly.

The dragons nearby felt it, and they began flying around, screaming, some had begun kneeling far away.

Currently there is a war between cyclops and dragons that has never paused for hundreds of years for even one second. The fight was far away. But both sides could see the black mountains rising from the ground.

For the first time in hundreds of years, both cyclops and dragons ceased to fight. The cyclops backed down in fear and started to run to their base.

The dragons began kneeling in fear.

Josh noticed the 'cave' from beneath his feet opened. He was finally out.

"What the hell is happening?" Josh did not stop running, but turned nonetheless. He saw how the black mountains were rising slowly.

*GRRRR OOOOO WWWLLLL*

A loud growl, louder than anything they had heard shook the lands.

Josh gasped in horror. Genuine fear could be seen in his eyes.

Pete, was at his wits end. His feet wouldn't move as he wanted them to, no matter how much he tried. He couldn't muster strength on his hands to crawl away.

All he could do was couch, cover his head, and cry while thinking of his mother, his family, his home.

The mountains behind him were moving, Pete could feel it, but was too afraid to look.

"Mom! I just wanna go home."

Pete begged that he was at his home, playing DnD with his friend, watching movies, and spending time with his family, who he loved dearly.

Those were the best times of his life.

Not being 'isekai'd' to this cruel and terrifying world.

*BAM*

There were two giant, black, pointy feet like a dragon's, almost as big as a mountain. One giant foot crushed Pete to death, along with some dragons who were weakened by Josh's fireball attacks.

Just like that, the first hero of this generation had died.

Part of the black mountains stretched out, revealing its large, scaly, and imposing wings that could cover kingdoms with its size alone, it could create hurricanes with a flap of its wings.

Claws that were as sharp as spears. With scales harder than any known metal, even anti-hero metal paled.

A large head could be seen, with horns everywhere, even its chin could be seen making it seem as if it had a beard made of horns.

Its eyes were dark and deep. Its jagged teeth impeded it from closing his mouth. Its tail was long, one sweep could flatten cities.

The golden dragon, instead of chasing down Josh, was too afraid to move. All he could do was kneel before it.

Josh continued to run, and run, and run. He had failed to notice he was one man short.

There have been stories, tales about the black mountains. Why were dragons protecting it from the cyclops? Why were the cyclops so adamant on conquering those mountains for hundreds of years?

It has always been stories. The second most popular story, which drove many heroes to their deaths, is the large pools of gold hidden underneath the mountains which were not true at all.

The most popular story was that beneath the black mountains, there was a dragon, a dragon king that was being protected all this time, waiting to wake up from its slumber.

Today, people will realize that there was no king beneath the mountain…

He is the mountain.