Regality

It was quite a long trip to get to the dragon kingdom from the village.

It doesn't help that I have to keep Ria from falling off in the air. She's still stupid and likes to move around instead of holding on tightly.

I was a little late to learn the name of the green dragon, but it's better late than never.

Jali didn't sound like he wanted to be here at all, I'm not sure why he's working directly for a king if he's so lazy.

"We're finally entering the desert, it won't be much further. You should watch that human carefully, since even the strongest human mages don't want to come too far in." Jali warns.

"I can handle myself! Everyone started calling me the 'dragon mage'!" Ria declares and points to herself triumphantly.

"What? Does that mean you're the same dragon that stopped the demon invasion?" Jali turns to me with the question, only seeming to comprehend the title Ria called out while pointing to herself.

"How can you not know? Everyone has to know what I look like since there was even a statue of me!" I reply.

I expected him to at least be told why he was supposed to find me.

"I didn't read much history, okay?! And my bloodline didn't have many interactions with humans, so I can't tell them apart or understand them..." He responds defensively and jerks away.

Incredible laziness, how in the world does anyone that lazy get an important job?

The visible city in the distance looked incredible.

There were so many giant structures, especially the huge palace in the center.

Of course, as soon as I land right outside of it Ria jumps down and tries to go see everything.

But she stops and chases after me when we go in a different direction, because she thinks I'm a little sister needing supervision.

This is why she's a little dummy, I'm the one that has to watch her here. Anything can happen.

Contrary to what I expected, the outskirts of the city was much more developed than the areas closer to the palace.

As I walked through the developed section I was getting glares like they recognized me but probably don't believe I'd still look the same age.

Ria had no problem with being recognized, she seems to be just as famous.

That doesn't mean I'm letting her go meet random strangers, no matter how much she complains when I scoop her back to me.

She doesn't seem to stay close to me because I said so, I can tell she has some other reason for hugging me closely.

The inner areas were so much less advanced, and somehow the dragons here just looked generally pitiful.

No one would expect to see dragons begging for anything.

I feel like trash for feeling even more protective over Ria in this place.

Maybe I'm just overreacting? But I've seen the news in my past life, and desperation always makes terrible things happen.

Unlike the other dragons, many more of these ones don't look like they have any idea who I am, and basically all of them are a lot bigger than me because I'm not even an adult dragon yet.

I spend half of the walk watching Ria flit around and finally let my guard down for just a minute.

And as soon as I do, I can sense something closing in fast just like an attack.

I turned just in time to see a brown dragon trying to bite Ria and I completely froze for a second before managing to cast <Hold >.

Ria screams and hugs my back leg as the attacker is stilled just a few inches away.

I feel as much regret as if I'd failed.

I hesitated too long because I was afraid to kill so easily.

If I was just a little bit too late or didn't have time to say the spell...

I should have just removed his head right away with a barrier.

From now on, anyone trying to hurt Ria is dead, I can't ever let anything get so close again.

"Let go! I'm not letting my baby starve!" The dragon wails, but I don't really care and neither do any of the witnesses.

A lot of them also look like they are starving to death, but they recognize the line.

If it was before the kingdom existed he'd probably just be hated by other dragons, but now there seem to be hard rules.

I tune out the rambling until the dragon equivalent of police arrived to take care of it.

Ria is happier with the mean dragon far away, but now she's hiding under me instead of bouncing wherever she wants.

Yes, the so called big sister is hiding under the little sister.

I wasted no time in getting to the palace so Ria didn't have to be holding on to me the entire time.

She is so blank-minded when it comes to anything but me.

There's no way she couldn't have saved herself if she focused on anything but me for just a moment.

I had to watch her closely the rest of the way.

"What's with this place? How can you starve with how easy hunting is?"

"A lot of Mana concentrates here because of how many dragons are in one place. That makes all the beasts too strong for the weakest dragons to handle, and there aren't many good places to trade either." Jali explains before we finally get to the entrance.

That must be why the weaker dragons are further in, so they are protected by the stronger ones.

The entrance gate of the palace is massive, making it clear that nothing here can really be called a simple door.

"Okay, sister, you can stop now." I nudge Ria to get her to fall off.

"Lava! Don't leave me behind!" She wails and follows closely through the halls.

"Everything about you is weird. It's harder to understand you when you don't open your mouth enough to speak." Jali mentions.

No one else noticed my habit before, it's hard to avoid it even though I'm not sure how much of an impact it even has anymore.

"That's just a habit. I found it's easier to make friends when you don't show them too many teeth."

"My experience tells me you're better off with them scared of you. Then they wouldn't try to bother you all the time." He scoffed as we arrived at what I assumed was the throne room.

There were multiple other dragons watching us, and it was clear they knew who I was, some of them were staring at Ria, too.

Some of the looks weren't the curious kind, they didn't appear very pleased with my presence.

Ria didn't like being stared at by a bunch of grown dragons that were comparably bigger than me and she was using my wings as curtains while pouting at me like back when she was at least sensible enough to know who the big sister was.

"Lava, I want to go home! It's scary here and I can't protect you!" She whines.

"It's just for a little while. None of them can hurt you anyway, I'm right here." I console and let her keep hiding.

Of course, the king was at the end of the room and was definitely the biggest.

What was his name again? Ah, that's right, it was Arx.

"Welcome back, Laviella." He greets openly.

"I prefer just being called Lava." I cringe at being called by my original name.

I don't like my original dragon name at all, I only want a normal sounding name.

"There's no need for someone that's saved an entire world to be so humble." He continues.

"I'm not being humble, I just like my simple name."

I'm not sure why I was requested to come here in the first place, but now that I'm here it's not as impressive as I expected.

Everything leading up to this point feels like they were just copying what humans have already come up with regarding how to manage a country.

I know there are things I would have done differently if it was up to me, but it's none of my business.

"I want you to take over as leader of this country." He drops a bombshell I'm not ready for at all.

Now I see why the other dragons don't like me here, I'm not even an adult yet and I'm being offered the highest position before them.

"No way! I have a home I have to go back to, if I get tied down by something like that I'm not going to be able to go back. Find someone better for the job, I'm just a family dragon." I refuse with no room for negotiation.

I'm not getting stuck in this place with such a responsibility.

"You can't have my little sister!" Ria announces very late from behind my protection after finally understanding what was happening.

"Shush." I say to shut her up again.

All the other dragons are relieved that I didn't want the position and it's sickeningly clear.

"Fine, you can come claim it later if you change your mind. I'll make sure no one can challenge that." He tries again to push it on me, but I don't want it.

I'm disappointed to be called all the way here just for that, so I'm leaving without a second thought.

It was cool for a while until it was made clear how unsafe it was for Ria to be here.

I could swear I felt a presence on the way out, but there wasn't anything there, so I just continued on after feeling the shiver.

--- Meanwhile, an important meeting takes place

"I take it everyone is here?" A voice rings through the space.

"Everyone other than representatives of Cerula and Prazia." The second answers.

"Good. I'm sure everyone is aware of the reason for this meeting? If not, then let me make it crystal clear for the rest of you," The leader of Elemanto announces, "We all know about the return of the hero dragon from the adventurer's guild. After Cerula's sudden accusations and attack, this meeting exists for us to take sides."

"How is this even a topic for debate?! How can we side against the dragon on baseless accusations from a cowardly king?!" The short dwarf king yelled disruptively.

The collection of representatives for many of the smaller human nations didn't appear as resolute in such a decision.

"It doesn't matter if they're true or not. Prazia has too much control over it, they can't be allowed to control such a powerful dragon or they might try to conquer the world, and then some!" They argue.

The commotion only gets worse until the initiator of the gathering screams at them to shut up.

"All of you shut up! We get it, you all have your own reasons. With this, the lines have already been drawn, there's no point in continuing this foolish argument, if you want to fight, then take it to a battlefield."

---

Arx was disappointed that Lava didn't take the offer right away, but he would find a way eventually.

Once the other dragons left, which were very unhappy with the idea of a foreign dragon coming in and being placed above them, all that remained were the two guards that were always in the throne room.

At least he had the sense to send Jali along to convince her to come back.

He had complained until he learned that it came with an escape from other jobs. Such a lazy dragon wasn't going to be much of a loss anyway.

Just when he was getting his mind clear, a new figure suddenly appears at the end of the room.

Many thoughts went through his mind, but the only thing this could be was an invisibility spell.

Using invisibility against dragons should be impossible, especially for a human! Mana perception makes invisibility spells almost useless.

"So that dragon's real name is Laviella, and really is the so called hero dragon, huh?" The figure rambles as soon as the invisibility finally wears off completely.

"Intruder! Die!" The two guards in the room interrupt and try to attack the human they see as bold enough to break into the throne room of the dragon kingdom.

The man reaches into thin air and a glint of glowing metal could be seen for just a moment.

"<Mana Disruption>; <Mana Blade>." The figure casts, completely nullifying any of their attempted magic and launching a thin blade of Mana at all of them at the same time.

Arx blocks it off with a magic shield, but the guards die instantly.

It's painful to watch. They weren't that weak, but blood memories make it easy to underestimate humans, and on top of that whatever he did completely nullified combat sense for a moment.

They relied so much on combat sense that they couldn't react without it.

"Who are you?!" Arx demands.

"Does that matter?" The man remarks, "My plans mark this moment as the end of you and I'm too busy for wasted introductions."

"I'm not going to be that easy for you! I'll reduce you to nothing before you can do any more damage!" Arx rages and tries to avenge the dead dragons to no avail.

No matter what spell the dragon king tries, the human invader always responds with a perfect spell to barely counter it.

"It'd be bothersome for me if you regained your god status. It's already hard enough to nullify these desperate attacks of yours." He utters in a tone that suggested he was rambling to himself.

"Just because I don't have my original powers doesn't mean they're gone. You might be able to block my attacks, but all I have to do is separate us with a barrier until the rest of my subordinates arrive." Arx declares and commits to putting up the strongest wall of magic possible for him.

"Indeed, I don't have the firepower to break through such a barrier. But don't you think you're forgetting something?" The figure smirks and approaches calmly without even holding his blade ready.

"Everyone knows how names affect magic. Normally it cannot decide the outcome of a battle on its own, but for dragons, who've bound their true names to magic itself... Even your blood memories are linked to your names if the Church's pet lizard has anything to say about it." He explains as he menacingly holds his empty hand out, "Former 'Dragon God', you will regret being so careless with your true name."

Arx didn't know what to believe anymore, should he trust his barrier? Is it better to run away? He couldn't explain this ominous feeling that he's never felt for many years.

His name being plastered even in history books, albeit ancient ones, happened to be the very reason he couldn't fight the demon lord. But for a human to be able to do anything with it was hard to imagine.

He couldn't listen to the intuitive warnings, what would happen to his kingdom if he escaped now?

All of it was washed away with the next words of the attacker in front of him.

The intruder placed the pure Orichalcum blade in his spatial storage as he began his final sentences, "Heh, even the strongest dragon is reduced to relying on hopes when things go wrong. Arx Del Pyronas, <die >!"

An immeasurable wave of Mana erupts from the scene, immediately alerting practically every dragon to the commotion in the palace.

Spells that involved instantly killing another being with no chance to resist were typically impossible to perform on an aware and unwilling subject, and success was guaranteed to result in an explosive Mana event.

But, since dragons had their true names bound so closely to magic itself, even a much weaker being could easily use such a thing on them if they knew their full name.

Vesper confirmed the dragon king was dead before leaving to take what he wanted from the treasury.