Chapter 2

—Karna Pov—

We were walking through the forest where a shadow dragon resided, as we heard that it was also causing trouble for the Kingdom of Blumund.

So we took the quest to kill a dragon.

Though I've been training with Shizue for two weeks now, I'm nowhere near her in combat skills. Even though I've copied her techniques, she still has years of experience.

"Even if you replicate something perfectly, it can't be beneficial to you if you don't hone it yourself. There's no such thing as copying experience," she said after she beat my ass black and blue in the last spar where I copied her techniques.

"We might be near the dragon. I can sense its presence. Don't drop your guard," I heard the voice of the woman next to me as we walked. I used the new skill I obtained—‹Magic Perception›—to survey our surroundings. Even though Shizue also had this skill and was using it, there's no such thing as being too wary.

As we walked, my thoughts ventured towards my being in this world. I was strengthened beyond belief; if the current me were in my past world, I could probably destroy a country or something without going all out.

I have two unique skills, and both of them are strong as well. So if I fight with my full strength, I doubt even a dragon would be much trouble. As I understand from anime and manga, pure magic or holy magic cleanses dark magic. If this applies to this world, then this is a piece of cake for me with «Divine One».

«Divine One» also helped me with talking with the people of this world. It would perceive the sound waves emitted by them and translate them into words I could understand.

That is also how I understood Shizue even though we use different languages, she used Japanese and I use Sanskrit as my primary language.

Leaving that aside, we exited the forest and found ourselves looking down at the dragon, which was just lazing around in a clearing, while we were standing on a cliff.

It had black scales and was quite big, big enough to level a small town with its body weight alone. It had spikes on its head as horns and created small puffs of smoke every time it breathed out.

"Hey, do you think you can use your arrow to destroy it?" she asked me. It was logical; if I could destroy it from here, then there's no need to go fight it.

"Let me check." I nodded and took out my bow from my Spatial storage, a golden glow enveloped my hand and the bow appeared.

It is but a simple magic for creating a small dimension to store any all all things, shizue thaught it to me somewhere along the lines.

I drew the bowstring with my right hand while holding it with my left, aiming the arrow, which materialized from my energy, towards the sleeping dragon's head.

One thing I understood from Avengers: Infinity War, it was to always go for the head.

I loaded my arrow with enough energy to replicate a small nuclear bomb and released it at the dragon. A shockwave shook us as the arrow blitzed towards the dragon, leaving a golden trail behind as it went.

Another shockwave shook us as we took cover under the barrier Shizue set up. It was truly a magnificent sight. The arrow struck the head of the sleeping dragon, and it began to implode on itself, generating extreme heat that seemed to erase the head of the dragon. After that, the red-hot explosive heat began to travel outwards, covering the whole clearing, just short of touching the cliff we were standing on.

It seems that I underestimated myself too much..

"Well, that settles things. But you could've gone easy and left the dragon's remains for us to make something from it, like dragon scale clothes," Shizue muttered the last part as we looked over the edge and saw what the one arrow had caused. A quarter of my magic was imbued in that arrow, and it scorched and melted the ground; now the ground seems to resemble lava.

"Also, your training is going to be tougher starting tomorrow. You have raw power, now you need control."

Ah, shit. It seems Demon Sensei is taking over her again. She's so rough, she might as well be a demon while teaching.

I nodded with a sigh. She smiled and placed her mask on her face before we took off again, back to the Kingdom of Blumund's Mutual Association building.

We reached the Mutual Association building in a flash of blue light.

<Spatial Transfer> A technique that requires an anchor to be placed at a location, allowing you to return there from anywhere.

Like the gentleman I am, I opened the door and held it for Shizue to enter. I get the feeling she's smiling behind that mask of hers.

Walking up to the main desk, where an attendant was reviewing something, she placed the bounty poster on the desk.

A spatial portal opened next to me in a brilliant golden light, and the tail of the dragon I eradicated minutes ago fell out. A two-meter tail end was all that remained of that dragon.

"As expected of the Hero and her companion!" the attendant exclaimed, taking the poster and walking towards a blackboard, where she placed it.

The poster glowed once, then broke apart, and roughly twenty gold coins fell out.

She gathered them, placed them in a blue pouch, and set it back on the desk.

"Thanks," Shizue said as she took the pouch, thanking the attendant. I nodded, and we began to walk out, ignoring the people gawking at us in admiration.

"Oh, if you could please wait a moment," the attendant's voice stopped us in our tracks.

"What is it?" I asked as we turned around and saw the attendant holding a poster.

"We've actually had one waiting for two weeks now, and it seems no one wants to take it," she said, looking at us.

"What is it about?" Shizue asked, walking towards the desk, now interested.

"Oh, it's a bandit extermination. The small road through the Jura Forest has been plagued by attacks. Merchants and caravans are constantly being ambushed and looted," she explained, placing the poster in Shizue's outstretched hand.

"Alright, we'll take it," she said, taking the poster from the attendant and placing it in her storage space as it vanished in a blue light.

"You think this is a good idea?" I asked as we exited the Association building and walked along the side of the road.

"Who knows?" she said, turning to me. "But would you be able to sleep well knowing that people are being killed or worse?"

"Of course not," I replied, thinking back to the time when my mother told me something.

[Do not even hurt an ant if you can. Only those who happen to be harmed by accidents and natural causes would be forgiven. Those who inflict pain upon others knowingly and willingly—karma will always find them.]

The message was something I would never forget, 'I will try to follow that code for as long as I can, maa' I promised myself.

"So, how are we doing this?"

"Let us go there first. The northern part of Blumund has been the entrance to that road for decades," she said as she turned to me once again.

"Well, lead the way," I replied, nodding with a small smile. She nodded and began walking ahead of me toward the north.

I quickly caught up, and we walked together toward the northern entrance.

"Here we are," she said as we reached a point where the road stopped. From here on out, it was just ground without any useful decorations that are roads.

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I've decided against the time skip this early. I'm going to expand and slowly ease into the story rather than rush like in the first rewrite. Also, I have a question for you all:

Who should be the romantic interest this time? I'm getting bored with writing Shizue and Karna; it's been two times in a row. So I'm open to suggestions this time. Keep in mind, only one lead will be selected. Like the images if you want to support a character.

Elmesia El Ru Sarion.

Luminous Valentine.

Velzard.

Velgrynd.