Reincarnator RB Dragons 2, ch 1

Kevin had a lot on his mind as he traveled unfamiliar roads. It felt strange, in retrospect, that he had spent so much effort trying to stay ahead of his cousin Lydia. After traveling together for a time and quickly becoming better friends than before, he felt her absence keenly now. Of course, part of it was that his cousin was a dragon, and he'd just been attacked by a powerful demon. 

Being solo was feeling a little bit more vulnerable than before.

He hadn't expected to feel this way again, especially not in this life when he'd believed that he could take care of himself after leaving his parents' cave. Definitely not after learning spirit magic in Clearmine.

Kevin studied an artifact as he sat next to his camp fire.  The device was a notebook of sorts, one linked to his master’s master tome of alchemy knowledge.  He wondered whether he could have used it to send a message to Alariel, his master.  It would be awfully convenient if he could, and then Lydia would not have had to leave.

However, unlike a smartphone, he couldn't just freehand messages in the journal. It seemed to have some sort of strict methodology magically encoded into it. That was probably how the device kept power requirements down.

Now that Kevin understood magical devices better, he also understood why so many had such a narrow focus. The limited scope was to keep power usage down, especially for a tool like this that communicated with other associated devices over long distances. 

He put the artifact away and looked at the crude map that he'd bought in Clearmine. Based on his understanding of the geography, he had at least several more days until he'd reach the nearby goblin country, Tallridge Hollow. This far east, the boundaries between countries were somewhat nebulous to begin with, and there were more unclaimed spaces than in the west of the continent.

From the forest on the right, a fairy came to a graceful stop above a rotten tree stump before lightly dropping to his feet. The little man, hand to the hilt of his makeshift sword, said, "All clear, boss." Kevin nodded in acknowledgment and glanced over at his impulsive, unlikely friend. 

Branch looked the same as always, basically a small Ken-doll-sized man with two sets of dragonfly-looking wings. He wore natural-looking clothing, almost like it was grown rather than sewn. It was hard to tell because he was so small, and Kevin wasn't the greatest judge of such things anyway, but Branch was probably very handsome by human standards. He also wore a crude but effective sword at his waist that Kevin had made for him. It was fashioned out of steel, the iron of which was deadly poison to fairies. However, the grip was covered for Branch's safety, and the eccentric fairy was willing to accept the risk of wearing the weapon. In fact, he treasured the handmade little sword with a devotion that Kevin thought bordered on the fanatical sometimes. He’d caught Branch just admiring the steel or waving it around by himself when he thought nobody was looking.

Branch lowered himself to a cross-legged seated position and said, "I do not like the dark very much, but it is not difficult for me to stay awake. If you would like to sleep, I would not mind making sure you stay safe."

"Thanks, Branch," said Kevin. He smiled ruefully. Not for the first time, he felt a little guilty for feeling so cold towards Branch after first meeting him. The fairy had truly become one of the best friends he'd ever had. 

He knew that Branch had noticed Kevin's change in mood since his fight with Historia, the demon. Kevin hadn't opened up about why he was melancholy beyond the obvious—almost dying after being hunted down by a powerful extra-planar demon, or watching his cousin get pulled into the violence and almost die while protecting him. The truth was, now Kevin was forced to remember one of his past lives that he had tried to forget. But that was something he was not planning on telling Branch now. Actually, maybe never. When Kevin saw his parents again, he might tell them. But they were the only people he could ever imagine confiding in about the worst time of his existence.

Kevin said, "Actually, I think I'm going to sleep in the tree."

Branch cocked his head briefly before nodding. "Ah, like when I first met you?"

"That's right," said Kevin. Then, without further ado, he pushed his pack up against one of the trees near the campsite before moving to a different tree, polymorphing into chipmunk form and scurrying up until he found a good place to rest. His polymorph wouldn't last forever, but it should be enough for him to sleep until dawn.  The less he moved, the less energy his polymorphs took, and he’d noticed he was getting more skilled at it.

Branch hovered up next to the branch where Kevin was curled up and said, "I'll keep an eye out, boss. Don't worry. I'll be the best guard." He patted the scabbard of his little steel needle sword and puffed out his chest with pride. "Just sleep, boss." Then Branch zipped over to a different tree.

Kevin smiled before he drifted off and thought again about what a great friend Branch had been. But for what felt like the thousandth time, he wondered if he had the right to drag anyone else into his life when he had a demonic hit out on him. If his association got any of his friends or family killed, would he be able to live with himself? That was the last thing on Kevin's mind before he fell asleep, lapsing into restless dreams.

***

After Kevin woke the next day, he got a bittersweet surprise. Branch wasted no time at all in breaking the news.

"Hey, boss, I need to tell you something. Last night, one of the Night Fae found me and told me that I got summoned for a chat."

"A chat?" asked Kevin.

"Yes, a chat. Remember I told you before that I was part of the Fairy Conclave? Well, sometimes we have meetings and everyone has to attend. That means I need to go back for a while. It's going to be very, very boring. I am not happy."

Kevin wasn't sure exactly what to say, so he went with the tried and true, "Well, I'm sorry to hear that."

Branch nodded seriously before breaking out in a bright smile. "I'm sorry I have to leave because I can tell that you're very sad. You have had a sad face ever since Lydia left. But I am a little excited about meeting with the elders. I doubt any other fairy is going to have as beautiful of a sword as I do." He pointed at the weapon that Kevin had crafted for him. "In fact, most other fairies probably won't be armed at all! To be honest, the other fairies already think I’m weird, this will make it worse.  But there are no weapon rules, so they can't tell me to take it off!" He crossed his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow. "It's a good thing that I like attention because I'm probably going to get a lot of it."

"Well, I guess that's good," said Kevin. "So, when are you leaving?"

"Right now," said Branch. "I'll find you when I'm done."

Then, just as suddenly as he brought up the subject, Branch shot straight up, leaving the canopy of the forest above and was almost instantly gone.

"Well, that just happened," said Kevin. And now, for the first time since he'd first left his parents' cave, he was alone again in this life. Thinking about it, he hadn't actually spent that long on his own in this world before meeting Branch. Almost immediately, he felt surprisingly lonely.

However, although not having Branch around would be inconvenient and make it much more difficult to find any unique or powerful monsters to hunt, he was glad that his friend wouldn't get pulled into any other life-threatening situations, at least for now.

Kevin returned to the road where he began to walk towards Tallridge Hollow again. It was ironic, being that he was in the most wild area of the continent and approaching the goblin country. But these roads were relatively safe for travelers, or at least so he'd been told. He thought there was something ironic about that.

There just wasn’t usually enough around this area for thieves to care about, since the carts from Clearmine took different paths.  This one was too rough.  And since so few people traveled this road, monsters had no reason to check for snacks.

This forest was different than the pine trees near the mountains where Kevin had grown up with his parents. Plants and vegetation didn't usually interest him all that much, but he found his eyes drawn to unfamiliar leaves and stems as he pondered his current mission.  A number of complications had cropped up since he'd left home. 

There really wasn’t any escaping from the fact that he was a target now, and mighty become more of one.  However, he wasn't a martyr, and Kevin didn't fancy the idea of staying alone and friendless the rest of his life.

So, he really had a few options for resolving his mark by demonic forces. He needed to stop incursions by murderous demons to this plan, or verify that they wouldn't happen anymore. The other option was to get strong enough that it wouldn't matter who or what came after him. Of course, either option would require gathering information or getting stronger, maybe both.

Kevin pulled up his status sheet and looked over all of his current skills and abilities. What he'd felt so proud of before, and what seemed so powerful to him, now felt distinctly lacking after fighting with Historia. If not for his werewolf form, there was little uncertainty that he and his cousin Lydia would have been killed by the ruthless demon. Kevin absently folded his arms and tapped one clawed finger against his skin as he thought.

There were two obvious paths to more power.  One was to consume more special monster flesh in order to get new abilities or to strengthen the ones that he had. He could remember when he'd gotten [Werewolf Constitution] and had transformed it into [Beastly Constitution]. 

His past experiences would suggest that no matter what skills or abilities he got from consuming monsters, they would benefit him regardless of what they were. However, finding the monsters in the first place was difficult. The abilities that he was rewarded with always seemed somewhat random, and there was also no guarantee that he would even be able to defeat any monster he found by himself. 

Hunting monsters for more power had been a much safer thing to do when Lydia had still been with him.

His second obvious path to more power was training in magic. For now, this was probably the most logical direction to take.  If a powerful or unique monster were to fall in his lap or attack him, he definitely wouldn't turn down the opportunity for another ability, but searching for them was probably not the best use of his time now without Lydia or Branch.

Although Max had never had magic of his own over multiple lifetimes, he did have experience controlling the divine magic that he channeled as a cleric of Morrigan. He'd also spent a great deal of time and energy studying magic theory. So Kevin knew exactly what he needed to do, and that was lots and lots of practice. He needed to develop finer control. It didn't feel this way to him now, but he knew intellectually that all of his spells were likely extremely clumsy and inefficient.

There was a problem, though: Kevin was not an elemental mage. He couldn’t practice just by playing with fire or water like some mages could.  No, he needed living things, or undead things for that matter, to attack or to target with his offensive magic. On top of that, these spells took a great deal of mana, far too much for the training that Kevin envisioned over the next few days of travel. 

But control was control.  He figured that he could focus on animal conversation. But being an armed goblin didn't exactly attract the nearby wildlife. The only kind of interest he might get would be from hungry monsters.

Time to leave the road, I guess, he thought. Then Kevin polymorphed into a chipmunk and scurried off into the forest to one side. There were some inherent dangers with staying polymorphed as a chipmunk, but he still got the benefits of all of the monster abilities he'd absorbed. So, he was less worried now about a hungry hawk ambushing him than he had been at the start of his journey.

Time to find some animals to talk to, he thought.