Story concept - Transcendent cooldown

Author's note:

Hey there! I had a flash of inspiration one day and wrote a very long first chapter for a new story. Unfortunately, as things go, I immediately got stuck afterwards, and I don't think I'll be continuing it. So I'll at least put up what I had so far.

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Chapter 1 - I’m the winner!

Dragons were cool.

And me? I was the coolest dragon of them all now! After months of preparation and practice, I finally managed to qualify for this year’s Christmas tournament and won! Sure, maybe the semi-finale was kind of a lucky win, but other than that, my skills and hard work were what got me the title!

Frost Dragon Empress.

I grinned at my screen showing off my cool dragon girl avatar with the unique title written in an icy crystal blue text above her head.

Long dark blue hair, light blue pointed horns, chilling gaze, and blue markings on her face. Mature yet still young-looking. I still remembered the night I spent intricately designing her battle dress to be both gorgeous and intimidating in combination with her wings. Truly magnificent.

And now that I finally figured out that little truth about myself, I didn’t need to constantly be jealous of my own avatar. Heck, maybe I could even cosplay as her one day!

Heh, what a thought.

I finally noticed a little letter symbol with the number 99 displayed over it in the corner of my screen.

Riiight, I had been a tad too excited all by myself and completely forgot people were probably making a huge deal about my win by now.

I opened up the private message screen and scrolled through all the congratz from my friends and guild members. Even the second-place guy congratulated me! That was always nice when people were a good sport.

Several people also messaged me about the wiki being updated with my name as the current holder of the unique title. I immediately checked it and my grin got even wider. Even though it was just a game, as some people loved to say, I felt like I had etched my name into history. Sure, I would probably lose the title next year, but dammit I was going to enjoy it while it lasted!

Seeing the number of private messages still capped at 99 even after reading through a couple dozen of them, I decided to put that on hold, and enjoy the other reward for winning. The access to the cave of myths, where only the four Dragon Emperors and Empresses could enter.

I lifted my avatar off the ground with her wings and set off for the cave at my lowest speed, letting all the spectators follow me if they wanted to. It wasn’t too far from the tournament arena. Probably intentionally placed like that by the devs.

Once we arrived, I landed and walked up to the giant gate inside the mountain with a barrier protecting it. Normally, if you tried to click it, it would lash out, damage you for half your current health, and tell you to screw off. Or, well, it had been like that the first hour of it being released, before it had been quickly patched to simply say that you aren’t worthy and only dealing a few points of damage.

I had always wondered if whatever dev put that in got fired for it.

Without any further ado, I clicked the gate, and for the first time ever, the seal didn’t push me away as unworthy, and instead prompted the gate to open.

The hordes of people following me tried to get in but were pushed away by the still-present barrier. The only one who was let through was me… as well as the other three Emperors who probably also watched me win the tournament.

“Hey, congratz! I’ve been watching the streams! The final battle was epic!” said the current Flame dragon empress.

I knew her. Everyone did. She was a popular Vtuber and a streamer. And also somehow a pro gamer. I still remembered her win at the summer tournament.

“Thanks!” I answered.

“Hello.”and “Hi.” came from the two others.

I replied with the same “Hi.”

Other than that little greeting, the two remained silent as we made our way through the ominous corridor inside the mountain. The only one to keep talking was the Flame Empress.

“Hey, what would you say about being a guest on one of my streams as a fellow Dragon Empress? We could go raiding together! I’m sure people would love that!”

Ever the ball of enthusiasm.

“Sounds fun. I’ll think about it,” I replied.

“Great! Let me just add you…”

I heard a little ding as a friend request appeared in my chat box. I accepted it with a click, and then asked, “By the way. I’ve read the wiki, but there wasn’t much about this place. What’s inside?”

“Nothing much, to be honest. Just four thrones for us, and an NPC who keeps saying mysterious nonsense. Probably some lore stuff, but I never cared about lore much.”

Huh. So the wiki wasn’t incomplete at all.

“Anyway! The old Frost Emperor was kind of an ass, so I’m glad the new one is a girl! Go go, girl power!”

My grin got even wider and I felt the odd sensation of butterflies in my stomach just for being called a girl.

I replied with a smiley face.

The Earth Emperor sent a rolling eyes emoji for being the only guy among us.

A moment later, we arrived at a circular room. Just as she had said, there were four thrones surrounding a giant table, and a man with graying hair and long beard dressed in brown priest robes standing nearby.

The thrones were all styled after the four emperors. Green, and earthly brown, covered in vines for the Earth Emperor. Radiant orange, glowing like magma, for the Flame Empress. Half-transparent yellow one with flashes of currents buzzing through it for the Storm Empress. And finally, the ice blue one with stylised icicles growing out of it for the Frost Empress…

For me!

I clicked the throne to sit on it only barely managing to contain my glee. I watched as my avatar approached the throne and sat on it using what must have been a unique animation. The other three followed suit and sat on their thrones as well.

Once we sat down, the old man NPC began to speak.

“I welcome you, great Dragon Emperors. And congratulations on your crowning, new Frost Dragon Empress.”

Special dialogue just for me!

“My name is Grimm. I have the duty as the high priest of dragons, as well as a guide for new Emperors. As you know, your duty as the Dragon Emperors is to protect this world from dangers.”

Right, there was some lore thing about that.

“The demons have been flooding into our lands through the dimensional cracks for decades, but I’m afraid it’s about to get worse.”

Ah yes, the convenient explanation for why monsters respawned. They all just happened to periodically get replaced by identical demons coming in through the cracks. Again and again. Forever.

“Worse? Oooh, is this some kind of prelude to a new raid?” the Flame empress interrupted.

The old man ignored her and continued, “The demons have found a new avenue. Not into our world, but into another one. A world tightly connected to ours. If it’s in danger, then our world is in danger as well.”

Huh, another world shenanigans? Interesting. The devs must have been trying to come up with a new plot line after the old one had ended back in Halloween.

“This situation is unprecedented, but I’m afraid there are no other options. Would you be willing to reincarnate to the other world and protect it from the incoming dangers?”

Hmm… A hidden quest? Odd, there was no pop-up to accept the quest.

The four of us looked at each other.

“Well I dunno about you guys, but I’m totally in. Going to save another world sounds wild!” the Flame empress said. “Also, I wonder what this reincarnation is about.”

“There’s… no quest screen though?” the Storm Empress said.

“Probably forgot to code it in or something. I mean, it is a quest only meant for four people,” the Earth Emperor replied.

“I doubt it’s meant just for us,” I interrupted. “I mean, why would they spend dev time to make content meant only for four people? Makes no sense.”

“Oh, you’re right. Hmmm, then I guess we’ll have other people join us at some point?” The Flame empress sent a thinking emoji. “Oh! I get it! I bet this is some kind of factions event, and we will lead the four factions and people will join us or something!”

“Wouldn’t that mean we would go against each other…? I thought we were supposed to save the world together. Well, either way, I’m in. It would be kinda embarrassing for the devs if we just declined.” I added a cry laughing emoji after saying that.

“Yeah, I’m in too,” the Earth Emperor said.

“Me too,” the Storm Empress agreed.

“Thank you, Dragon Emperors.” The NPC walked closer to the central table and splayed his arms in the air before a beam of light appeared on top of it.

“The demons have not yet broken through the dimensional veil, but it will happen soon. Two days from now is my estimation. Worry not though, you should have enough time to get used to the new world, grow, and prepare for the inevitable.”

The beam of light gradually subsided and turned into a shimmering circle on top of the table.

“Whenever you are ready, please step into the circle and I will perform the reincarnation magic.”

I yawned. In real life.

Dang, the adrenaline from winning the tournament must have been wearing off. I should probably go to sleep after checking out what this was about.

I made my avatar stand up, fluttered her wings and landed on top of the giant glowing table. The others did the same.

“I will now begin the reincarnation spell. Please hold on.”

The old man began glowing as well and I could only feel my eyes in real life getting heavier and heavier. Part of me wanted him to hurry the heck up so I could go to sleep.

Finally, as the old man finished his spell, he shouted, “Good luck!”

A moment later, I blacked out.

—

Waking up felt odd. I was groggy and dazed and my eyes refused to open even as I groaned and shifted my body.

For some reason, I was in a fetal position. And even though I basically never slept like that, it felt comforting at the moment. I felt like something warm was hugging me from all sides. It felt nice.

I dozed off again.

—

When I woke up for the second time, my mind began to catch up with what had happened. The tournament, the cave of the myths, the special quest… and then I’d just gone ahead and passed out right before the big reveal.

I groaned to myself even as my eyelids finally parted. I was greeted by nothing but darkness.

Damn, had I woken up in the middle of the night again? My sleep schedule was seriously messed up at this point.

I tried to move, and stretch, but the soft surroundings kept me nicely tucked in. Rather than getting up, I agreed with the softness and decided to sleep for a little longer.

But then, an odd thought struck me. I fell asleep at my computer. On top of that, I lived alone. There would be nobody to tuck me into bed after I’d fallen asleep. My floor wasn’t anywhere as soft as the thing surrounding me right now.

Curious and a bit confused, I tried stretching and looking around again. The surroundings gently pushed me back, and I still couldn’t see anything but more darkness.

This time, I didn’t let that force me back into sleep and pushed harder. It kept resisting, but I didn’t let up anymore. I kept on pushing and pushing…

And then it cracked.

Wait, cracked?

Finally somewhat free to move, I stretched out and poked my head into the space where I heard the crack.

My eyes widened and my jaw dropped. There was a literal crack in the dark soft… space I was in. And beyond that crack… a white wasteland. Ice and snow as far as the eye could see.

“What… in the…”

My eyes widened again as I heard my voice. It was way more feminine and child-like than my voice should have been.

I touched my throat with my hands and found my Adam's apple missing. To top it off, the skin on both my hands and my neck felt… not like skin.

I stood up completely through the crack and glanced at my hands. There were subtle blue scales covering them.

“W-w-what is this?!” I said in the young girl's voice again.

I felt a wave of panic rising in me.

I looked around in a hurry.

Snow, snow, more snow, a mountain, or rather, an iceberg the size of a mountain.

Then I looked down and behind me, at the ‘dark room’ I was still standing in. It was a smooth cyan ball with its only feature being the crack I was poking out of.

No. Not a ball. This thing was…

“An egg.”

Reincarnated in another world.

“O-oh my f-fucking g-g–”

I blacked out again.

—

Upon waking up for the third time, I was lying on something gravelly. Sand, or dirt… or… or snow. My eyes shot open and spotted the pure whiteness I was laying on. I sat up in an instant and looked around with widened eyes.

Still the same white wasteland.

I looked at my hands.

Still scaly… and much smaller and more delicate than I remembered now that I looked closer.

I stayed like this for a good few seconds. And then, my mouth turned into a grin, and then I began laughing like a maniac.

“Reincarnated into another world! Awesome! Why didn’t you say it wasn’t just a game quest, you stupid old man! As if some random dumbass NPC could just reincarnate people on a whim!” I roared out, while standing up.

“Stupid asshole! Give me some warning next time!”

I turned around with my fist clenched and smashed it into the egg I woke up in. The poor shell stood no chance and shattered in an ear-splitting impact. The shards peppered the wasteland behind it even as I took deep breaths, trying to calm myself down.

I dropped to my knees with a sigh.

My eyes caught the sight of my still-scaly arms. And more importantly, my completely pristine uninjured fist that had just shattered the infamously tough dragon eggshell.

I groaned to myself and scuttled to the side of the egg I didn’t obliterate. I wiped the snow off of it and took in my reflection in the perfectly smooth eggshell.

It was… not quite what I thought. I was Mira, my in-game character, yes. But also… I wasn’t. It was as if I was a much younger version of Mira. Just a kid. Why the heck…

Reincarnated in another world.

Reincarnated… implying being reborn.

Oh.

Well, at least I wasn’t a toddler. That was… something, I supposed.

I sighed again. My gaze lingered on my scaled hands as I made fists with them and loosened them again.

…

Maybe if I went to sleep again, I would wake up splayed out in front of my computer like normal?

…

Probably not. This didn’t feel like a dream at all. You could never see intricate details in your dreams. Like the snow, the scales on my arms, the… everything.

This wasn’t a dream.

I let my hands drop, before I brought my knees closer to me and hugged them.

I wasn’t getting out of this one. After all… I agreed to it. Yeah, the stupid old man clearly laid it all out in front of us, and yet I blindly agreed without thinking. That was all on me. Was this how people felt when the FBI came knocking on their doors after agreeing to some software agreement forms without reading them?

I poked my head up and placed it on my knees while still hugging them. I stared at my reflection. The young girl’s face with blue hair and small horns stared back.

I used to dream of this. Of one day waking up as Mira rather than my old self. But I had already grown out of that phase… Now I just wanted to transition normally. Not through… magical dragon reincarnation. It felt like cheating. It felt undeserved.

I sighed once again.

“Well, there you go. Your dream came true, idiot,” I told my reflection.

I sat like that for a good while, trying to unscramble my thoughts. Several minutes later, I let out yet another sigh, this time, one of acceptance.

Alright.

I stood up, dusting the snow off of myself… Before finally realizing that I was a naked child in the middle of an ice and snow wasteland and I didn’t feel cold at all.

Well, if I still had doubts about me being Mira, that would get rid of them. Mira was a frost dragon with maxed cold resistance, so obviously, something like this wouldn’t bother her at all.

Uh, wouldn’t bother me at all.

Jeez, after I spent all that time trying to separate my own identity from my avatar’s… There go months of therapy sessions down the drain.

“Okay!” I slapped my cheeks to get myself back on track.

First things first. I was in the middle of some icy wasteland. Not great, but as the great Frost Dragon Empress, the cold never bothered me anyway. And I could probably catch some fish to not starve. Although I really wasn’t too keen on eating raw fish… That was still a bit too disgusting to me. I had to find a way to cook them… If only I could borrow fire breath from the Flame empress for a bit. Ugh.

Anyway, speaking of which, I should search for the other three. Assuming the old man actually sent all four of us, they should be somewhere around here… Or at least somewhere in this world.

Hmm…

I looked at my hand again and remembered the little animation that played when using the search spell in the game.

“Will this…”

I snapped my fingers.

Nothing happened.

“... no it won’t.”

I remembered that even the simple search skill still cost a tiny bit of mana to cast. In other words, while a normal snap wouldn’t do anything, a mana-fueled one might.

“Now how the hell do I channel mana?!”

The game made it simple. Just press a button to cast a spell of your choosing. Mana automatically spent for you. But here in reality? There were no buttons! No shortcut keys! No UI! No menu! Nothing!

No, really. I tried for a good few minutes to conjure up some kind of UI like I had seen in so many litRPG stories, but it just didn’t exist. No tutorials or guides from the internet either. I had to figure out everything on my own.

Well, I wouldn’t be one of the top players if I needed guides for everything anyway.

With that thought, I got to work.

I spent probably about an hour sitting in the snow cross-legged, snapping my fingers, trying to do more than look like I was listening to some non-existent beat.

It paid off.

“Whoa?!”

The last snap flashed. Not in visible light, but still in some kind of spectrum I could see.

I tried to replicate it, do whatever I’d done differently that time. It took me three more tries to get that flash again. I was getting the hang of it.

“Okay, got it. So this is… mana?” I asked myself.

I tried to channel more of what I supposed was mana and snapped again.

My eyes lit up.

A shockwave traveled from my fingers in all directions and faded seventy meters and thirty-five centimeters away from me. I knew it exactly, because I had succeeded. I had cast the search spell.

But it was nothing like in the game. I didn’t just get a convenient map drawn for me in the corner of my screen with flashing dots to indicate enemies. No, it just flooded my brain with information. All the information.

Even though the icy terrain didn’t seem all that varied at first glance, the search spell had shown me just how many little gaps and imperfections there were.

How had my brain not exploded from all that? Jeez.

…

And more importantly, how far could I take it?

Testing fate, I once again gathered up mana, more than before, and snapped again.

My answer was another information overload. This time, the shockwave reached three hundred thirty-two meters and seventy-one centimeters.

My brain was still fine, still chilling in my head without any signs of wanting to implode on me.

I could take this further.

In the game, there was only one button for the search spell. Just one static setting. In reality, though, I could adjust its power with the amount of mana I used.

A poured a ton more mana into my next attempt and snapped.

The shockwave traveled way way further than before. Reaching all the way beyond the white wasteland – which turned out to be an entire continent – and out into the oceans. I could even tell the curvature of the planet with it.

Wait, curvature? This world was a sphere? Huh, I guess since Earth was one, it shouldn’t surprise me. Nobody had ever specified whether the game world was a sphere.

Unfortunately, the search spell stopped at two thousand three-hundred fifty meters away from me, and didn’t reach anything beyond the oceans.

…

“Dammit.”

It was ridiculous. There was barely anything in this desolate place. Sure, I’d found some small settlements with signs of life here and there, but I couldn’t even quite tell what these living things were. Were they animals? Humans? Demons? I had no idea.

Worst of all, I had no way of telling whether any of them was one of the other Dragon Emperors. Were they on this desolate iceberg with me? Or were they all on the other side of the planet? I couldn’t tell. But I refused to believe this stupid oversized piece of ice was all there was to this world.

With a sigh, I steeled myself once again. Despite already feeling a bit exhausted from the previous search spell, I poured every little bit of mana I could into my fingers, and focused on one last gigantic search spell.

Snap.

Even as I fell to the ground from exhausting myself, I closed my eyes and focused myself on the shockwave feeding me all the information. It passed through all the terrain I had already scanned previously, out into the oceans and beyond.

Finally, after way too long of a distance, the spell uncovered solid ground. Not icy, from what I could tell.

It kept going, showing it to be a huge landmass, possibly a continent. It also uncovered a smaller island next to it. It kept going and found another continent in a different direction. Then a cluster of islands with one huge island in the middle in another direction. Then…

“Wait…” I murmured.

Rather than taking in all the tiny details, I focused on the bigger picture.

As the search spell kept expanding, engulfing the entire planet, I felt a chill go down my spine despite being immune to cold.

And then, when the spell finished scanning the entire globe, I still couldn’t believe it. I simply kept staring at the featureless cold sky, my eyes and mouth open in shock.

A good minute or two of disbelief later, I breathed in the cold air around me and yelled out “Another world my aaaaass! Why the hell am I on Earth?!”

I breathed in again.

“And why in Antarctica?!”

Chapter 2 - I’m tired!

I sat on the snow with both my arms and legs crossed as I glared at the remains of my comfy birthplace.

Earth.

Antarctica.

I growled to myself.

Despite being a Frost Dragon, I wasn’t exactly a fan of this place. Barren white nothingness in all directions wasn’t exciting for anyone, after all.

But in a weird way, it made sense. This was the safest place for me to hatch. No idea how my egg appeared here, but if it were somewhere closer to civilization, people would probably discover it, take it to the lab, and do all sorts of nasty tests. Maybe even before I hatched!

Jeez, just imagining plopping out in the middle of a lab and then having dozens of scientists watching me have that panic attack…

Ugh… Good thing nobody had seen that.

But still, what was I supposed to do? Weren’t we supposed to be saving another world? Was this just a very convincing copy of Earth? A parallel universe Earth with monsters or superpowers?

…

No. This also made sense in a very twisted way.

From the old man’s perspective, the game world was his world and Earth was another world.

“What did he say…?”

I tried remembering the exact wording.

‘Another world, tightly connected to ours. If it’s in danger, then our world is in danger as well.’

…

Of course. If Earth was invaded by demons and destroyed, then the game world would be destroyed as well, since it existed within this one.

“Ah, shit…”

It all made sense. I didn’t want it to make sense, but it did. Earth was the other world we were supposed to be saving from interdimensional demons. This wasn’t a fun adventure in another world, this was actually fighting to defend our home world.

“Fuck me…”

The old man had said… two days until the demons breached the veil or whatever. So I had two days to prepare myself and find the others to regroup before it went down.

Great.

And it might even be way less than that. How long had I spent sleeping? Had it already been two days? Were demons going to suddenly appear and jump me while I was still trying to figure things out?

Worst of all, I couldn’t even use the sun to track time. I was near the pole, so the entire day and night cycle was messed up. From what I remembered, the sun could stay up for weeks or even months here. No reliable twenty-four hour cycle to track time.

I sat still for a minute, mulling over it.

Then I remembered the game featured a real-time clock if you enabled it in the UI settings. Did that somehow translate into reality now? Did I have the ability to magically tell the exact time? Or was it just a quality of life feature of a game?

That would have been amazing… But I had no way to know. No way to even begin trying to figure it out. With the search spell, I could at least try imitating the animation, but with this… I just couldn’t tell time at all, so how was I supposed to magically do it now?

Yeah, that idea was clearly a dead end. I gave up on trying to magic out the exact time and hoped I still had those two days as promised.

Still, there was so much I didn’t know. It made me anxious.

In the game, the demons spawned endlessly. Obviously. If they didn’t, players would wipe them all out and then would have nothing to do. It made sense.

But having that in reality? Would I have to fight endlessly without rest? Forever? What was the end goal? Could the cracks in spacetime or whatever be sealed off again somehow?

I gave a shuddering sigh.

I needed to find the others. Mulling over all this by myself just made me more and more anxious. I needed a second opinion. And… allies.

Unfortunately, during the search, I was too focused on the fact that this was Earth to keep an eye out for anyone resembling a newly hatched dragon like me. And right now, I had nowhere near enough mana to use such a huge scale spell again.

Well, great.

In other words, I was alone, and only had two days to learn how to fight in real life rather than just pressing buttons and clicking my mouse.

…

I wanted to go home…

Ugh…

I shook off my cowardly thoughts and focused on the present. Before anything else, I needed to move from this place. Whether to catch fish or to meet people living in this wasteland, I had to find the coastline.

With that, I said goodbye to my half-annihilated egg and set off.

Just so I would have something to do, I tried to tap into spells or other techniques I could use against the demons.

First, I had my fists. They didn’t look like much, but the infamously hard dragon eggshell agreed that they were capable. Unfortunately, melee combat wasn’t always a viable strategy.

So, next up, spells. I could already somewhat control mana, and even cast a very simple spell… albeit on a ridiculous scale. That wouldn’t do much good for me though, since that little stunt drained nearly all the mana I had.

That meant I was left with only one option at the moment, Dragon’s breath.

As a Frost Dragon, I had a special racial skill that allowed my breath to chill and freeze my targets. And rather than using mana, this skill was on a seven second cooldown.

Now… How the hell could I breathe ice in real life?

Just like with the finger snapping, I began trying to breathe in various ways, probably making myself look like an asthmatic.

Since this move didn’t use any mana, I couldn’t just shove mana in various places in my stomach and expect a miracle to happen. Not that I had the mana to do that anyway.

After what felt like hours of walking while trying to get the stupid breath out, I was getting frustrated. No matter how I flexed my stomach muscles, no matter how I shaped my mouth, nothing worked.

“Come on! Arrrrgh!” I roared in frustration.

And then, when I opened my eyes, I saw a cloud of dusty ice dissipating in front of me. Also, my stomach felt emptied somehow.

“Wha-”

Even as I stared at it, I felt my stomach filling up again. Seven seconds later, it felt topped up again.

“Seriously? So all I need to do is just shout very angrily? Like aaaaaargh?!” I roared again, this time without closing my eyes. The same cloud of ice escaped my mouth.

“So stupid! What the heck!” I shouted in anger. “Pfft.” Before immediately laughing at the absurdity.

Finally, something positive.

Now, I had a way to fight the demons other than just my tiny – albeit effective – fists.

Just as I was celebrating my breakthrough, a wave of something washed over me, and my attention snapped in the direction it came from, and then quickly in the direction it had apparently gone.

“The hell?”

It wasn’t a gust of wind or anything like that. No, it was more like… Mana…?

Someone was using mana around here?

Seriously?! Just because I had a way to fight demons now didn’t mean it had to be immediately!

My heart went into overdrive as I pulled my tiny fists in front of me and readied myself to face horrible demons who would inevitably come from behind the nearest hill.

But nobody came.

Come to think of it, the wave of mana seemed familiar… somehow. And that wave…

My eyes widened at the realization.

Somebody had used a large scale search spell just like I had! And sure, it could have been the demons, but a more likely explanation was… One of the other three.

I whipped my head in the direction it came from. If my sense of direction didn’t betray me just yet, that way lay… America. South? North? I couldn’t tell the distance, just the direction. But that didn’t matter to me. Knowing at least one of the others were here as well gave me hope.

…

But if they were on another continent, there was no way we would be able to meet up before the two day limit was up. I would still be alone to deal with any demons sent my way.

“Dammit…”

I was still alone in this wasteland.

—

Partway through my trek and I felt like I was gonna go insane. I had already figured out the dragon breath, and since I was low on mana, I couldn’t occupy myself with testing out magic.

I was alone with my thoughts. And that never ended well for me.

Luckily, a stray thought landed on one more distraction I could use for the time being.

I had wings, didn’t I?

A signature feature of any dragon, my beautiful blue scaly wings I had been ignoring up till now. Sure, I’d sort of registered that they were there but… It’d never occurred to me to actually use them for their intended purpose.

Flight.

I turned my head to look at them and tried flapping them as a test.

They flapped. Very awkwardly. And not even in sync.

Brilliant.

Well, at least I knew I could move them now. Whether I could fly was an entirely different matter. It wouldn’t hurt to try though, would it?

I readied myself and flapped my wings again, this time managing to move them both in sync. The light flaps didn’t do anything but blow wind, so I began flapping faster and faster and faster and…

I lifted off the ground for a moment, lost balance, and face-planted the ground.

Ugh…

It’d hurt to try.

Well, not really. Even something like this didn’t affect me at all. Dragons sure were durable.

But anyway, it seemed like I first needed to go through a newborn-chick-who-is-learning-how-to-fly phase before I even considered using flight for transportation.

Damn.

Flying would have been cool.

I guess I couldn’t expect to be a master right away.

—

The trek continued. Since I spend all of my brain power on flying, I mastered it in no time. Or rather, I realized that I already had some built-in muscle memory for flight. All I had to do was stop trying to move these wings manually, and just let the autopilot drive.

And with that, I continued my trek in the air. Away from the depressing wasteland… into the even more depressing empty sky.

I had nothing to do with my thoughts once again.

—

I was tired.

Lying in the snow, looking at the featureless sky, I felt like sleeping. For five years. Not having to bother with this.

Why had I ever agreed to this? Stupid idiot past me. I could have just refused.

I continued grumbling to myself while roaring out ice when it was off cooldown until I got tired of doing even that.

I lay there for who knows how long, just staring at the sky. The absurdity of my situation finally began to settle in.

I wanted to go home.

I wasn’t cut out for this saving the world thing. I was good at playing games, pressing buttons to make my avatar move, all while hiding behind my screen in my comfy chair. Not fighting in real life.

In real life, I was a pathetic coward. Heck, it had taken me years to finally face reality, and do something about it. And even that didn’t amount to much. I had always stayed away from anything even remotely dangerous-looking.

Even after months, I still hadn’t come out to my parents for crying out loud! That was how much of a coward I was!

…

Why me? Why send whoever won a gaming tournament to save the world? It made no sense. Why not send an actual hero? Someone more courageous and determined than me? Someone who wouldn’t end up curled up in a puft of snow, whining about her situation barely a day in?!

Stupid old man! “Raaaargh!”

Even as my icy breath dissipated above me, I could feel tears flowing down my cheeks.

That night, like so many others back in the day, I cried myself to sleep.