Starting out as a Dragon Slave

The afternoon crept forward with unwavering slowness, wrapping the city in a blanket of gray melancholy. The sky, once a brilliant blue, had donned a veil of ash-toned clouds, filtering the sunlight into a diffuse, ghostly glow. It was as if the world itself sensed an impending change, bracing for the inevitable.

Isaac sat on the edge of his bed, his back slightly hunched beneath the invisible weight of memory. His fingers absentmindedly traced the rough texture of the blanket as his gaze lost somewhere between here and nowhere watched the patterns the light cast through the half-closed shutters. Geometric lines sprawled across the floor, shifting silently, reminding him that even the sharpest shadows eventually blurred into darkness.

A shiver ran down his neck, and he couldn’t tell whether it came from the cool breeze sneaking in through the window or from the relentless waiting. Hours had passed like a broken hourglass sometimes tumbling in rapid grains, sometimes trickling so slowly it felt frozen. Isaac drifted between two states: a nervous tension that clenched his muscles at the slightest noise, and a cold, almost surgical detachment that severed thought from emotion. He knew this state. He had lived it before, on missions—when fear distills into razor-sharp clarity.

Lazare Korr’s words still echoed in his mind, weaving themselves into the traumatic images he kept trying to push away. He will come back, Isaac thought, closing his eyes for a moment. He’ll return, and everything will start again. A new cycle.In his clenched fist, he felt the edge of his hunter ID tag the one he’d nearly thrown away after the massacre. A simple engraved piece of metal, now heavy as a whole world.

Even his own breathing sounded foreign in the silence of the room, a constant reminder that he was still here, still alive, when so many others were not. The faces of his comrades passed through him like blades. Not the mangled corpses he’d seen in the dungeon but their faces before. Smiling. Confident. Laughing around a campfire.

The shrill chime of the doorbell tore through his thoughts like a knife.

Isaac flinched, muscles tensed, then checked the time: 2:12 PM sharp. Lazare Korr, punctual to a fault. A trait some admired, one Isaac now found almost cruel. As if even time itself bowed to the will of that man.

There was no voice from downstairs this time. Léa had locked herself in a wall of silence since their argument that morning. He had heard the harsh slam of the kitchen door, then nothing only the occasional clatter of utensils being used with a bit more force than necessary. She didn’t understand. She couldn’t understand.

Rising with deliberate slowness, Isaac smoothed down the fabric of his dark shirt. He passed by the mirror without looking, avoiding his own reflection like one avoids a suspicious stranger. His footsteps echoed on the wooden staircase, each creaking step ticking away the seconds of some unseen countdown.

When his hand landed on the cold handle of the front door, he took a deep breath, summoning what little calm remained within him. The metal turned smoothly, offering no resistance—an invitation from fate itself.

Lazare Korr stood on the doorstep, just as he had that morning, but his appearance had changed. He now wore a long, dark coat with barely perceptible metallic sheens, fastened with discreet silver clasps. The high collar framed a face of noble lines, enhancing the depth of his gaze. A gray silk scarf, tied with effortless elegance, completed the look.This time, Isaac noticed the details he had missed earlier: the thin scar cutting across Lazare’s right eyebrow, the ring bearing a glowing rune on his left pinky, and the way he stood slightly off-center, as if ready to dodge an attack at any moment. A reflex honed through years of constant danger.

- "Are you ready?" Lazare asked, his voice calm, almost melodic in its perfectly controlled neutrality.

Isaac nodded, feeling the stark contrast between the storm raging inside him and the calm façade he forced himself to project.— As much as I can be, he replied, his voice slightly hoarse from disuse.

The corners of Lazare’s lips twitched into what might have passed for a smile, if the expression had reached his eyes. But those eyes remained watchful, analytical eyes that had seen too much to ever surrender fully to something as simple as amusement.

— Good. We’ve got quite a way to go, he said, already turning away.

Isaac followed in silence, acutely aware that he was leaving behind not only his home, but a version of himself that would never return. Halfway down the walkway, he glanced back. Through the kitchen window, he caught a fleeting glimpse of Léa’s silhouette watching him, her face half-hidden behind a curtain. Their eyes met for a brief moment too short to be a farewell, too long to be an accident. Then she vanished into the shadows of the room.

A black sedan waited by the curb, its engine purring softly like the restrained growl of a predator. At first glance, it looked ordinary almost anonymous in its discreet elegance. But Isaac’s trained eye immediately spotted the telltale signs: the subtle drop in the chassis indicating built-in armor, the unnaturally thick tinted windows, the reinforced rims likely hiding bulletproof tires, and the faint bluish glimmers that shimmered across the paint under certain angles proof of high-grade magical enchantments.

"Government vehicle or high-ranking guild transport ", he mentally noted, quietly admiring the craftsmanship that balanced power and discretion so perfectly.

When Lazare opened the passenger door, Isaac was greeted by a sleek interior lined with dark leather and polished wood. The cabin smelled of new leather and a faint trace of ambergris a designer scent likely used to mask the metallic tang of embedded protective runes.

The soft thud of the doors closing echoed with unsettling finality, and the silence that followed felt almost supernatural too perfect, too complete to be the result of standard soundproofing. Isaac could sense the faint tingling of a sound-concealment spell making eavesdropping from outside impossible.

The car eased smoothly into motion, merging with traffic with deceptive ease. Lazare drove with a calculated precision neither too fast nor too slow, exactly at the pace needed to avoid drawing attention. His gloved hands held the wheel with relaxed control, but Isaac noticed the constant awareness in his gaze as he checked the mirrors at regular intervals.

They passed through the outer districts first familiar zones of modest apartment blocks and small shops where Isaac had spent most of his life. The streets blurred by like pages of a book being closed, each turn taking him further from what he knew. Slowly, the urban scenery began to shift. Old stone and worn concrete gave way to modern structures, aging neighborhoods transforming into gleaming steel and glass.

They were heading west toward the part of the city where business towers reached ambitiously toward the sky. Isaac watched the transformation in silence, noting how perfectly it mirrored his own transition from one world to another. The streets became wider, cleaner, more orderly. The pedestrians rarer, but more sharply dressed, their clothes signaling high social status.

The car turned onto a main artery and then veered into a district few ordinary hunters ever visited: the guild quarter. Even through the tinted windows, Isaac could feel the unique aura that permeated this part of the city a dense mixture of raw power, political influence, and concentrated mana.The architecture here was bolder, more symbolic, with each building proudly displaying the identity and strength of the guild it represented.

The silence that had reigned since the beginning of the drive was suddenly broken by Lazare’s composed voice, who observed Isaac from the corner of his eye without diverting his attention from the road.

— You don’t seem nervous, he remarked, his tone reflecting genuine curiosity rather than simple observation.

Isaac turned his head slightly, considering the comment before giving a slight shrug. A restrained, almost imperceptible gesture.

— I’ve been through worse, he replied simply, his voice devoid of any apparent emotion.

Lazare’s reaction was unexpected a brief, barely audible laugh, but a sincere one. The spontaneous sound felt almost out of place coming from a man so perfectly in control.

— I don’t doubt it, he said, a new glint in his eye. I read your file. You’re... atypical. Very little mana at first, but inconsistent performances and a few abnormal spikes. And now, you come out alive from a massacre that no other B-rank hunter survived.

Isaac felt a familiar tension rising within him that blend of alertness and caution that triggered whenever someone got too close to certain truths. His face remained impassive, but his fingers tightened slightly on his thigh.

— You mean... that I’m suspicious, he said not so much a question as an acknowledgment of the obvious.

— No, Lazare replied without hesitation, briefly turning away from the road to look directly at Isaac. I mean you’re interesting. And I like interesting things.

He paused, then added in a quieter voice:

— But it’s not just about statistics. You have something in your eyes that most people don’t.

This time, genuine curiosity prompted Isaac to fully turn toward him, studying that enigmatic face for some clue to what those words truly meant.

— What do you mean? he asked, allowing a hint of suspicion to color his voice.

Lazare didn’t respond immediately. His gaze wandered back to the road, as if searching for the precise words. When he finally spoke, his voice had taken on a nearly intimate quality a murmur steeped in understanding born from experience:

— You know what it costs to survive.

Those simple words struck Isaac like an electric current, awakening memories he struggled to keep buried. Faces. Screams. Impossible choices made in fractions of seconds. The price paid not just in blood, but in fragments of soul left behind in the dark.

He didn’t answer, and Lazare clearly wasn’t expecting one. A silence settled between them no longer the artificial kind created by the car’s enchantments, but one laden with mutual recognition. The kind shared by two people who had crossed similar abysses and emerged changed.

The urban landscape continued to evolve. They passed two successive checkpoints gates guarded by men in black uniforms bearing the private security insignia of the guilds. At each crossing, all it took was for the guards to glimpse Lazare’s face for the barriers to lift immediately—no questions, no scans. The mixture of respect and fear on their faces said everything about the guild master’s reputation.

And then, at the bend of a broad avenue lined with perfectly trimmed trees, it finally came into view: the StarSky Guild.