A Salamander, but Mighty

POV: Tamara

She had limited herself to the bare minimum leaving as many monsters as possible to Helen and Luchael; her mere presence was enough to make her receive a few handful of points from the system, but it was still when she ate that she got most of her experience points, perhaps that's why [Devourer] continued to work even in that case, despite she hadn't struck even a single blow during the whole day. They spent the whole day inside the dungeon, leaving only Yveene alive (for which she was very grateful) and when the time finally came to leave, Tamara and her adventure companions found her at the entrance of the dungeon with hands folded behind her back and swaying on her hips.

“Oh, there you are!” Yveene said as she noticed the trio approaching. As Tamara looked at her, she found herself hoping that when she got her human body, it would be at least half as gorgeous as Yveene's. “It's a real shame that you don't want to stay for a little longer, I had fun during this day.”

“Unfortunately we can't stay any longer, we would like to go deeper into the Cloudbreakers, into the mountain villages that receive less attention from the Adventurers' Guild and the nobles of the realms,” Luchael explained, grabbing the wide brim of his wizard's hat to say farewell to the core guardian.

'A good place to begin my campaign of conquest and my ascension to Nightmare Tyrant,' thought Tamara, 'to begin at this point as soon as I have succeeded in ascending. I wouldn't want the pretend monster to turn into a real monster if I give him enough opportunities.'

“We thank you for your hospitality, Yveene. It was… a strange experience,” Helen said exchanging a glance between the core guardian and Tamara, “souls from another reality… absurd to believe.”

'But it's the reality,' Tamara thought, 'and I have to say that knowing I'm not the only one in this situation is... relieving.'

“Thank you for not killing me!” Yveene replied, covering her lips elegantly and chuckling, “Tamara, I hope to see you again… and in your human form,” she finally told the salmadrer.

Tamara nodded vigorously.

After those greetings, the trio resumed their journey and left the dungeon, outside the magical environment supported by the Mana of the core, the sky of the eastern continent had become clouded and colored grey, after all, there was a reason if that long mountain chain that divided the eastern continent from the rest of the continental mass of which it was part was called that way: the wind pushed the clouds from the sea inland, and the clouds traveled freely until they reached the high peaks of the Cloudbreaker Mountains, at that point they began to accumulate among themselves, making the landscape rainy and consequently making the eastern continent quite wet and lush.

“So… what do we want to do? Shall we set off immediately or stay another day in Wadencap?” Luchael asked as his pink eyes tried to probe the clouds, as if he could tell that way if they were about to cause just a drizzle or a storm.

“I'd say we'd better go back to Wadencap and stay there until the risk of rain has passed,” Helen replied, raising her left hand to point her index finger towards the side of the mountain, “we don't know how steep the climb might become and if the ground becomes muddy under our feet we could risk getting very hurt, even without encountering monsters.”

“Yes, it's better if we wait at least a day and don't leave in the late afternoon, just to be on the safe side,” Luchael agreed.

Tamara didn't mind that choice too much, she didn't mind Wadencap and she didn't like the idea of sleeping outdoors in a potential downpour. As they traveled back to the small mountain village, she decided to take a look at her status to see where she stood, also because at the end of the day she had managed to get a level anyway, simply by feeding on the monsters that Luchael and Helen had killed. She needed to plan for the future.

___

[Tamara Parker][Salmadrer][Monster (lv.21)]

[Health: 100/100][Mana: 60/60]

[TRAITS MODIFIERS]

Nourished

[TRAITS]

► Dexterity: 16

► Faith: 16

► Knowledge: 14

► Resilience: 20

► Speed: 16

► Strength: 20

[FEATS]

► Acid Spit 1

► Devourer

► Flying Membrane II

► Greater Reach II

► Growth (Lesser) I

► Humanoid Form (Minor)

► Obsidian Defense I

► Scale Armor (Lesser) II

► Scratch I

___

'I seem ready for the challenge of becoming a great big dragon, I'd just like to grow a little more…' she thought with a huff, 'it's a shame that the system seems to randomize the Feats I can access at each level, and therefore sometimes I find myself making a forced choice not to diversify. Probably the best choice is if I continue to focus as much as possible on size and attack power.'

A drop of water interrupted her thoughts for a moment. She raised her head towards the sky observing the clouds, then another drop fell and the trio began to accelerate their pace until they reached the edge of the village, at which point Tamara let Helen and Luchael advance alone, while she stood to go around to find the space, the way and the time to reach and enter the stable without being noticed... it was an easy thing, she had done it several times in that period.

What was the problem that time? Murphy's law.

She was trying to follow the usual route of hiding places and tall grass when a woman who was trying to run back before it started raining really hard noticed her approaching the houses. Tamara quickly tried to pull back and hide, but by then it was too late: the woman raised the alarm and soon at least three inhabitants of Wadencap were on her with pitchforks and axes.

“W-wait! Peace! Peace!” Tamara exclaimed as she backed away, forgetting for the moment that the woman wouldn't understand her anyway.

“Damn beast!” One of the villagers threw a stone at her, needless to say that with the difference in level between them, Tamara avoided it with the ammount of effort with which one would dodge a leaf blown by a light breeze.

'I have to run!' Tamara thought, keeping her eyes on those who were threatening her, that alone seemed enough to make them hesitate for a second. Tamara was unable to take the opportunity to free herself because she was blocked by a second thought, 'why do I have to run away? Their level is so low that I could crush them in the blink of an eye...'

If she had not been engaged in an internal struggle for control over her actions in the immediate future, perhaps she would have tried to intimidate them or, obviously, to escape, but instead she remained there, finding a sense of satisfaction and joy in seeing how those poor villagers became increasingly desperate to realize their helplessness after each attempt of hitting her.

She didn't even notice that Helen and Luchael had had time to arrive in the combat zone, busy trying to clearly evaluate what to do with those pests who were annoying her unfairly. One of the villagers let out a shout of defiance and lunged at her, who in response simply dodged before making a lightning move and slapping her tail in the face of her attacker with the force of a whip.

It seemed that this last attempt to attack her had discouraged her attackers enough to make them give up. They didn't run away, but at least they stopped attacking her.

“Adventurers! Please! kill that monster!” One of the commoners said to Luchael and Helen, who had been standing off to the side in the meantime.

Helen hesitated and seemed not to know where to look, Luchael instead raised his hands in mid-air, disarmed, "uhm... maybe she... this monster doesn't want to kill us all?" he said, pointing to himself and the others, “we are still alive! Maybe it has other plans?”

‘That's right, tell them!’ Tamara thought as she remained on her guard, somehow unable to leave even now. She did nothing wrong! So these people have to move out of her way!

“Wild monsters don't have the ability to think like that,” protested one of the peasants, who was finally starting to consider running away judging by the fact that he was backing away, never taking his eyes off Tamara. “It's waiting for the perfect moment to tear us all to pieces, if you don't want to get rid of him, at least defend us while we hide our children!”

“Unless…” a bearded, hunched-backed old man who had arrived to witness what was happening opened his eyes so wide that Tamara thought they were about to slide out of their sockets, “Nightmare Tyrant!”

‘Uh oh…’

“Nightmare Tyrant!”

“Please, don't kill us!"

"I'll do whatever you want but spare my life!"

There were one thing to be said about the fact that Tamara at her current size seemed like a strange candidate to be Nightmare Tyrant: her wings were certainly not as large and majestic as the prophecy described – they weren't even yet wings, for that matter – but then, the prophecy said nothing explicit about Nightmare Tyrant's actual size, so...

Tamara found herself in the position of villain officially for the first time, but what could she do considering that she didn't even have a way to communicate directly with the population of Wadencap and say to submit to her - and maybe even pay her some good old protection money – was that all they needed to survive?

The rain began to fall, Nightmare Tyrant had finally arrived.