They did not, alas, want to fluff my new tail, so I followed them back to the little cluster of stone structures, feeling my tail swish behind me as I walked. None of my armour was going to fit now, but that was a small price to pay.

"So, not just the power of a dragon, but immortality, and, apparently, evolution?" asked Ortho, looking up at me as I entered. "I hope it wasn't our own forces that killed you that time?"

"No, the red dragon."

Everyone in the room gasped, from lowly guard to Ortho himself.

"I gave as good as I got, though," I added. "He's not going to be flying again anytime soon. Even more so, if he got hit with the divine curse for killing me. Would have killed him if he didn't hold Ancora hostage..."

Ortho looked on in disbelief for a few seconds, before bursting into laughter. "Right. The divine curse. For killing a hero. And this one comes back to life! Even if you lost to the demon lord, you would cripple him. A rematch would go very differently."

I just stared. Laughter really didn't suit him. Perhaps I was too used to his emotionless pragmatism, but his face seemed completely wrong for it.

"Well, if you'll excuse me, I need to go back and pick up where I left off," I said. If the red dragon was still outside the city resting, perhaps I could shower him in acid as I went past.

"Wait," said Ortho, getting himself back under control and his face immediately taking on a far better suited expression of seriousness. "Muigal Pass has fallen. It's sooner than expected, but someone knocked out the commander, crippled the strongest defending mages, damaged the equipment that kept the barrier powered, and stole the communications orb so they couldn't call for reinforcements. The grand barrier is holding for now, but we can't defend it. You have a day until they breach it, and then tens of thousands of civilians will die for every additional day you take."

Ah, so that's what the black orb I stole was. I did wonder.

There was no way they were putting all of their trust in me, though. I hadn't seen Kevin since that first meeting, and I had no doubt he was busily setting up a new ritual chamber somewhere, ready to summon a new batch of heroes.

"I visited one of their towns while I was there," I admitted. "Very nice place. Helpful and polite citizens, kids playing in the streets, some really nice looking cafes that I alas couldn't visit on account of having no money. Weird shops that would have forced me to do more maths than I was comfortable with, if I actually tried to shop in them. A big memorial for those killed in the war, and a refugee program to make sure anyone displaced had their necessities provided for."

"Your point?" asked Ortho, frowning.

"I'm just saying, it doesn't really match up with your description of mindless slaves."

"I have never described them all as mindless. Certain demons, certainly, but not all. Some are highly intelligent. They simply can't go against their orders. In a war, one does not send their entire population to the front. That would simply result in the population starving to death even if the war was won. I dare say that you would have noticed the population of adults in the town was skewed heavily towards women."

Yes, I had noticed that.

I remembered Ancora again, and how she hadn't resisted in the slightest, looking completely peaceful as she was held in mid-air, pinned between a pair of claws that had been sharp enough to tear through my scales and resistance skills without difficulty. And Sru'taklin, who had obviously carried her out from the town at high speed to meet the dragon, not reacting as she was taken from him. That was very obviously not normal behaviour, and was the reason I wanted to finish off the red dragon. With him dead, would they be freed?

"But didn't you say the demon lord didn't like freedom? The town looked fine to me until the dragon turned up."

Ortho stared at me in a mix of incredulity and anger. "Then you must have been walking through it with your eyes closed. You mentioned the weird shops. Do you really think a store full of valuable goods left open and unattended like that would survive two seconds here, or back in your own world?"

Okay, so they did seem a bit strange, but I'd thought they were just naturally nice people. Then how come the copies I'd met back in the dungeon weren't?

How much of that dungeon was deliberate? Did the Goddess expect me to join the fight like this? Did she show me what I needed to see to make decisions here? Not just the fox-kin, but the many-limbed blobs. I'd seen them being mind controlled, and felt how happy they were with their situation. I'd called it fake, and the very concept disgusted me. They were 'happy' because their brains were pickled in the appropriate hormones. If Ortho was being truthful here, then wasn't the tree nothing but a more extreme version of the demon lord?

Would the polite Si'janrii at the gate turn back into the hate-filled wannabe rapist if I killed the dragon?

As ever, I couldn't help but complain how nothing was ever simple. Why couldn't the demon lord be some monster that ruled his unwilling slaves through fear? Having a bunch of mind-slaves that were happy with their situation and would likely be upset at being 'freed' was just all sorts of fucked up. I'd thought I'd had it bad back in the dungeon, with getting brutally murdered and eaten repeatedly, but I was starting to feel I had the most luck out of anyone in this damn world.

His copy had claimed that any human king would prefer his subjects to be mindless sheep. Apparently I'd killed the king without ever meeting him, so I couldn't check, but I suppose Ortho was the next best thing.

"So the demon lord is mind controlling everyone to live fulfilling, crime-free lives? I can imagine nobles wanting to do that to their subjects; it would make ruling so much easier. Did you ever consider trying to broker a deal?"

"Are you siding with the demons?" asked Ortho, but not before I saw his face flicker. He was good, but the others in the room were not. I didn't even need the aid of proficient empath to know that Craig would love to do that to everyone who wasn't him.

"Just trying to understand both sides of the conflict before I do something that could change the fate of the continent," I said. "For example, you said the demon lord started the war, but you never mentioned that he was provoked."

"Provoked? His demands were completely unreasonable. To completely stamp out all slaver bands and bandits that were either operating in demon territory or profiting from the activity of others there. How much manpower did he think we had?"

"How many nobles around the border were profiting from those activities?" I asked, and felt the anger radiating from three people in the room.

"They were slaves already!" exclaimed one, managing to ignore one of Ortho's pointed glares. "What does it matter if we took a few for our own use?"

"I see..." I said, not elaborating any further. "Well, I'm off to fight some dragons. See you."

"You are? From the way you're talking, I have to suspect you're planning on betraying us," said Ortho.

"Maybe I would be, had I not met the red dragon on my last trip. Like I said, he used a hostage against me. One of his own fox-kin. A young girl I'd befriended on my visit. For that alone, he doesn't deserve to live. Now, anything else before I leave?"

"No," said Ortho with a shake of his head. "I've circulated your description as far as I could, but given the communications issues caused by our mystery assailant, I can't guarantee you'll make it over the wall without being attacked."

"That won't be a problem," I answered, before leaving the building and flying back to the shrine, invoking fast travel for the first time in this world.

The fox-kin temple was empty, which was a relief. A soul-mage priestess under the control of a dragon who wanted to kill me wasn't ideal. When I stepped outside, I found the streets were equally empty, which was stranger. Did I finally enter a fox-kin settlement when people were actually sleeping? But they had a sun here, and it was still up in the sky. Besides, perceive presence was picking up nothing whatsoever.

I took to the skies and flew towards the last location of the dragon. He was still there, but so were the missing fox-kin. I looked down at the display in utter horror. A ring of priestesses surrounded him, Dru'niryeal among them, feeding a constant stream of healing magic into his wounds. That much was fine. What wasn't fine was the queue of adult women in front of him.

I watched as he grabbed a pair of them in one hand, flinging them into his mouth. The line took a step forward. The town's men and children stood at a greater distance, watching, but doing nothing. The words of Dru'niryeal replayed in my head. 'Should he demand our deaths, our deaths he would willingly get.'

No-one had noticed me, but what could I do? I had nothing that could kill him with one hit. If I tried to ice him again, he had any number of potential hostages. While I couldn't say I cared enough about most of them to let that stop me, all he would have to do was target the children, and I would break.

No, there was a move I could make... It was time to be a hero.

I dived, picking up as much speed as I could, but carefully timing my approach as he grasped the next bite of his meal. He opened his mouth wide, tossing in his willing victims. He saw me, but failed to react in time. My reappearance must have surprised him, and now I was flying too fast. He was immobile and had his mouth wide open.

I flew in.

Now, where would cause the most damage? Shame he wasn't just a little bigger, or I could have climbed up the back of his throat and into his nasel cavity, and tried to get at his brain that way. As it was, the back of his throat would need to do. I flew into it and glued myself there with my webs.

I blasted his throat with ice, freezing it shut, and he started writhing. He shook his head from side to side, but I was stuck, and was too far back for his tongue to reach. He could neither roar nor breathe flame, or even speak, which would hopefully prevent him threatening me. I took another breath, trying not to vomit at the stench, and aimed a second blast down his throat.

The mouth opened again, exposing me to daylight, and he shoved a claw into it, trying to remove me, but thanks to his extended muzzle, he still couldn't reach. I laughed madly between attacks. "What's wrong? Ate something that didn't agree with you?" I shouted, before adding another layer of ice.

The dragon's head dropped, slamming into the ground. As before, my webs held, but this time dislodging me hadn't been the intent, and his mouth opened once more. Perceive presence hadn't been doing much during my suicide mission, given that I was inside the biggest presence in the area, but even with the dragon blinding me I still felt the gathering outside. Sru'taklin rushed into the mouth, sword drawn, eyes fixed on me. Mru'walyn was behind him, flames building up around him as he cast a spell, presumably more to aid the choking dragon than to harm me.

I aimed a burst of acid in front of them, coating the dragon's tongue. As I'd hoped, he failed to hold it still, and the pair of fox-kin who had been standing on it were catapulted back outside as it jerked upward. That would buy me a few more seconds, but how long would it take a dragon to suffocate? I flooded the mouth with more acid, and the dragon's pained writhing prevented any more fox-kin from entering.

The next attempt involved angling his head upward, and I looked out of the open mouth into a massive floating ball of water. Would he try to flood me out next? I aimed an ice breath outwards, freezing the surface of the water as it fell into the dragon's mouth. The result was that he smacked himself in the head with an oversized hailstone. It didn't do any damage, but neither did it achieve anything to help him.

I aimed more ice around me, freezing whatever was in range. My mana was starting to run dry, but his movements were starting to slow. I continued with my ice anyway, not caring if it consumed my entire supply. As long as I had enough remaining for an emergency trigger respawn, I was fine, and it was doubtful that I even could get myself that low; I'd regenerate the required amount of mana in a fraction of a second.

The head crashed to the ground for a second time, but this time there was no further movement. The presence faded and vanished.

That left me with two problems. Firstly, how to get out of here now that his mouth was closed and he was no longer alive to open it for me. Secondly, with him no longer blinding my perceive presence skill, I could pick up an even larger presence hovering up in the air outside.