Soothing Presence — A mother knows best, and may her brood never forget that.

Class Skill — Active (Status: Off) — Level 20

An aura surrounds you, easing the burdens of all friendly creatures in its area. You may control its radius and intensity. Maximum radius and intensity scale with skill level.

The floating box — blue, slightly translucent and faintly glossy — was exactly as I’d remembered it. Yet not once in a million years would I have expected to be shown a System screen by a dragon, of all things.

At the same time, a number of puzzle pieces fell into place — the dragons’ absurd power was now back in the realm of reason. Of course they had System access — how else could they surpass the other species so thoroughly? Scholars had attributed their power to innate ability, but there was only so much a creature of flesh and bone could do on its own.

And their strange abilities, their magic that didn’t behave like magic. I should have realized it was a skill. But who would have expected it when they were so rare?

For all the mysteries it answered, though, the revelation created just as many new questions. Such as—

“You can level?” Shiro blurted out.

Sarah snorted. “Great question, Captain Obvious.”

Miranavisr chuckled, a deep rumble that reminded me of a cat purring. “Yes, child,” she said, her eyes half-open in a kindly smile. “I can level, and so can all of my kind.” She paused, tilting her head. “Does it surprise you, to find out you’re not unique in this regard?”

Shiro shrugged. “Eh,” he said, glancing at me. “That ship sailed a long time ago.”

“Indeed it has. Another curiosity. Now,” she said, turning her head to me. “I can see the question burning holes in your tongue. Let it loose, that I may assuage your concerns.”

Startled from my thoughts, I opened my mouth but nothing would come out. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Who else?” My voice was barely a whisper.

The Matriarch’s smile grew wider. “Who else what?”

I frowned. “Don’t play games with me. You know full well what I’m asking.” I took a step forward and looked her in the eyes. “Who else can access the System?”

“What makes you think so?” she asked, not a hint of guile in her voice.

I realized what she was doing. I’d seen this exact technique before, in my years at the Academy. Instead of telling me the answer, she wanted me to find it out for myself, only guiding me along the way. She believed I already had all the necessary information for it.

She was right, too. I had most of the pieces of the puzzle before me — I could see the shape of it, how they locked in place. All I needed to do now was take all the pieces and put them together, a process I’d done hundreds of times over as I worked to envelop new magics.

There was a single thing stopping me, a single obstacle in my path, and that was—

Fear.

I was afraid.

There was another question in my life, one that had gnawed at me for more than half a decade. Six years I’d been a Villain. Day after day I’d wondered why, discarding hypothesis after hypothesis. There was a missing puzzle piece, there, one too big to even glimpse at the shape of the mystery.

What I’d asked Miranavisr, though, the answer to that question — that was my missing puzzle piece.

And for once, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

“Please,” I whispered, thoughts roiling violently in my mind. “Just tell me.”

She was silent for a few moments, studying me intently. Finally, she nodded. “Very well. For my kind, we are born this way — the System is part of our lives from the moment we leave our egg. But this isn’t what you’re here for. I shall tell you, then, a story. The story of those for whom the System is both a boon and a curse. Not the first to take hold of this power, but the ones that followed.

“It started with a girl, a long time ago. Not in the Ancient Times, but just a short while after. The last of the gods to ascend had just left the people’s memory, and an exodus began as the gods’ most faithful followers left the crowded Archipelago. They squabbled a lot, in those days, and this was their way to keep from stepping on each others’ toes too much.

“A myriad city-states popped up, wherever the clergy — or even just the wealthy — decided to settle. Those settlements were small, barely more than a town as you’d count them now, and the only law was the word of the local ruler.”

“Because that always works,” Sarah whispered under her breath.

Miranavisr paused, directing a glare towards the knight. “Please keep your comments for after I’m done.”

“Sorry,” Sarah said with a wince.

The Matriarch relaxed, continuing. “One of those city-states had a particularly cruel ruler. Slavery was a fact of life in those times, but his city took it to the lowest of lows. And from those lows rose the heroine of this story. A young woman, barely more than a child — but strong. Strong enough that when her family sold her to clear their debts, she was bought by the owner of one of the most lucrative establishments in the city: the gladiator pits.”

I heard Cam suck in a breath, and he said in a barely audible whisper, “Vizina.”

Miranavisr paused. “You know of this tale?” she asked, pinning Cam with her gaze.

Cam started, clearly not having expected the dragoness to hear him. “I— Yes, I read about her. In a book.”

“Her tale is preserved?” Miranavisr said, genuinely surprised for the first time since I’d met her. “Intriguing. I’ll ask that you tell me how my recounting differs from what you read once I am done — but until then, please be quiet.”

Cam mimed his lips shut and nodded.

“As I was saying, this young woman — Vizina — began fighting in the gladiator pits. At first she was nothing more but a curiosity — she was good enough that she dominated those in her age group with her quick wits and powerful fists, and soon her owner would put her in the older age group’s fights. Naturally, she fared much worse there — strong as she may have been, she couldn’t quite keep up with a fully grown fighter, but that wasn’t the point. The audience just wanted to see how much she could endure.

“The answer turned out to be ‘a great deal’. Night after night, Vizina fought in the pits, even when she was so wounded she couldn’t even move. Her owner’s healer ensured she could never get any respite, healing her just enough that she could fight again each night. Inch by inch, she began to grow stronger, her edge sharpened by her struggles. Every fight honed her into a better fighter, but even so, she could not completely make up for her disadvantage in weight and reach against the older opponents.

“Until one day, when a System screen appeared before the Vizina, informing the girl of her new class, Brawler, along with the other minutiae you are well aware of. After that, her growth became explosive. After a few days of leveling, she could win matches she’d never dreamed of winning. Within the week, she became undefeated. By the time her owner realized something was wrong, that this was more than an adolescent grown spurt, his head was already lying cold on the ground.

“People around the world saw their first System screen that day, a screen proclaiming that Vizina was a Demon Lady, and marked for death by the heavens. That day, she began a bloody conquest of the continent, driven by the will to free all those who suffered like she did. A liberator of slaves, Vizina was — and her legacy yet survives, in most of the civilized world. That was the mark she left on this plane.”

“What happened to her?” I asked.

“Slain by Heroes,” Cam replied.

Miranavisr nodded. “Indeed. It wasn’t the first, or even the second group to be sent after her, but in the end she succumbed.”

“So,” I began, unwittingly drawing the final lines of this tapestry, “is that it, then? Are all Villains people who unlocked the System?”

“Precisely.”

“But if the stories are right,” Cam began, “pretty much all the Villains became super strong before the gods called them Villains — wouldn’t that mean having access to the System was the reason they were made Villains?”

“That is also true,” the dragon queen said as she nodded.

“But I didn’t,” I murmured as I tried to connect dots that weren’t there. “I never knew why the gods cast me down as they did. I only got access to the System years after.”

“Indeed, Julian Crane. And that is the tragedy of your own story — by the gods’ own rules, you were never meant to be a Villain.”

The world came crashing down around me. I was right, then — I’d never done anything wrong. If the entire point of Villains and Heroes was to kill people who’d gained access to the System, then the gods had had no reason to target me at that point.

“Then why? Why was I…?”

Miranavisr shrugged with her wings. “That is, alas, not something I can know. I’ve been trapped here for millennia. What goes on above, in the higher realms, is not for me to know.”

“But you must have a guess?”

Again, she shrugged. “That god who sent you here — if anyone knows, it’s likely him. But you should never trust him, in either case. Lying is as good as his second nature.”

I paused, mulling over the new discoveries. “One more question,” I said, and Miranavisr nodded. “It took me a great deal of study, as well as help from Renaris to figure out how to connect to this System — how did the others do it, then? A pit fighter hardly seems like an expert of magical forces.”

The Matriarch smiled. “And that’s the other one of your unique points. In a world like this, access to the System is something that is granted to you. The System itself decides if you have what it wants and extends the connection from its side. That you were able to do it on your own speaks volumes of your own ability with magic. In my long years, I’ve never seen another being to do something like this.”

As I digested this new information, David stepped forward and addressed the dragoness. “I’ve noticed you keep mentioning world. This world, this plane, higher realms… What are all those?” he asked. “And… where are you from, if not from here?”

Miranavisr closed her eyes as she pondered how to address this query. Finally, she opened her eyes and smiled sadly. “Unfortunately, this is one topic I cannot expound on,” she said as she looked to the sky. “Not by choice, either — my bindings prevent me from telling you, alas.”

My mouth got the better of me. “Perhaps I could try to undo them…?” I offered before I could stop myself.

Miranavisr chuckled. “Hah! You can certainly try, but I’m afraid your chances of success are slim to none. I don’t know exactly how much of the higher magics you’ve been able to see in this realm, but my bindings are something… crafted by the System itself.” She seemed to strain as she said those last words. “Not even all of your gods combined could free me from this. As for your question, young David… Your suspicions are correct. My kind, and this world… we were not from here, not originally. I am bound like this — we are bound like this for this very reason.”

“Alien dragons from outer space,” Shiro whispered. “I’ve seen everything, now.”

“You’re… not wrong,” Miranavisr said, her pained expression having nothing to do with the binding. Schooling her face, she then turned to me. “Dark Lord Julian Crane, Archmagus of the Continent and Paragon of Humanity,” she said like a master of ceremonies, “I have answered your questions to the best of my abilities. What, then, shall you do now, in light of these discoveries?”