[POV: Sloth]
I woke up feeling pain all over my body. I lay there for several seconds, trying to process what the hell happened. The sensation was disturbingly vivid. It wasn't the dull discomfort or artificial feedback I was accustomed to from virtual reality. Every bruise, burn, and ache felt painfully real.
I grabbed the hem of my upper garment and pulled it aside.
There were several dark bruises across my torso, along with patches of reddened skin that looked suspiciously like burns. I stared at them for a moment before sighing.
Ah.
What did I get myself into?
Thankfully, I didn't have to endure the pain for long.
My natural regeneration was already working, while Life Boost further accelerated the recovery process. The delayed effects of Nature's Rest from suddenly waking up contributed to the healing, giving me a soothing sensation in my chest. The accumulated damage disappeared almost immediately. Within a single breath, the pain receded into nothing. I could still feel the lingering exhaustion, though. Nature's Rest had been disrupted by whatever had happened to me, so I wouldn't be able to cast it again for some time. That was annoying, but manageable.
The bigger problem was everything else.
"Call GM."
When nothing happened, I was already resigned to the worst possible scenario, though not so much that I felt like all hope was lost. Still, this was starting to get annoying. I pushed myself upright and finally took a proper look at my surroundings. I was in the middle of a destroyed forest. Trees had been uprooted or snapped in half, the ground had been torn apart, and a massive trench stretched through the landscape in front of me. Behind me was an oddly human-shaped crater.
"...I don't even want to know."
I followed the trail of destruction with my eyes. Eventually, I spotted the thing responsible. A golden dragon hovered in the distance, surrounded by faint sparks of light. Except it wasn't like any dragon I had seen in LWO. For one thing, it didn't have wings.
My sleep had been violently interrupted, my body hurt, my usual game interface was nowhere to be found, and now I was apparently standing in the middle of a forest that looked like it had been used as someone's personal battlefield. I was barely restraining myself from going off the rails. The harshness of reality was finally sinking in. This wasn't a game anymore. At least, it didn't feel like one. There was a very real possibility that I had somehow possessed my game character and ended up in another world.
If that was true, then I had a much bigger problem than losing access to the GM command.
"Mana Sense."
I activated the skill and examined the golden dragon, only to sense no mana from the creature. That was weird. I changed gears immediately, not keen on losing my life out here.
"Life Sense."
The result nearly made me reconsider my life choices. The amount of health I saw was absurd. This thing didn't merely have a lot of health. Its vitality was so enormous that comparing it to the final bosses from LWO's main storyline would have been insulting to the dragon. If I had to find a comparison, I'd say it was roughly equivalent to one of those raid dungeon bosses designed for expansion events. The kind of boss that required an entire party to subjugate. The kind that scaled its level according to the players participating in the event because otherwise the fight would be too easy.
Except this dragon wasn't scaled.
This was its actual strength. I had no idea where it came from in the game's lore. As far as I knew, I had never encountered anything resembling it during my time playing LWO. Then again, I hadn't exactly been an explorer. I had only participated in one dungeon raid event involving a dragon-like monster, and that was because a friend had practically begged me to join.
I never touched it again.
It required way too much effort. I'd rather sleep and let my summons farm. That was the entire point of my build. I tried opening my inventory. When nothing happened, I tried again, only to meet the same response. The difficulty of this encounter had just increased another level. This wasn't my comfort zone. Whenever I encountered a tough boss in LWO, I had information beforehand. I knew its abilities, skill rotations, attack patterns, weaknesses, and mechanics. I'd prepare the appropriate equipment and summons before entering the fight.
Once everything was ready, I could engage with absolute confidence that I'd win. I could practically close my eyes and let the preparation do the work.
Hell, even when I was at work, I would occasionally think about LWO in the back of my mind. I'd mentally run through boss mechanics, consider different strategies, and plan which summons I'd use once I got home. It was an efficient way to spend my time. I could work while planning my game. Then I could go home, execute the strategy, and get the most efficient sleep possible in the game pod.
This?
This was completely different.
"This is such a drag."
Fighting an enemy when I didn't know its skill rotation, abilities, weaknesses, or even basic build was basically PvP. And I hated PvP. Judging from the sparks surrounding the golden dragon, I could make a rough guess that it had some sort of light or lightning attribute. But that was all it was. A guess. That left me with two choices. Fight something that could probably kill me... Or run.
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I preferred the second option. I glanced down at myself.
At least my equipment was still there.
My staff, robes, and various pieces of endgame equipment had survived the transition. I had only a handful of accessories equipped, though, and even this configuration wasn't my strongest setup from LWO.
There was a reason for that.
LWO had a mechanic where equipping higher-grade equipment increased the probability of random encounters while simultaneously reducing luck.
It was one of those mechanics designed to stop players from simply stacking the strongest possible equipment and steamrolling everything. I'd always considered it mildly irritating. Right now, I was starting to appreciate how inconvenient it could be. I looked back at the golden dragon. I needed information. More importantly, I needed time. If I could figure out what it wanted, maybe I could avoid fighting it altogether. Talking to monsters had never been an option in LWO. Monsters didn't negotiate. They didn't explain themselves. They attacked players because that was what monsters did.
But this world was clearly no longer following those rules.
I decided to gamble. "Why are you attacking me?"
The golden dragon's gaze immediately settled on me. His expression was cold. "You invaded my home." His voice carried across the ruined forest with enough force that I could feel the weight behind every word. "As its master, I have a duty to punish those who trespass upon it. You entered my territory without permission. You destroyed my land. For trespassing upon my territory and causing destruction, your punishment is death."
I argued. "Wait a second. I wasn't attacking your land. And no one owns the Skyrend Mountains."
Before I could continue arguing, a tremendous crash echoed through the forest. I flinched at the sight of trees crashing down in the distance. I saw something bouncing between the fallen trunks. It was dozens of slimes, creatures that I summoned. They bounced cheerfully across the ruined forest, landing on fallen trees before immediately beginning to consume them.
I faked a cough, trying to weasel out by playing dumb. "Huh? Are those slimes? Where did they come from, I wonder?"
One slime swallowed an entire chunk of wood. Another bounced onto a broken trunk and started eating it from the side.
"Those were your summons, human," growled the dragon, so certain of himself that there wasn't even a hint of doubt in his voice.
"No."
"Yes."
"..."
Crap.
I realized something far more crucial than devising a tactic to escape.
How was I even supposed to fight or defend myself?
I didn't have a UI.
In LWO, the UI was the best assistant tool I had for controlling my summons. Most spells, abilities, and skills could be activated through voice commands paired with specific movements, but summons were an entirely different beast. I only had one mouth. Trying to simultaneously issue commands to multiple summons through voice alone was every bit as difficult as it sounded. Even worse, I had lost access to the health bars and mana bars that allowed me to monitor resource allocation at a glance.
My situation had just become significantly more dangerous, since my entire build revolved around summons, after all.
I could handle myself reasonably well, but my strength came from having an army that could fight independently while I managed the battlefield from a distance. Without the UI, controlling them would be considerably more cumbersome.
The golden dragon seemed to interpret my silence as something else entirely.
"You are the height of foolishness, human."
His eyes narrowed.
"Also, Skyrend Mountains?"
There was genuine indignation in his voice now.
"This is the Golden Reach Mountains! My domain!"
Sparks crackled around his body.
"How dare a human like you claim this land as yours? Going so far as to give it a name? The sheer atrocity of this pesky human astounds me."
I blinked. I hadn't even claimed the land. I'd merely said nobody owned it. Apparently, that distinction wasn't making it through.
"Fine!" the dragon roared. "You want this land!? You have to defeat me first!"
"..."
My innocent question had somehow been interpreted as a declaration of war. I didn't feel particularly confident that I could persuade him otherwise. In fact, any attempt to explain myself would probably make the situation worse. It looked like escaping had just become more difficult. This "monster" was exhibiting rational intelligence. Emotional, certainly, but intelligent enough to communicate and understand the basic concept of strategy. If things came down to it, he could simply chase me around until I exhausted myself.
That was bad.
Dragons in LWO were known as phenomenal hunters with incredible stats. Even the fastest classes in the game would struggle to outrun one in the air, while their senses were sharp enough to put even the keenest wolves to shame. This dragon didn't have wings, but I had no reason to assume that meant he was incapable of chasing me. I could still try running. But that would burn through my mana. And if I exhausted my mana before finding a way to escape, I would lose any chance of actually winning the fight.
I didn't have the luxury of carrying a warehouse full of mana potions with me, either.
Fantastic. It seemed I had no choice. I had to fight. I took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. I began running through every strategy available to me. Just because I had no passion for PvP didn't mean I was incapable of it.
I simply preferred not to waste my time with it.
There was a difference.
I considered my available transformations, my summons, my remaining mana, and the strange properties of the dragon standing before me. I settled on a plan. It wasn't perfect, but it didn't need to be. I only needed something that could keep me alive.
"Fine. I'm going to destroy you." I tightened my grip around my staff and thumped the bottom of my staff against the ground. "Wild Shape: Gold Dragon."
My body transformed.
Bones shifted beneath my skin as my form expanded, scales replacing flesh while my limbs twisted into something far larger and more powerful. Wings unfolded from my back, spreading wide across the ruined forest as golden scales covered my entire body.
I had taken the form of a western-style golden dragon.
It was the safest option.
If this world followed the same basic rules as LWO, dragons of the same color or nature possessed a degree of mutual resistance against one another. If this golden, wingless dragon used the same principles as the dragons from the game, then taking on an identical attribute should allow me to resist most of his abilities or powers. Of course, there was no guarantee that the rules here were the same. If this wingless variant didn't follow the same rules, then I would have to improvise. In that case, I'd retreat into the forest and force him into guerrilla warfare.
I'd alternate between Wild Shape and my summons, attack from different directions, disengage, recover, and repeat the process until I could whittle him down. I really didn't want to do that, since it would be a painful mana sink.
Instead, this form gave me another advantage.
I could study him. I could test his abilities, observe his reactions, and slowly chip away at his health while preserving as much mana as possible. Then, once he was sufficiently weakened, I could change tactics and finish him. The entire strategy formed in my mind in roughly a second. For me, that was plenty of time. For the golden dragon, however, it was apparently shocked so much by my transformation that it just stared at me for a good while. Hmmm... Maybe the dragon was a she? And I'm its type? I couldn't tell.
The sparks surrounding him briefly flickered. "What..." His voice carried a strange mixture of confusion and disbelief. "What manner of creature are you? Just who are you, human?"
"My name is Sloth." I flexed my wings, gaining altitude as I leveled my eyes at him. "The druid whose sleep you just ruined."