Reincarnated as the Strongest Dragon

Chapter 10: Rank Up I

Chloe motioned me to follow and led me to her office. She sat down at her desk and told me to sit down on one of the couches around a table in the middle of the room.

Chloe rubbed her temples and muttered something before looking at me, "So… You are a dragon?”

“That’s right.”

“You don’t look like a dragon,” Chloe said, trying her best not to sound like she just pointed out the obvious.

“Looks can be deceiving.” I looked at her and added, " You don’t look old enough to be a guildmaster.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” She said and smiled. "Have you met many guildmasters?”

“It’s not my first dance with the guild, however it’s the first time I had to reveal that I’m a dragon. Never had to use that device before.”

There was a knock at the door and Hanna entered with a tray of cups. She put a cup down in front of me and a small plate with some kind of cookies on it.

“Is tea okay with you, Lady Luna?” She sent me a big service smile.

“Lady?” I squinted at her. "Just Luna is fine.”

“But you are a queen…” 

“Don’t make me eat you,” I said and grinned.

“Ahem, can we get back to business?” Chloe shot a glare at Hanna who gave out a small yelp and moved back behind the couch. “I don’t know where to even begin. For what reason are you here?”

“Here, like at the guild?”

“Yes but also here in general.”

“I woke up, or rather, the whole business with Julius woke me up so I figured I’d pop my head out and see what had changed in the world. I wanted to join the guild to get some funds for traveling expenses,” I said and took out a few coins from my [Inventory] and held them up, "Liz said these coins were no good.”

Chloe took a coin and focused her eyes, "Isn’t this an ancient coin?”

“It’s from the Byzan Empire.”

“Where did you get this? Most of them were said to have been smelted down after the empire fell.”

“Is knowledge about what happened to coins from an ancient civilization common knowledge nowadays?”

“Just an old hobby of mine,” Chloe laughed. "Still, finding one in this good condition is very rare.”

“Time is frozen in my [Inventory]. I tossed it in there when I got it, maybe it was freshly minted,” I said with a shrug.

“[Inventory]? Freshly minted? Are you saying you got it from…? Chloe stopped and looked at me.

“Probably for some job at the adventurers guild back in the day. [Inventory] is a spell to store items, kind of like a magic bag.”

Chloe tapped a finger on her desk. “How old are you?”

“Is that something you would ask of a young woman? I said, faking a gasp, "How old are you?”

“I’m in my late twenties,” She said with a grin.

“But guildmaster, we already celebrated your fortieth birthday last year.” Hanna piped up.

Chloe shot Hanna an angry glare.

“I'm eighteen,” I pondered, "And some seven or eight thousand years? It’s hard to tell when you humans change what calendar you follow all the time.”

There was a knock on the door and a man entered. “We just got a message from the capital. It would take at least two days before they can even send anyone to investigate the dungeon.  And that would only be two A ranks and two B ranks,” He said, holding a paper.

Chloe looked at the man and then at me. “Come back later,” She said and waved her hand to the man, telling him to leave.

“Huh? Uhm, understood.” He gave her a confused look and left.

“I would like to ask more questions about what we just discussed but we have more pressing matters,” Chloe said and looked back at me, "Could you tell me about the dungeon?”

“I detected some strong monsters so I went to investigate and found the barrier at the entrance,” I said and took a sip of tea, "Something felt weird though, like there was a dense cloud of mana three or so floors down so I decided to go in and have a look.”

“Cloud of mana?” Chloe asked and raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, I went down to have a look and found this.” I took out a device and put it on the table. "It was next to a quite big magic stone that was spent and cracked.”

Chloe walked over and looked at the device, "What is this?” She focused her eyes, "[Concealment Lv.4] and two unknowns. Do you have a higher [Identify] Luna?”

“Yeah, it’s [Magic Lure Lv.7] and [Mana Diffuser Lv.6].”

Chloe looked at me with a confusing look, "What is this device supposed to do?”

“Considering the monsters I encountered my guess would be to lure stronger monsters towards the surface and feed them mana to make them even stronger.”

“What would be the point of that?” Hanna asked from behind me.

“Force the monsters to fight each other to make them even stronger is one possibility. Could also be an attempt to get the monsters to leave the dungeon.”

“But that would endanger the surrounding areas and maybe even the town!”

“And?” I looked back at Hanna.

"Why would anyone do that?”

“Don’t you have any enemies? Like Kaydossa or whatever. That country that wanted to buy slaves?” 

Chloe, who had been holding her forehead, looked up to me, "While it is true that we aren’t exactly on good terms I don’t think they would do something like this. There is no merit.”

“Well someone put it there for a reason and the device depleted the magic stone so it did its job. Now I have only been awake for a day so I don’t think I will be of much help when it comes to figuring out who put it there or why,” I said and tapped my chin.

“Just bringing us the device is more than we could ask for,” Chloe said, "But we still need to figure out what to do with the dungeon.”

“Do you have to do something? Isn’t it fine as it is?” 

“Didn’t you say monsters might start leaving since the device did what it was supposed to do?”

“Oh, yes, but since I killed all the monsters it should be ok. The dungeon should go back to normal.”

Chloe blinked at me a few times. “When you say all the monsters do you mean down to floor three or all as in ALL the monsters?”

“You should probably look at her guild card,” Hanna said.

I gave her my guild card and she stood up and walked over to her desk where she had one of those devices that were at the counter downstairs. After a quick scroll through the list that appeared on the display and a few weird glances tossed my way she froze, "A behemoth… On what floor did you find that?” 

“Uuh, at the end? I think it was floor… sixteen?”

“Sixteen?!” She blurted out.

“Yeah? I think so, wasn’t sixteen the last floor?”

“We don’t know, no one has ever made it to the end.”

“Let’s see, I think it was four floors, then a teleport room, then it went down to the eighth floor and then another teleport room and then it was… another four floors followed by a teleport and at the end of the following four floors was the behemoth?” I tapped my forehead, trying to remember.

Chloe and Hanna both looked at me completely speechless. After a few moments Chloe snapped back to reality, "That dungeon is special in that the difficulty level increases a lot after every teleport room. It starts at C with a B rank boss, then follows with B and an A rank boss. The next floors that are A and a S rank boss have only been cleared once. Are you saying there are four more floors that are S rank and above?”

“I guess so? I’m not familiar with the difficulty levels of monsters. They tend to change.”

“Tend to change?”

“What rank is a behemoth now? Last time I was awake it was considered an S rank monster and it had the same G to SSS ranks.”

“A behemoth might be SS rank depending on size.”

“So did the monsters get stronger or did the adventurers get weaker?” I pondered, tapping my chin with my index finger.

“But wait, the barrier broke this morning. Are you telling me that you cleared sixteen floors and made the trip back here in a few hours? To travel that distance alone would take a lot longer than that.”

“Ahem, dragon.”

“Ah, right, It’s just… difficult to comprehend,” Chloe said and rubbed her forehead with a pained expression.

“But surely we would get reports if people saw a dragon flying in the sky!” Hanna said from behind me.

“I flew in human form,” I said like it was the most obvious thing in the world, "It’s more convenient unless I have to travel very long distances.”

“You can fly as a human?” Hanna asked and moved next to me.

“You’re asking about skills again,” I poked her cheek then stood up and walked away a little bit so I wouldn’t flip something over, "I use these,” I said and pulled out my wings.

“Woah!” Both Hanna and Chloe jumped back, startled at the sudden appearance of my wings. Hanna quickly regained her composure and started walking around me, looking all over. “C-Can I touch them?” She said meekly.

“Touch me all you want,” I smirked.

“Now it is a little easier to swallow that you are a dragon.”

“I can add more if you want.” My arms and hands got covered in scales and grew claws and I gained a tail. “If you want me to [Shift] even more I might as well just change into my dragon form but then your guildhall would be destroyed.”

“N-No, this is fine… Wow,” Chloe managed to say after a few seconds.

“Beautiful, right? I’m quite proud of it,” I said with a smug smile.

Hannas touching spree had left my wings and her hands were now darting all over my body.

“I know I said you could touch me all you want but I didn’t expect you to take it literally,” I said as Hanna was touching the base of my tail.

Hanna pulled back her hands looking embarrassed as I shifted back to human form, "I’m sorry, it’s not every day you get the chance to, well, touch a dragon so I kind of jumped on the opportunity.”

“Just this once.”

“But your dragon form was beautiful… or what is it called? It’s not a full dragon after all.” Hanna cocked her head and put a finger on her cheek.

“Oh you flatterer. I guess it would be called dragonkin? Sort of like the beastkin? I don't really use it so I have never thought about it.”

“You should use it more often!” Hanna said in a cheerful tone.

“Yes, let's invite chaos to the city,” Chloe said and smacked Hanna in the back of her head, "If you are done interrupting I would like to get back to what we have to talk about with Luna.” 

“Oh, right, I’m sorry,” Hanna said and walked back behind the couch.

“Right,” I said and sat down across Chloe, "I gave you the device and told you about the dungeon. What else do you need?”

“Wait!” Hanna blurted out, "We would still get reports if people saw a person with wings fly in the sky.”

“I used magic to erase my presence, you can be sure no one saw me.”

Chloe cleared her throat and glared at Hanna, "I would like to hear about the case with Liz and Julius.”