章節 2: Reconnaissance

"How big is that dragon?" Across the sky, a massive dragon body shook its wings and flew over the collapsed temple.

The strange sight in the sky vanished without a trace; the lightning, heavy rains, and stones had stopped falling on the earth, leaving a light drizzle.

"There don't seem to be any humans..." The dragon rider soaring over the temple had seen many corpses on the way here but hadn't noticed any signs of life. She was here to check if there were any dragons in need of her help.

Haldor, who was between dreams and visions, watched a young dragon approach his position directly from the sky. The strong wind reminded him of many sensations of being alive, but he couldn't move, so all he could do was whisper weak words that likely wouldn't be heard.

The young woman, who had descended to find where the stone dragon had fled, stared at Haldor. She immediately approached him and murmured, "I can't believe there's still a storm dragon; it seems you're the one it chose as its future rider, so you must take care of it."

"Help me..." Haldor murmured these words while unconscious on the ground.

"I can't do that. If the place I come from finds out there's a storm dragon, they'll take it away from you. A new war would break out, and you probably wouldn't be able to do anything right now."

Haldor didn't understand the woman's words, but he weakly reached out to touch her to see if she was real or just a hallucination.

"Remember well, your dragon is akin to mine, so we'll likely meet again... My name is Elsa. If you survive, I might even consider you a potential companion." Elsa inspected Haldor's wound and, satisfied he would live, climbed onto her young dragon. She looked once more into the distance and departed without another word, following the same direction the stone dragon had fled moments ago.

Meanwhile, Haldor fell unconscious again, unsure if he would live to see another day, drowning in his own blood.

...

"Haldor, are you alive?"

An hour later, Ravyn arrived from the other end of the rubble in search of Haldor, who had run in this direction. He knew the chances of finding the person he was looking for alive should be very high.

"Haldor?"

Haldor, still unconscious, abruptly sat up, looking around, only to discover he was alive, and the extreme fatigue had completely disappeared from his body.

If he hadn't witnessed everything with his own eyes, Haldor would have thought a violent earthquake had just caused landslides and severe weather.

But now...

"I really didn't expect to be alive to see Vikings fight and dragons cross the sky in all my life." Haldor broke the silence just outside the temple ruins.

"Wasn't that girl who came a moment ago named Elsa?" The only thing he remembered about her was her completely white hair and, strangely enough, her scent.

Rrr!

At that moment, feeling movement in his chest, Haldor lowered his gaze and saw the baby dragon looking at him with bright, playful eyes. Trying to remain calm, Haldor felt a great warmth in his throat and murmured, "Alright, little one, my name is Haldor, so since we're alone, we must stick together."

The little blue dragon nodded its head, licked Haldor's chin, then crawled inside his coat and snuggled comfortably as if he were its nest.

"Haldor, for the devil's sake, where the hell are you?" Ravyn appeared in the distance at that moment with a look of disgust on his face.

Haldor, meeting his gaze, asked, "What?"

"I'd prefer you were still dead..." Ravyn muttered this with some disdain.

"Well, that would be a great disappointment for you, old bear."

"For fuck's sake, not only are we attacked by northern slavers, but now I have to look after you."

Haldor didn't say a word. What the hell did he know?

On the other hand, Ravyn was about to say something else but stopped, surprised. "Don't you recognize why we're here? I remember you saying you didn't know what was going on or why you were here."

Haldor was suddenly surprised... In this barren mountain, events that endangered his life—if he told Ravyn he had lost his memories—an accident could happen without anyone else noticing, and he could actually die in this place.

But not knowing anything was more dangerous than knowing, so knowing that Ravyn had given his life for him, Haldor asked, "Can you tell me who I am?"

"Your name is Haldor, like the son of the great Harald Hardrada, who now reigns over half the north and part of the green lands... We were on a damn expedition mission to find out where the northern troops were beyond where we dominated, but we were ambushed by a surveillance team that shouldn't have been in the place where we found it."

Haldor listened in silence and understood that certain Vikings didn't inherit their parents' last names because each had to make their own when they grew up to create their own legend. That was a privilege that everyone could have, but not many achieved it.

"I'm remembering, then, how far are we from our settlement? We could get there as soon as possible so that we're prepared in case a new surveillance group moves irregularly."

"That's true..." Ravyn, who was sitting on the ground, nodded. "We should get moving after we recover; at least you should live to kill whoever betrayed you. Boy, you must be aware that your other brothers, who will fight for your father's place in no more than five years, will want to kill you; at least you should not ignore that after returning to a safe place."

Haldor didn't dare say more, but he knew he was the son of a certain famous Viking and that his other brothers wanted to kill him to reduce their chances of complications for succession.

"What a fatigue..."

After that, they didn't say anything and just collapsed to rest. It wasn't until it got late that they couldn't wait any longer, and then the two tried to get up.

Unexpectedly, this time Haldor managed to stand up.

"I wanted to ask before: are you really okay? You hit your head, and before you seemed to be affected by poison, if your father finds out you weakened on an expedition, then his attention to you will decrease. As a result, you'll be an easy target to kill for your enemies. I advise you to move slowly to familiarize yourself with your body again; don't use excessive force unless necessary." Although Ravyn had shown indifference before, now he seemed very attentive to Haldor, something that he himself hadn't understood.

On the other side, Haldor stood up and saw at a glance what Ravyn was doing and realized he was picking up objects from the ground. They should be things that other defeated soldiers in the temple hadn't had time to take before fleeing.

Although Haldor remained very suspicious of Ravyn, he couldn't deny that he was still alive thanks to him, so seeing the corpses, he asked, "Did anyone besides us manage to escape?"

"How could they escape if these young people were fighting old veterans?"

Ravyn looked Haldor directly in the eyes. He seemed to be thinking of something that bothered him a lot. He lost his temper for a moment, but for some reason this time there were not many complaints aloud, but it did show that he was a little depressed and a little annoyed: "It was just an expedition mission; we shouldn't have faced anyone, and that's why I agreed to bring you here. To tell the truth, I think we were attacked because the information about your attendance was leaked."

A few moments later, he stopped for some reason, which made Haldor, who was listening attentively, feel a little uncomfortable. And while trying to extract useful and useless information, he couldn't help but shake his head and then start looking for useful things among the corpses.

There were seventeen people who had died in the temple before. Some fled in a hurry, and their things were left in a special area that was not covered by rubble, so something could be found.

In addition to food, Haldor found leather bottles where they stored water and some weapons like bows, many arrows, and daggers. As for gold, all that went unnoticed in his eyes.

"Fortunately, we have food for both of us to survive until we return to the outpost." Ravyn looked at the things on the ground, feeling a little excited, then looked around and gave instructions. "You can't eat that dry food directly; we could boil some water to make it easier to bite and digest faster. But first, we must set off."

Of course, there was no problem with this order. Haldor immediately did what he was told, but soon, when he started walking, a question arose: "Did you see the dragon a moment ago?"

"Oh, the wild dragon we woke up in the temple... It's the second time I've seen one so close. Before, we had dragons in our territory, but after the Great War, we lost them all. It's said that even your father keeps his dragon alive, but it's too old, so it spends most of its time asleep." Ravyn was sincere with his words as he watched Haldor's back.

On this road, Haldor would take advantage of the time they had to ask about the world in general; he knew he wasn't on Earth, so the more he learned about this world, the more beneficial it would be when they met with the outpost.