Oops, I Was Accidentally Transported To A Fantasy World And Taught Dragons About Capitalism - Chapter 4

One of the biggest things that I’ve learned in my years away from earth, is that as a general rule dragons don’t generally scare or surprise.

And truthfully, why would they?

From the moment that they are born, they are not only physically stronger and smarter than most beings, but are also magically resilient, capable of shrugging off practically anything that could so much as bother them, be it blade or spell. Such a thing, as you would no doubt expect, breeds a kind of absolute confidence, or better put, arrogance, in their ability that few beings in the universe can match. The world is quite literally their playground, and the gods help you should you find yourself as an interesting toy one of them wants to play with.

That is why when you see a dragon, any dragon, let alone, Xylera the Terrible, the Bringer of a Thousand Dooms, the Sorrow of the Waking Land, the Bleakbringer, the Life Ender, the Skybreaker, and the Matriarch of the Shadow Wing Flight show either of those two emotions, you should pay very close attention.

And if you see a dragon show both of those emotions at the same time, well, then you should start running as fast as you possibly can in whatever direction that is best described as ‘not here’. It’s practically guaranteed that you won’t escape whatever is going to happen, but hey, there’s a first time for everything, right?

Alas for me, freshly abducted from my realm and sitting flat on my ass in the middle of a tiny, magma surrounded island, I had no idea of that rule at the time.

So when Xylera’s claw shot forward with nigh blinding speed, I thought that was the end of me, and she had finally decided to use her silvered talons to unceremoniously end my life before I could say or do something else to upset her. However, instead of experiencing that blinding surge agony before eternal peace, I found myself snatched up from the ground as if I were a feather.

“You have my most profound apologies for your treatment, Wealthshaper,” I heard Xylera say in a suddenly formal voice from over my screaming as she began to all but run through the cavern.

Yeah, that’s right, I started to scream like a little baby the second she picked me up. Don’t lie to yourself and say you wouldn’t do it in my shoes either. Ancient dragons are the literal definition of terrifying.

“But I ask that you please stay your hand,” she continued steadily, completely ignoring the noise that my mouth was making as she carried me into the depths of her lair. “Please, stay your hand long enough to hear my plea for I have a great and dire need for one such as you.”

Now it’s right about here where we need to take another brief pause and talk about the nature of dragons, specifically about their pride. Don’t worry, it’s a short little detour and we’ll get ourselves right back on track here.

A dragon’s pride is huge. Gargantuan. Massive. Colossal. Titanic. Plus whatever other size descriptors that you can think of that I forgot.

That means if, heaven forbid, a dragon stoops to politely ask you for something, and I mean truly, earnestly, ask you, rather than simply take whatever they want from you, then there should be alarm bells ringing in your mind. For what they’re about to ask you is likely impossible for anyone to ever be able to deliver.

That is for anyone other than me.

But as with many things in the early days of my new life, I didn’t know that just yet, my mind instead going to the next most obvious fate that a dragon could have for a person as Xylera slowed in her sprint and set me back down on the ground.

“Please don’t eat me!” I shouted the instant that she released me, not having really processed anything of what was just said. Fortunately Xylera was already several steps ahead of my brain’s overworked trauma processing mechanisms, her neck dropping down until she could meet my eyes.

“Peace, Fortuneweaver, peace,” she said in the same reverent tone as before, even going as far as to dip her head towards me as she spoke. “Rest assured, I have no plans to do such a thing. No, rather instead I must beseech your aid on a matter most dear to me and my flight.”

But by that point in my tribulations, I was truly cooked in every sense of the word, my body having filled itself with so much adrenaline that even the assurance that I wasn’t about to become dragon chow was enough for things to start making sense. That was why I found myself simply staring back at Xylera wordlessly for several seconds until I finally realized she was waiting for an answer.

Not that I gave her a particularly good one, all things considered.

“W-w-what?”

The demure expression on Xylera’s face all but vanished instantly as a result of my stammering, leaving her with a vaguely blank look as she stared back at me. The very same kind look that remembered a good many of my school teachers shooting in my direction when I said or did something that failed to impress. Despite that however, the dragon pressed on, rephrasing herself in a way that there was simply no mistaking.

“I need your help, human,” she stated bluntly. “It is a matter of life or death.”

And that was all it took to finally get through to me, my mouth dropping open for a split moment in surprise before I forcibly started to nod my head.

“Oh, I see. Uh, sure,” I replied as a bolt of relief shot through me, even if I couldn’t think of anything a dragon such as her would need help with. “What…exactly is it that you need?”

“Your help in breaking a curse most wicked,” Xylera stated without so much as a second’s pause, her voice and expression resuming its earlier reverent demeanor. “One that has caused much sorrow for my flight and I.”

Yet for as direct as Xylera was being, I simply didn’t have the requisite magical background or context at the time to do more than stare at her blankly. In fact, had I been allowed to simply continue doing so with the no doubt stupid expression on my face I’m sure I had, there is no doubt in my mind that she would have just changed her mind and eaten me right there and then before accepting another few decades of imprisonment. However instead of giving me the opportunity to shatter whatever confidence that she’d seemingly placed in my being a ‘Wealthshaper’, she gracefully stepped to the side.

Thereby giving me my first ever look at real, living, magic.

It’s a look that I still remember to this day. The moment that my eyes landed on the glowing violet lines of the curse. The dark, roiling smoke that filled its interior, spinning clockwise with such speed that it might as well have been a trapped tornado. How together they had arrayed themselves into the outline of an obelisk. One covered in an array of free floating symbols, shapes, and words, the latter of which against anything I was expecting, especially here of all places.

And that was because they were written in English.

“What…how—” I started to say as my eyes took in the gleaming pillar of magic, only to find myself interrupted by Xylera.

“Do you see it?” She asked urgently, her head shifting until it was at the same level as mine. “Do you see the essence of the curse before us, layered on top the smoke?”

“I…uh…yes, I do.” I replied, just barely managing to pull my attention away from the words to look at the dragon, who in turn was staring back at me. “And the words upon it…they’re—”

“—the same as those from our realm, yes?”

The statement was enough to stop me cold as I stared up at Xylera, the dragon matriarch fixing me with a knowing look.

“I am,” she stated simply, answering the question before I could voice it. “It was many, many centuries ago, but yes, we both share the same mother realm. That is before my life took a very similar turn as yours no doubt just did.”

“I…what? You’re from—I mean, how is that even possible?” I immediately demanded as I started to find my mental feet, my attention then rapidly jumping back and forth between Xylera and the curse. “How is…any of this possible?”

“Those are questions that only Heaven knows the answers to,” she stated in a resigned tone. “Perhaps you may yet have luck in discovering them, but for our purposes here, they do not matter. All that matters at this moment is the curse, and if you possess the ability to sunder it. If you cannot not, then…”

My attention snapped back to Xylera as her voice trailed off, the tone of her voice causing another round of warning bells to sound off in my mind. “Then what?”

“Then you will die, Fortuneweaver,” the dragon replied forlornly. “Not by my tooth or claw, unless you will me to do so. But rather by the harshness of this place as all the other lost souls cast away here have before you. You will thirst. You will wither. And when your body cannot take it any longer, you will perish.”

Now as you’d expect for a person in my shoes, I couldn’t help but gape at the dragon’s rather brutal foretelling of my future, her description all but immediately filling me with a sudden sense of urgency when I realized that she was in fact right. Despite the fact that I’d only been here mere minutes, my body and hair was already all but soaked in sweat from the cavern’s natural heat and my throat was already starting to feel dry.

Though to be fair, I was sure a great deal of that was because of my earlier screaming.

Regardless, the rational part of my mind quickly deduced that unless I found something, anything, refreshing to drink, I was most certainly a goner. It was a thought process that understandably upset me the longer that I allowed it to sink in. But rather than being filled with a cold, inevitable sense of defeat, I was instead filled with a torrent of burning rage so potent only those who have worked retail, at a help desk, or in a restaurant could ever have hope in relating to it. It was a rage that Xylera clearly sensed as I met her eyes with clarity for the first time since my arrival, her pupils widening in response.

“What can you tell me about this curse?” I asked as I immediately began to walk towards the violet pillar, very pointedly ignoring the fact that I knew absolutely nothing about magic, let alone how to break what was before me.

“That it is responsible for binding me in this prison for the better part of the last century,” came the reply from the matriarch as she let me pass by. “It’s foul magic has sealed away everything from my mystical sight, to my ability to speak or understand words of power, to even my flight. Not that even if I could take to the air that I would be able to fly more than few hundred paces away from it before its magic forcibly compelled me to return.”

It was a reply that had me nodding as I stopped just short of the curse, a particular statement in Xylera’s words giving me pause. “Hold on, you said something about mystical sight? You mean you can’t…uh, you can’t see all of the purple lines and, uh, stuff floating right here?”

“No, I cannot,” she replied from practically right above me. “I know that they are there, that they must be there for the curse to hold. But alas, thanks to its effects, all I can see is a coiling pillar of darkness. If it would be otherwise then I would be capable of shattering the curse on my own.”

“I…see,” I answered back slowly as I struggled to make sense of what she had told me, much of it being truly quite useless until later in my life. But even so, she told me enough that I turned towards the curse and gave it an honest and proper look, my eyes tracing over the floating words and symbols carefully and with great reverence.

Or at least that is what I want to say I did, given the magnitude of the situation.

What in fact happened when I gave the violet pillar of a curse a good long stare was a disembodied blast of confusion when I realized I recognized the writing upon it. Not just the fact that it was written in English, but rather the even more specific language that the curse had been written in.

“The hell?” I muttered, feeling my eyes widen as I parsed the text before me. “Is that…is that COBOL?”