Chapter Text
There wasn’t a lot of things to do now that the war has deep down quite a bit. Now that there was no fighting which meant now destruction he didn’t have a reason to come up from the world of eternal rest. As the name suggests shadows (and other) rested here. There was a whole area dedicated here for dragons only. Most shadows live together despite the race but due to dragons’ destructive nature his majesty ordered to have a special area resident just for them. Maybe it was due to that on eincident when Kamish ate Iron. Yes. Ate him. Well he wasn’t able to dissolve him into mana, because normally when shadows eat they can dissolve food into mana thus restoring it. But Iron was a shadow… and due to the non killing human policy the shadows have Kamish wasn’t able to taste human meat in a long time, and how could he resist where there was a human in the shadow army?
Well, there was another human, Greed. Greed was an unfortunate shadow who when alive made a terrible sin and now their liege doesn’t even give him a single glance, and Kamish has some decency not to make the already miserable shadow’s existence even harder. But Iron was different. Hyperactive he would say. Dumb too. But somehow really beloved by their liege on a certain level. Always trying to get praised by him Iron made a lot of… weird things. Thus he was some time on Kamish’s radar before the initial incident.
It was a calm, normal day in the shadow realm unti Kamish was fortunate enought to see how a shadow human was running straight to the mines. Why? That was exactly what Kamish wondered when he streched on a purple grass debating if he should sleep a bit more or fall into the hole of curiosity. The last obe won. He stood proudly in the middle of a field that was close to the mountain that contained a lot of usefull materials and therefore had a mine in it. It had not a lot of visitors. Mostly the workers (who volunteered to work there) and generals visited the mine from time to time to assure everything was in order. Actually the one who was in charge of it was Iron. And he was actually a good overseer of the mines. So it would be normal to see him there, right? Well, not in such a rush which would mean two things: one he messed up big time, second he messed up on a galaxy level. Which one is it?
Kamish closed his eyes to better concentrate on his mana so he will be able to make it tighter so his physical form could shrink enough that he would look nothing bigger than a four legged creatures on earth that were rather small. What name it was? “Cats”? Ultimately it doesn’t matter as he hurried to follow iron who already was deep inside mines
As the entrance you could see black wooden pillars supporting the cave so the whole mine wouldn’t colapse. There were a lot of boxes full of different minerals. Mana crystals, diamonds, obsidian, you name it. The mine was created through their liege’s authority over this place. The vast forerst, fields, mountains were all build with the materials their liege’s authority over created. Truly a being that transcended reality.
Kamish quikcly ran on all fours following the reils and the hints of mana Iron left behind him. He passed by a few workers that were taking a break and chatting with each other. They noticed the dragon running in a rather slow pace. Maybe he shouldnt have eaten so metal from the dumpster…. But what could he say? They tasted funny and his stomach is full of lava. He can handle it.
As he made a turn to right he stepped into the room full of blue mana crystals that were lighting up the otherwise dark cave. He watched standing in the middle of the entrance how Iron was trying to find something amids the crystals.
“Whatcha doing?” The dragon asked startling Iron as he quickly turned around to face him and hide his hands behind his back. “Nothing…” Iron answered while making it seen that he was not nervous at all which he failed miserably. Kamish shrugged and as the bolt of lightning he was already behind Iron curiosuly inspecting what was in his hands.
“A necklace?” Iron quickly turned around to face Kamish who had a sly smile showing all of his sharp theeth. Iron, seemingly embarrassed started slowly backing away while not looking at the dragon directly.
“What is it for?” Kamish asked with no reaction “ Who is it for?” Bingo. Iron broke his (not really) stoick face with a smile that he tried desperately to hide. Kamish roared in excitement from the perspective to hear some drama.
“Spill the tea, spill the tea!” Iron looked baffled at the statement not really understanding american sleng before it got to him.
“Hmph… well. Soon, our liege’s anniversary of “Accession day” comes and i wanted to uhm…. Gift something to our liege ?” He said unsure on how the dragon would react. Kamish stood there blinking slowly as he finally closed his mouth full of theeth. He contemplated for a bit. “Accession day”? The day when their king finally received the full authority as a monarch? But wasn’t it during winter? Right now is the middle of a spring. Maybe Iron is bad with dates?
“Don’t look at me like that! I am talking about the day where our liege’s anniversary took his first step on becoming the true king!” He screams to try to defend himself now that the dragon had an ubsurdlt expressionate face of complete disappointment.
“? How did you know the date?” Kamish asks genuinly curious about how the shadow got to know that. He himself joined too late to fully witness his king’s journey which saddened him but in the end eh still joined.
“…” Iron looked again at the ceilig of the cave immediately calming down. “it is a secret….” ‘Ah, so Bellion told him’ kamihs duesses from the look of human’s face. Bellion was rather a hard person to simply talk to and he doesn’t even mention getting along. The birdie is just too controlling, does that guy know what a “Free spirit” is? Because that was what kind of person Kamish was. He was a dragon for crying out loud! They had no such things as “Generals” or “Marshals”! So he could pretty much understand why Iron wasn’t directly telling him that Bellion was the one who told him. It was just too hard to predict what to say freely without upsetting him.
“So, let me see that necklace. It should be of the finest quality to even show it to the eyes of our monarch!” He said and unwillingly Iron slowly brought his hands to show the dragon what he had. “Oh?” Kamish amused looked throughly at the necklace trying to find even the slightest bit of scratch or something that would make the thing bad. “Surprisingly it is decent.” He made his verdict and Iron let out a relieved sigh.
“So uhhhh, i will be going. I took what i wanted.” Kamish curiously tilted his head when he noticed some pieces of crystals that were giving a bit of light showing off from his body.
“uh, sure. Go ahead pal. See ya around.’” Kamish said and the human disappeared in the blink of an eye.
“Thinking about it, shouldn’t i also prepare a gift?”
…
Powerful humans liked different things which had no similarities whatsoever. Kamish figured as much after stalking observing the hunters that killed him. The golden one liked to wear “unusual” things and was rather pleased when he was given what he wanted, through force of intimidation. The blonde girl beside him did the talking most of the times and resolved numerous conflicts. And if so happened that the golden hunter had to deal with certain things he was resolving them with force. He was a human talking with his fists and not his mouth. Meanwhile the human with long black hair was rather cunning, people were really quite every time when he came into the room. And as he observed people were not afraid of his physical powers but the power he had in his words. He saw how a human with rather high status got humbled and escorted away just because the long hair guy said one word. It was unbelievable how differently strong people were approaching problems. Usually when Dragons had disagreements they were at each other’s throats trying to kill each other but those usually left their victims alive for whatever reasons. Why spare weaklings who dared to show their teeth before a great predator?
“Because it is a tabu in human society to kill other humans.” His liege answered slowly petting his head.
“And so what? You have said it yourself my liege. Rules don’t apply to powerful humans” His king tilted his head and closed his eyes slowly exhaling. “Or is there something i failed to undertand?” He added after the pause in which his liege didn’t answer.
“Not really. It just…. People weren’t born with such powers in the contrast to citizens of the world of chaos. They acquired it. But until that time they were raised with the thought that killing people is bad.” He answered after some thinking and petted Kamish’s horns. “National level hunters don’t kill as often because… they couldn’t be bothered to.” Kamish as if understood something opened his eyes wide open. “They did kill people. But mostly those who could fight back because it was entertaining and they had an excuse that could be used so nobody would bother them afterwards.” Jiwnoo opened his eyes and looked at Kamish before making a compare. “When you came to Earth you were doing your duty of destruction but national level hunters didn’t leave you alone when you were just doing your job.” Kamish nodded understanding from where his liege was coming from.
“Understood. Thanks you for bestowing this knowledge upon this one.”
…
“No.” Igris said coldly when Kamish showed him the gift he had prepared for their liege.
“What?” Kamish asked rather calmly. He had made a quick trip to the world cracks to find a prey good enough to be presented before the monarch. Killed it as carefully as he could to preserve the magnificent look of the beast. And brought it to Igris to have his verdict whenever he should cook (aka burn it tot the crisp) or present it in the raw form .
“No. Just no. It isn’t… our liege doesn’t like golems… and beside they can’t be cooked.” He said while slowly walking around the big humanoid golem who was one of the first golems ever created.
“…” Kamish tilted his head in sorrow. Looks like he has to go look for another gift.
“Uh, but you could gift some of the artifacts the golem has. They look rather useful but inspect them first with dwarfs before giving it to our liege.” The dragon’s face lightened up with joy as he stared wagging his tail. “And oh, maybe check the artifacts with Marshal Beru too. He had decided to practice his blacksmith skills. Just before giving it to him say it is for our liege. Otherwise i am afraid Beru is going to…. Khm. Nothing. Forget i said the last part” Kamish looked curiously at the knight who couched in his fist and hashly said his farewells.
“?”
…
Kamish stood frozen as numerous shadow ants started climbing onto him. He watched how the ant king slowly inspected the artifacts he brought with him.
“Tshhhhhhhhh, there is nothing wrong with them and they have no curse affected whatsoever. But maybe we should recolour them to black, after all our liege does not enjoy vibrant colours…” he said and gave the artifacts to the nearby ant. Kamish growled a bit at the numerous ants climbing him and with one swift move of his tail all of them were on the ground laying on their backs trying to get back at their legs. Beru quickly came to them and assisted in standing but said nothing to the dragon.
“So… will you do it?” He asks the ant king and the antenas on his head twitched.
“Leave such a task to me. I will attend to it with the most care for our liege’s sake.” And with that Kamish needed no open his wings so the ants would fall from him.
…
“Hm?” Jinwoo looked through text Thomas send him after his mother saw that he was ignoring him. Jinwoo wasn’t ignoring him its just…
As he gave a quick look through his text he noticed one that made him question what were shadows up to while he wasn’t looking.
Thomas:
-with how much your boys were hanging out in my guild i would think they have nothing to do-.
-I already had some of the workers making requests to call ghostbusters!-
As Jinwoo was ready to start searching for the shadows that were making a mess he read another message.
Thomas:
-Send more! Lmao it is hilarious watching people making their theories that our building is haunted.-
-The shadow slightly twitched and they are already running around like chickens without their heads!-
-LOL-
Jinwoo sighed reading the messages. Even if Andre was alright with shadows hanging around it didn’t meant Jinwoo was. He should say that to Bellion or Igris, Bellion’s hands are already full of managing the shadow army now that he had some troubles discipling them. Mostly because he wasn’t there from the beginning when they just joined to quickly establish the rulers.
“My liege.” Jinwoo looked down on the two purple dots peeking at him through his shadow.
“What is it, Kamish?” Jinwoo asks while placing down his pen and instead playing with his necklase Iron gifted him today. He wore it mostly so the guy wouldn’t be overdramatic about it.
“I have brought you a gift” Kamish too hm? He wonders if today is some kind of special day. He wathced how the shadow slightly deformed to reach his table and place a shiny thing on his desk.
“This is..?” He looked amused at the crown that was emanating quite a lot of mana.
“A gift from me — your loyal servant who wanted to celebrate the anniversary of the “Accession day”” Jinwoo closed his eyes in frustration. If the two of them already gifted him gifts it would mean that more are going to come. He already felt a headache waiting for him around the corner.