Ume — the invisible dragon — floated towards the bathroom in the Adventurer's Guild building to think.
Along the way, she accidentally bumped into someone walking out of a toilet stall, and they stared dumbfounded at the green slime that was levitating in mid-air. Ume paid no attention to this measly human and simply went around them. She opened a stall, shut it behind her, and then locked the door.
The adventurer stared speechlessly at the flying slime that casually floated into the bathroom.
Clearly, this was not something that one saw every day... but then again strange things happened in the guild all the time. Foreigners were a very common sight in the Adventurer's Guild, and all kinds of alien species were registered with the agency. For instance, a few days ago, a bird-man had appeared on Sky Harbor, Otherworlders from other universes fell out of ponds, and a large monstrous creature had been spotted beneath the archipelago.
Perhaps a levitating slime wasn't that strange after all.
In fact, there was no telling that perhaps the slime itself was a registered member of the guild. The organization had no formal rules or criteria about its members, and nearly anyone could apply. Age was not a restriction, and there was even a 3-year-old fairy who was a registered adventurer.
...It was better not to question it.
Yeah. A random slime wasn't suspicious at all!
+ + +
Eventually, Ume arrived at the conclusion that she needed a disguise.
In order to properly infiltrate this evil human city, she would need a more active means of interrogating anyone that she encountered. Her invisible form simply wasn't going to cut it, especially since she couldn't communicate with anyone in this state. Based on Ume's extensive research on the classic James Bond movies, she would need a fake ID as well as fancy gadgets that would allow her to hack into the mainframe CPU of the entire universe.
Of course, it was important to approach this one step at a time, so Ume decided to tackle the first problem on her list.
Ume needed a fake ID.
But in order to have a fake ID, Ume would need to disguise herself as a human.
And that was where the young 53-year-old dragon ran into a problem.
Mind you, the problem wasn't that Ume couldn't transform into a human. No. That part was easy. As a shapeshifting dragon, Ume could freely alter her appearance in almost any way that she wanted. The main issue Ume struggled with was that she couldn't decide how she wanted to look. Was it better to have brown hair or black hair? Purple hair? Short hair? Should she give herself freckles? What about glasses?
Ume felt like she spent only a few minutes shapeshifting inside the bathroom stall, but before she knew it, there was a staff member knocking on the bathroom door.
"Ma'am, it's the end of the day. We're closing now."
"O-Oh! I'm sorry! I'll be right out!"
...Ultimately, Ume spent the entire day inside of the bathroom.
She still hadn't decided on a human form... x.x
+ + +
A young 16-year-old girl carrying a green slime burst out of the bathroom stall.
At the last minute, Ume ultimately decided to simply copy the appearance of the first human she met in this universe, which was incidentally the healer from Sir Gawrgaru's party named Lady Luna. Maybe it was completely unoriginal, but creating a new appearance was seriously way too hard! Plagiarizing was so much easier.
"Wait!" Ume cried out as she ran to the reception desk, "Please don't close! I still need to register!"
She ran frantically (stumbling almost, since she wasn't used to walking on legs), gasping with exertion when she arrived at the front desk. Seriously, moving on land was so hard! Even after running a such a short distance, Ume was already tired...
The receptionist glanced at the clock mounted on the wall.
It was one minute after of the official closing time of the Adventurer's Guild.
Technically it was already after hours.
Ume had a tearful look in her eyes. She appeared to be pleading desperately: 'Please let me register for the guild...'
The receptionist sighed.
They handed over a sheet of paper, and Ume filled out her registration form.
...With fake human information, of course.
Ume obviously wasn't a dragon.
+ + +
Just as the receptionist was about to file away Ume's registration papers and wrap up for the day, Ume suddenly reached out and grabbed the receptionist's arm. Her grip was abnormally strong for a 16-year-old human girl, and she smiled brightly at the receptionist.
"I'd also like to file a quest report," Ume said cheerfully.
"..."
"Don't worry! It's short!"
"......"
Ume's quest report went like this:
Ume's Quest Report:
∎
I'm still worried about the adventurer who was stuck in the ship when it crashed...
Also, Ume: Source? Bro just trust me
I mean a bird man came from a different world so should we really be surprised a dragon appeared?
I look forward to what you end up writing @GodlyKamui!
And yeah... it shouldn't be too surprising. @Ddraig's character is also related to dragons.
Lol, this is getting interesting!
the invisible dragon
*cough*