Back at the Lure, exhaustion was catching up with Andrew's party as they struggled against the endless onslaught of monsters. Sure, most of them were easy to defeat, but there were just too many of them to deal with at once. When one of them managed to land a bite on the knight's arm, anxiety began creeping into his mind. The priestess, on the other hand, full of confidence that her companions would protect her, remained calm as the Lure's content, a puddle of pink liquid, slowly but surely lost its brightness. A cloud of pink gas was released continuously throughout the process, but thanks to the ring of light around it, it couldn't escape as it diffused into nothingness.

  "How much longer, Sera?!" Andrew activated his magic skill, that, upon thrusting his halberd forward, created an impaling shockwave, sending the assaulting monsters flying away.

  "A few more minutes." She informed as the color of the Lure had faded significantly.

  Out of nowhere, a large brown dragon crashed into the monster horde and flooded them with sticky mud. The red-skinned man flared up when he saw the dragon and charged toward her with his sword. Brown noticed him in her peripheral and spitted out a ball of sticky mud on his legs. The man was instantly immobilized and fell flat on the ground, causing the others to become apprehensive. The earth-dragon shot them an uninterested look before engaging with the rampaging monsters. That was enough of a sign for the group to understand she was on their side. The red-skinned man, however, still screamed obscenities at her.

  What felt like hours later, the Lure finally lost all its color. When the creatures snapped out of their trance, they promptly escaped back to where they came. Andrew tore off the sticky mud while the catgirl sat down with a sigh of relief. With the crisis averted, the brown dragon returned to the camp once she reported telepathically to Ryder that the purification was a success.

  Back at the gates, Green untangled the dome he worked hard to build, while Ryder unequipped his armor. The duo met up, gave each other an exhausted smile, and sat their backs against each other. The guards thanked them profusely before celebrating loudly with their comrades.

  "Heyyyy! Ryder!"

  Andrew waved at his former classmate once his party had gotten close enough. The red-skinned man glared at Green with contempt while carrying the unconscious hooded figure. Green could definitely tell he had some gripe with dragons, and he was desperately trying to ignore the man.

  "How do you not know what a Lure is? Or is your mission not defeating Moros' forces?" Ryder asked when the blonde stood before him.

  "Duh, of course my mission is to battle against Moros and his cronies. What does the Lure have to do with this?" He crossed his arms.

  "Don't you know Moros' underlings use Lure to cause chaos? Why were you looking for the hooded figures, then?"

  "Really?! I've never seen one before. We were told that there is an important cargo on the carriage, something that the bad guys were trying to use in order to do more bad stuff. We were supposed to escort the carriage peacefully back to the cas- I mean, the client's place. If they refuse to obey, we're allowed to seize the carriage and capture one of them for interrogation. I guess it's safe to say that the 'Lure' thing you mentioned is the cargo. At least it couldn't be used to cause any more trouble!"

  Ryder sighed and stood up. "Next time, when you see a Lure, make sure it doesn't break or have its lid opened. If this had happened in an area with dangerous monsters, many people would've died. Got it?" He then hitched himself up to Green's back.

  "Wait! There's one more thing I want to say, Ryder."

  The dragon rider stared at the knight impatiently.

  "No matter what happened before we came here, let's forget about it, okay? You probably want to return home as well, and we stand a better chance defeating Moros' army by working together instead of being angry at each other."

  Ryder considered his proposal and was almost ready to accept it.

  "Let's just forget about the bad stuff you did to me before, and you forget the bad stuff I might have done in the past! Deal?" Andrew stretched his hands out with a smile.

  His right eye twitched. "Might have? You have no clue why I was angry at you, didn't you?"

  "Not really? Come on, it's not like you never did anything bad to me. Like that play. Let's just forgive and forget, yeah?"

  He gritted his teeth and scowled as his eyes widened. "Are you being serious right now? We would have failed our subject! You do realize that, even if I wasn't the one asking you to replace your friend that day, someone else would! Plus! You were supposed to play that role before you asked your friend to take over!"

  Andrew furrowed his eyebrows and started shouting back, "Hey! I already said that I'm willing to forgive you! Why do you have to bring it all back up? Can't you just get over yourself?"

  Ryder scoffed in spite. "I don't want to hear that from someone who is incapable of remembering the wrong he did to others."

  "You're really stubborn, you know that?! You're so narcissistic!"

  "Fuck you. You seem so happy to be your true self here, so why not just stay in this world forever?!" He then relayed a telepathic order to Green before the dragon leaped away.

  "You're a real big meanie head, you know that, Ryder?! A big fat meanie!!"

  The duo ignored Andrew as the catgirl and red-skinned man consoled him. The priestess simply stared at Ryder until he fully disappeared into the night.

  Once they made it back to the camp, Green growled gently and patted his partner's back with his vines to comfort him. He cursed himself in his mind for being unable to master the art of shape-shifting.

  Ryder kicked the ground with bitter anger. He couldn't tell which possibility infuriates him more: Andrew lying about not remembering or that he genuinely could not remember. There was a burning desire in his throat to scream at the top of his lungs and fling slurs at his former classmate. However, if he did that, he'd be no different from the hypocrite he was angry at.

  "It appears that I have missed out on another one of your mortal bickering." Purple raised from his earthly bed and grinned. Green growled with hostility, but the older dragon wasn't fazed by the younger dragon's attempt to stop him from stirring Ryder's emotions further.

  "Say another word, and you'll eat your meat raw for the entire week," Ryder pointed at Purple with bulging veins at his temple.

  "My, my, someone had their button pushed. This is uncharacteristically childish of you, Ryder, to be so obsessed with another mortal's flaw. Are the mortals back in your world so ruled by irrationality? So strong that I could perceive it through our telepathic link?"

  "I don't want to hear that from you! You don't know anything!"

  "Is that so? Then perhaps you should re-evaluate your capability as a dragon rider. After all, aren't they supposed to understand and be understood by their dragons?" Purple mocked as he laid his body down and slept.

  Ryder gritted his teeth, but found himself unable to rebut his sharp-tongued companion. Like a deflated balloon, he crashed down next to the campfire and pulled out his phone. Green shuffled to his rider's back, sat, and nuzzled. The human smiled dryly and patted the dragon. He then laid his back against his scaly friend and watched YouTube videos with his earphones.