“Cute princess!”

The moment I materialized, the world barely settled before Lisa raced into me at full speed, her arms locking around my waist as she buried her face into my chest.

My breath hitched—not from the impact, which should have knocked me flat on my ass, but from the sheer force of Lisa-ness radiating off her in waves. Reflexively, my hand found its way to her head, ruffling her soft locks as she practically purred in response.

I was stunned, despite expecting it.

Teleporting based on screenshots was a shaky business, but thankfully, this wasn’t an entirely new location for me. I’d crossed through these rolling hills once before—back when Lucas and I had gone for our casual walk and ended up claiming an entire fort.

The surrounding scene was picture-perfect: gentle, sloping hills stretching endlessly into the distance, brushed by a light breeze that carried the scent of wildflowers. The sky was casting everything in nice, warm tones. And amid it all, here I was—Lisa clinging to me like an over-affectionate cat, her arms wrapped tightly around my waist.

Perfect, right?

Almost.

Because her entire guild was standing around us, watching. Prince couldn’t hold it anymore and started laughing.

A silence hung in the air as I slowly, slowly turned my head, only to meet the collective stares of about a dozen unfamiliar faces, some amused, some baffled, and some just openly gawking.

“Uhm… hi?” I raised a hand in a weak attempt at a casual greeting, my voice coming out more awkwardly than I intended.

A man in a flowing robe, clearly a priest by his clothes, nodded at me with a knowing smile. “Welcome, Miss Charlie. I’m Peter. Pardon Lis, she’s… more focused most of the time.” His tone was far too diplomatic, like a parent making excuses for their overly enthusiastic child.

“Damn right!” A booming laugh cut through the moment, and a warrior confidently strode toward me, his armor clanking with each step. “I’m Rob. The only warrior you need to know.”

His grin stretched across his face, plastered there with the unwavering confidence of someone who absolutely believed his own hype. He looked like the guy who thought strategy meant hitting things harder and negotiation was for people who couldn’t swing a sword.

I immediately decided I would not be handing him any whiskey, at least until he’s old enough, this punk kid.

“Hi,” came a barely audible murmur from somewhere behind me.

I turned my head slightly and glimpsed a girl in a black clothes—clearly a rogue—attempting to merge with the landscape. Unfortunately for her, standing in tall grass during broad daylight was about as effective for stealth as a brit in an Irish pub.

“N-Nice to meet you,” she stammered, her voice so quiet I had to strain to catch it.

I gave her a small, encouraging smile. “Hey, Natasha,” I said, keeping my tone light. “Nice to meet you too. I’d shake your hand, but…”

I gestured down at Lisa, who was still wrapped around me. Lisa, finally acknowledging the attention, squeezed tighter. “Miiine,” she declared, her voice muffled against my chest.

“Uhmmm,” I whispered, my brain momentarily buffering. “What?”

Peter, the priest, executed the perfect facepalm—textbook, really. The kind of facepalm that carried the weight of years of dealing with this exact kind of situation.

“Lis, you can’t just claim people,” he sighed, his tone teetering on the fine edge between displeasure and resignation, like a man who had long since given up fighting the inevitable.

Lisa, to her credit, finally unlatched herself from me. She straightened her robe with a calm, neutral expression, as if she hadn’t just physically restrained me in front of an entire audience. “I know, Pete,” she said smoothly. Then, almost too quiet, she added, “Just… let me be childish sometimes. I really…”

Her voice trailed off, whatever she was about to say lost in the void of unfinished thoughts. But then, as if flipping a switch, her usual cheerful smile snapped back into place. “Doesn’t matter.”

Suspicious.

Lisa definitely mattered.

But I wasn’t about to pry right now, not with a dozen people staring at us like we were the pre-show entertainment for the Sword Queen event. So I filed that little nugget of information away for later and focused on the task at hand.

“So, Charlie,” Lisa continued, her usual energy back in full force. “I get that we’re ready?”

I nodded, already pushing mana into the ring. The golden inscriptions flared, greedily pulling in my energy like a bottomless pit. “We can go anytime. The sooner, the better—at least for me.”

Lisa turned to her guildmates, hands on her hips, and began explaining—passionately—that she was leaving with me to, and I quote, “Get better so she can wipe Dmitry’s ass.” Lisa was talking about Dmitry like he was some kind of plague that needed to be scrubbed from the earth.

“Uhm,” I started, unsure how to even approach this. “I feel like I just heard something I wasn’t meant to.”

Peter sighed again, this time rubbing his temples. “Lisa… words. Use them correctly.”

Lisa waved a dismissive hand, undeterred. “You know what I mean! We all hate Dmitry, right?”

A collective murmur of agreement rippled through the group. Even Natasha, hiding behind Rob, who had seemed too timid to exist a few moments ago, muttered, “I mean… yeah.”

I squinted at Lisa. “Okay, fine, but wipe his ass? That’s how you’re phrasing it?”

She crossed her arms. “Well, you know what I meant!”

I decided to ignore all the ass-wiping talk before it got permanently burned into my brain. “Okay, I’m ready. Hold on tight, Lisa!”

Lisa said her goodbyes, which, of course, naturally meant launching herself at me again in an all-consuming embrace. Well, no complaints from me. She smelled nice, and at this point, I might as well just accept my fate as her portable stuffed animal.

But just as I was about to teleport us out—

“Wait!”

I turned my head slightly, only for Rob’s voice to boom across the entire meadow.

“Wanna go on a date?” he shouted, as if I were already mid-teleport and he had to get his confession out before I faded into the ether.

“Uhm… what?” My brain stuttered so hard I practically blue-screened. I stared at him, utterly dumbfounded. Did he really just—

Before I could even process a response, Natasha elbowed him from behind. Unfortunately for her, trying to elbow someone in full plate armor was about as effective as attacking a goolem with a toothpick. But to my absolute delight, Rob still staggered forward, nearly tripping over his own feet.

Lisa, still wrapped around me, let go. Slowly. Deliberately.

Without a single word, she walked toward Rob.

Rob gulped.

His cocky demeanor shattered in real-time, like a glass pane meeting a sledgehammer. With a resigned sigh, he reached up and unfastened his helmet, revealing a face that was currently one bad decision away from regretting his entire life.

And then—

SLAP!

Lisa’s palm connected with his cheek with a loud smack that echoed across the meadow. It was beautiful. The kind of slap that belonged in an old-school drama where the heroine declares, I trusted you! Before storming off.

Rob barely flinched, but his head turned slightly from the impact. A single, stunned moment passed before he muttered, “Worth it.”

Lisa, expression neutral, turned on her heel and walked right back to me.

“Let’s go,” she said, as if she hadn’t just physically disciplined a fully armored warrior in front of her entire guild.

“Okay…” I blinked, still processing what had just happened. But I shook it off—I had a job to do.

I focused, picturing the cave clearly in my mind. I had been there often enough on the test servers to recall it precisely. “See you… all… later,” I muttered.

And with a final surge of magic—

We vanished.

 

The moment we reappeared, the air slammed into us like a physical force—a wave of blistering heat so intense that my lungs protested on impact. I instinctively squinted against the brightness, my pupils struggling to adjust to the hellscape before us.

Lovely place.

The ground beneath our feet was cracked and scorched, veins of molten rock pulsing between broken obsidian formations like a glowing infernal network. The very earth seemed alive, shifting and sighing under the relentless heat. A thick haze of shimmering air curled upward, distorting the horizon like a mirage.

And ahead of us, looming like a sovereign ripped straight from a nightmare, stood the volcano.

It wasn’t just any volcano—it was the volcano. An enormous mountain of blackened rock, its gaping maw spewing plumes of ash into the sky. Rivers of lava snaked down its slopes, splitting and reforming in an endless dance of destruction. The very air hummed with pressure, vibrating with the barely contained fury of the molten heart beneath.

If hell had a penthouse suite, this was it.

I wiped the sweat from my brow—not that it helped—and exhaled through gritted teeth. “So, this is the place,” I muttered, already moving toward the cave entrance carved into the volcanic wall.

Lisa followed, her expression a mix of curiosity and happiness. “Please,” I added, glancing over my shoulder at her, “you need to do your best. I don’t know how… he’ll react to us.”

Lisa’s sharp gaze locked onto mine, instantly serious. “Who’s he?”

I hesitated for a fraction of a second before answering. “It’s… complicated.” That was an understatement. “But don’t say dragon. If you do, Ice-God have mercy on us.”

Lisa blinked. “That bad?”

“Worse,” I muttered as we stepped into the cavern.

The heat didn’t lessen inside—it shifted.

Outside, it was the sun’s wrath, beating down mercilessly. Inside, it was trapped—a suffocating pressure cooker of smoldering air and shifting rock.

The walls were slick with heat-scorched minerals, their once-molten surfaces now hardened into uneven formations of obsidian and basalt. Glowing cracks ran through the stone like the veins, pulsing with the dull thrum of something alive.

The ground beneath us crunched with every step—not gravel, but ash. Thick, ancient, and far too deep for comfort.

Thank you heels!

Lisa was careful, but I had to help her get her footing now and then.

The ground was remnants of a thousand infernos past, whispering of eruptions that had carved these tunnels long before even the oldest creatures in Rimelion had lived.

Well… most.

And the deeper we went, the more the world changed.

The cave wasn’t just a tunnel—it was a labyrinth, carved not by any humanoid, but by lava itself. Natural channels twisted and curved unpredictably, their surfaces smooth and warped like melted wax. Some walls had the scars of something else, something with claws sharp enough to etch through volcanic rock as if it were soft clay.

Lisa ran a hand along one such groove. “This… wasn’t just lava.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, my voice low.

We passed an open crevice where lava still flowed—a slow-moving river of molten death, illuminating the cavern with its unnatural, golden-red glow. The heat was so intense I—

A deep, distant rumble rolled through the cavern, vibrating through the very walls like the mountain itself was growling in discontent. Lisa tensed beside me, her hand instinctively twitching toward her wand. “Was that—”

“Yeah,” I whispered, already regretting every choice that had led me to this moment. “He knows we’re here.”

The air thickened, not just with heat, but with something older, something that watched. My instincts screamed at me to turn back, to flee, to not be here—but that ship had sailed the second we set foot inside the cavern.

Still, that didn’t mean I couldn’t stall.

“Okay,” I muttered, rubbing my palms together as if I wasn’t sweating like before paying the tab. “We’re gonna have to do this carefully.”

We stepped into the cavern, and the sheer scale was amazing. The chamber stretched miles apart, a vast, yawning expanse that could swallow entire fortresses whole.

Basalt columns speared upward, some twisting unnaturally as if frozen mid-melt, remnants of lava flows from ages past. The ceiling arched so high above us it blurred into shadows, its uneven surface veined with rivulets of molten rock that pulsed.

The floor? A death trap.

Lava pooled in chaotic patches, some bubbling furiously, others barely glowing beneath a thin, blackened crust. The sheer heat rippled in waves, distorting the air until everything shimmered like a fever dream. The occasional burst of pressure sent spouts of molten rock skyward before they splashed back down, hissing as they cooled against the cavern floor.

And amidst it all—an eerie silence. No wind. No echoes. Just the low, ever-present hum of the earth, as if the volcano itself was breathing.

I swallowed hard.

“It was nice knowing you,” the prince drawled, his voice disturbingly sincere. “You’re stupid, pretender.”

And then—I saw the drag… him.

He sat upon an enormous rock near the entrance, his hulking form coiled in a display of effortless dominance. Shadows clung to him like a second skin, distorting the edges of his massive body as if reality itself was unsure how to define him.

At first glance, he was pure black, a silhouette cut from obsidian. But as the molten light flickered across his scales, hints of something deeper shimmered beneath—a shifting void, like the night sky was trapped within his flesh.

Each scale wasn’t just dark; it was consuming, drinking in the light and refusing to give it back.

He was massive. Easily fifteen meters, possibly more, his serpentine neck arching with an unnatural grace that told us about the raw power coiled beneath. His eyes glowed, not with fire, but with something ancient, something predatory and patient.

His wings, half-folded, were tattered at the edges—not with weakness, but with use. Worn like a blade that had seen too many battles.

And his talons?

Each claw could skewer me in an instant, the sheer weight of them capable of crushing stone to dust.

Then he spoke. “A servant of that upstart god.” His voice wasn’t just sound—it was a force vibrating through the very rock beneath us. His head tilted slightly, nostrils flaring. “And with a touch of that cold bitch.”

Lisa stiffened beside me. My stomach turned to ice. Then—

“Die.”

A deep whoomph of displaced air. And then… fire.

An enormous fireball barreled toward us, the sheer heat preceding it like a shockwave.