Free Web NovelChapter 3: Reward
He dragged himself through the forest calmly, his stomach grumbling loud enough to be heard.
"Tch, hungry. Well, I guess that makes sense. Should have been fed by my mother.
Really, dragons are beings of pride, so prideful that she tossed me from the sky because I looked weaker.
Should have known that there would surely be a catch when I got reincarnated. It’s never a straightforward game, now is it?"
As he spoke to himself, he heard the sound of running water and immediately rushed in that direction. He got to the stream that was there, his eyes lighting up as he now had something to drink.
Without much thought, he dunked his head into the water and began taking large gulps, as much as his little mouth could contain. And after what seemed like a pretty long minute, he pulled his head out.
He saw himself in the water, his reflection. He was a dragon, alright, but a pretty weak-looking one, and even after leveling up and gaining a few stats, he was still nowhere near what he needed to be as a proper dragon.
"Tch." He clicked his tongue and turned around, but the moment he did, he froze, his eyes locked on something that stood in front of him.
’Shit,’ he cursed in his mind as he saw a grey wolf standing there, looking right at him. It was a meter tall, with thick fur and a wide-open mouth that leaked fluids. It was clear that this monster was hungry and ready to pounce.
Ren backed up slowly, but then his feet touched the stream, reminding him that there was nowhere for him to go.
’Things can’t get worse than this. Is this how I go out? Killed by a wolf on day one?’
[Mission Update: Dragon Pride. A dragon cannot allow a lesser being to defeat him. Take down the grey wolf.]
[Reward: Unknown]
[Penalty: Unknown]
’The hell do you mean, mission? I’m about to get my ass handed to me right now, and you are giving me a freaking mission.’
While he was busy in his mind, the wolf launched at him, its mouth wide and ready to snap his neck off.
Ren reacted at the very last moment and flapped his little wings, propelling himself fast to the side.
The wolf’s jaws snapped shut on empty air where Ren had been half a second earlier, the sheer momentum of the missed bite carrying it forward into the spot he’d just vacated. It skidded, claws tearing furrows into the wet earth at the stream’s edge, and spun around fast, eyes locking back onto him with renewed hunger.
Ren scrambled backward on shaky legs, putting whatever distance he could between them, his small claws digging uselessly into loose dirt.
’Okay. Okay, okay, okay. Think. You died once already today. You are not doing it twice in the same twenty-four hours.’
The wolf advanced slowly this time, stalking rather than charging, clearly having learned something from the missed lunge. Its lips peeled back further, revealing more teeth than Ren felt was strictly necessary for a forest predator this size.
He turned and bolted.
It wasn’t graceful. His small legs weren’t built for this kind of sprint yet, his tail dragging and throwing off his balance with every other stride, but fear was an excellent motivator, and he tore through the underbrush with everything his tiny body had.
The wolf gave chase immediately, and it was faster. Noticeably, terrifyingly faster.
Ren angled toward higher ground without really deciding to, some instinct screaming that elevation meant options, and the terrain began sloping upward, a small rocky hill rising ahead of him through the trees. He scrambled up it, claws finding purchase in the loose stone, the wolf’s snarling breath audible just behind him the entire climb.
He reached the top, and the ground simply stopped.
A drop. Not massive, maybe twenty feet down to a rocky outcrop below, but enough that his stomach lurched the second he registered it.
’Of course. Of course there’s a cliff. Why wouldn’t there be a cliff?’
He spun around. The wolf was already there, cresting the hill behind him, slowing for exactly one beat to gather itself before launching into a full leap aimed directly at him.
There was nowhere left to run.
Ren did the only thing his body seemed to think made sense, the only instinct strong enough to override the panic. He threw himself backward off the edge and snapped his wings open as wide as they would go.
For one terrifying second, he simply fell.
Then something caught.
It wasn’t real flight, nothing close to it, just enough resistance in the air pushing against his half-formed wings to slow his fall into something more like controlled gliding, his small body angling and catching air in clumsy, instinctive adjustments he didn’t consciously make.
The wolf, mid-leap, had no such luck.
It sailed past the edge half a second after him, all four legs scrambling at empty air, its weight and momentum committed entirely to a target that was no longer where it should have been. There was no catching itself. No wings. No second option.
It hit the rocks below with a heavy, final sound.
Ren landed a moment later, hard and ungraceful, rolling twice before skidding to a stop a short distance from the wolf’s broken body. He lay there for a second, chest heaving, every part of him trembling from the adrenaline still flooding his small frame.
[Mission Complete: Dragon Pride]
[Reward: Skill Unlocked — Glide]
[EXP Gained: 80]
[10x Multiplier Applied]
[Total EXP Gained: 800]
[Level Up! You are now Level 5]
[+4 to all stats]
Ren stared at the notification, then slowly turned his head to look at the wolf’s still form a few feet away.
"I didn’t even fight you," he said out loud, his voice still that small raspy croak. "You just ran off a cliff because I tricked you. Honestly, that’s kind of embarrassing for both of us."
He pushed himself up onto unsteady legs, testing his weight, and felt it immediately. The stats had landed somewhere real this time, his limbs steadier, his balance less of a constant fight against his own body.
He looked at the dead wolf again, something practical surfacing through the lingering adrenaline.
’Wait. Can I eat that? Is that a thing dragons do? Should I eat that?’
His stomach answered the question for him with a loud, undignified growl.
"Yeah," he muttered, already limping toward the body. "Yeah, okay. Lunch it is."
