The wind screamed through the jagged peaks of the Aetheln wilderness, tearing at Shiro's threadbare clothes and whipping his hair across his face. He followed Rael's nimble form along a narrow mountain path, the mist so thick and clinging it felt like walking through a cloud. The journey toward the fabled city of Arcadia had been marked by a tense silence, punctuated only by the ever-present, low rumble of thunder that seemed to stalk them like a predator.
"You know," Rael's voice cut through the gale, startling Shiro from his grim reverie. "I've been wondering. Why not become an adventurer? Since you're regaining your strength."
Shiro shot him a sidelong glance, his expression skeptical. "Why an adventurer?"
"Firstly," Rael began, holding up a finger, "that's where you'll get your allowance. Your first real pay. Enough to buy yourself some new clothes that don't look like they lost a war." He gestured vaguely at Shiro's tattered, patched-up attire.
"Sounds boring," Shiro grumbled, turning his gaze back to the treacherous path ahead.
"Yeah," Rael replied, a wide, knowing grin spreading across his face. "That's the spirit! You'll become an adventurer."
"Huh...? Wait, I never said I am—"
"Well, meet me at Arcadia!" Rael called out, already sprinting away down the path with impossible speed, his form quickly disappearing into the swirling mist.
"Huhhh....?" Shiro's question was left hanging in the damp air, unanswered.
The tension in the atmosphere became palpable, a physical weight pressing down on them. The trees around them bent and swayed under the growing force of the wind, their branches groaning in protest.
Then—
BOOOOM.
The sound was not distant this time. It was immediate, colossal, a detonation that seemed to originate from the very bedrock beneath their feet. The ground trembled violently. Birds scattered from the canopy in a panicked, shrieking cloud. In the distance, beyond the next ridge, lightning tore across the sky in jagged, continuous bursts, so frequent it turned the darkening sky a flickering, sickly purple.
Shiro stopped abruptly, his boots skidding on the wet stone. His eyes, sharp and focused, locked onto something in the valley below.
"Something's wrong," he muttered, more to himself than to Rael, who had reappeared at his side, his usual playful demeanor gone, replaced by a watchful intensity.
Without another word, Shiro scaled a tall, sturdy pine tree with a practiced ease, climbing high enough to see over the ridge.
The view that greeted him was one of pure chaos.
Below, in the valley known as the Scarred Plain, soldiers in the distinct blue and silver armor of Arcadia scattered like ants before a flood. Between them, towering over the broken landscape, was a monster that defied reason.
It was a dragon, but unlike any from legend. Its body was long and serpentine, covered in scales that shimmered with captured lightning, glowing like molten glass. Each step it took tore the ground open, leaving cracks that hummed with raw, storm-born energy. The very air around it crackled and popped with ozone.
It roared, and the heavens answered with a simultaneous crash of thunder that shook the tree Shiro perched in.
"Storm Bringer Dragon," Rael said from below, his voice unnervingly calm. "A Rank 5-class creature."
Thunder crashed again, and a flash of movement caught Shiro's eye. A lone figure, a dart of brilliant blue and white against the grey and purple chaos, shot toward the dragon's flank.
It was a young woman with hair the color of spun crimson and cherry, glistening even in the gloom. She launched herself through the air, and with every step, spikes of solid
formed beneath her feet.
Zuzu.
She conjured a rotating shield of celeste energy around her just as a tendril of lightning arced toward her chest. The shield shattered the main blast, but the concussive force sent her spinning backward. It wasn't enough. The dragon turned its massive head, its eyes burning with ancient malice, and began to gather energy for a concentrated, killing strike.
Shiro didn't think.
He jumped from his tree to another, then another, descending toward the battlefield in a series of reckless, gravity-defying leaps. Despite the injuries that still ached in his bones, despite the exhaustion that was his constant companion, he propelled himself forward.
On the battlefield, Zuzu was already mid-air, gathering her power for a final, desperate spell until a bolt of lightning, faster and brighter than any before, unspooled from the dragon's maw and surged straight toward her heart.
"ZUZU!" someone screamed from the Arcadian lines.
A figure crashed into her, tackling her out of the path of the lethal energy.
Shiro.
They hit the muddy ground in a tangled heap, water and soil spraying into the air around them. Zuzu's eyes, wide with shock and adrenaline, looked up at him.
"Who are you?!" she demanded, pushing herself up.
"Shiro," he groaned, his body protesting the impact. "I'm helping. I think."
"No time!" Zuzu snapped, her gaze fixed back on the dragon. "It's preparing another blast!"
Shiro scrambled to his feet beside her. He clenched his fists, and a faint, unstable aura of fire sputtered to life around them—a pale, flickering echo of the inferno he once commanded, but it was alive. As the dragon reared back, he hurled what burning fragments he could muster at its face. The flames were little more than embers against its scaled hide, but they struck its eyes.
The dragon's head flinched back, its eyes flaring in surprise and rage. It turned its gaze from Zuzu, focusing on this new, fiery irritant.
It was the opening she needed.
Zuzu planted her feet, her voice ringing like a clear, cold bell through the chaos of the storm.
"Star dust crust!"
The air around her froze. A massive lance of pure, bright light shot through the air, gleaming with intricate, blossom-like symbols along its shaft. It moved with impossible speed and precision. The dragon's body twisted in a futile attempt to evade, but it was too late.
The lance struck its chest, piercing through the storm-forged scales with a sound like a mountain cracking open. It embedded itself deep into the creature's core.
The beast roared a sound of pure, agonized fury that seemed to split the heavens themselves and then collapsed. The earth shook with the impact of its fall.
Silence fell, broken only by the hiss of rain on the dragon's cooling scales and the crackle of dissipating lightning.
All around them, Arcadian soldiers lowered their weapons, their eyes wide in a mixture of awe and disbelief.
Shiro dropped to his knees, panting, his brief flare of power extinguished. Steam rose from his shoulders where the rain met his overheated skin.
Zuzu turned to him, her chest heaving. "You... actually helped," she said, a note of genuine surprise in her voice.
He chuckled faintly, the sound rough in his throat. "You weren't bad yourself."
She offered a hand and pulled him to his feet.
Shiro managed a tired smile, despite the pain throbbing beneath his bandages. "Yeah, you're welcome."
'Looks like my elemental powers are slowly coming back,' he thought, a tiny spark of hope igniting within him.
Zuzu studied him, her head tilted. "Seeing how you use fire blasts... are you a fire mage or something?"
"None of those," Shiro replied, wiping mud from his face.
"Then what are you?" she pressed, her curiosity piqued. "It's impossible to do fire magic without incantations."
"Well," Shiro said with a weak shrug, "it wouldn't hurt to be like me."As he pats zuzu head.
"Huhhh....?" Zuzu blinked, perplexed, as Shiro simply gave a casual wave and began to walk away, heading in the direction of Arcadia to meet up with Rael.
"See you some time later," he called over his shoulder without looking back.
Zuzu and the remaining soldiers could only watch him go, the mysterious, shirtless warrior who fought with a forgotten power, disappearing into the mist as strangely as he had arrived.
---
INT. ADVENTURER'S GUILD, ARCADIA - DAY
The guild hall was a cacophony of clinking mugs, shouted conversations, and the rustle of mission parchments. Shiro stood near the entrance, feeling distinctly out of place.
Rael leaned against the wall beside him, grinning. "Ohhh, you came.... You decided to take my advice."
"No," Shiro corrected flatly, his arms crossed. "I'm just doing this to get my allowance from taking a few missions."
As both Rael and Shiro joined the line for the rank check-up, the buzz of the guild seemed to swell around them, unaware that the man who had just faced down a Storm Bringer Dragon was now waiting to be registered as a lowly provisional adventurer.