The Bronze Dragon that approached the group slowly landed in front of them in an intimidating fas.h.i.+on, pus.h.i.+ng out its chest and pulling up its snout, to even more create the feeling of it "Looking Down" on them with its glaring eyes.
"So you"re back, I see? Back from that useless little trip?" The Dragon asked in a deep voice, and the Half-Dragon Paladin just started grinding his teeth as he stared back at it, for the first time acting truly eratic and "disrespectful" toward anyone, as far as the group had seen at least.
"Shut the h.e.l.l up, you d.a.m.n Lizard!" The Paladin exclaimed, and immediately the Bronze Dragon, slightly taken aback, lowered its head to stare at the Half-Dragon in front of him. "Is that any way to greet your father?!" The Dragon asked him and Eisen, simply curious about how this whole thing would unfold, crossed his arms and made sure that the carriage was standing still.
"Oh shut it already! You didn"t exactly greet me very nicely either!" With that, the Paladin crossed his arms with dedication of not wavering against this Dragon, who didn"t react all that happily to this fact.
"You"re about 500 years too early to try and speak back to me, you hear? You"re barely 30 years old!" The Dragon replied rather angrily, but the Paladin just sighed and shook his head angrily, "I told you, why the h.e.l.l are you trying to brag with your age, not my fault you didn"t get laid till your late 400"s." The Paladin exclaimed, and Eisen couldn"t help himself but laugh a little bit at that comment. This really did seem like cla.s.sic Father-Son banter to him, even if on the more hostile side of things.
But now that Eisen did this, he pulled the attention of the Dragon toward himself. "And who is this? Why did you bring along someone this weak?" He asked with anger in his voice, but Eisen just raised his brows with a smile and moved his fingers through his beard.
"Oh, so I"m weak to you, now am I?" Eisen asked as he looked at the Dragon, who just replied with a huff, "Of course you are! My useless son brought a human along, how else should I be describing you?" The Dragon exclaimed, seemingly just wanting to rile everyone up. But of course, he didn"t expect Eisen to just play along.
"I see... I see..." The old man then said with a smirk as he stepped off of the carriage, stepping closer toward the Dragon while steadily increasing his size and activating his Demonic Transformation, and for a little bit of extra effect, tried to tune it as much toward the Yin state as he could at the moment. He wasn"t really angry at the moment, so it didn"t work out as much as he had hoped to, but it should be enough.
And as Eisen then stood in front of the Dragon, around half as tall as its head was at the moment, he simply looked up to it and smiled. "You"re about a Hundred Thousand years too early to try and speak like that." The old man said with a smile, and surprisingly enough, the Dragon took a step back, startled at Eisen. The old man was aware that his intention was to do that, but he didn"t expect a Dragon to react that strongly.
And Eisen had just a single reason for why he reacted that way, and chose to take it even another step further, using his Truth-Seeing Eyes to at least find out this Dragon"s name, and then just formed a slight smile on his face, which just seemed extremely creepy and gruesome with the current vibe that Eisen gave off.
"Don"t you remember, Argonthur? Don"t you remember my voice? My Stature? My Face?" Eisen asked him, and immediately, the Dragon took another step back and clad himself in mist, transforming his body into a different shape. The shape of a Human, currently bowing in front of Eisen with his forehead pressed against the ground.
"O-Old Man Eisen, I-I"m sorry that I didn"t recognize you!" The Dragon, now in the form of a well-trained middle-aged man, exclaimed, trying to apologize vehemently to him.
"Oh~?" Eisen asked with a sligh grin on his face, squatting down in front of the man, slowly tuning his transformation over toward the Yang side, just smiling kindly as he extended his giant hand toward the man in front of him.
"Don"t worry about that, young man. But please, be kinder to your son from now on, will you? He is the Squire to my most important and strongest Knight, after all. I expect a great many things from the talent that he has shown so far." Eisen told him, and immediately, the man in front of him raised his head in response, taking Eisen"s hand with a calm expression before being pulled up by the old man, and then turned toward the Half-Dragon Paladin who just stepped off the carriage weirded-out out of his mind, while Jyuuk and Xenia were just watching with curiously amused expressions from the Carriage"s window.
"My son, I"m sorry about before. I"m glad that you"re finally back here with us." Argonthur told him, while Eisen slowly deactivated his different transformations and then ran his fingers through his beard with a chuckle.
"Now then, that"s better, isn"t it?" The old man laughed, before Argonthur immediately turned toward Eisen with a bright, smiling expression. "Of course, of course. I was just worried about him, that"s all..." The Dragon explained with a wry smile, and Eisen slowly nodded his head in response. "I see. Well then, how about you show us to the Village for now? We have some business to take care of with the Town Core." As Eisen told this to Argonthur, the Dragon in human form immediately nodded his head, rather furiously at that.
"I will let everyone know about your Arrival!" The Dragon exclaimed and turned around, sprinting toward the village, although he seemed to have forgotten a rather vital ability of his. "Don"t you think you would be faster as a Dragon?" Eisen yelled after him, and without a word of reply, Argonthur was covered in mist and turned back into his Bronze-Dragon form, just leaving Eisen to laugh a bit again, while Eisen and the Paladin sat back down on the carriage to keep driving in the direction of the village silently.
Only a minute or two later did the Paladin sort his thoughts out and turned toward Eisen. "You... You know my father?" He asked, but Eisen just shook his head with a smile.
"Not as far as I"m aware. But Dragons all seem to have the ability to sense things that aren"t normally seen, felt or heard, so when he reacted so strongly before, I figured he remembered me instead. I probably used to know him. It does make sense, if you think about it." Eisen explained, and the Paladin just slowly nodded his head.
"Of course..." The Half-Dragon replied, before Jyuuk pulled his head through the Carriage"s window. "You have to give me a few tips there, Eisen. Being able to tame a Dragon with a pure intimidating vibe should be very helpful to me..." He pointed out, and Eisen just laughed in reply.
"I guess so. Who knows, maybe you can figure something out with your element." Eisen pointed out, before slightly turning his head toward Xenia, "You have a pretty good connection to the one with the probably most in-depth theoretical knowledge about magic in this world. Try and use that a little." Eisen smiled with a wink, and then turned back to what was in front of the group, the small Village, where people seemed to have gathered rather quickly, although the only ones that seemed extremely nervous or excited were the six dragons just sitting there, each with a human or Dragonfolk partner in front of them, while three Half-Dragons were standing next to them as well. And one of the Dragonfolk was even holding a small Half-Dragon baby in their arms.
From what Eisen could tell at first glance, beside Argonthur, there were Steel, Silver, Blue, Red and Black Dragons there, the only one who didn"t seem to have a child being the Blue Dragon. Eisen was rather surprised to see Chromatic and Metallic Dragons living so harmonously, but Eisen guessed it made sense. After all, this wasn"t the island of Metallic Dragons, but the island of Dragons, of any type.
And soon enough, Eisen stopped the carriage in front of the large group of people and then quickly signaled Sigurd to make everyone come out of the Dungeon, and soon enough, they all did, before Fafnir closed down the gate and stepped out of the carriage as well.
Everyone besides the six full dragons there paid more attention to those three draconic beings, the Paladin, Kiron, and Fafnir. It made sense, really. The Paladin used to live here, so people should recognize him. Kiron was a Half-Dragon with Crystal scales, and considering the Island they were living on, this must mean a lot to them. And one of them was a type of Dragon that they"ve never seen before as well, so that must have been especially surprising.
And soon enough, the five Originals stepped up to the front of everyone to take over for now, considering that the Dragons must be able to recognize them all.
"Thank you for coming so far, dear... I am sorry, Lord Argonthur didn"t inform us of your names. All he yelled out was that the "Old Guys" were coming. But we welcome you either way, as guests of our Lords." An elderly, weakly man with red tattoos similar to the ones that Sigurd had over its body, explained, and Eisen just chuckled and looked at the Bronze Dragon with a smile on his lips.
However, both Xenia and Evalia were pretty upset over being called old, "Hey, who"re you calling old here?! Do you know my skincare routine?!" Evalia exclaimed angrily, and Xenia immediately nodded her head, too upset to even say anything, and immediately, Argonthur pressed his head against the ground.
"I"m sorry!" He yelled out, immediately making the Villagers look over toward the Dragon confused, while the other Dragons were also slightly freaking out at different degrees. Only the son of the Black Dragoness and a Dragonfolk man crossed his arms with a huff.
"Heh, I don"t see it with those pretty ladies there, but at least those three guys look super old, right?" He asked and laughed as he looked over toward the Half-Dragoness a little further to the right, standing directly in front of the Red Dragon and his Human partner, who chuckled slightly in response.
While Kiron was rather nervous about seeing other humanoid Half-Dragons for the first time, the Half-Dragon Paladin standing next to him didn"t find it nearly as funny.
"All of you, be quiet immediately!" He exclaimed, but the Black Half-Dragon just chuckled and shook his head, "Oh, you feelin" really strong, huh? Where"s the issue in saying it how it is, right Mom?" He asked, looking up at his panicking Black Dragon Mother, before making a confused expression.
Trying to figure out how to make up for this, it seemed like all of the Dragons looked at each other for a moment and then simultaneously transformed into their human shape, surprsing everyone even more. It seemed like it required something special for them to do so.
"Wh-What are you saying, you idiot? Didn"t your father train you well enough for you to know when you"re facing people stronger than you?!" She asked as the pale-skinned woman in a pitch-black dress looked at the Half-Dragon in front of her, but it seemed like even the Dragonfolk man didn"t really understand her reaction. "Honey, these people aren"t stronger than us, you know? I think it"s your senses that need to be checked." The man pointed out, before all of the Dragons, now in humanoid form, turned toward the five Originals, just now realizing that something was off. Until now, they were too distracted by their fear of these five to notice how weak they had gotten.