The door clicked shut like a lid on a lacquer box, leaving a pervy dragon curled inside to rest.

“How’d it go? Do we have a shot?” Alicia leaned on the doorframe like a reed, her voice sparking with hope.

Ling doused her hopes like a bucket of cold rain. “Nope. That pervy dragon can’t help us.”

“Huh? She’s the Dragon King. Why not?” Alicia’s eyes flashed like flint.

“Because…”

—Time rewinds—

“For myself… or for one pitiful girl. That’s all.” The words drifted like smoke from banked coals.

The reason was so odd that the Ninety Nine Maiden stared like a cat startled by thunder.

“Hey! Just to save one girl, how’d you end up wanting to rule the world?” Her question shot out like an arrow off a taut bow.

The topic swerved like a cart on ice, and Ling’s heart tightened first, then she looked away; that subject was a scab on her soul.

“Just say it. Can you handle all your Dragonfolk and get them to join the Mystic Realm? Leave the rest to me.” Her words slammed like a door in the wind.

She put on a flash of anger like a mask, to cool the Maiden’s nosy fire.

“Th-th-that… even if you yell like that, I still can’t do it…” The stammer fell like pebbles into a well.

“Aren’t you the Dragon King? Can’t you decide something this big?” The challenge rang like steel on steel.

The Ninety Nine Maiden’s neck shrank like a turtle’s, and she edged toward the wall like a gecko seeking shade.

“Dragon King, yeah, that’s me. But Dragon King just means strongest among the Dragonfolk, not master of their lives. Their pride’s a mountain range; you know that. Beat me, and you’ll cow a few timid ones, sure, but the rest will perch on their peaks and scoff. So whether they join the Mystic Realm is their business. You’ll have to beat them until they trust you.”

Ling pressed her brow like weighing a hot stone, then stared at the ceiling as if the answer might drip from it. “So what did I fight you for…”

It was only a gripe, a sigh like wind through bamboo, but the Ninety Nine Maiden took it straight and true.

“To fight for fighting’s sake! Battle’s a festival fire—why snuff it?” Her grin flashed like a blade in sunlight.

Ling shot her a look as dry as desert sand, then steadied herself inside—your role is to hand me the main plot crumbs—and the heat in her fists cooled like quenched iron.

“Whatever. Since you’re that useless, I won’t blah-blah. Sleep tight.” Her farewell fell like a curtain.

—Timeline resumes—

“That’s the gist.” Ling took a sip of the water Alicia passed, wetting a throat scraped dry like stone.

Alicia bent her head like a scribe at dusk, notes lining up in her mind like cranes on a shore. Soon she looked up, eyes clear as morning.

“So our only move—maybe the right move—is to fight those dragons one by one, yeah?” Her words stacked like stones across a stream.

Ling slid the cup into the ribbon-space at Alicia’s wrist, the way a pebble slips under moss, then nodded.

“Mm. That’s what the Dragon King meant. If we don’t beat them one by one into submission, the door probably stays shut.”

No need to spell it out; they both saw the same horizon: getting the Dragonfolk to join the Mystic Realm.

“Ah… dragon pride. A thorny thicket.” Alicia’s sigh drifted like fog over a pond.

Ling kept quiet, a still lake under wind, because she understood what kind of nest the Dragonfolk were.

Aside from a few, the rest would watch their own boss get ground into the dirt like chalk, and still perch with chin up, too proud to yield. That’s the classic little-bro energy.

Unluckily, across the whole Dragonfolk, that kind of little-bro energy was everywhere—pretty much the whole brood.

The thought tickled; laughter bubbled up like spring water, and she covered her mouth, shoulders trembling.

“What are you laughing at? Don’t grin like a fool.” Alicia’s glance flicked like a fan.

“Mm-hmm, got it… pfft… haha…” The giggles hopped like rabbits; they wouldn’t be caged.

Alicia surrendered with a shrug like dropping a shawl. “Fine, laugh it out. I’ll tell you my plan.”

The talk swung back to the blade’s edge, and Ling reined in her mirth like a kite on a string. Her eyes went serious as frost, though the corner of her mouth kept twitching like a misbehaving fish.

“Since the Dragon King can’t hand us a one-click clear, we take the longer road. We fight again—this time, all of dragonkind.”

“Eh? Really one by one? That’s exhausting.” The word fell like a stone, but the weight was time, not sweat.

Annoyance pricked first, then the thought came clean: time was the real cost. Play all day if time were a river, but her world-domination timer was a fuse burning. Even if it was only a tenth gone, she needed a backup path, in case the storm turned.

But Alicia didn’t mean what Ling feared, and her smile cut across the clouds like a sunbeam.

“Ling, we’ve got a faster way. Call them all in at once, and we solo the lot of them.” Her confidence rolled like thunder over open plains.