Chapter 31: How Long Has It Been Since I Had a Title?

Regret pooled in Nidhogg like cold ink. She should’ve lingered with the Little White Dragon, soft as fresh mochi, instead of tucking Lilith straight into sleep.

When Lilith woke, her tongue was iron again, and her eyes were flint. She no longer cooed to Nidhogg, no longer melted pink-cheeked against the Black Dragon’s chest like snow on basalt.

The one mercy was touch. Lilith allowed it today, like a cat in sun. When the Black Dragon hooked a hand under her rump and lifted her onto her back, the Little Dragon said nothing. She laid her head on Nidhogg’s shoulder and nuzzled with a dough-soft cheek, like a peach brushing silk.

"Easy. Don’t let your legs bump me," Nidhogg said, her voice low, like wind over ash. Lilith’s legs, wrapped in Taint, were knitting slowly, and the Black Dragon feared a stray touch would tear new bark from a healing branch.

"Got it," the Little White Dragon drawled, lazy as a cat on a windowsill. She knew the worry, a moth in the chest. She sheathed her calves in Taint, like black gauze, so even a bump wouldn’t sting her into a leap.

"Good thing you don’t get infected by this stuff. I can use it freely," Lilith said, smiling into Nidhogg’s shoulder, her breath warm as tea.

"Mm," Nidhogg answered lightly, a pebble dropping into still water.

The Black Dragon carried the Little White Dragon across a soot-dark plain, where the grass lay dead like burned bristles. A bare track cut through it, stomped by Adventurers or Undead, a bone-white line through charcoal.

From Nidhogg’s back, the Little Dragon craned her neck like a curious sparrow. "What’s this layer for?"

Lilith remembered the undercity beneath the Grand Mausoleum housed the Undead. The first level was clear as a map: forest, fields, and tight-packed towns like hive cells. But this second layer, all waste and bog, was a blank slate of mud to her eyes.

"Most likely a drill ground," Nidhogg said after a beat, her gaze skimming the flat land like a hawk. "The terrain’s even, a tabletop of stone. Most Undead we meet are knights, helms like dull moons. Sometimes zombies and skeletons in armor trail behind, like retainers."

"So even the Undead need a training field?" Lilith muttered, her tone drifting like a cloud. "They’re not invading anyone. Why raise so many knights? A sea of flowers would beat this stretch of soot."

If they planted echo flowers edge to edge, it would outshine this ashen prairie like spring after famine. In that bloom, Lilith wouldn’t mind lingering in the Grand Mausoleum.

Not like now; this place pressed like a cellar lid. The Little White Dragon only wanted to end the Moonswallow Mist calamity, then flee this shadowed place like a bird from a cave.

"But can I really beat the Reaper Fragment here?" Doubt tugged her brows down like wet leaves. "It looked so strong."

Back then, she’d been a spent bow, the string frayed, and getting two-shot by the Reaper Fragment wasn’t shame, just storm meeting straw. Her state was mostly the big fox’s fault. First clash, unfamiliar footing; she’d paid tuition in blood. Which meant, by a slant of shadow, she and that fox were roughly equal.

If I’m neck and neck with someone’s pet, then aren’t I just fit to wear a collar? Lilith bit the thought like ice and called herself an idiot, plain and simple.

"Don’t worry. Trust yourself," Nidhogg soothed, her words warm as a brazier. "You’re strong. And I’ll be right here, step for step."

"Mm," Lilith nodded, a muffled hum, like a drum under cloth. "Right," she thought, the word small as a seed. She’d nearly forgotten she wasn’t fighting alone. A White Dragon is brittle glass—little room to test and fail; two cuts and she’s shard-thin. With Nidhogg drawing the fire like a shield of night, Lilith felt sure she could handle that white-furred fox with ease.

"Right—the fox," she blurted, the words jumping like a spark. Lilith slapped her forehead, a crisp tap like bamboo. Before the Reaper Fragment hauled the fox away, it had slipped her a note. She fished out the crumpled paper from her clothes, eyes wide, trying to net the words like minnows.

"Ugh. What script is this? It’s a nightmare." Lilith squinted, her lashes knitting like dark threads. The black strokes looked pressed by a paw, not a pen, smudged and crooked. Add her own crumpling, and the page was a storm-tossed raft. Only after a long wrestle did she tease out the letters.

It helped that, back in her Fanyu days, her handwriting battled the fox’s to a draw, a mess meeting a mess.

"Let’s see what the fox left me," the Little Dragon said, the words threading like silk, and she started from the first line.

It was an identification slip, thin as a shed snakeskin. In the top right, a tiny portrait blurred like ink in rain, but still, Lilith could make out the fox’s face. The top left bore the Adventurers’ Guild emblem, a stamped sigil like a coin. She guessed this was Miss Fox’s old adventurer ID, a leaf pressed flat by time.

In the name field, the lady wrote four flowing characters with a dancer’s hand: Sakunae Mashiro.

At last, the Little White Dragon had her name, like a lantern finally lit. Calling her “fox” every time felt crude as a chalk mark.

"Mashiro, huh? That’s a lovely name," Lilith breathed, her voice soft as falling petals. "But the surname Sakunae—heard of it, Nidhogg?"

"A famous merchant house," Nidhogg answered at once, her tone sure as a ledger. "I don’t recall a current young lady named Mashiro. Likely a concubine’s child, or a distant branch. And seeing her beastform, I should’ve guessed. That’s a family hallmark."

"So she’s well-known," Lilith said, the thought clicking into place like stones. She only knew Miss Fox was a handful, like a brushfire. She hadn’t thought she was an honest-to-goodness noble lady.

Her profession read adventurer, and her role was vanguard, a shield at the spearpoint.

Lilith had crossed blades with Miss Mashiro more than once. At this point, the paper’s stats were smoke after fire.

"Party members…" she murmured, the ellipsis trailing like smoke. "Huh? Why are the other names all crossed out?" Lilith’s voice lifted in surprise, a bird flushed from grass. She searched the paper up and down, but only found Sakunae Mashiro left clear. The other three names were slashed through by black lines, erased to silence.

"They’re likely deceased," Nidhogg said, calm as winter water. "I remember now. Sakunae Mashiro was in the first elite wave the Guild sent to challenge the Grand Mausoleum. That squad went missing. The Guild still lists them as lost."

"She gave you this so you can report to the Adventurers’ Guild and change their status to dead," Nidhogg said, her words landing like a stone cairn. "It gives their story an ending."