Chapter One

The first thing I hate about being dead is not feeling anything. In the endless abyss of darkness I now find myself floating in, I can't feel anything. I can't tell if it's hot or cold, I can't tell if it's windy. Heck, I even tried punching myself just to feel something, but I can't even feel that. I look around a few times, but the darkness is absolute, I can't even see my hand when it's placed on my face. This afterlife sucks, and I want a refund.

Fortunately, after who knows how long of floating in darkness, a light pops up in front of my face, blinding me with it's sudden appearance. Is this the light at the end of the tunnel? Having no other option, I reach up towards the light and grab it. The burning sensation that shoots through my body makes me immediately regret that choice. Now, I'm no stranger to pain, hell, the last few minutes of my life were filled with pain, but this hurt. The burning continues to fill my body, forcing me to cry out pain. I vaguely note that my scream deepens into something inhuman before passing out.

The next time I wake up, the world around me is much brighter, thankfully, though I can hear rumbles all around me. As my eyes are adjusting to the brightness, I notice that my body feels different, heavier, yet stronger. I go to stand on my legs, and it feels so uncomfortable, so I drop back to my hands and feet. My vision begins to clear and I can now see that I am in the middle of a cave with multiple pools of lava splattered around. Shit! I look around for an exit, but I can't see anything that resembles a tunnel or opening I can escape through. Double shit.

Actually, why am I in a cavern? How did I get here? Why am I not in pain? I look at my hands, only I don't see human hands. I see the red scaled hand of a four fingered lizard. I move the fingers on my left hand, the fingers on the left paw move accordingly. Ok, I need to sit down and think about this.

I went hiking in the mountains with my friends, Micheal and Nick. We were walking up a rather dangerous path when a cougar burst out of a nearby bush and pounced on Micheal, pinning him to the ground. Without thinking, I tackled the cougar off of Micheal, and off the left hidden by the bush. The cougar and I rolled down the steep hill for longer than I wanted to, and I'm pretty sure I broke a few bones while rolling. Then I was airborne for a few seconds, before landing on some hard and jagged surface and feeling a few things stab into me.

I was able to note, with grim satisfaction, that the cougar wasn't moving out of the corner of my eye, but my eyes quickly clouded over with black and I was pretty cold. I lost consciousness soon after, I'm guessing, and my body was too damaged to keep fighting. Meaning I died, and was in the afterlife. Then, the light appeared, and probably reincarnated me. Ya, that's probably what happened, as unlikely as that is.

Looking over my new body, I can see that I have crimson scales all over my body, with some black markings over my back, 4 legs, a pair of oversized wings, and a long tail, roughly equal to my body length from the looks of it. I know this creature, it's a red dragon from D&D. Looking down at my feet again, I notice a bright orange glow in my chest.

Craning my neck, I spot a glowing orange gem, with swirling energy like fire inside it. My stomach drops, then lifts, then drops a little. I definitely know this form now. Thordak, the Cinder King, from Critical Role. A massive red dragon with an anchor to the elemental plane of fire embedded in his chest. The question is, why do I have his appearance. Not that I'm complaining, since Thordak was pretty powerful.

The smell of burning cloth reaches my nostrils and I snort, which brings me out of my thoughts. Looking over on the ground, I notice my old backpack, which is now tiny, currently in the process of smoldering since it isn't fireproof. Carefully opening it, I can see my spare clothes, a medical kit, a flashlight, a tent, and an odd shaped key.

At least, I think it was a key. It was a gold cylinder roughly as large as my palm, with two weird blades coming off one side. Interestingly enough, it had engravings that moved on both sides, however, the engravings of each side were different. On one side, it was a giant floating rock with waterfalls and towers, with many little dots flying around the towers. On the other side, however, it was showing a familiar lich with bone pauldrons standing over a group of kneeling figures. Why is Momonga from Overlord on this key thing?

Questions for later. I have a strong feeling of keeping the key, but everything else is useless, and i don't need that stuff to fall in the wrong hands, so I hold the key in my mouth, then toss everything else into a nearby pool of lava.

Now to escape, somehow. With the key firmly in my mouth, I walk over to the closest wall and swipe my claws against it, leaving deep gashes in the stone. Looks like I'm digging my way out, unfortunately, since flight isn't an option currently. Setting my jaw so I don't crush the key, I begin digging my way out of the volcano, trying to make sure I dig at an upward slope. Mostly due to the shape of volcanoes on average, and to prevent any lava from spilling out after I leave.

I don't know how long I dig, but I do eventually escape from inside the mountain onto a high ledge overlooking a forest. The moonlit night sky doesn't seem to impede my vision, as I can pretty clearly see fine details in the forest, as well as the river flowing through the forest on my right, and the primitive village at the base of the mountain on my left.

The forest that extends from the base of my mountain must be huge, because I can barely see over the edge of the forest, even with the enhanced night vision of a dragon. It's only because of some lights that I'm barely able to make out the outline of a village on the edge of the forest, and I see some kind of structure to the left of it, but I can't make it out very well at this distance.

Anyway, I'd rather not explore the forest at night, so I'm gonna go to sleep. Turning around, I make my way back down into the center of the mountain through the tunnel. Not having to dig on the return trip makes the journey much faster, taking a few minutes to reach the end of the tunnel. Maybe I should work on developing an actual lair out of this mountain, as both my new home and a base of operations from which to gain information about where I am.

A sudden itch causes me to sneeze, but during the sneeze, I feel a surge of energy surge through my body from the crystal and a small ball of fire flies out of my mouth, slamming into the ground in front of me. I stare at the impact point for a second, before exhaling through my nose, causing smoke to billow from my nostrils. Of course, I'm a red dragon. Obviously I have a fire breath.

But that didn't seem like the breath of a red dragon, if anything, it reminded me of the firebolt cantrip. Regardless, it's nighttime, I need to explore tomorrow to get my bearings, and digging through all that rock really wore me out. I walk over to the wall in the back of the cavern and curl up on the floor, falling asleep rather quickly.

When I wake up this time, my body feels far more comfortable than it did yesterday, and I can see a bit of light shining in through the tunnel. Using my tongue, I confirm that I still have the key in my mouth. Getting up, I start heading out of my cave, with my increased familiarity with my new body allowing me to sense a constant stream of burning energy flowing into my body from the crystal in my chest. A little curious, I focus inward and notice 2 types of energy within my body. While both types of energy feel hot, one of them feels stable and familiar while slowly growing in size, while the other feels more alien and chaotic, slowly turning into the first type of energy, yet never depleting as it comes from the crystal in my chest.

Stopping as I reach the ledge I created yesterday, I sit and begin focusing on the energy within me, focusing on the stable energy, as nothing good ever happens with chaotic energy. Yet as I focus on the stable energy, words and instructions begin flowing into my head, causing me to reel for a moment, but it's not enough to hurt my head, so I stay calm and process the knowledge I just received.

As I complete my task, realize that these are spells, and it feels like I've always known how to cast them, as well as how much energy they need to work. Curious, I use one of the spells called Firebolt, and spit out another ball of fire like last night. It travels for a good distance before dying out, but I grin regardless. This will make it easier to hunt my food, but now I just have one more test before I'm ready to start exploring.

"Testing. Testing." My new voice is deep and gravelly, with a slight echo to it. I like it. Nodding to myself, I look out over the lands around me and feel a deep sense of satisfaction well up within me. Briefly glancing back at my wings, I decide not to try flying yet. However, before I start climbing down, that structure to the left of the village at the edge of the forest catches my eye again and I freeze.

I recognise that structure from one of my favorite anime. It's Nazarick, from Overlord, and it's not covered in hills and dirt yet. Wild speculations start running through my head, but I'm able to calm myself after a few minutes, and come up with a plan. If that's Nazarick, then the village close to it is Carne Village, and if Nazarick isn't covered in dirt and hills yet, then Carne Village hasn't been attacked yet.

I would like to meet up with Ainz, but the guardians are extremely hostile to anyone not Ainz, so I would need to meet him at a point where I am least likely to be attacked. Not to mention, the best way to survive in this world is to ally myself with Ainz as soon as possible, and I would like to stop a few of the meaningless deaths that happen.

First things first, I need to reach Carne Village. And I can't fly yet, so on foot is the only option, which means I have to hurry. Carefully leaving the ledge, I sink my claws into the stone to prevent myself from sliding down the mountain side, and start moving. It takes a few minutes, I think, but I make it to the trees without injury. It's at that point I realize I'm not as big as the original Thordak, since most of the trees are at least double my height, and Thordak was massive for a red dragon.

If I had to guess, I'm about the size of a normal red dragon, but I would need to see people and buildings to be sure. Still, it's nice being able to move through the forest without leaving a massive wake of broken trees behind me. Slipping between the trees as best I can without breaking too many branches, I'm able to move at decent speed through the forest, but I'm surprised by the lack of creatures in the area.

Of course, that could entirely be my fault, considering what I am now. As I'm travelling though, my stomach complains loudly, emitting a low rumble. I'm really not looking forward to eating in this form. Everything will either be raw, or charred. Neither of which sound very appealing to me, but I can't let myself starve either. Resigning myself, I let the instincts of my body guide me as I spend the next hour or so tracking down the scent of something before sneaking up to the edge of a clearing with a few giant snakes.

I admit, I've never eaten snake meat before, but I've always been curious about its taste. Spitting out a Firebolt, I manage to nail the closest snake in the head, which incinerates the head. The other snakes look in my direction, ready for a fight, but immediately turn tail and flee after I emerge from the treeline. Good. A sense of smug satisfaction fills me as I walk over to my prize and look it over.

While I'm surprised at the fact that the snake is as long as me, it actually smells pretty good, especially with the charred meat around the neck. Shrugging, I lay down and taste my meal, and thankfully, my new taste buds make the snake taste delicious. Relieved, I dig into the rest of my meal, eating most of it before I get full. Roughly a fourth of the snake remains, so I leave it for any scavengers who find it and before I continue moving.

Apparently, dragons have an excellent sense of direction, because it takes me very little time to find the direction I was headed in and continue my journey. Now with my stomach full, I continue travelling for the whole day, only having to stop and eat one more time, which was a giant wolf I managed to pounce on before it bolted. I preferred the taste of the wolf, but the texture of the snake was so much better.

Regardless, the sky is growing darker, so I travel for about another hour before deciding to turn in for the night. I can't help but feel a little exposed as I curl up on the ground, but I can't do much about it right now. Hopefully, my size alone will deter other creatures from trying to pick a fight with me, and if not, then my scales should be tough enough to at least let me wake up and fight back. Closing my eyes, I fall into a deep, dreamless slumber.

By the time I wake up, the sun is high overhead. Not liking the lost time and having no idea how close to the village I am, I decide to move on and hope that I catch some breakfast on the move. Luckily, not long after I start moving, I stumble across a bear who doesn't understand how to run away, so I get a nice little snack to hold me over.

I keep moving through the forest quickly, but I underestimate how fast I could move, as I reach a point where I can hear the commotion of the village, and the air has more artificial scents in it. Slowing into a stealthy crawl, I'm able to reach a point where I can observe the village without being spotted. This spot also gives me a viewpoint of Nazarick, only slightly, but it's good enough for me to keep an eye out.

After settling into my new position, I inspect Carne Village from afar. Luckily, I seem to have gotten here in time, as there is no evidence of the village being attacked yet. Nodding, I stay in my spot and begin practicing with some of my spells. I already have Firebolt down, so I should try Mold Earth first. Focusing on the spell, I'm able to move a lot of dirt from underneath me, allowing myself to be buried up to my neck while laying down. Next I work on Disguise Self, slowly forming an illusion over my exposed head and neck to make me look like a tree stump. And I wait, for about an hour, before I get bored and need to do something.

Dispelling my Disguise Self, I crawl out of my dirt blanket and travel a little further back into the forest, hoping to find a large clearing. It takes me a little bit, but I do eventually find a clearing large enough for what I want to work on, even managing to catch another giant snake for a meal.

After eating the snake, I walk over to the center of the clearing and look at my wings, slowly opening them to their full size. Trying to follow the instincts of my body, I begin flapping my wings, slowly adjusting them until they begin to feel more natural. I flap harder, and I feel myself slowly leaving the ground as my clumsy flapping turns into clumsy flying. Following the instincts on my body, I slowly get the hang of flying throughout the day, making sure to keep low so that Carne Village doesn't spot me. I'm still clumsy, but by the time night time rolls around, I'm confident in my ability to utilize flying as my main method of travel, but not combat. For combat, I stay on the ground.

Regardless, I make my way back to my spot near Carne Village, cover myself back up with dirt and Disguise Self, and start to plan out how I'll make contact with Momonga.

Even though it's night time and cloudy, I can still clearly see the 2 specks in the distant sky flying up and away from Nazarick. So that's the time point I'm at. Which means the attack on the village will be soon. I can't help but feel a little nervous about meeting Momonga, since there is a good chance of the encounter going bad, and me dying again. Then again, I really want to punish those soldiers for attacking an innocent village, and save a few more lives than Momonga was willing to. Nodding to myself, I laid my head on the ground and closed my eyes, succumbing to sleep.