16 Chapter 16 The Dragon's Pearl Adventures (1)

At a crowded and busy port, a elegant and graceful ship proudly entered. Her sails were furled and her oars were all taken in to avoid bumping them into anything. At the top of the highest mast flew a flag embroidered with a golden dragon's head with a pearl carefully held between it's teeth. At the bow, or front, of the vessel was a wooden figurehead depicting a creature that had the front half of a horse, the hind legs of a dragon, and the tail of a fish or sea serpent. Beside the figurehead, written in golden script was the ship's name, The Dragon's Pearl.

On the top deck, two men stood together, watching as the ship pulled into the port.

The taller of the two was dressed in a white robe embroidered with silver accents giving him a cold and distance aura. His short dark blue hair was slicked back, completely revealing his sharp and handsome facial features that were comparable to a professional model or actor.

The shorter of the two wore a plain white shirt and light grey pants. Combined with his softer facial features and the blue to sea green gradient hair that partly covered his eyes, he had a more youthful and innocent appearance.

"Nagisa, where's Midas?"

Colton turned towards the boy standing next to him, wondering where their draconic partner was. Normally, Nagisa and Midas would be together, or at least somewhere in each other's vicinity.

Nagisa pointed back at the staircase that led to the below decks.

"Hiding until we reach port so that the locals aren't scared by his appearance."

They had found out that Midas could actually take a human form. That was how he dealt with his businesses and gained money, despite being a wyvern. But because his human form had a time limit, he usually stayed in his original form until it was necessary to appear as a human.

The Dragon's Pearl reached the docks and her crew sprang into action. Although they all appeared to be human, in fact they were actually water spirits recruited by Nagisa. If one were to look closer at the crew members, they might notice that occasionally drops of water would be shed from their bodies. Luckily because they were on a boat, the water could be mistaken as coming from the sea spray.

At this moment, Midas came up to the top deck to join the other two system holders.

Midas in his dragonic form was relatively small compared to normal dragons, and could almost be considered a baby in dragon terms. He was only the length of about 3 meters, not including his tail. Normal wyverns could reach lengths over ten times that.

Midas had golden scales, bright red eyes, a darker gold colored leathery webbing between the bones in his wings that replaced his forelimbs, a prehensile tail that could be used to pick up things, and a sharp claw on each wing that could be used to grab things when he was not flying.

In his human form, Midas was the opposite of his draconic form. He was over 2 meters tall, with a well muscled body. It wasn't the over muscular body of a bodybuilder, but more well proportioned, like a soldier. He also had bright red hair and golden eyes, olive colored skin, and mature yet elegant facial features.

Midas wore a black suit with golden trimmings that gave him the appearance of the son of an aristocratic family.

"Hello Nagisa, Colton."

Midas greeted the two and stood beside Nagisa.

Once the Dragon's Pearl was fully docked, the water spirits returned to their positions and the three system holders stepped off the boat.

Just as they were about to head to the port market to restock supplies, Midas spotted a group of soldiers heading in their direction.

"Halt!"

The group of soldiers stopped the trio, bringing their attention to the man escorted by the soldiers.

"How may we help you?"

Colton spoke politely in the human language, recognizing the coat of arms on the soldiers' armor as belonging to a nearby city lord who also was in charge of this port.

The man escorted by the soldiers was a short man who could politely be described as rather rotund. His clothes were obviously expensive, almost like he was trying to shout out about his own importance. He was very obviously also the one who had the highest authority at this point as the soldiers immediately moved to follow his orders.

"Grab these three and arrest them!"

The trio calmly, or at least outwardly they appeared calm, allowed themselves to be taken by the soldiers, not wanting to cause a huge fuss.

Meanwhile, they switched to their old world's common language, which to humans would sound like soft hisses or growls. Because they spoke quietly, the human soldiers couldn't hear, let alone understand, their conversation.

"Why are we being arrested?"

Nagisa glanced over at Colton, who as the leader of a new and quickly growing cult, was the most likely target for being arrested.

"It's not me! Whenever I preach to the members of my church or meet up with them, I always put on a mask. No one should know that I'm the leader!"

Colton tried to defend himself. He wasn't dumb enough to reveal his true identity to everyone just because they listened to his preachings. There were many people in the church who said they wanted to worship with him but his system didn't give him any new exp. Who knew how of those members were actually undercover or something?

Midas stared at Colton unblinkingly to express his disbelief. To him, Colton was still the most likely suspect.