[...What are you.....a human?] A cold hoarse voice sounded from the Dragon's lair.
"!" Isha opened her eyes wide and snapped her head to face the lair as an extremely painful feeling appeared near her heart.
"Hm? Oh, you can speak?" Eshwar asked because he thought that it's useless to hide as he was already found out. Isha could hear his thoughts and feel his emotions subtly, as if someone was narrating 'Eshwar' for Isha, but she wasn't aware of it because she was completely engulfed in her own thoughts.
"Fr-Frostine?" Isha mumbled in daze as the memories from her previous life started to reappear.
Frostine was sold in the auction thinking she was a lizard-man because when she was young she couldn't completely morph her dragon form, so her tail remained even after she turned into her human form, making people misunderstand her as a lizard-man as beast-men, demi-humans, and other races were extremely common in Isha's previous life. She was given to Isha as a 'Gift' for her birthday and Isha was the one who named her as 'Frostine.'
Frostine was the only one Isha was particularly close to. Frostine was a friend, a maid, a pet and her emotional support in her previous life, thus when she was forced to leave her behind, it pained her more as guilt started eat her away because she was the cause of Frostine's death.
And now, she was certain that she heard 'Frostine's' voice, the same voice which would wake her up every morning, speak to her every day and be with her whenever she needed, it was the same voice that had turned a bit melancholy.
"Something like that..." Eshwar said with a nod and snapped Isha out of her trance.
".....I-is th-that re-really Frostine?" Isha stuttered as she felt a lump stuck in her throat.
[What do you mean 'something like that'?] The hoarse voice sounded from the dragon's lair, again.
"You could tell, right? That I'm no human." Eshwar said with a shrug because he had already accepted whatever he was and he knew that he no longer a 'human' because none of the humans had survived the avalanche from two years ago while the 'Dinosaurs' had survived because they were 'monsters,' thus Eshwar concluded and accepted that he too was a 'monster.'
His body which would heal as soon as he was hurt physically wasn't something a 'human' is capable of, even though he had plenty of claw scars on his lean and chiselled body he knew for a fact that no human would ever be able to live if they lost blood as much as he had, he would heal if given enough even if he was at the death's door.
[What are you then?] The hoarse voice sounded a bit amused by the conversation.
"Like hell I would know, though you can say I am a 'human' too." Eshwar answered as took out a axe and a hammer which were hung on his back.
"Say, you're a dragon right?" Eshwar asked as he clenched the axe and the hammer.
[Yes. I am Frostine, The Ice Queen or The Queen Of Frost.] Frostine introduced herself in a slightly prideful tone.
"Pfft! She's still using that! Hahaha!!" Isha burst out into laughter as she heard Frostine use the monikers she had given her when they played together.
"....Um, I don't want to pry about why you call yourself that, but.... It's a bit, a tinny tiny bit, cheesy...." Eshwar mumbled in a low voice and Isha flushed red because she had given those monikers to Frostine.
"Y-yu-you! What do you know? I-I was a kid, back then!!!" Isha pointed her index finger at Eshwar and roared.
"Ahem, anyway, you can call me Eshwar....." Eshwar said and his cheeks turned slightly rosy.
"... 'The Hunter.'" He expressed his embarrassment at introducing himself in such a manner to someone of such intelligence.
[....] Frostine turned silent.
"Pfft!! Hahahaha!!" Isha laughed out loud at his expense.
"D-don't turn silent all of a sudden, won't I get embarrassed!!" Eshwar roared at Frostine's lair.
"Anyway! Let's fight!" He said and dashed towards the lair with an axe in his left hand and a hammer in his right.
She swung her tail once and hit him off of the cliff in front of her lair.
*
A month later.
"Hahaha!! I won!" Eshwar laughed as he writhed on the ground.
[.... You managed to get one hit on me after a month and 25 matches!] Frostine said and pointed to Eshwar while in her human form; she was 6 feet tall woman with pale skin, white hair, bright blue eyes with vertical black slits, and wore baggy clothes made by Eshwar from monster's skin.
"Yeah, you only managed to get one hit after fighting against her for a month!" Isha snorted, even though her words weren't reaching them; she was still happy that the two most important people in her life were happy, and because she had realised that she could know what Eshwar was feeling, she wasn't too concerned, but somewhere in the back of her mind, she was concerned that Eshwar might fall in love with Frostine, because Frostine was obviously beautiful.
Years passed, and it had been 10 years since everything on Earth had gone wrong.
He discovered his parents; they were buried deep beneath a thick blanket of snow, and their bodies had crystallized; he used tools to perfectly carve out their bodies and buried them.
And in all those years, Frostine had transferred some of the dragonic mana into Eshwar's body; he now had white wavy hair and bright orange iris with vertical black slits; she had taught him a noble's attitude, elegance, and grace, which turned 'king-like' when he used them; she had taught him 'mana manipulation,' different kinds of attributes, subspace magic, and many other things.
He taught her everything that was 'human-like' and brutish fighting techniques, talked about his novels and about the 'third part of the novel,' the survival story of the extra, and every time he talked about romance, Frostine would react a bit too strongly, which made him want to tease her, so he started to tease her, asking her to marry him.
Then, one day.
A group of humans arrived at Frostine's lair and killed her as she protected Eshwar from the meteor attack. Isha wept uncontrollably at the sight, and it only got worse because she could feel a heart-wrenching pain from Eshwar influencing her own; she wanted to kill those who attacked them, and though she couldn't do anything, there was someone who could, Eshwar.
He killed those humans who attacked them, got information on who made them do it, and killed every human in the so-called city they had built, and because he couldn't control his own magic, he died.
"Haa... Well...it's not a bad way to die, I guess." He mumbled as he lay on top of the translucent light blue tomb, which had covered the entire human city as it slowly froze everything and turned everything into translucent crystals.
"It hurts." He mumbled as he winced from the pain inflicted on his body, and Isha, who was watching him, sobbed as she felt her heart clench at his sight.
"Haa..." He sighed and stopped breathing.
Isha view instantly started to blur and scenery in front of her morphed into a white one.
*
"Gasp! Cough....cough, cough, cough??" Eshwar jolted awake in the middle of a nowhere.
"Huh? He's alive!!" Isha jumped in joy, but soon halted.
"Wait! Huh?" Isha instantly frowned because she remembered the view in front of her—it was when the avalanche had happened! It was when Eshwar had lost everything!
"Gaze of the Divine!" Isha roared hurriedly.
====
<Name: Eshwar ???>
<Age: 33>
<Race: ???>
<Skills: Horizontal slash, Vertical slash, Stab, Mana regeneration, Mana control, Aura, Devilization, Taboo, Cold resistance, Regeneration, Mana manipulation (NEW), Clock of fate (NEW).>
<Attribute: Frost (NEW).>
<Physic level: ???.>
<Stats: Strength level (?), Agility level (?), Endurance level (?), Mana level (?), Dexterity level (?), Intelligence level (?), Perception level (?), Mana manipulation (NEW), Clock of fate (NEW). >
====
"!!"
Follow current novels on (f)reew𝒆bnovel