I've spent the next few hours throwing up in the bathroom. Every time I thought I was done, the image of me blowing up would come up again in my mind, and I would throw up again. There wasn't anything else in my stomach to throw up, but I was doing it anyway.

After the nth time, I was able to go five seconds without having to throw up again. I never drank in my life, but at the moment, I was sure this is how people feel after they had a little too much to drink. I was feeling like I was run over by three trucks and two road rollers.

I didn't even look at the food on the table, because I knew I would throw up again if I even looked at it.

I've been worse, of course. The start of these loops was infinite times worse than this, it was just a different type of bad.

After I was able enough, I triggered [Genetic Dysphoria] and was hit with a dull pain that felt like my head was going to pop from the pressure. It lasted for a few minutes, as the skill wasn't performing at full capacity due to my soul burn, and I swear I heard a pop in my head when it finished, but maybe it was all in my head.

I left the inn in a somewhat daze. I honestly didn't know where to go at the moment. My body was still weird, and every time I remembered my insides splattered on the walls, I felt the need to throw up, but managed to keep it together.

I thought about going to a pub and just drinking some of their best alcoholic beverage, to see if I could at least forget it, but decided against it. The effects of the alcohol would only affect me in this loop and would fade away when it restarted.

I was just wandering around aimlessly, at the same time blocking the mind mage's attempt at mental suggestion, when I heard one of the biggest thunders from the storm. When I looked at it, my eyes widened in shock.

The entire storm was being dissipated rather abruptly by what looked like powerful winds, breaking away the clouds and dispersing the accumulated magicules.

I had no idea what was happening. This was something else entirely in the loops. Usually, the only changes inside the loops are those caused by me when my own actions change, but I didn't do anything that would cause the entire storm to be dissipated like that.

I looked around and everyone was watching the storm. Some of them had worried faces as they stared beyond the protection of the city's shield, while others were happy to see the storm finally over.

And I? I was concerned about it. Something was obviously different, but I just didn't know if it was just in the loop. Did I make something different that would trigger this? No, I stayed the majority of this loop inside my room and am only walking around, nothing I did in this loop should have triggered this reaction, but still it had happened.

With a final burst of wind, I saw the entire storm dissipate entirely, and I saw something floating on the outside of the shield. It was too far for me to make out any details, but it looked human,

What I knew was that whatever it was, I didn't want to meet. The entire city had to be on lockdown because of the storm, and whatever that was was able to simply vanish with it, just like that.

I turned to the opposite, the one facing away from it, and started walking. I could reset the loop, I might even have to do it, but that would just be a waste. Until I had confirmed what it was, or how it got in the loops, resetting things just a few hours in would be a waste.

I went straight to the portal plaza and saw a bunch of the city soldiers moving quickly towards the gate in the direction of the figure. I took the opportunity to try to open one of the doors to the portals, but it was locked.

"So much for a quick escape," I said. I needed a new plan.

With how bad my soul burn was, I wouldn't be able to use [Mathematical Cortex] and [Spatial Manipulaton] to neither open up a portal of my own or teleport out of here, it was just too intensive to do it and I could feel I wouldn't have the strength to do it.

As I thought about what to do, I saw two children looking at the open door to a shop where the clerk was a few meters away, looking at the commotion that was starting to gather at the gates near the figure.

As I stared at them, I saw them enter, grabbing a bunch of jewelry that were on open displays near the entrance of the store and bolting to a side street.

That gave me an idea. I wasn't sure if it was a good one, and considering my recent track record of ideas, it probably wasn't, but if I followed them to wherever they were going, chances would be high that they would lead me to where the underworld operates in this city.

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Noticing they were gathering further and further away, I started to run after them. My body was still sore from the soul burn, but it was manageable at this point, I literally felt worse.

Unfortunately, my stats were too low at the moment for me to be able to catch or keep pace with them, there were too many streets for them to go, and I would frequently lose sight of them until I inevitably lost them altogether.

"I can't do anything right, can I?" I complained to no one.

I turned to go back to the portal plaza when I noticed a new problem, I was in a different part of the city, and I had no idea how to get back.

"I'm stupid," I said, with a hand over my face as I facepalmed.

Looking around, there were only houses that looked like they were the lower-income ones, as the stones that made them looked shoddily patched and almost ready to fall. I was in a low-income residential district.

As I walked around, I saw some people milling about, going about their day. There was even a ball that rolled up to my foot from my blind spot, making me almost trip on it. When I looked over I saw a group of five kids waving at me.

"Want to join us? We need one more to make the teams," the taller kid of the group shouted to me. He was a tad bit taller than myself. Looking at their surroundings, I saw two squares painted on the house's walls on each side of the narrow street where they were playing.

I kicked the ball back to them. Although I looked like a kid, I wasn't actually one.

The memory of me biting and killing those bandits near the entrance of Flamecrest flashed through my mind. I always heard the term "a wolf in sheep's clothing" but never actually understood it correctly until now.

I kicked the ball to them and shook my head. "No, sorry," I said before bolting from there.

I don't know why, but I was feeling more of an outcast than I should. Was it because I was just transformed into this humanoid form? Was it because I could kill an adult as easily as pushing a mental button on my skills?

I was a dragon, not a human, not an elf, or a cat or dog person. The God of Light himself had said that dragons battle for territory, and I don't think this means they are social creatures.

My human vision of the world clashed with my current reality, and I didn't know how to balance both.

More than anything, I felt alone. Jack was hunting me because he thought I was a mimic and would not rest until he killed me, proven time and time again during these loops.

This was why I was so desperate to find my friends again, because they were the only people who I knew and who knew me. I couldn't, wouldn't throw away this and act like they never mattered, I couldn't.

I just– I just.

I kept running until I was somehow back into one of the main streets. I noticed people gathering on the sides of the street, and when I looked to where they were looking, I saw a group of the city's soldiers opening a way for someone to pass through.

I walked to one of the sides of the street. I hadn't come to terms with my situation yet, but I knew better than to just stand in the middle of the road. I could lose my mind at peace on the side, as I wouldn't be bothered by the guards asking me to move.

I sat down on the ground, looking forward at nothing in particular. I was mostly thinking rather than observing the world.

I knew I would find my friends, that was a given as long as I didn't give up. The problem lay in the amount of time until I could meet them. I didn't know where they were summoned to, as I doubted they would perform a prohibited ritual at the church's headquarters, but I literally had no other clue.

I needed to go there, but according to Farahio, it was on another continent. I didn't have a clue how long it would take to travel there, weeks, months, years? I just didn't know.

I had never felt so alone as I was right now. Even when I got lost once at the mall, I knew that as long as I kept still in one place, my parents would eventually find me, but now? Now I was in a completely different world. There was no way my parents would be able to find me, no matter how long I stayed in the same place.

I needed to move on, but I didn't know how. How would you ever get the courage to abandon everything and make a new life without anyone you ever knew?

I knew that some people managed it, but it was those cases where they were abused and literally being away from everyone they knew was better, but my parents loved me, and I loved my parents. It was like there was a hand squishing down on my heart.

The God of Light had helped me, somewhat, with how overwhelmed I was because of the loops, but this was something else entirely.

I was about to get up, trying to buy something to eat away my anguish, when I noticed who was walking in the middle of the guards.

The magical pressure hit me like a wave before I could actually see who it was, but I knew it the moment that wall of magicules hit me.

How was she here? Why was she here? The last time I saw Amity, the Witch of Pride, was when I got ejected from her teleport and landed near Flamecrest.

As the guards passed in front of me, I saw the elf girl. She was wearing the same blue dress with gold stars that when I met her. The thing that also caught my attention were her rings.

They were the same rings she used, but before, when I just felt something familiar on them, now I could pinpoint that those rings were supercharged with spatial energy. She could probably store the entire city on them, if I was judging the energy I was feeling correctly.

Seeing her here had completely broken my train of thought about my loneliness and self-pity. I was feeling a mix of horror, because she was one of the most powerful existences that I knew of, and a bit of hope, because I could have found the perfect way to escape Jack.

All I needed to do was to actually be kidnapped by her this time.

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