Dragon Core: The Dragon-Girl Evolution & Princess-Collecting Dungeon Core Isekai LITRPG! (+ Comic!)

The valley air hung thick with morning mist that clung to the grass in pale, translucent sheets. Birds called from distant trees, their songs carrying across the open ground where a small procession of people moved with careful, measured steps back toward the black mountain. They had to leave the carriage behind. From this direction, the terrain was simply too rough for it. The scent of wild herbs rose from crushed stems beneath their hooves, mixing with the sharper tang of leather and metal from worn travelling gear. Somewhere ahead, the mountain rose dark against the sky, its peak hidden in low clouds that promised rain before nightfall.

The guards moved in formation around their charge, their hands never far from weapon hilts they hoped they wouldn't need to draw.

Princess Bruschetta walked in their centre, her steps uneven but determined. Her travelling cloak hung loose on her thinning frame, and her breath came shallow and quick even on the gentle incline. But her eyes, those soft brown eyes surrounded by fluffy white wool, shone with something that looked almost like excitement.

One of the guards glanced back at her for the third time in as many minutes. "Princess. Are you sure you don't need rest?"

She didn't slow. "I'm fine. Let's hurry."

As if destined to be an ironic contrast to that statement, her legs gave out mid-step.

She hit the ground with a soft sound, her cloak pooling around her, and three guards were at her side before she could try to rise. Hands caught her shoulders. Someone pressed a waterskin to her lips. She took a sip and pushed it away with trembling fingers.

"This is madness," one guard said, his voice low. He looked to his companions, then back to the princess. "Princess. Let us bring you to the west and hide you there. We will simply tell your father the dragon took you."

The others exchanged silent glances. A dozen unspoken words passed between them in that moment, and slowly, with the gravity of men making a difficult decision, they nodded.

"No."

The word came out stern, sharper than any of them had heard from her before. They helped her to her feet, supporting her weight between them, and she shook them off with surprising force.

"I want to do this." She looked at each of them in turn, her expression set. "If you won't bring me to the dragon, I'll walk by myself the rest of the way."

She grasped at a nearby tree trunk to stabilise herself, her legs shaking, her breathing ragged. But she took a step. Then another.

The guards stared after her.

One of them wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. "So brave..."

"Princess..." another whispered.

They thought she was being noble. They thought she was sacrificing herself for her family, for her dying nation, putting on a brave face so they wouldn't have to watch her suffer. They saw courage in her trembling steps and honour in her determination.

They didn't see the smile that flickered across her face.

Bruschetta walked onwards, her mind drifting back to dreams she'd had every night for weeks. The dragon girl with dark scales and burning red eyes. The way she moved through the air toward her, above her. The dominating heat of her presence was literally crushing her in the dream space, the weight of her when those eyes were fixed on something they wanted.

"Noo, dragon~," she murmured to herself, giggling softly. Her voice took on a breathy quality, playing out imagined conversations. "You can't just-. At least let me-"

She stumbled over a root again but caught herself, still smiling like a fool

The guards followed at a respectful distance, their expressions solemn with the weight of escorting someone to their doom. They all noticed her fingers trembling, but they just thought it was because she was walking to what should be her end.

The mountain grew larger ahead of them, its slopes dark with forest that gave way to bare stone higher up. Bruschetta's eyes were fixed on it with single-minded focus. Every step brought her closer. Every breath carried her toward the thing she wanted most in this world.

Then, in the distance, flames split the sky.

A great plume of fire erupted from somewhere high on the mountainside, turning the clouds themselves red for one brilliant instant before fading. The heat reached them even at this distance, a wave of warmth that made the air shimmer. The trees here, kilometres away, bowed away from the force of the heat.

Terrified, the guards stopped walking.

But feeling that sensation of heat beneath her wool, Bruschetta sped up.

The stone shattered beneath draconic weight. Holy light clashed against dark scales in bursts of radiance that left afterimages burnt into vision. The air itself screamed with conflicting magics, dragon fire and divine power tearing at each other with the fury of opposing forces meeting head-on. The fragments of the shattered magical chains faded into the air.

Barjuchne's flames washed over the twin priestesses in a torrent of crimson heat. But the fire hit a magical barrier and blasted over it like an ocean wave cresting over the rocks of the coast.

Holy magic shimmered in the air between them, a translucent shield that caught the flame and dispersed it harmlessly into curling smoke. The two saintesses stood behind it, untouched, their expressions calm and focused.

The flames died.

Barjuchne stood in the scorched crater she'd made on impact, her wings spread wide and her tail lashing behind her. Her eyes were narrow slits of burning red, and her lips pulled back from her teeth in a snarl that promised violence.

"You."

The word came out low and dangerous. She stared at the twin priestesses, seeing double. Two identical faces. Two identical expressions of serene determination. Two identical copies of the same straight-framed bodies, who looked exactly the same, were standing side by side in perfect mirror images.

They'd almost killed her princesses. F.P. and Ei had barely survived. The memory of it burnt hotter than any fire.

One priestess raised her staff, its silver length gleaming in the morning light. "Heaven has sent me to judge you."

The other spread her hands, a repaired set of prayer beads in her palms. "Today I will find the revelation I seek."

Barjuchne's growl rumbled through her chest. Her instincts warred within her. Part of her, the dragon part, recoiled at the thought of harming them. They were princess-class entities, after all. Her nature demanded she collect them and claim them as her own. But they'd tried to kill what was already hers. They were a threat.

The binding spell came first, before she could react.

Golden chains materialised in the air around her once more, lashing toward her limbs with serpentine speed. Holy barriers rose from the stone, forming geometric patterns that tried to box her in rather than tie her directly, this time. The priestess with the broken beads moved her hands in precise gestures, each motion summoning more restraints. Having learnt they weren't strong enough to hold her down like that, she was instead now making a cage to stop the dragon from flying away.

The second priestess struck, lifting her staff.

Rays of pure light lanced across the mountaintop, each one burning with destructive power that could melt stone. Rather than coming from the staff itself, they came from multiple angles at once, seemingly coordinated with the binding magic to leave her no escape route.

Barjuchne moved.

She twisted sideways, wings folding tight against her body as she dived beneath one ray and over a manifesting chain. Her tail whipped out and shattered a barrier mid-formation. She rolled, came up running, dodged left as another ray scorched the stone where she'd been standing.

The cage tightened further. She was running out of space.

The saintesses worked together. When one attacked, the other defended. When one feinted, the other struck. They moved as one organism that was split between two bodies. Their dual coordination was perfect from a lifetime of fighting side by side.

Barjuchne had no opening to counter.

A chain caught her ankle just as she tried to take flight. She yanked free, scales scraping against holy magic. Another ray grazed her shoulder, burning through scale and drawing blood. She snarled, launching herself into the air, but barriers formed above her, forcing her back down. The dragon roared, deeply angered by their constant intervention.

They were too close together. Always within reach of each other. Always positioned so an attack on one put the other at her open spots.

Barjuchne's eyes narrowed.

“There is nowhere to go, dragon,” said one of them.

“Only through me,” said the other.

The cage constricted further. There was nowhere left to go.

The two of them prepared the channelling of a spell, the same one they had used down in the dungeon. Together, their magic combined in their hands as one pressed the staff through the loop of the prayer beads.

“I can accept that arrangement,” replied Barjuchne, suddenly seeing her opening.

Barjuchne coiled herself low, gathering power in her legs and core. Her wings spread. Her muscles tensed.

Then she launched herself forward without taking flight.

Not at them, though.

The blast of the spell radiated off the mountainside, a massive beam of holy light cutting through the sky and toward the horizon directly in the dragon's path, strong enough to cause her to vanish, apparently.

The magic faded. The world redarkened.

The dragon was... gone? The spell had been powerful, yes. But they at least expected a partial carcass to remain. The wyvern vanished, just like that. Confused, the priestesses looked around themselves. They scanned the area, not quite able to process how a beast so large could just... disappear.

"I think I ashed her," said one of them.

"Into dust," said the other.

They exchanged a look.

What they didn't see was the mushroom circle that had sprouted behind them, down below a mossy overhang in the mountain stone.

The dragon, having entered one mushroom circle, appeared out of the other behind them as she used the fairy kingdom doorways as an alternative route. But as far as the priestesses were concerned, she had essentially teleported.

A massive dragon appeared from behind them, its huge body emerging out of a contrastingly small circle in the stone. Barjuchne's body crashed through one glassy, magical shield after the next as she aimed straight toward them into the narrow, inch-wide gap that separated the twin priestesses; her weight and momentum were carried by wings that drove her forward with explosive force. The stone shattered beneath the impact. The mountain shook.

Just barely making it, both priestesses dived away from each other, their perfect formation broken for the first time.

Confused seemingly more by this than by anything else, the two of them froze for a moment as they tumbled through the hail of dust and mountain rubble flying around them. Barjuchne's tail whipped out and caught one around the waist before she could recover. Her claws wrapped around the other one.

She had them.

Clutching her fresh captives, the dragon’s reptilian instincts raged victoriously within her and she lifted her head, roaring with enough volume to cause an avalanche of black, smouldering ash on the nearby mountain.

As fate would have it, a raiding party that had been climbing up toward the dungeon in secret fled, nearly buried by the cascade.

The twin priestesses, captured, turned their heads to look at each other. Despite being in what appeared to be horrific peril, their expressions were identically calm and almost pleased.

"It is exactly as heaven prophecised," said the one held in Barjuchne's tail. “This is just like the start of my dream,” she said, struggling against the dragon helplessly.

"Its power is sufficient to guide us," said the one held in her claws. “As was the case in my vision,” she said, unable to pull free from the dragon’s clutches. “I have been here before,” she said, trapped by Barjuchne.

Barjuchne had no idea what they were talking about.

There was something profoundly off about these two. She’s interacted with a lot of different races of people in this world so far, but these twins, despite being human, were… off. There was just something wrong about them. They smelt like princesses and certainly felt like princesses in the squeeze of her clutches that they didn’t resist enough for her liking, but their strange nature made them seem more like animated dolls than living people.

"The holy dragon has come to cleanse the world of all evil," said the one in her tail, her voice carrying the weight of absolute conviction.

"I submit," they said together.

Barjuchne's eyes widened.

"I will join you in your great crusade against the scourge of the devil," continued the one in her tail. “My church will join you.”

"The prophecy also said that I will be the favourite," said the one in her claws, her words slightly muffled but perfectly clear.

"It did not!" The first one's serene expression cracked into something indignant.

"It came to me in a vision." The second one crossed her arms.

"It did not! That vision was my own!"

They began to bicker, which was strange in its own way. Barjuchne stood frozen on the mountaintop, holding two arguing priestesses, deeply and profoundly lost about what was happening here. They'd been trying to kill her a few seconds ago. Now they’re just… giving up?

Neat.

The dragon spread her wings, deciding that standing there listening to them argue was not going to help her understand anything. She launched herself into the air, carrying both priestesses with her, and turned toward home.

Behind them, the mountain peak smoked with the remnants of their battle.

Princess Bruschetta pulled herself over the cliff's edge with the last of her strength, her fingers scrabbling at stone, her legs barely supporting her weight. She stood, swaying, one hand raised toward the sky.

"Hey!" She shouted after the vanishing silhouette, a dark shape flying against the clouds. "Wait!"

The dragon didn't hear her.

Bruschetta stared after it, her raised hand slowly lowering.

Her guards crested the cliff moments later, panting and sweating. They'd somehow fallen behind despite the princess's illness, her desperate energy outpacing their healthy bodies through sheer determination.

They found her standing at the edge of the cliff, staring into the distance where nothing remained but empty sky.

"Princess?" one of them gasped.

She didn't respond. Just stood there, trembling with exhaustion and something else. Something that looked like disappointment mixed with stubborn resolve.

The dragon had been right there. Right there.

And she'd missed it.

“Hurry! After it!” she yelled at her guards, scrambling over the mountainside and running after the silhouette flying toward the horizon. “Come back!” she shouted, waving her arms.