Icarus passed through the forest for weeks on end. He eventually arrived at the edge of the main continent; the outer islands hadn't had much except bandit camps, where he had gone to extract information on his position.

  He has learned he was north of the central continent on an archipelago, the largest island of this archipelago was directly underneath the dragon continent, which was always shrouded by a ridiculously large cloud.

  He had stolen a boat from one such bandit camp and crossed a small expanse of water to arrive where he is now, but now he is troubled.

  On his way through, the bandits, beasts, and others were very weak; the bandits that had given him information on where to go had also been persuaded to warn him about any threats that lay ahead.

  They had told him that their group of bandits had been destroyed by the new leader of the northernmost tip of the central continent.

  They were led by one referred to as "Shadow witch" and have become a prominent force over the last few years.

  Icarus would typically avoid such encounters due to the many close calls he has had as an assassin. But since he has no way to gauge his power due to the weakness of the bandits on the archipelago, he decided to check out the strength of the main continent's bandits.

  Of course, if it were the slave trade he was up against, he would not hold back.

  They were the only ones he knew that were strong enough to usurp an entire province so easily.

  And from what he had seen during his years under them, they would be tough for him if he didn't attack with intent to kill.

  Due to no strong opponents and a lack of teachers, he had stagnated quite heavily in his strength.

  Except for one little thing.

  The golden Dragon baby, barely the size of his hand that perched on his shoulder at all times.

  It constantly fed off his mana to survive, and as such had grown in power vastly.

  When he first allowed it to fight against a small wolf creature, it was gravely wounded, and he thought it would die, although it had killed the wolf in the end.

  However, after feeding on his mana for only a day and a half, it had recovered fully, and only a day later, when the rest of the wolves appeared, it had killed them.

  Since then, Icarus has trusted it with his life while he slept; its magic was different from Icarus despite its mana being entirely given by him.

  The dragon had golden fire, which it channeled through its body to form currents of fire that were visible on the outside of the creature.

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  It would then engage in physical combat, only unleashing the energy as a massive blast as a last resort.

  Analysing this, Icarus had attempted to copy it to improve his ability in melee combat, but he remained miserable at doing so and decided to stick to what he was best at.

  This was the extent of what the pair had learned so far. Icarus and the dragon walked along a dirt path, which was half covered in bush, evidence that it had not been tread on in a long while.

  The dragon cooed softly as it slept, as this was the schedule they were currently on, where Icarus slept during the night and protected the dragon, and it slept during the day and did so for him.

  Of course, it was not exactly alone.

  Throughout the woods, golems were formed from the ground, surveying the area. Additionally, using wind magic, he created a sensory trip wire that worked somewhat like a spider's web, and it would notify him the instant something passed through.

  That moment came just then.

  *Twitch*

  Icarus' eyes shot to the side. The sensation came from an arrow wizzed toward him but was caught by a layer of defensive magic.

  A big man burst through the trees, the head of a golem palmed in his hand. He was about 15 feet away from Icarus, and he hurled the head at him.

  Icarus channeled a compressed fire arrow and shot it through the rock and the man's shoulder.

  He roared and clutched at his shoulder. The dragon had awoken by now, and it jumped off of him and let out a yawn.

  A woman wielding two daggers dashed out from a nearby bush. She had a bow on her back, so Icarus instantly processed that she was the one who had shot at him earlier.

  He turned his back and engaged the woman with a pillar of earth shot from the ground.

  Another arrow whizzed out from the forest and took him in the side.

  He grunted; it was not lethal at least, but they had successfully fooled him.

  He had hoped to interrogate them, but it was clear that if he continued to underestimate them, he would be killed.

  He materialized his staff and conjured a compressed ball of hot and cold temperatures. It rotated violently before collapsing in on itself, and he whirled in a circle, firing the magic all around him.

  The trees were blown apart, dirt was upheaved, the dragon was close enough to him to be undamaged, but for around one hundred feet around them, there was nothing but rubble and stumps.

  Instinctively, he formed a layer of defensive magic and felt something prick his ear.

  The top of an arrow had grazed him, the shaft had been stopped by the defensive magic, but had he been a millisecond slower, he would be a kebab.

  He turned and stared in shock. Behind a crumbling earth wall stood a short blonde-haired man with a bow. He had evidently used basic earth magic to shield himself from the blast and, at the perfect moment, had once again fired his bow.

  His comrades had not been so lucky. The woman was nowhere to be seen, and there was nothing left of the large man except for his black shirt, which was plastered to the ground and tattered, also being stained with blood.

  The dragon turned to the man and opened its small mouth.

  "Stop!" Icarus yelled at the dragon hastily; he didn't need the man dead anyway; in fact, he would rather have him alive so he could ask about the shadow witch.

  The blonde man, whose eyes were wide, dropped the bow to the floor.

  He wore a quiver which was now empty, and he seemed devoid of hope.

  His lips quivered, and his eyes looked wet as if he was about to cry in fear.

  "D-demon!"

  The man collapsed backwards and hopelessly scrambled away from Icarus.

  Icarus tilted his head. "Do you know anything about the shadow witch?"

  The man didn't look back but continued screaming as he crawled away.

  Icarus sighed and raised a hand; a stone flew up and slammed into the lad's head.

  It put him unconscious, and Icarus walked up and turned him over.

  "Well, whatever, I can ask him later. Hmm, what's this?"

  The man seemed a lot shorter now that he saw him up close.

  And his ears, pointed? Could he be...

  "An elf?"

  Icarus had seen Lyra, the dark elf, and a few other races, but never an elf.

  They were far rarer and lived sparsely across the world, almost always living a nomadic life.

  "If he looks like this... Is he a child? Like I was when I was in the slave trade? Or is he one of those weirdo elves that look like a kid but are actually 500 years old..."

  .

  .

  .

  The elf awoke with a start. Icarus had set up camp and made the elf a bed of earth.

  The elf stared at him with a confused expression; it seemed the fear had worn off.

  Icarus smiled, "Hey! Sorry about all that, but y'know... You guys attacked me first, so I kinda had to... Well, you probably remember."

  "Who are you?"

  Icarus was confused. This wasn't asked like a 'I wanna know your name' or something, the guy was straight up asking him who he was, as he had never encountered him in his life.

  "Uhh.. I'm an adventurer headed for the capital. I guess?"

  The guy then looked around for a while, "Who am I?"

  Icarus drew a blank at that.

  "No, you don't mean?.."

  "Huh?"

  It appeared the lad had suffered a little more brain damage than Icarus had intended.

  Once again, he was completely without a lead on who the shadow witch was and what she was doing.