They gave him a lead plate tag with his name on it. Him. Like he was some mammal.

“This is degrading!” Vainqueur complained to his loyal lackey Victor, as they flew above the farmlands of Carabas. The news had put him in a foul mood. “Lead? Lead!”

“Every adventurer starts with a lead plate,” Victor explained, the wind in his face causing his lips to move in ways Vainqueur found distracting. “That’s the ranks. Lead, copper, iron, bronze, silver, gold, and starmetal. I’m a lead adventurer too, Your Majesty.”

“But you are a manling!” Also, why the adventurer guild put that greenish unshiny starmetal higher than brilliant gold, Vainqueur would never understand. “I am a dragon. Can you manlings fly? Can you breathe fire that melts stone? Can you live forever? No, so why is that not enough for gold?”

“You are a unique case, Your Majesty,” minion Victor tried to assuage his wounded pride. “Forgive my poor species, who does not know how to deal with you.”

“Just this once!” Vainqueur said, flying over a vast forest, smelling the presence of trolls, slimes, and other beasts below. Birds and harpies flew away in fear at his arrival. “Are these the troll woods?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. Trolls usually live in caves, if we look for one—”

“Minion, I will not sully my peerless scales with some troll’s dung. I am a dragon, remember?” Vainqueur took a long, deep breath, and then dove towards the woods. The forge in his stomach lit up, the infernal power within turning the air into flames.

The great calamity unleashed his mighty dragonfire upon the forest, a torrent of bright, nearly white flames incinerating trees, animals, everything; Vainqueur flew in a straight line around the forest, intending to make a full ring of fire and trap the trolls – and whatever creatures unlucky enough to live with them – within.

Victor screamed in surprise, held close to Vainqueur’s own maw. “Your Majesty, what are you doing?!”

“Fulfilling your kind’s request,” Vainqueur replied, after taking back some breath and preparing for a second round. Thanks to the wind, the inferno spread through the forest far north, turning trees to candles and grass to embers.

Vainqueur dove again through a cloud of smoke, much to his minion’s terror, smelling trolls below. A bunch of these savage, green-skinned giants attempted to flee the coming flames, only for the dragon to bombard them, spitting his fire in the shape of fireballs instead of a continuous stream. The projectiles exploded on contact with the ground, vaporizing the beasts, blasting the dirt and forming craters.

Congratulations! You gained a level in [Noble]!

+30 HP, +1 INT, +1 LCK!