As the sun neared the horizon, Du Wei's search finally yielded something.

Deep in the woods on the island's western side, he found a small pool, probably a remnant of the rainy season. It lay in deep shade, and a careful inspection of the surrounding ground revealed no tracks or other sign that an animal had visited it.

Du Wei tasted the water. Fresh. At last, he relaxed. After going thirsty for most of the day, neither he nor Vivian cared about appearances. They flung themselves beside the pool and drank greedily. The water carried a faint, peculiar taste, but as its coolness washed down his burning throat, Du Wei sighed in bliss and shuddered from head to toe.

Once he had drunk his fill, Du Wei immediately pulled off his sheepskin boots and began washing them in the pool.

"Wh-what are you d-doing?" Vivian asked, blinking at him.

"Washing my boots." His hands continued moving as he spoke. "Then I'll use them to carry water."

"C-carry water? In your b-boots?" Vivian's expression turned strange.

"Of course." Du Wei curled his lip. "Do you see anything else that can hold water? A bottle? A jar? No? Then boots will have to do. Mine are sheepskin and nearly waterproof." He glanced at the silly girl. "Stop making that face. We don't know how long we'll be trapped here, and we can't camp beside this pool. We need to return to the coast. If my boots smell too bad for you, use your own."

Vivian remained frozen, so Du Wei urged her, "Hurry. Unless you want to drink from my boots tomorrow."

That prospect spurred poor little Vivian into fumbling off her own footwear.

Her boots were leather too, of even finer quality than Du Wei's. Once they came off, however, the young mage sat there at a loss. Blood stained her white stockings. Half a day's walking had raised blisters on her feet, several of which had already burst.

Vivian lay beside the pool and copied him, scrubbing her boots with grim determination. She rinsed them again and again until Du Wei lost patience.

"Twice is enough. Why do you keep washing them?"

"The b-boots are dirty..."

Du Wei laughed. "Look at the size of this pool. The cleaner you wash your boots, the dirtier you make the water—and this is still what you'll be drinking."

Vivian froze. Her mouth puckered with infinite grievance as she filled both boots and stood. "B-but do we really have to d-drink this?"

"By tomorrow, when you're dying of thirst, you would drink it without hesitation even if it were ten times dirtier." Du Wei spoke calmly. "All right. Let's go back."

Du Wei led the way back with his long wooden staff. Before long, Vivian began falling farther and farther behind. He stopped and turned with a frown.

"You need to move faster. It's getting late. Once the sun sets, the forest will be pitch-black. Walking will be harder, and we'll lose our bearings among the trees."

Vivian nodded vigorously and quickened her pace. After a few stumbling steps, however, the pain brought tears to her eyes. "M-my feet... they hurt."

Du Wei walked back to her. Thorns had punctured the girl's small feet in several places, and mud and blood streaked her delicate ankles and toes.

He sighed. Barefoot travel through a forest was too much to ask of such a frail girl.

Du Wei hung the two water-filled boots around his neck, turned his back, and bent slightly.

"Climb on."

"...Huh?"

"I said climb on." He kept his back to her, his voice as stern as ever. "Hurry. I'll carry you back."

"B-but..."

"No buts. Listen, little girl. We must reach the dragon before dark. We don't know this island or what might live here, and neither of us can defend ourselves. So stop wasting time and get on!"

Poor Vivian did not dare argue with that tone. She copied him by hanging her boots around her neck, then obediently climbed onto his back.

Within a few steps, Du Wei began to labor. His mind might belong to an adult, but his body was still an adolescent boy's—a boy sickly and frail from birth.

"Th-thank you."

Vivian stammered the words so softly that Du Wei almost missed them. He merely grunted and kept walking.

Night settled over the deserted island as poor little Vivian rode on a strange boy's back. Above her, black sky showed through the dense lattice of branches. Below, Du Wei trudged onward, each breath labored.

Perhaps the fierce young noble who always bullied her was not quite so frightening after all.

They returned to the site of their "air crash" and found the dragon still asleep. Along the way, Vivian had haltingly explained that sleep allowed an injured dragon to recover and that it needed neither food nor water during the process.

Du Wei breathed a sigh of relief. Their little pool barely held enough for two people, let alone a dragon.

He staggered into their makeshift camp, dropped Vivian, and collapsed beside her, gasping.

"I can't... go another step..." Du Wei panted like a dying man, every muscle limp and aching. "In my old life, one little girl would have been nothing. I could have carried one on my back, another in my arms, and still run a thousand meters. This body is pathetic..."

Despite being dumped unceremoniously on the ground, Vivian did not complain. She scrambled up, plucked a broad leaf from a tree, then sat beside Du Wei and began fanning him with grave concentration.

After catching some of his breath, Du Wei looked up. "What are you doing?"

"Y-you look very tired. I-I thought I'd fan you." Vivian's wide eyes were completely serious.

Du Wei laughed. The girl might be foolish, but there was something endearing about it. "Thank you... but you do realize it's early spring and already cold?"

He gently took the leaf from her as her face reddened. "All right. We need a fire, or the cold will be unbearable tonight. We have nothing with us. If either of us falls ill, we're in real trouble."

Of course, they could escape the cold simply by sleeping beside the dragon.

It was a fire dragon, after all.

Sleeping beside such a massive creature posed its own problem: one careless turn in the night would crush them both.

Vivian would go down in history as the first mage crushed to death by her own magical pet.

Du Wei gathered branches and dry leaves, then had Vivian conjure a tiny fireball—about the limit of her crippled magic.

Once the kindling caught, Vivian carried a torch while Du Wei gathered more wood. Together they returned to the beach and built the branches into a towering bonfire.

The blaze stood out against the darkness, visible from far out at sea.

It was their only hope. Perhaps a passing ship would spot the flames and send someone ashore.

By the time he finished, Du Wei was spent. He sprawled flat on the sand with a long sigh.

Then came a sound.

Grrrrowl.

Du Wei paused. A moment later, it came again.

Grrrrowl.

He sat up and gave Vivian a knowing look.

"S-sorry. That's my s-stomach." The firelight painted the young mage's face red. She covered her belly in embarrassment. "I'm hungry."

"So am I." Du Wei sighed. "Unfortunately, we haven't found so much as a mouse. Otherwise we could catch a couple and have ourselves an open-air barbecue."

"Th-then what about wild f-fruit?" Hunger appeared to have sharpened Vivian's wits a little.

"Look around. Do you see a fruit tree? There aren't even berry bushes—only leaves and wild grass. Do you think I'd need reminding if there were anything edible?"

"Th-then... fish?" Vivian looked at him pitifully. "There are f-fish in the sea, right?"

Du Wei shrugged. "Can you swim?"

She shook her head.

"Neither can I." Du Wei smiled bitterly. "We're both helpless in the water, and I certainly can't dive after fish. Besides, I searched the shore during the day. All I found were empty clamshells and conches—unless your stomach can digest shell."

"B-but I'm so hungry." Vivian pouted and blinked at him miserably.

"I can't conjure food out of thin air. Sleep for now. At dawn, I'll sharpen a long branch and look for fish in the shallows. We can't try in the dark. Neither of us can swim, and one wrong step would finish us."

Vivian sighed and obediently sat down—unconsciously choosing a place close beside Du Wei.

"Let's talk. It may take our minds off the hunger." Du Wei smiled. "We hardly know each other, and after all this, I suppose we're companions in adversity."

"H-how do we get to k-know each other?"

"For example..." Du Wei hugged his knees and gazed at the stars. "You don't look much older than me. How did you become a great mage so young? That's an extraordinary achievement."

"I-I don't know." Vivian copied his posture and hugged her knees. "I've been with my teacher ever since I was little. I-I'd never left home before. This is only my second time."

Du Wei turned and studied her, then smiled. "Your voice is actually quite pleasant—soft and sweet. It would be even nicer if you didn't stutter."

"S-sorry. I don't do it on p-purpose." Vivian blushed. "I-I've never been good at speaking."

"Then you should talk more, not less. Anything improves with practice." Du Wei smiled. "Now tell me how you became an eighth-level mage. At your age, you must be one of a kind in the entire Empire."

"Huh?" Vivian looked at him blankly.

Du Wei sighed. "I'm praising you. You could at least react."

"Oh... s-sorry, I..." Vivian became flustered again.

"Silly girl." Du Wei shook his head. "Do you understand nothing except magic?"

With patient prompting from Du Wei, Vivian haltingly told him something of her past.

Vivian Yang had studied magic with her teacher for as long as she could remember.

Yet no amount of questioning could pry loose a single word about her teacher's identity. Even Du Wei's attempts to trick her failed.

He could only write the mysterious figure off as some reclusive master.

Vivian had grown up with that teacher in a hidden place, also somewhere deep in the mountains according to her. In more than a decade, she had left home only twice. Apart from those trips, she had spent nearly all her time studying magic.

Her days consisted of magical theory, strange and abstruse incantations... and washing her teacher's clothes.

"Washed clothes?" Du Wei laughed. "You know how to do laundry?"

He took one of her hands and examined it. "These don't look like the hands of someone who does housework."

"I-I do know how!" Vivian's face reddened, whether because he doubted her or because he was holding her hand, Du Wei could not tell. "I can wash with m-magic. One spell, and the c-clothes wash themselves."

A magical washing machine, Du Wei thought.

On Vivian's first trip away from home, her teacher had taken her to the Magic Guild headquarters in the Imperial Capital for a private, undisclosed rank examination.

Before the examination, her teacher had declared, "I'll make those fools at the Magic Guild stare their eyes out! They'll see what an extraordinary genius I've trained!"

The mages overseeing the test had very nearly obliged.

Vivian was not merely a magical genius. She was a genius among geniuses.

An eighth-level mage at fourteen—unprecedented in the entire history of magic.

"Th-that was a year ago," Vivian said bashfully. "The mages wanted me to s-stay in the capital, b-but my teacher said there would be no one to wash the c-clothes at home, so he took me back."

"Hmph. Your teacher didn't want the Magic Guild recruiting you," Du Wei said. Unlike Vivian, he was not so naive. "An eighth-level mage carries weight anywhere. How many great mages above the eighth level can even the Magic Guild have? And you're still so young."

"Mm." Vivian blinked. She did not fully understand him, but soon brightened. "I p-passed the examination. My teacher was very happy and gave me a present—B-Bl-Blazing Sun!"

"That dragon?"

"Yes!" The moment Vivian spoke of her magical pet, her whole face lit up. "That's him!"

Du Wei sighed. Who in the world was her teacher, to give away a dragon as a present?

This was not a cat or a dog. It was a dragon.

Afterward, Vivian remained with her teacher for another full year, still studying magic and washing clothes every day.

This recent journey was only her second venture into the outside world. Her task had been to retrieve her teacher's escaped pet, the Dread Phantasm.

"Wait!" Du Wei suddenly jumped to his feet. Excitement appeared on his face as he stared at Vivian. "You still have that phantasm with you, don't you?"

Vivian nodded and parted her robe, revealing a small cage hanging at her waist. The little phantasm was still locked inside.

"My poor stomach, you're saved!" A hungry green light shone in Du Wei's eyes. He swallowed. "Hey, silly girl, we don't have to starve after all. This little thing is nice and plump. We have no seasoning, but skinned and roasted, it should taste quite good."

Vivian blinked. It took her a long moment to understand. Then she screamed.

"No! N-no! You can't eat my Chirpy! He's my teacher's p-pet. If you eat him, I-I..."

"What choice do we have?" Du Wei shouted. "We haven't eaten all day. If we keep starving, neither of us will have the strength to do anything tomorrow—and we don't even know if we can catch fish!"

"N-no, no! Don't eat my Chirpy!" Vivian hugged the small cage tightly to her chest and refused to let Du Wei take it. "Don't eat my Chirpy!"

"Hmph! Then we'll eat your dragon!" Du Wei shouted. "It's enormous. Cutting off one piece of meat won't kill it, will it?"

"E-e-e-eat the d-dragon?"

Vivian felt ready to faint.

She had only just decided the young noble might be a decent person. In the blink of an eye, he had become a devil again.

Eat a dragon? Almighty God, have mercy on poor little Vivian! Never in her life had she heard of anyone daring to set their sights on a dragon, much less regard one as food.

"D-don't eat my Blazing Sun! D-don't eat my Chirpy... Waaah! Papa! Mama!" Faced with Du Wei's vicious expression, Vivian resorted to tears once again.

Du Wei shook his head at the sobbing girl. "I can't eat this, and I can't eat that. Hmph. Fine! You win tonight. Tomorrow I'll try to catch fish. But if I fail, we can't simply starve to death. Nothing matters once you're dead. If there is truly no other choice, that phantasm goes first!"

Vivian was no longer the only one in tears. The plump little phantasm was an advanced magical beast intelligent enough to understand human speech. At Du Wei's declaration, it curled its fat body into a trembling ball and stared at him with bean-sized eyes.

Vivian relaxed slightly, but in her heart she began to pray.

Almighty God, please protect poor little Vivian. Let this devil catch a few fish tomorrow. No, no, it isn't because poor Vivian is greedy. It's only to save Chirpy's life. If necessary, Vivian doesn't have to eat any fish... or perhaps just one small one. Please, Almighty God... Waaah... But I'm so hungry too. Vivian really wants fish...