I woke up the next morning and quickly realised something. I had completely forgotten to clean myself before going to sleep. I was covered in dried blood.

  I did manage to remove most of the blood that was on my skin by scrubbing, but my clothes were a lost cause. They were already pretty much rags, so I wasn't too upset, but still. Unfortunately, I didn't have anything else to change into, so I just had to deal with it.

  Well, the cave was comfortable, but it was time to move on. I had to get further away from where I escaped from the knights if I wanted to not be found. However, I couldn't just leave my pile of shiny coins behind.

  So, the dragon blood was clearly affecting my mental state. I was a bit too possessive of those coins. That could lead to issues eventually. I resolved myself to keep an eye out for effects of my new dragon instincts in order to keep them in check.

  No, that did not mean I would just leave the coins behind. They were really shiny, after all. I had to find a way to carry them. I sadly didn't have any sort of bag to do so, so I needed to improvise.

  Before that, however, I had to check my status. I was pretty sure that I had levelled up quite a bit when fighting the goblins the previous day.

  [Name: Dragonfly

  Age: 13

  Race: Half dragon

  Level: 5

  Hp: 281

  Mp: 236

  Str: 170

  Vit: 177

  Dex: 46

  Int: 116

  Skills: Basic space magic, fire magic affinity, ??? affinity, draconic genetics, pain resistance+, mental fortitude UP+++, draconic breath, blessing of ???]

  Well that was certainly something. All of my stats except dex were above 100. I was also pretty sure that those stats were not even remotely close to what the stats of someone at level 5 should be. Not that I was compining, of course.

  Now, back to the problem at hand. I had to find a way to transport my shinies. Out of all of my skills, only space magic had a chance of working. I wasn't too sure as to why, but I felt like teleporting the coins to a space that I could access to teleport them back would work.

  Touching one of the coins, I maniputed my mana with that image in mind. It worked quite well, surprisingly enough. In fact, it felt like my mana was easier to control now. Was that an effect of increased int?

  Dismissing those thoughts, I started pcing the coins inside the new magical storage. Space magic was quite convenient. It did use quite a bit of mana to use, but I had plenty.

  Once I was done, I stood up and started pnning my next move. Getting proper clothes with no bloodstains sounded like an amazing idea, but I couldn't.

  From what I knew, the Gcius Empire's popution was made up almost exclusively humans. There were other races further south, but not here. I would stand out way too much if I went in a town. Even then, that was only if they didn't take me for a monster and let me inside in the first pce.

  I could try going down south, but there was a war zone there. From what I knew, the Empire had been at war with the countries down south for as long as anyone could remember. Going east or west would only lead me to the great sea which was on both sides of the empire. North wasn't even an option considering the fact that the only thing in that direction was the edge of the world.

  I needed more information to figure out how to leave the country. I wasn't too keen on staying, but it seemed like I would be stuck for a while. I just had to stay on the move for now.

  That, and to put all of the goblin's swords into my storage spell. I would have taken just one, but they were prone to breaking when I used them. Plus, I had no reason not to take more.

  Just like that, I went back to running on top of the snow with help from my wings. I didn't fall over this time, at least. Looking around while running, I noticed a road passing through the forest. It was going in the same direction as me, so I decided to take it. It was mostly clear of snow, somehow. There was probably some sort of magic involved, but I didn't know more.

  After walking on the road for a couple minutes, I came across a broken carriage. There were no traces of bodies, but there was dried blood. This was probably where the goblins had found the coins that I acquired. I decided to look through the contents of the carriage to see if the goblins had missed anything interesting or shiny.

  The inside of the carriage was full of broken junk. The goblins had not been very delicate when looting it. After sorting through the scraps, I found a few mostly intact books in a corner. Most of them were boring books about the art of trading and other simir things, but I recognised one of the books.

  It was an old fairytale about an evil witch who wanted to take the Empire down. In the story, the "Witch of Camity" attacks some imperial knights and wins thanks to the demonic powers granted to her by her fox tail.

  It was one of the more interesting books that were used to teach test subjects how to read back in the b. We needed to be able to understand system notifications, after all.

  Looking back on it, the story was probably propaganda made to scare kids into seeing the other races as evil. As far as I was concerned, however, a witch that got rid of imperial knights sounded very nice.