Epic of Ice Dragon: Reborn As An Ice Dragon With A System

After we calmed down Charlotte, who was having a stroke with every new shocking reveal, we moved on to talk about each other's trials. I quickly heard about the Trial of Tisha, where she was made to defeat her older brother, someone that was always more talented than her in her own tribe, but that ended dying due to an accident. It seemed that it had left her very impacted her, and one of her regrets was never being able to do a rematch with her beloved older brother.

"I was able to have a rematch with him, and defeated him… But after that, I continued being sad. I guess I really just missed him a lot. I… aside from our rivalry, really loved him as my brother." Tisha sighed. "In our tribe, showing emotions was often thought to be a weakness, so I never truly realized how much I appreciated him. His death was… so abrupt and painful, yet I wasn't even allowed to cry for him."

"I am glad you had the rematch with him, though, it must have been painful… You're strong, Tisha." I said. "I hope you can continue smiling as you always do."

"D-Drake… S-Sure!" Tisha began to laugh as she smiled. "It was bittersweet, but I got over it already…!" Tisha began eating a large piece of grilled meat.

"Well, I am sure you've gotten over it." Pekora said with a smile. "You're too dumb to have something inside your head for too long."

"H-Hey! Don't be rude now! I am actually opening up a little, big ears!" Laughed Tisha, karate-chopping Pekora.

I guess the two of them were good friends that joked at one another.

"What about you though?" Tisha directed her question to Pekora.

"Ah… Well, it is nothing much. I simply met my family, my regrets… my tribe… my daughter… All the things I lost, which I still couldn't get over. Even now, I don't know if I had truly gotten over it, but I feel more at ease." Pekora sighed.

"Hmm… I see." Tisha sighed.

I had heard about Pekora's past from her before. She had lost her entire tribe and even her daughter in the past, this had probably done a terrible emotional trauma to her. However, she seemed to be always calm and mature, so it was hard to tell if she was ever saddened by such things. I suppose she still held such pain within her heart.

"Well, I met… Erm, I guess I met Miminga." Said Hector.

"Your wife?!" I asked. "You already hate her or something?"

"What?! No! I love her… Maybe that was seen as a weakness?" Wondered Hector.

"Hmmm… I also saw the same thing, Hector. Perhaps our love for Miminga is a weakness by itself that we had to get over." Sighed Kraxka.

"Ahhh… I really don't like how that sounds. But maybe… Ugh, not like I'll stop loving her or something, these stupid trials seem to be made to just manipulate people or something." Sighed Hector.

"Indeed. Let's prepare a good set of gifts for her and the little child." Said Kraxka.

"Yeah, father-in-law! You really get my mindset!" Laughed Hector.

"Indeed! …Ah! Right, my wife, I should also bring her something, I also… love her a lot." Sighed Kraxka. "Maybe… the trial was also trying to tell me that I had my wife to also love, maybe loving my daughter too much now is not as necessary now that you're here to steal her from me." Sighed Kraxka as he looked at Hector.

"I-I didn't steal anything…" Hector said.

"You two are sure quite the softies." Sighed Larzak, the black-scaled Lizardman drank a large bottle of beer.

"What did you had as a trial, Larzak?" I wondered.

"Hmmm… Well, to tell you the truth, I saw my family." Said Larzak.

"Family? Then you're just like us…" Sighed Hector.

"Yeah, you're calling us softies? Having a harder set of scales doesn't necessarily make you tougher." Said Kraxka. The different between Pastoralist Lizardmen and the Black Fang Lizardmen was rather notorious. Kraxka had a leaner and slimmer physique, with less armor-like scales, meanwhile, Larzak was the total opposite, bulky, armored with scales and rough-looking.

"No, no, I saw my own family, the one I lost long ago." Said Larzak. "My mother, my father, and my big brother. Back then when the Cannibals were running around rampart…"

"Oh…" Kraxka quickly reacted, although the rest of us seemed confused about the whole story.

At the end, Larzak had gotten over it enough to explain to us what he was talking about. He told us about the whole story regarding the lizardmen, and how everything happened. The entire thing was rather sad to listen to, but he made it swift. He had a rather sad past.

"And that's kind of it… I was just… I guess the trial was getting over their deaths, maybe I never truly got over them. The entire battle changed me as a person, so many things happened now… I feel like I would had never imagined getting where I am right now back then." Larzak said. "Thanks for your help, Drake."

"Ah, it's nothing, don't worry about it."

After we conversed some more, most people decided to go to sleep. Everybody was rather tired already. Thanks to Charlotte, we didn't needed many camps as the interior of her ship had a lot of empty rooms with beds for everybody to sleep more comfortably, although I had brought beds and tents of my own for everybody, but I guess that's how it is.

When I went to my own large tent with Benladann, who had Miranda already merged into her and who was supossedly sleeping already, Benladann seemed to want to talk about what she had gone through.

"What I saw there and what I learned… It was something that was seemingly, always within my soul's memories." Sighed Benladann.

"…What did you learned?" I wondered.

"It was… Ugh, well, you're the one I trust the most, so I can explain it to you, I guess." Benladann said. "It was… I saw the one behind my previous life experiments, Ivan Wesker."