Her gaze fixed on the Third Princess as she thought through her plan. The goal was to seize the princess in public, fly high enough, activate the Spatial Magic learned from Sylvia, then mask her presence and Teleportation away. She would demand a ransom, ditch the tool that made her a villain, and go seek her inheritance.
"It doesn't look possible to lure her out alone," she thought. "Do I have to wait until the banquet ends?" She kept stealing snacks while staying cautious, knowing true experts could easily subdue her. Getting too close meant even turning back into a dragon might not give her time to escape.
Just then, the princess waved her hand and the crowd dispersed. Her eyes lit up when she noticed Ham, and she walked over. "Hello, I am the Third Princess of Paraten Empire, may I ask who you are?"
Ham's mind filled with images of Sylvia, but she forced herself to respond. She had no background prepared and sensed something off in that smile. A distant Ascendant Hall-level guard twitched, recognizing that expression as a sign of chaos to come.
Swallowing hard, Ham tried to stand firm. "I'm a future great evil dragon. I can't be overwhelmed by a human princess," she told herself, then attempted to improvise. Her words quickly turned into a jumble of unrelated questions and greetings, ending in Incoherent Babble babble.
Seizing the moment, the princess handed her a bracelet covered in strange markings. "We seem destined to meet. How about I sell this to you for zero cost?" Before she could react, it snapped onto her wrist and tightened perfectly.
With a satisfied smile, the princess invited her outside to talk alone. Both girls smiled, each thinking it was a perfect chance. As they walked out, a clear sound echoed in the princess's mind, signaling preparations complete.
Elsewhere, Sylvia frowned at a black Shard shard in her hand, staring down at a forest and newly risen mountains. She felt uneasy, wondering when such terrain had appeared here. Setting aside the mystery, she hurried on to find Ham.
The shard reacted everywhere, strongest beneath her feet. She paused, baffled. Was that girl really buried underground? Shaking her head, she turned her gaze toward a distant human city, certain the answer lay there.
Vera, the Third Princess of the Empire, had been clever since childhood, even if her behavior was a little strange. Because her ability in magitech research was outstanding, people around her mostly understood and accepted it. After all, geniuses being odd was considered normal.
However, this princess had always hidden a secret in her heart. She was not originally from this world. The name from her previous life had been forgotten in infancy, but Vera gradually recovered her memories as she grew up and fully recalled them at the age of six.
She also remembered why she had died and transmigrated in the first place. In her previous life, she had been an unlucky mechanical design student, drawing blueprints until she felt sick. One night, she saw a drunk office worker staggering by the roadside and about to be hit by a truck, and with a student's excess sympathy and lack of caution, she rushed forward to pull him away.
In the end, she was still a step too late. The man was dragged under the vehicle, almost certainly dead, and all she could do was call an ambulance on the spot, even though she did not know if it would help. She was standing next to the truck when she noticed the cargo compartment deforming, and then something deadly fell out.
It was a steel coil. Her vision went black, and together with the chain reaction triggered by the Rite of Aramisaiah, she was sent straight to her grave. When she regained awareness, she had already become the third young princess of a nation in the Otherworld.
Before dying, she vaguely remembered a passing medical student trying to rush over to help, but given the situation, her death had been very clean. After some time, she realized that the names of people and places around her matched a novel she had read before transmigrating. It seemed to be a prequel side story to a certain Otherworld light novel she had read out of boredom.
The story was roughly about a princess being kidnapped by an evil dragon, leading to an accident. It later turned into a road story where the princess wanted to return home while the dragon searched for something. The interactions were fun to read, but once she realized that the princess was herself, Vera could not sit still.
No way. After being sent off by the Rite of Aramisaiah, becoming some kind of dragon accessory was unacceptable. At the very least, it could wait until she had enjoyed being a princess for a few dozen years.
Fortunately, setting aside her small personal advantages, unlike the novel, her status in the Otherworld was a genuine princess. That meant she could call for help. If things really went bad, she could gather tens of thousands of troops and a group of powerful figures, wait for the evil dragon to arrive, smash a cup as a signal, and beat it into submission before dragging it back.
Still, relying entirely on others did not sit well with Vera. She wanted to take action herself. Although the world had a complete power system for cultivation, it took too much time, so she naturally placed her hopes on her professional skills and her small advantage.
From childhood, she worked hard, saved allowance, wrote novels for extra money, tightened screws herself, begged and rolled around for projects, and quietly cut costs wherever she could. Finally, the day arrived.
"Vera, what did you want to show me? What is this big treasure anyway?" "It is something very cool and very mysterious. You will get to experience its beauty yourself in a moment."
As she smiled and spoke, Vera secretly used a communicator she had built herself to message the Ascendant Hall-level guard outside, ordering the surrounding airspace sealed. Ham walked closer in curiosity, staring at a massive unknown object covered by a thick green curtain, at least twenty meters tall.
"What is that? Is this the treasure?" "Yes. Do you want me to introduce it?"
Before she finished speaking, Vera rushed over eagerly, unable to stop muttering. She rambled about alloy joints bought with hard-earned Ancient Steel, about the outrageous prices charged by the alchemy department, and about all the money they had squeezed out of her.
Ham did not really understand what she was saying. She only saw how increasingly excited and obsessed the princess looked. The stream of unfamiliar terms sounded impressive, but something felt wrong.
"Dragon hunting? Edward?" Those words sounded familiar, names she had often heard from Sylvia or read in her favorite novel. Then realization struck her.
Wait. I am the dragon.
"Hunting me?" Even the dullest person would understand by now, and Ham let out a shrill scream like a startled animal. Her black-haired human form vanished as she transformed into a Black Dragon over ten meters long, powerful and muscular, roaring as she beat her wings and ripped away the green curtain.
"So this is it? A flashy tin shell? Is this what you rely on, foolish human princess?" Under the curtain was a humanoid machine, white limbs, a red and blue chest, and a helmet with golden antennae.
To Ham, the design looked strange and abstract. As one of the strongest Black Dragon in raw physical power, she was not afraid at all and reached out to tear the machine's head off. Suddenly, gunfire erupted from two small holes in the helmet.
"Uwah!" Several shots hit her face, startling her backward.
"What kind of thing is this? A trap?" She stared in shock as the metal figure lowered its legs and stood upright.
"Unit data is okay." "All parameters are stable, same as previous tests." "But why does it feel like I only read the manual when firing the vulcan cannon?"
Inside the chest of the massive magitech puppet, a core burned with highly compressed Magic ore, venting heat through the chest grilles as rhythmic sounds echoed. Beneath the golden antenna helmet, the cameras lit up, LEDs shining at full power. Inside the cockpit, Vera excitedly adjusted the controls and pulled out two weapons.
One was a red shield with a golden cross, forged from high-strength alloy. The other was a beam saber that used lightning Magic as a substitute, releasing high-voltage current. She laughed loudly as she spoke.
"This is the officially usable Gundam Unit One. I built it myself, screw by screw, after years of scraping funds together." "It looks old-fashioned, and I cannot use floating weapons yet without higher Mental Power, but it is more than enough to beat you."
Inside the cockpit, she recalled her years of effort, studying both engineering and Magic, saving money, and writing novels under pseudonyms. Facing the Black Dragon that represented her fate, she felt it was all worth it. She had ignored many other technology paths just to focus everything on humanoid weapons.
"It is still just a fancy shell," Ham roared. "I will tear it apart!" "Fancy? Gundam is not just for looks."