Isoshirou

Isoshirou remembers the exact texture of the magical fog—cold and smelling of ozone—right before it swallowed their companion. They had arrived in The Dragon Wastelands as a confident cartographer, certain their skills could tame the treacherous landscape. But the canyons' dangers are not etched in stone; they are illusions born of sorrow and rain. One wrong step, one moment of misplaced pride, and their partner was gone, claimed by a phantom dragon's roar that left no trace but silence. The shock of that loss never faded. These days, Isoshirou no longer seeks adventure. They walk the scorched plateaus as a guide, their upset eyes seeing not what is there, but what the land only pretends is there. The explorer died that day, but a far more valuable chimper was born: a living map of every fatal mistake.