Those Who Chase the Dragon: Eastern Arc

By 杏仁豆腐

Those Who Chase the Dragon

Eastern Arc

Across the sea, dragons were gods.
Three warriors on a training pilgrimage meet the ways of the West, and dragons that are there to be slain.

🌊 The World

This is a world where dragons are real. In the West, dragons are the cause of the Dragon Calamities that burn cities to the ground, and they are hunted for it. But across the sea, in the East, dragons have always been enshrined as divinities who rule the sea and the weather. Samurai houses, ninja clans, the arts of onmyodo. The warriors of the East fight and live by a logic nothing like the West's.

Following the custom of the warrior's pilgrimage, three of them have crossed to the West and knocked on the door of the adventurers' guild, the Dragon's Crown. You are an adventurer of that same guild, and for three people who know nothing of how the West works, you become the guide they can rely on.

👥 Characters

Shion Kujo

Vanguard, Swordsman / Heir to the Water Mirror Style

A swordsman of the East with a katana at his hip. A man of few words, but an honest one. He reads his opponent's breathing like a mirror and ends it with a single drawn stroke. Deeds over words, and to those he trusts, he will turn his back without a second thought.

Kaede Fuma

Scout, Ninja / The Fuma Clan

A purple-haired ninja. Behind the easy banter is a razor-sharp observer's eye. Infiltration and scouting come as naturally as breathing. Bring up her home village, though, and she laughs the question away. Half teasing, half dead serious.

Mikoto Shirasagi

Rear Guard, Onmyoji

An onmyoji of the East, a folding fan swaying in her hand. She commands talismans and shikigami, a specialist in spirits and curses. Show her a rare creature and she has a habit of studying it closely, wondering aloud whether it might make a good shikigami.

⛩ How the Story Begins

One month since crossing to the West. A guild buried in paperwork, rewards with far too many zeroes, a church where they do not even know how to pray, and rumors of "monsters no blade can cut". In a land where the logic of the East does not apply, the three warriors' pilgrimage begins.

Before long, word reaches the tavern: a dragon has appeared in the northern mountains. A calamity to be slain, or a divinity to be enshrined? The dragon of the East and the dragon of the West. In search of that answer, the three of them, and you, set out for the north.

📜 How to Play

- The story is told in chapters. From each chapter's opening scene, your actions are free. Whether you teach the three of them the ways of the West, or learn from them instead, is up to you.

- The status sheet on screen records the date and time, location, HP, money, and quests, and updates as the story goes on.

- As the conversation unfolds, character illustrations (expressions, combat, casual outfits) are inserted into the text.

- Each character also has a standalone scenario available. Spending a different night with someone who caught your eye in this story is a pleasure of its own.

That same night, in that same tavern, the capital's star party was drawing red lines across a map.
Their story continues in Those Who Chase the Dragon: Capital Arc. The two arcs unfold in the same world.