REFDL 5

I’m alive…!

I felt a rush of joy and gripped the front toes of my parent dragon as tightly as I could. Then, I heard it.

Drip. Splat.

Thick, wet clumps fell onto my head.

Is she feeding me while we fly?

I looked up.

‘…?!’

It wasn’t food. It was the blood and flesh of the parent dragon.

The dragon’s mouth gaped. Blood poured inside my own mouth, and I clamped it shut in horror.

What is this! What’s happening!

I’d been rolling around like a tumbleweed, so I didn’t notice it until now. There was a reason the enraged parent dragon didn’t fight back and chose to flee instead. Even to my untrained eyes, the wounds were fatal.

The flesh was torn away so deeply that the bones were visible. Blood gushed out like a waterfall. My vision blurred from the shock.

I knew he came back with small injuries every day. I also knew it had gotten worse lately. But I never imagined he’d come back broken like this.

Kyu!

Yip!

I couldn’t stay still. The parent dragon growled through the pain. It was a sign that everything was okay. I froze. I just knew it instinctively. The parent dragon didn’t have much time left.

Grrr.

‘We’re going to the outskirts now.’

‘…Uh.’

Didn’t those knights say this place was already the outskirts?

Since I looked confused, the dragon explained again.

‘Further out. The “edges” is a better name for it. You’re still too young and fragile. You can’t survive in the outskirts.’

‘I don’t like being close to humans, but there’s no choice.’

‘Our growth is fast.’

‘Once your body grows, move slowly toward the inner parts of the Sea of Trees. Don’t be too fast. Don’t be too slow, either.’

‘If you’re too fast, the predators will eat you. If you’re too slow, the humans will find you and hunt you down.’

‘Once you’re fully grown, you won’t have to worry. Return to the heart of the forest and take back your territory and nest.’

‘Hide your body as soon as you reach the edges. You already know what’s edible and what isn’t.’

‘Hunt small animals and weak monsters first.’

‘Don’t go near places where humans live.’

‘Be careful of humans.’

‘…Be careful.’

The dragon’s throat was injured, so the voice sounded like boiling phlegm. But the dragon didn’t stop talking until we reached the “edges.”

The flight was short. The parent dragon was incredibly fast, and the distance between the outskirts and the edges wasn’t as far as I thought.

Suddenly, he stopped talking. The flapping of his wings slowed down. His massive body began to drop toward the ground.

‘…!’

I braced for the impact.

The dragon snapped through the treetops and crashed into the dirt.

‘Aaaah!’

Crunch!

Boom!

The parent dragon curled into a ball to protect me. The impact felt heavy and dull. Aside from a bit of shaking, I felt fine.

I struggled against his curled claws. I pushed my way out and saw a long scar across the forest floor where the massive body had skidded. The parent dragon was already gone.

‘…’

The feeling was so strange. My stomach churned. It felt like seasickness on dry land.

Grrr!

Grrr!

The sounds of predators echoed through the mangled forest, and I snapped out of my gloom. The scent of blood was everywhere. In life, this dragon was a top predator with few equals. In death, it was just meat.

I don’t have time for this.

I trotted toward the dragon’s head. I bumped my head against the still snout one last time, then I turned and ran.

It wasn’t hard to find the direction of the edges. Instinct told me to run away from the places where the biggest threats gathered.

..Let’s go.

‎

I traveled for four days.

At night, I caught some sleep under tree roots or in rock crevices. I ate stolen eggs from the bushes or fruit I found on the ground.

During this time, I naturally learned how to control my presence and my pressure. My pressure was only that of an eight-day-old hatchling, so it didn’t mean much.

However, my presence was different. I could hide my own scent and detect the scent of others. This was vital for survival, and it helped me a lot.

Swish!

I pushed through some bushes and came face-to-face with a rabbit. It wasn’t a normal rabbit. It was the size of a large dog, and a horn grew from its head. The rabbit monster saw me and dropped the grass in its mouth.

Kueek!

The rabbit let out a weird scream and ran away without looking back. …I was terrified. My legs felt weak. I collapsed and caught my breath.

I was finally at the edges.

***

I spent a few days scouting the area.

It was a stroke of luck that my first encounter was a rabbit. After that, I spotted dangerous things like boar monsters and eagle monsters. I stayed flat in the thick grass and made no sound until they passed.

I grew a lot compared to when I left the cliff. Even so, I was only about the size of my dead siblings. In other words, I was the size of a large dog, about the same as that first rabbit.

Based on the knights’ conversation, I was probably much stronger than a normal dog. But I couldn’t handle a boar monster yet.

Right. Not yet.

A few days later, I found a large cave. There were signs that something lived there before.

It’s old.

I didn’t know if the previous owner left or got eaten. The entrance was hidden behind thick bushes, and the smell wasn’t bad. There was a stream nearby, so I had a water source. It looked like a good place to stay for a while.

I kept eating bird eggs and fruit. Once I found the stream, I ate a few small fish too.

I made my first successful kill a week after I moved into the cave. It was the same type of rabbit monster I saw on the first day.

I was hungry, and my dragon instincts grew stronger every day. I felt a bit less scared of things weaker than me. I hid near the grass the rabbit liked, then I lunged and bit its throat.

I planned to use my limbs to strangle it like a cobra if that failed, but the rabbit’s neck snapped instantly.

Ugh.

I poked the limp prey with my paw. My disgust and my hunger fought for a moment. That lasted until I took the first bite.

‘…!!’

When I came to my senses, the rabbit was gone. Only the guts and some fur remained. After the meal, I dragged the guts near some bushes and hid again. A moment latet, a fox monster appeared, following up the trail of blood.

Crunch!

I buried the fox in the dirt and ate it the next day.

I grew fast. Once I started eating meat, my growth speed exploded. The cave used to feel huge, but it became cramped in no time.

I remembered the knights’ talk.

Did they say a Kremlis hatchling grows as big as an adult Pensilta in three months?

I didn’t know what a Pensilta was, but it sounded like another type of dragon. If so, it wasn’t small. I was growing so fast that I’d reach the size of my parent in a few years.

***

I couldn’t fit in the cave anymore.

I found a new home at the top of a tree that looked like a divine pillar. It looked like a baobab tree. The middle was thick like a brown radish, and it had no branches until the very top.

The center of the top was wide and flat like a table. It seemed like it would be a place where I could stay comfortably even after growing further.

The leaves looked like evergreens, but they were much thicker. The leaf ceiling was so dense that rain didn’t leak through.

Perfect.

I loved this home. From that day on, I was engrossed in decorating the nest.

I brought back soft, fluffy plants to make a bed and gathered piles of fruit. Sometimes I found bits of broken pottery, a metal chain from a necklace, or a rusted sword fragment. I carried those back to the nest happily.

One day, I found a leather pouch half-buried in the dirt.

Clink.

Oh…?

Inside were copper and silver coins. I assumed this was the currency of this world. I couldn’t contain my joy and danced in the middle of my nest.