REFDL 4

Grab!

He seized the back of my neck. I reflexively opened my eyes and met the gaze of the man who had lifted me off the ground.

They were dark gray.

Deep.

They rippled.

Exactly like the shadow of a flood.

……But unlike that atmospheric gaze, the man wore an expression as if he were looking at the strangest thing in the world.

“…….”

‘…….’

It was an unwanted exchange of glances.

“Captain? Is there a problem?”

“No. It’s not a problem. Let’s talk up there. Pull the rope.”

‘Ah!’

I came back to my senses.

The man’s heavy body rose as light as a feather. I pulled my dangling front and back legs together and curled my body up like a pill bug. 

I felt his gaze. I couldn’t even swallow my saliva. Even without instinct, I knew. I was now at the crossroads of life and death. The power over my life and death was in the man’s hands.

From here on, whether I lived or died depended on what I did.

I held back the urge to cry and blinked slowly. I emphasized that I was a gentle, well-behaved baby dragon who would cause no harm to the human.

His stubborn eyebrows twitched. The invader’s demeanor subtly changed. It seemed I’d chosen the right answer.

“Captain!”

“Oh, what is it?”

“It’s a Kremlis!”

“Really? I’ve never seen a Kremlis before.”

The man’s party was on the cliff above. Their attire was similar. Light clothing prioritizing mobility, minimal armament, and swords sheathed at their waists.

The only one who seemed restless, a brown-haired man, jumped toward us.

“You listened to my advice! You always treated me like I was talking nonsense, so I thought you saw me as a dog!”

“Shut your mouth if you’re going to talk nonsense, Nitan.”

The man clicked his tongue and threw me at the brown-haired man named Nitan.

“Whoa!”

Kya!

Nitan and I screamed simultaneously.

Fortunately, despite his seemingly dim-witted appearance, the man possessed physical prowess worthy of the sword at his waist. His rough hands caught me smoothly.

“T-It’s real… It really is a Kremlis…!”

His hands, trembling with emotion, groped various parts of my body.

My savage dragon’s instincts growled. I barely ignored the voice screaming to crush these worthless hands.

…Actually, barely wasn’t true. It was very easy.

Because I felt a burning gaze on my back.

The man still watched me. He sized me up and observed. It was a gaze that left no doubt: one wrong move and death would be instant.

“It was noticeably smaller than the others. It might have hatched late from the egg.”

“Ah, what you’re saying is…!”

The man nodded as he pulled the rope loose.

“It hatched from the egg, but it might not have been imprinted yet. …However, there are a few things that bother me. First, this one was outside the nest, not inside.”

“Outside?”

“It was trembling on a small ledge of the cliff. If it were still an egg, there’d be no reason for it to be there. Unless it hatched and walked there on its own.”

Nitan let out a small gasp. Yet, his hands didn’t stop fiddling with me. The leader of the invaders pointed at me with his index finger.

“Another thing is this one’s reaction.”

“Huh? Why the reaction? It’s super docile and cute.”

“That’s exactly my point. It doesn’t seem imprinted, but even if it were, something is still strange. It froze in fear of me.”

“……Hmm. That certainly isn’t the reaction one would show to an imprinting target.”

“On the other hand, look at how it reacts to you, who isn’t the imprint target.”

……Huh?

“It’s highly likely it’s either sick or mentally unstable.”

‘…….’

I felt like my face would explode from the unfairness I felt. They killed my sibling who charged at them baring his teeth, and now they say they’ll kill me because I’m too docile?

So it’s like playing a game of death where you raise a blue flag or a white flag, but you die either way.

Fuck!

Nitan defended me.

“But even if it’s imprinted, isn’t it normal for it to fear the captain……?”

He looked at the man with the eyes of an overworked office worker.

“How dare you look at your superior like that. Do you want your eyes gouged out for disrespect?”

“My eyes aren’t radishes. You’re always joking about gouging them out… scary jokes…”

“I’m the one who doesn’t understand. Why do you think it’s a joke?”

“…….”

Nitan turned pale.

The man spoke with an expressionless face, not moving a muscle.

“It’s a joke.”

Nitan’s color didn’t return.

“Th-th-then, anyway, are we taking this one with us?”

The man hesitated briefly before drawing his sword.

“No. We’ll kill it.”

“Huh?!”

Kyaaak?!

The man and Nitan’s gazes simultaneously turned toward me. They seemed slightly startled. Nitan was the first to recover.

“I just had a slightly crazy thought. Doesn’t this one seem like it understands speech? What I mean is, it understood the nuance and reacted! If that’s really the case, then this, this…”

Nitan’s eyes sparkled.

“Captain, please! Please, spare it and take it with us! If it really doesn’t work out, we can just eliminate it before it becomes an adult, right? It’s a precious sample for research!”

…Hold on.

Eliminate him?

Me? After touching my belly?!

I trembled with betrayal.

Even to Nitan’s suggestion, the man’s attitude remained stubborn.

“If your guess is true, it’s even more impossible.”

“Why?!”

“If it’s that smart, it means this thing knows I killed its sibling and that we kidnapped it.”

“…….”

“Now. We have to kill it here.”

Nitan’s grip tightened around my body.

Excuse me, Mister Nitan. You need to argue back, not just tighten your grip.

The man sighed as he watched the scene.

“You were the one who said it would grow as big as a Pensilta adult in just three months. Nitan.”

“…That.”

“What if, by any chance, we delay disposing of it after taking it away, and it becomes a full adult?”

“…….”

“Handling it within the knight order is the best-case scenario. If it somehow escapes into the city, do you have any idea what kind of catastrophe could unfold?”

Faced with this scathing rebuke, Nitan finally fell silent, unable to say anything.

Throughout their heated exchange, the others had been quietly observing. Now, with quick hands, they exchanged something.

Shiny coins.

‘…….’

Anyway, Nitan didn’t hand me over immediately, even though he was conflicted. I was a little touched. While silently cheering on my lifeline, I desperately racked my brain, wondering if there was anything I could do.

As expected, there was only one answer.

Operation Poor Little Mutt. Here I go!

The ill-fated plan I’d only ever thought about, never executed!

I gently scratched Nitan’s chest with my front paws as he held me close. It was my own special, deadly cuteness.

Rip!

“Kyaak!”

He flung me off like a ragdoll. In that split second, I flipped my body nimbly and landed smoothly on all fours. …Huh? Landing this calmly… doesn’t it look like I attacked on purpose?

As expected. Nitan, feeling his wound with his hand, shouted in a trembling voice.

“Did… did you attack me?”

It’s a misunderstanding.

“So you were hiding your true nature.”

It really is a misunderstanding.

But no chance to explain was given.

…Not that a dragon’s voice could have clarified anything anyway.

The man, now even colder, closed the distance in an instant with strides as wide as his long legs.

‘Kyaaaah!’

His swung his sword.

A flash of lightning streaked past. So this is how my short four-day dragon life ends!

Whooosh!

A tremendous wind swept in. The humans all crouched down.

Even then, it wasn’t enough. Each drew their sword and thrust it into the ground. Though the whirlwind raged and sand flew into their eyes, they never closed them.

The man glared fiercely over the cliff’s edge.

Hanging in mid-air with its mouth wide open, the parent dragon appeared!

You came!

From the knights came a sharp, blade-like tension and anticipation; from the parent dragon, an explosive fury and killing intent.

And me.

I rolled.

Roll roll roll.

Kyakyakyak!

Even before the parent dragon arrived, I was stuck to the ground like a sticky rice cake, but my weight was so light that I was helplessly flung away.

It looked just like a tumbleweed in a western movie.

Grrrr!

The parent dragon swept the cliff dramatically with his tail and flapped his wings.

The massive body soared like an eagle. He caught me falling from the cliff’s edge with his front claws and soared back toward the sky.

The humans who had jumped into the cliff’s interior to avoid the tail attack looked up at us. The man swung his sword. A blue light, spreading in multiple strands like mist stirred by a hand, severed part of the dragon dragon’s tail.

Gaah!

The agonized scream felt like my own ribs were being squeezed.

The dragon didn’t retaliate and simply flew away from the spot. A second attack came flying. My heart raced like I was riding a roller coaster.

Fortunately, the distance had already grown, and it didn’t reach the parent dragon.

The knights shrank until they looked like toys, then disappeared in an instant.