REFDL 6

Time passed slowly.

Only the physical changes felt like a storm.

My body grew visibly day by day. My stiff wings softened and gained elasticity.

Flap!

I began moving between the branches of tall trees. What had been mere flapping soon transformed into soaring.

Just as one doesn’t ask parents how to use hands and feet, the wings cast into the sky naturally fulfilled their purpose.

Once I could fly, my range of activity expanded dramatically.

I learned there were two lakes nearby, one large and one small, and about the wolf pack settled to the southeast.

I also learned this wolf pack was more bothersome than I’d expected.

Grrr.

Most of the pack were ordinary wolves, not monsters. But there were many of them. I hadn’t counted them all, but there were easily twenty or more.

Moreover, the alpha was a wolf monster.

He had a silver-white mane and his massive frame was the size of a cow. A long, single horn jutted from between his eyebrows. His presence was quite formidable.

Hmph.

Perched high in a tree branch, I looked down at him through narrowed eyes.

It was ridiculous, but even creatures dwelling on the edge had their hierarchy. He belonged much deeper than the areas I’d recently started hunting.

Why is such a creature in these shallow waters…

After observing for several days, I understood the reason.

He was a culled specimen. Worse, he was a pathetic creature who gathered ordinary wolves, not even able to live in the Sea of Trees, and reveled in playing leader.

Kee-kak-kak.

When I sneered at him, sparks flew from his yellow eyes. As he growled, wrinkling his snout, I dropped the large rock I’d been clutching in my hind claws.

Crack!

It wasn’t enough to kill him since he was a monster. He vanished into the thicket, teeth gnashing.

I encountered the alpha several more times after that.

Each time, he’d drool and stare up at me. His eyes were hungry. He couldn’t contain his desire to tear my wings to shreds, to sink his teeth into my neck.

…Honestly, it scared the hell out of me.

It was disgusting too.

But right now, I had no better option.

My instinct whispered. If you fight now, you’ll lose.

I know.

The moment I fell for the provocation and descended to the ground. I’d be hit by a concentrated attack from the wolves he led.

The wolves’ teeth couldn’t pierce my scales. But if they all charged at once, they could trip me up.

His minions would somehow bite and hold me down on the ground. If he charged in during that time…

Forcing myself to stay calm, I dropped the rock I’d been holding with my hind claws.

Rock-throwing only worked the first few times. As if he learned his lesson, it didn’t work afterward. He snorted derisively and vanished between the trees.

My claws dug into the tree trunk in frustration.

No. It’s fine.

I steadied my mind. Time was on my side. There was no need to look far ahead.

At this rate of growth, the tables will turn within a month.

By then, I wouldn’t tremble with fear anymore. The beast would fear even my shadow.

He seemed to be waiting for any chance to harm me before that happened.

What can a wingless, four-legged beast do?

* * *

Sometimes I had nightmares.

Especially on nights when a particularly chilly, desolate wind blew.

The man was a regular in my nightmares. His cold, gray eyes stared down at me without emotion. The man, now larger than even the parent dragon, aimed a sword the size of a building at me. A blue light sliced through the cliff face. Blood spattered as my body was cleaved clean in two.

Gah!

Help!

I jolted awake. Even after waking, I lay there groaning for a long while. My startled heart refused to calm.

This was different from catching rabbits or foxes.

Every time I thought of that man, fear still outweighed anger. Whether I opened or closed my eyes, his killing intent lingered like an afterimage.

I clutched my throbbing head with both front claws.

Damn, I need a break.

I sighed and let my tail droop uncomfortably.

I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

So that’s it.

There are things you don’t realize while experiencing them, only understanding later.

Like how my aunt and uncle, who seemed genuinely comforting, had actually brought me into their home coveting my parents’ inheritance. Or how the swimming club friends who praised me with strangely awkward words and actions were actually trying to pick on me.

‘…….’

The man who invaded the nest appeared outwardly indifferent. His expressions and actions were mechanical. It was almost as if he was doing what needed to be done.

But he despised me.

Like the man’s eyes, his contempt also resembled the shadows of the forest.

It was secretive and gloomy, and it refused to tolerate understanding.

He was still my greatest fear.

I shivered.

I forced myself to push thoughts of him aside. He was a man I’d never meet again anyway.

Don’t think about it.

Even nightmares fade with time.

‘…….’

Not immediately, though.

Sleep was fully gone. To change my mood, I soared high into the pitch-black night.

At the edge of the forest, I spotted small flickering lights.

Huh?!

It was a human village.

* * *

Curiosity killed the cat.

Perhaps it kills humans too. Perhaps even dragons.

After discovering the village, I hid whenever possible and watched them. No matter how much I saw it, the sight of medieval fantasy humans moving never grew tiresome.

“Which way are we going today?”

“Northwest, the Melsenia grove! If we see any sina berries along the way, we need to pick those too.”

“Why the sina berries?”

“The lord’s orders. He said we’re running low on them.”

“……Damn it. He doesn’t give us anything, yet he’s such a pain.”

The village near the flooded zone  was small and ordinary.

There were around thirty buildings. The population didn’t even reach fifty. Most were men; women and children were few.

Their main source of income was medicinal herbs.

By early morning, three or four herb gatherers would team up with one hunter and head into the forest.

The herb gatherers diligently filled their baskets.

Meanwhile, the hunter surveyed the surroundings, keeping watch, or checked the traps he had set the previous day.

“Tsk. Another day with nothing to show for it.”

“Got one here!”

“It feels like their numbers are dwindling. We don’t catch many, but where have they all gone?”

The traps’ success rate was low. Even the catches were creatures barely worthy of being called monsters, rabbit monsters or weasel monsters.

The hunter still carefully skinned them. After threading the rope and slinging the carcass over his shoulders, he resumed his watch.

The elderly stayed within the village.

They tended to livestock like chickens or goats, weeded their palm-sized plots of land, knitted, or mended torn clothes with needlework, each occupied with their assigned chores.

“Ahaha! Drive them! Drive them that way!”

“Max! Max! Come on! Drive the chicks that way… Don’t put them in your mouth!”

“No!”

The little ones played all day long in the small open space at the village center, running around with the yellow-haired dog.

Then, when meat was skewered to make jerky and hung out to dry like laundry, they’d rush over, swallowing dryly.

The slightly older boys and girls ventured into the forest like adults. But instead of gathering herbs, they collected fruits and edible mushrooms.

The sun set, and darkness descended.

I returned to the nest with the night sky on my back.

In my original world, the stars were symbols of constancy, but in this world, they changed with the times. The changes were quite arbitrary.

One day, the entire sky was dyed in dazzling, brilliant colors, like an aurora visible only through a telescope. Another day, it vanished like a waning moon, leaving only two moons floating alone amidst the blacker than black sky.

The former was fantastical, the latter… a little frightening.

It was a sky that seemed capable of swallowing the entire world whole.

I buried my head in the nest’s fluffy bed. I wrapped my tail tightly around my body, which had grown larger in the meantime.

This really is fantasy…

In the village. And in the sky.

I truly felt I was in another world.

I don’t particularly want to go back.

That much was certain.

I didn’t exactly yearn for fantasy… but I liked it quite a bit, and reality was exhausting. So if asked which I preferred, it was definitely this side.

…The problem was that I’d been reincarnated as a dragon in a world where dragons were treated as monsters.

If only that weren’t the case, it would have been perfect.

I sighed and wrapped my tail around myself even tighter.

I was particularly prone to loneliness.

Alone in my room, fear would suddenly took hold of me, and I’d wander aimlessly through the bustling streets, or sit blankly in the middle of a crowded cafe.

Even after falling into the abyss because of humans, I still craved cheap warmth.

I wished for someone to be beside me.

I always longed for warmth.

‘…….’

An unquenchable thirst gnawed at my heart like a disease.