Actually, Christina didn’t know that she would end up being the last to leave the black dragon and this egg when the last black dragon asked her to take care of this egg. Every time she came to see the dead egg, deep regret would shadow her. After the black dragon’s death on the battlefield, she tried to take good care of the egg, but even that expectation faded as the egg cooled. But now, it was different.
The warmth of the child she felt in her arms. The small breathing sounds. Christina felt a deep gratitude in her heart. ‘No matter what happens, I’ll help you become a strong and proper dragon.’
"I thought you wouldn’t be able to hatch… Thank you for being alive and being born, baby." Her heartfelt words were halting but gave the dragonling a strange mixture of feeling moved and pity. ‘Is she thankful just because I was born?’ The dragonling tried to wriggle out but then gave up.
‘How awkward…’ In his life, he’d never heard anyone say they were thankful that he was born. But it wasn’t a bad feeling. It was actually a bit ticklish and good. The dragonling also felt endlessly deep and gentle affection from Christina. ‘After hearing such words, it’s difficult to keep doubting. There’s no reason to lie to a child who can’t even understand speech.’
In a sense, he felt a slight debt since he wasn’t the true original owner of this body. ‘The original body’s owner is likely dead.’ After some contemplation, he eventually settled himself quietly in her soft embrace. ‘Accumulating virtue is also a necessary quality for a divine creature.’
He let out a tiny sigh with his small nostrils, sat up a bit, gently hugged Christina’s neck, and tapped her neck gently with his short arms. "Ku. Kuukyup."
‘Hmm. I don’t know what it is, but it’s not your fault, so cheer up.’ Christina’s eyes widened slightly at the child’s actions. "Are you comforting me?" "Kyuu." He answered expressionlessly to ease the embarrassment, but she laughed brightly. "How did such a cute child come to be?" "Kyuu? Kyu!"
‘I didn’t do it to be cute. I just wanted to let her know she didn’t need to suffer so much inside.’ It was better for the dragonling that his caretaker’s condition was good, rather than being devastated or bad. But Christina hugged the nodding hatchling and smiled. "Thanks to you, I feel better. I’ll take good care of you from now on, baby." "Kyu!"
‘Yes, take good care of me.’ Christina petted the newborn hatchling’s head, finding the earnest answer cute. The dragonling felt quite embarrassed by someone petting his head for being commendable. ‘Damn. My face is burning.’ The embarrassment surged from inside, and his nose made a squeaking sound as he breathed. Though he had lived a long time, he was bad at acts of closeness with others, be it humans or other divine creatures.
Even the neighbor’s dog might have been better at this. Although he was small and young, it felt like his conscience was pricked, being petted and embraced in a fully grown divine creature’s body. ‘Stay calm. I just helped. This guy didn’t seem bad. He was strong, too.’ It was an effort to rationalize.
Of course, most of it was true. In her embrace, he could clearly feel the hidden strength within her softness. Well-refined and contained intimidation. He felt a power stronger than himself in this world. ‘Having such a person on my side would be very useful for survival.’
Moreover, since he seemed to owe a debt to the original owner, it wouldn’t hurt to show kindness to such a person. He looked in the direction of the monument, making his own silent pledge to the dead child. ‘I’ll always be grateful to you who gave me this life. Rest in peace.’ After paying respect to the child in his heart, he pondered over more practical issues.
Though he didn’t know how he revived with memories of his past life, his memory of dying powerlessly was clear. ‘I must not die from the same mistake.’ Though his heart, which wasn’t pierced by a spear this time, ached. The dragonling unconsciously curled his front paws. The pain of his soul being torn apart. It was a shock he never wanted to experience again. ‘In this life…’
His clenched fists tightened. ‘At least in this life, I won’t die powerlessly like back then.’ The bitter injustice surged from the tip of his tail to his crown even when he thought about it again. He had just one year short of completing a thousand years. He had been someone who could ascend and become a divine dragon, but was murdered. When he lost everything along with his sole wish, the anger and injustice swept through his body deeply.
In his eyes, something not childlike and resolute was born. ‘I’ll become strong, strong enough that no one can hurt me.’ His eyes, not innocent and sparkling but occasionally flickering coldly, looked down. Vowing not to repeat the same mistakes, he clenched his fist tightly. ‘I’ll become so strong that no one can touch me. If I can use anything, I’ll use everything that I can.’
While Christina couldn’t see his cold expression, she cast a transportation spell. Leaving the place where they had stayed alone, it was the first step towards the world the child would experience. *** It had been a month since Christina stayed in her lair. During that time, the dragonling adapted to the fact that he had become the black dragon’s infancy. A hatchling.
At first, he crawled slowly, then collapsed and fell asleep as he was crazily sleepy, waking up in the cradle. It was an amazing event for him. ‘Did I not even notice any sign of my body being moved because I was asleep?’ He shuddered at his defenselessness. For him, who had handled energy and practiced martial arts, it was unbelievable.
After days of kicking the air and regretting it, he eventually accepted it to some extent. ‘It’s natural if I think about how young this body is. It’s not me, it’s the body.’ …It was close to reality denial, though. For him, who believed that the spirit governed the body, he focused every day on receiving the pure energy around him and accumulating his power.
In that process, he discovered something peculiar: whereas before his energy gathered in his lower abdomen, now even just breathing gathered magic power into his heart. ‘At first, I thought there was something wrong with my body.’ After seeing Christina use magic a few times, he realized it was natural. He even practiced a few of them secretly when Christina wasn’t around. Magic cleaning the surroundings, moving objects, creating cool water, and so on.
It was small but useful power. Since then, he had been storing magic in his heart and gathering energy in his lower abdomen on purpose. ‘It’s a shame that I lost the jade bead I made with great difficulty, but this isn’t bad either.’ Training his mid lower double abdomen, he naturally gathered power. Though it took time, he began to create a new jade bead.
Moreover, this place had the purest mana, more than any place that the dragonling knew. Accepting the energy through his method, he was amazed again. ‘Being able to accumulate this energy in a newly born, impurity-free body.’
Naturally, the corners of his lips raised. Usually, selecting and gathering the purest energy in the lower abdomen itself would take a few days. But here, it wasn’t necessary. Thanks to that, he quickly became stronger, mastering both magic and physical ability faster than other hatchlings, although he was only a one-year-old hatchling. Despite being satisfied with everything, there was something he was most dissatisfied with recently.
‘A strange guardian-like guy appeared.’ Pretending to sleep, he peered at the white light floating around. It looked like an ordinary orb of light. [ㅇㅅㅇ] Sometimes drawing peculiar symbols with light in midair, or rather making expressions.
‘That guy doesn’t even sleep.’ It was a summoned ‘spirit’ that Christina had called, worrying about leaving him alone. Though it looked harmless, he could definitely feel its gaze. ‘This is troublesome.’
Though being cooped up with nowhere to go outside was somewhat bearable, as he had plenty of time and it could be considered part of his training, the unformed oral structure was a limit to articulate properly? It was embarrassing, but he was getting used to it bit by bit. The uninvited guest created by Christina’s concern had one effect. ‘I can’t perform noticeable physical training because of that guy.’ His body had soft scales and a plump young body, which meant he needed to walk and move his arms and legs to develop muscles, but the will-o’-the-wisp-like fellow would hover around anxiously like a puppy needing to go out if he kept crawling on the ground.
If he continued training while sweating profusely, the spirit would disappear and come back with Christina. Then, concerned that he was hurt, she would lift him back into the cradle. ‘Tch. Getting some skin scraped off while training is nothing.’ Revealing autonomous training in front of Christina would surely be strange. ‘With a growing body day by day, I am only slowed down due to such reasons.’
While he had a body meant for growth, the wasted time gnawed at him, causing deep sighs of regret. Eventually, as his training time decreased, dissatisfaction began to pile up. ‘I need to devise a countermeasure. I can’t keep living under the will-o’-the-wisp’s watch.’ A divine creature who had dominated the world now had to feign sleep under a mere floating light. It would have been better to face a tangible enemy.
"Sigh." He lay back in the spacious cradle with a sigh. ‘Still, there’s the good part that my energy is increasing steadily.’ Lifting one corner of his lips in a smile, he patted his round belly with his short arm. Even as he spoke, he consistently accumulated inner energy and claimed magic strength through training.
‘At least I made the seed of inner core properly.’ The seed of the abdomen that forms an inner core. The pure magic enveloping his heart. It was as if he had created a control device that freely used energy and mana. ‘With this much, I think I can try it soon.’ For the past month, he focused on understanding the operation of transportation magic whenever Christina used it with him.
Having expert knowledge in managing the energies of the universe as a divine creature, he had an excellent ability to grasp and feel mana’s flow. ‘I have to utilize this stronger and richer force than in my original world.’ His ambition to surpass his limits as a dragonling made his heart race after a long time.
"Kyuuk!" ‘…Damn.’ Excitedly shouting a kiai resulted in an immature cry. ‘I thought it was a problem with my oral structure… but won’t practicing solve it faster?’ Having nothing better to do, he attempted to practice articulation. "Kyu! Kyaa! Kkyuuuk-!" He felt as though the ball of light was giggling at him, but he continued diligently making sounds. "Kyuuk. Fyafya. Fyupyappyappu."
It felt embarrassing, but he gave it his all to cry out. "Kyuuaa-!" Thud. It wasn’t from exhaustion, but mental fatigue from embarrassment that he collapsed in place.
‘Ugh! Why do I have to do this–?’
