The Red Dragon and the Dragon Rider – Furry Lover
The black dragon, Ashkal.
He had lived a life no different from that of any other dragon.
Born a dragon, he had roared across the world armed with knowledge and power that dwarfed humanity's own—until one day, ennui struck without warning, and he spent the rest of his days flailing about in search of dopamine.
He, too, had taken human form and sampled this experience and that to relieve his boredom.
This time, the role he had chosen was that of a slave merchant.
Quite literally, a profession that captured living beings and sold them for money.
Slave merchants were not held in high regard, but that was precisely why he found the work intriguing, and he hunted down intelligent creatures of every kind and made slaves of them.
Humans were a given, of course, but also elves, dwarves, and beastfolk besides.
His most frequent customers were human nobles.
Ashkal found human nobles endlessly entertaining.
Outwardly, they denounced slavery and wailed about rights, polishing their public image—yet behind closed doors, they traded in slaves and indulged their desires without a shred of shame.
Then one day, Ashkal received an invitation from a noble of a certain empire.
The venue was a party held in strict secrecy.
It was not his first time attending one of these covert noble gatherings, so he arrived quite at ease.
What fresh depravity will they show me tonight?
Ashkal's lips curled into a smirk.
What other reason could there be for summoning a slave merchant to a clandestine venue like this?
They clearly intended to purchase slaves and put them to some filthy, secret use.
Ashkal attended the party with thoughts of selling the elves and merfolk that were so popular among the nobility, and—
"...Fuck. What is this?"
For the first time since his birth as a dragon, he found himself utterly dumbfounded by human madness.
The party was called Furry Fever.
Inside, the hall was packed with humans wearing beastfolk masks.
Nobles in furs and pelts feasted and drank, complimenting one another's appearances and behaving like beasts themselves.
"...My head hurts."
A headache unlike any he'd ever felt casting high-tier magic throbbed behind his eyes as he scanned his surroundings, trying to make sense of the situation.
These people were not drawn to beastfolk or elves. They were humans whose lust was stirred by creatures called furries—beings that were, strictly speaking, a fusion of beast and man.
"Why on earth did they call me to a party like this?"
The answer came quickly.
A man in a furry costume approached Ashkal and explained why he'd been invited.
"Tell me—among the slaves you carry, do you happen to have any furries?"
"...I'm sorry, what? Ah... you mean beastfolk. Yes, I do carry beastfolk."
"No, no! Beastfolk and furries are entirely different things!"
At the word beastfolk, the furry man recoiled in horror and launched into a rambling lecture on the differences between the two.
A beastfolk was a human form with animal ears, whereas a furry was far closer to an animal's form.
Cuter. Sexier. More modern.
When Ashkal first heard the man out, he thought it was utter nonsense.
And yet, strangely, the longer he listened, the more he found himself drawn in—until before he knew it, he had become a member of the Furry Fever party himself.
"My friend, you have TASTE!"
At first, like the party's rank-and-file members, he simply donned a fursuit and joined the gatherings. But gradually, greed took root.
The greed to create a real furry, and to see one with his own eyes!
Besides, was he not a dragon, armed with knowledge and power no human could hope to match?
From that day on, Ashkal began researching the creation of furries, and in the end, his hands found their way to forbidden research.
Human experimentation.
He started by attempting to fuse animals with humans, but humans, with their fragile life force, could not withstand the procedure.
Eventually, he decided to continue his research on monsters until the technique had matured enough.
The reason he had established his lair in the Red Fang Mountains, too, was simply to secure a steady supply of monsters.
The Bone Crusher, as it happened, was a monster born of that very research.
There were many moments along the way when he wanted to give up—many incidents that nearly broke him—but he never did.
And recently, by fortunate chance, he had obtained a woman named Anna, and by fusing her with an animal, he at last succeeded in creating the furry of his dreams.
"FURRY FEVER!!!"
But his joy did not last long.
Two figures were approaching from far away.
Ashkal knew at once.
"Seraphina."
His niece—his sister's daughter, a dragon like himself—had come looking for him.
"Uncle Ashkal. It's been a while."
"U-Uncle?!"
The word uncle made Sylvia's eyes go wide as she whipped her head toward Seraphina.
Her thoughts tangled into knots.
Anna had been turned into a furry, and the man responsible was Seraphina's uncle?
If they fought, wouldn't that make it a family squabble?
"Dragons place little weight on blood ties."
Perhaps she had sensed Sylvia's worry, for Seraphina patted her shoulder as she spoke.
"Uncle Ashkal. What did you do to Anna? Turn her back this instant."
"Ha! Am I out of my mind? Do you have any idea how much effort I poured into creating a proper furry?"
"Anna is our friend. Return her, now!"
"Friend?! Don't tell me you've grown fond of some human?! Really, Seraphina!"
Seraphina and Ashkal glared at each other, baring their teeth.
Sylvia swallowed dryly.
These two were dragons—the strongest beings in the world.
There was no telling what would happen if they truly came to blows.
Rather than a fight, persuading Ashkal might be the faster road to saving Anna.
Sylvia spoke up carefully.
"You're Lord Ashkal, I take it. Please, hear me out."
"You dare address me, a mere human?"
A violet madness flickered in Ashkal's eyes, but Sylvia did not back down.
"Why would you do this to Anna? If there's a way to return her to normal, I'll do anything. If there's something you want, name it."
Ashkal threw back his head and burst out laughing.
"What I want? Hilarious. Do you know how many years I've poured into this research? Undo the experiment? You might as well ask me to clip my own wings."
Sylvia's face hardened.
"Anna is not an experiment! She's a person!"
"A person?"
Ashkal scoffed.
"Humans are no more than ants to our kind. That woman Anna is nothing to me but the fruit of decades of research. And that fruit, I might add, is a resounding success."
"Then at the very least... at the very least, you have to tell her how she's supposed to live from now on! Are there side effects? Is she meant to live like this for the rest of her life?"
Sylvia's voice rose, desperation bleeding through every word.
"I owe humans no explanations."
"Uncle Ashkal!"
Seraphina snarled at him again.
"No. Go home. Even for you, Seraphina—if you interfere with my research, I will not stand idle."
Ashkal cut her off, his tone final.
"Even if a way to reverse it existed, I have no intention of using it. That woman is now proof of my life's work. Had I intended to hand her over meekly, I would never have taken her in the first place."
Sylvia's fists trembled.
Persuasion was getting them nowhere.
She turned her gaze to Anna, who was still trembling in fear.
One way or another—by force, by whatever it took—she had to get Anna back.
Seraphina, her soul bound to Sylvia's, felt her resolve and readied herself for battle.
But before she could move, darkness boiled out of Ashkal's hand and swallowed their view of the cavern.
"Gh—! Ashkal! You always did fight dirty!"
Before Seraphina could even finish speaking, a massive shape burst from the darkness and slammed into her.
It was Ashkal, transformed into his dragon form.
His scales of deepest black seemed to devour even the faint light within the lair, and his eyes swirled with violet madness.
Seraphina was flung backward but caught herself mid-air and landed on her feet, then shifted into her own Red Dragon form and crashed into Ashkal head-on.
The moment the two colossal bodies collided, the entire lair shuddered as if an earthquake had struck.
Seraphina's claws raked toward the back of Ashkal's neck, but he twisted his body clear of the strike and lashed out with his tail, slamming it into her flank.
With a dull, heavy impact, Seraphina's body was driven back toward the cavern wall.
Regaining her footing, she threw back her head and roared, fire surging up from deep within her throat as her jaws gaped wide.
A torrent of flame poured down on Ashkal like a waterfall, but the black dragon plunged straight through the inferno—and from his own jaws spewed a breath of dark green.
The two dragons' breaths collided mid-air and detonated, and a portion of the lair's ceiling came crashing down with a thunderous roar.
"Ghhk!"
Sylvia clenched her teeth and weathered the shockwave.
She had ascended to the rank of Sword Master and surpassed the limits of human strength—yet all she could do was brace herself against the sheer force generated by the two dragons clashing.
Ashkal's laboratory could no longer contain them.
If this went on, the whole place would come down on their heads.
Seraphina, mindful of Sylvia's safety, hurled herself through the breach in the collapsed ceiling first—up to the surface, and into the sky beyond.
Ashkal was hot on her tail, black wings snapping open.
As the two dragons punched up through the summit of the Red Fang Mountains, shattered rock and dust erupted into the air.
The battle above the clouds was even more ferocious.
When Seraphina extended her claws for Ashkal's wings, he spun his body, dove in behind her back, and snapped his jaws at the nape of her neck.
The two dragons locked together in a writhing tangle, clutching at each other as they plummeted toward the ground, only to spread their wings at the last instant and soar skyward again—over and over.
In their wake, whole boulders near the mountain's summit were torn loose and flung in every direction, and the sky itself transformed with every pass of the duel.
Now it blackened, now it burned red.
While Seraphina drew Ashkal away, Sylvia sprinted toward Anna.
"Anna!"
"Don't come!"
Anna's cry rang out, sharp and piercing.
Sylvia's feet froze.
"There's... there's a trap here."
Anna's voice trembled, but she pressed on, desperate.
"The floor... there's a magic circle covering it. If you step on it... I don't know what will happen. Please—don't come any closer."
Sylvia's eyes swept rapidly across the floor.
At a glance, the cavern floor looked no different from ordinary stone.
But as she looked closer, faintly etched patterns began to shimmer in and out of view.
Anna had been telling the truth.
The thunder overhead showed no sign of stopping.
Seraphina's roars mingled with Ashkal's bellows, and she could even hear the sound of shattered rock cascading down toward the cave entrance.
Time was running out—every nerve in her body was screaming the warning.
Sylvia gritted her teeth.
Her grip tightened around the hilt of her sword.
What should she do?
Go help Seraphina?
Or save Anna?