Dragon
"...Hey!"
Someone was prodding at my head, and my body lurched wildly, as if they were trying to shake me awake.
I tried to open my eyes; they would not open. I tried to rise; my body would not move. No — or perhaps it was simply my own heart, wishing to lie there a little longer, that refused to obey.
"Ugh, this brat won't wake up to save its life."
...
"How long are you planning to sleep, scrap?!"
A charismatic voice — boyish, and yet just barely recognizable as a woman's.
The moment that voice rang in my ears, something struck my head. A fist, most likely. A small fist traveled back and forth across my skull. At first it was no more than a light tapping — about the force it would take to crack an egg — knuckle-rapping at my forehead like a noogie.
"...Strange. You're clearly conscious, and yet."
...
The force crept a little higher. This time it was the sting of a finger-flick, and the moment those small, slender fingers touched my forehead, a shock shot through me.
"...You still won't get up after this?"
...
Once more the force climbed, a shade harder than before, the impact ringing out with more bite to it. And yet — still, unfortunately — this godforsaken body did not move.
"Ha. At this point you're just refusing to get up on purpose, aren't you?"
...
"Fine, then. Go on — see how long you can hold out."
After that, it was no longer a signal to wake me. It was the act of beating me, pure and simple.
Thud. Thwack. Smack. Crack.
The force and the sound swelled with every blow, and — whether that was misfortune or mercy — it ended up helping me all the same. Because under the shock of what could only be called violence, my body had begun, without my willing it, to move on its own and dodge.
"Even now, you won't get up?!"
"...Gah!!"
"Oh. You're up."
The moment I hauled myself upright and slipped past the fist flying at my head, the pain came flooding in behind it. It wasn't just nerve pain and aching muscles — blood streamed freely from my eyes and nose, and a staggering surge of agony and pins-and-needles tore through me, enough that my mind drifted away for an instant.
"Ghk... ugh...!"
"Wha— huh? Hey, what's wrong with you?"
Groans that seemed to embody the full measure of it spilled from my mouth unbidden, and she — perhaps realizing my condition was anything but ordinary — withdrew her fist and came toward me. My head, which had been lifted toward her, sagged down instead, and the blood streaming down me dripped from the tip of my chin, staining the floor.
"Hey, what's wrong with you? Hm?"
"Kh... hah... ugh..."
"Ah, seriously. Don't tell me this brat has some incurable disease? That'd be a real problem..."
What exactly would be a problem, I couldn't begin to guess, but she seemed gravely worried about me — and then, without warning, one of her hands pressed flat against my back.
"Hold still. If you don't, you really could die."
"Ah... ugh..."
"Hold. Still."
The immense killing intent that washed over me in that instant froze my whole body where it lay — and she, apparently waiting for precisely that moment, began pressing something into me. Through my back, where her palm lay flush against it, something entered. Something I couldn't name — mana, or ki, or neither one. Warm? Hot? A thick, unnameable energy wound its way through every corner of my body, and before long it flowed back out, returning to her palm.
"Wow. You're a completely insane bastard, you know that? Who the hell runs their own body into the ground like this?"
...?
"Ah — why, of all people, did my eyeball have to end up with a bastard like this... fuck's sake, seriously..."
Cursing out of nowhere about how grave my condition was, she covered her face with both hands and slumped down where she sat.
"Ah... seriously — the Mindscape. I should've fucking realized it right from the start..."
"...May I ask you something—"
"What? What the fuck?!"
I flinched at her violent reaction — but only for a moment. There was far too much I wanted to ask her. Why my body had ended up like this. How she had known its condition. And who, exactly, she was.
"What? You're asking why your body is like this?"
"That's right."
"You seriously don't know? That bitch never warned you?"
That bitch? Who could she be talking about? A warning? What warning?
When I only stared at her, genuinely at a loss, she heaved a long, exasperated sigh.
"...What warning would that be?"
"Ha. Did that bitch really not tell you? That's strange. Her work, at least, is usually..."
...?
"Hey, you. You're carrying the Dragon's Eye, aren't you? Tell me how you got it."
"...That was, how should I put it—"
"Shut up and talk."
Her glare pinned me like she would kill me where I sat if I didn't answer, and her wariness, showing no sign of thawing, seemed to press in on me as well.
If only to loosen it, then... I would answer. I had questions of my own, after all — more than a few.
"It just... sort of happened."
"...So, you received this 'Status Window' from a god... and it simply handed you that as a reward, out of nowhere?"
"Yes."
For a moment, I leisurely savored the sight of her, struck dumb.
Her ash-gray hair spilled down long enough to reach and swallow her thighs, and her body — still not fully grown — would easily have passed for a young girl by my standards. Every garment she wore was either too large or simply wrong for her frame; only her golden eyes, glinting between strands of hair, seemed to shine at all.
And her speech, her intonation, her manner — none of it matched her appearance in the slightest, and the mismatch struck me as especially alien. The curses that never left her mouth. The casual brutality, for one.
Nor was she the only thing out of place here. This space was, too.
It could be summed up in a single word: black. Immaculate, unbroken black. Here and there, crimson amethysts bloomed open, and every so often a crystal of some other color showed itself — but nearly everything was dark. A scene like a flower garden blooming in beauty amid the shadows, a sight that had no business belonging to a place without a single ray of light.
As I looked around like that, she seemed to finish whatever she had been thinking, and forced her slumped body upright.
"...Ha. If I couldn't get consent, then this counts as breach of contract... well. Nothing to be done about it now, I suppose?"
"Finished thinking?"
"...Watch your tone, you ash-scrap. I've lived thousands of years longer than you."
Thousands of years? Did she have any idea how old I was? Surely even the longest-lived elder in the world had not racked up as many years as I had—
"Even elves who've lived for hundreds of years can't play the age card in front of me. So quiet down."
...
"What, surprised that your thoughts are being read exactly as you think them?"
She curled one corner of her mouth as though it were all rather amusing, and I, flustered, fought to keep my expression from changing.
"Tch. Seems I'll have to explain from the top. Scrap — come here a moment."
...?
"If you're coming, hurry up and come."
She, who had been sitting there all the while, rapped the floor beside her as though she had just resolved upon something great, calling me over — and I obeyed without protest. I didn't know who she was, or why she was here. But I thought I knew one thing: that she was stronger than I was.
The killing intent she had flashed a moment ago, or the way she read my mind, said as much — but anyone who had done what I had done, even once, would know it without being told. How many people the one before me had killed, and how at home she was with the act. An ominous, unsettling aura that no words could properly explain. I had felt it without regard for race or station — from beasts, from murderers and criminals, even from knights. And from the girl before me now rose a vicious aura more dreadful than any I had ever sensed from anyone.
"...Hm. Your head works better than I expected. Well — if you're weak, at least be smart, I suppose."
...
At her words, which had read my thoughts the instant I thought them, I could manage no reply. Because at some point her left arm had come to rest around my shoulders — and it felt impossibly heavy. It was, clearly, a small and slender arm, yet the weight of it was nothing of the sort. It felt as though an elephant's foot had been set down upon my shoulder.
"First — think of the reason your body went haywire a moment ago as a kind of overload."
"...Overload?"
"That's right. You forced nerves and muscles that were already dead to move. Naturally, this is what happens."
...
"You have a guess, don't you? They were words you spat out, after all."
I did. Of course I did — I was the one who had forced my own body to move. And yet something still didn't add up. If my body had truly been in that state...
"Then how did you get up in the first place?"
"...Pardon?"
"Simple. This isn't reality."
...?
"Don't make that face. It's the truth. To be precise — this is your 'Mindscape.'"
The Mindscape.
It manifested differently for every person — the individual's heart itself, a world belonging to oneself alone. It might be projected onto reality, or left abandoned somewhere deep in the mind; it might take symbolic form, or curdle into delusion.
The name for it differed from person to person. To some, it was their conviction. To some, the ordinary delusions of mankind. To some, the place they called their inner self.
"...So this is that place?"
"It is."
...
"You don't believe me, do you? Well, what can you do? What I say is fact, truth, and reality all at once."
"...Then who are you?"
"What? Me?"
"If what you said is true... then isn't this space mine alone?"
"Ah — so you're asking how I'm here, is that it?"
"...Yes."
She brushed off her legs and rose to her feet — though there could be no dust here to brush away. Her ash-gray hair still swayed, and before I knew it, her bright-yellow pupils had drawn up right in front of me. And then they parted — her tiny, pale-pink lips.
"I am the owner of the eye you took — and the origin of the tongue you speak."
...?
"Didn't that Status Window of yours tell you something? Not to spit out too much truth."
...
"It said that if you abused the power and defied fate, the Ashen Causality would come."
In a flash, the words of the Status Window flickered up through my mind.
"If you overuse Dragon Speech, the Ash Demon Dragon may claim your body."
And the ash-haired girl who had appeared in my Mindscape as if out of a lie — every memory, every circumstance, spelled her identity out in the open. Only now did I see it. The long, slit pupils that no human being possessed.
"Slow, aren't you — even at catching on. Very well. I'll tell you properly, one more time."
...
"My name is Eve. My true name is Ivedia — the dragon that rose from black ashes. The one whom all life despises, and the lord of those ashes: Ivedia."
Her ash-gray hair, gleaming in the black expanse, scattered once in a wind that blew in from somewhere — like ash carried off on the wind, farther and farther away.
You have encountered a Demonic Dragon — one of the Dragons of Annihilation.
Due to the difference in standing, your stats are reduced.