Repaying Kindness (1)

I couldn't make heads or tails of it.

No matter how many times I turned it over in my mind, it simply didn't add up.

From what I'd heard, dragons doted upon their young like precious gems. That meant one thing above all else: under no circumstances would a mother entrust her offspring to someone she didn't trust with her life. Harming a hatchling under those conditions was a surefire way to invite catastrophic retaliation.

To make matters worse, this was the Forest of the Four Seasons. Unless you belonged to the same pack, every other living creature was essentially an enemy. Granted, the kangaroo arena served as a kind of neutral ground, but that was a rare exception governed by an unspoken truce. The second you stepped beyond that neutral territory, everyone turned hostile again. In this forest, there was no such thing as a truly safe haven.

"Ppeeeeee~"

"Kkyuuu~ kkyu~"

Then why on earth did that dragon leave her hatchling in my care?

At that very moment, the hatchling was having the time of its life romping around with Wonmo. Every time the hatchling fluttered its small wings and hovered a few inches off the ground, Wonmo hopped up and down in excitement. Watching the two adorable cubs play together brought a moment of deep peace to my heart—though that comfort didn't last very long.

"Mister."

"……."

"First time seeing something like this, isn't it? Yeah, me too."

I genuinely had no idea how I was supposed to treat this hatchling. Did that dragon truly view me as some forest daycare center and dump her kid off, or was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠there another reason entirely? Whatever the case, one fact remained crystal clear: I had to protect this little one at all costs.

Just yesterday, the poor thing had crawled into my cave covered in wounds from head to toe. I didn't know what had attacked it, but the threat was almost certainly lingering nearby.

'The mother probably went off to butcher whatever attacked her kid.'

She might have left the baby with me just until she finished dealing with that threat. Letting out a long sigh, I resigned myself to reality. It wasn't like I could kick the hatchling out into the cold, so our only option was to get along.

Fortunately, the hatchling seemed to like our shelter, and it was getting along splendidly with Wonmo.

"Kkyuuuu~"

"Ppeee~"

Even now, the two of them were busy using Largo's long neck as a living slide. Largo, on the other hand, was sweating bullets while constantly glancing down at the little dragon with pure dread in his eyes.

'Wait... could this actually make us safer?'

Dragons were terrifying. That terror seemed hardcoded into the instincts of not just humanity, but every beast alive. Just as Largo was walking on eggshells right now, ordinary predators wouldn't dare lay a finger on a dragon hatchling. By extension, our shelter might inherit a sliver of that protective aura—though, given that this was the Forest of the Four Seasons, there was no telling what kind of freaks might show up regardless.

'A dragon is practically a living nuclear warhead, after all.'

That was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠how the world treated them. Allfather had mentioned before that a single Dragon Heart had enough raw energy to wipe an entire metropolis off the map. If just the heart held that kind of destructive potential, what about the sovereign beast housing it? It went without saying.

After watching the hatchling and Wonmo bounce around for a while, I opened the Gallery interface. I wanted to report the latest developments and ask the regulars why a dragon would ever entrust its baby to a stranger.

Most of the commenters reached the same conclusion I did. Because I had patched up her child, she judged this place to be safe. The problem was that dragons were inherently tempestuous creatures; there was no telling when she might turn on me. Either way, this situation remained a ticking time bomb.

'Sigh. Whatever.'

Time to eat. Agonizing over it wouldn't solve a damn thing anyway. My best move was to become as close as possible with the hatchling so its mother wouldn't dare harm me on a whim.

Before doing anything else, I decided to give it a proper name. Calling it "hatchling" every single time felt awkward.

'Asking the Gallery would just unleash a flood of bizarre cursed names.'

From now on, I would name my companions myself. As luck would have it, a fitting name immediately sprang to mind: the apex species that once conquered Earth before being wiped ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠out in the ancient cataclysm. The single most iconic and universally recognized name from that entire prehistoric race.

Keeping that legendary title in mind, I walked over to the little dragon. Picking up the baby while it was happily roughhousing with Wonmo, I looked into its vertical slitted pupils.

"Tyrano."

"Ppeee?"

"Your name is Tyrano from now on. Got it?"

"Ppeee!"

Having settled on a name, I set it back down onto the grass. It would take some time for the little guy to realize that was its name, but that was perfectly fine. Just as I was about to turn toward preparing our meal, a voice chimed in.

"……Tyrano?"

Ludwig asked with a look of utter bewilderment. Clearly, he hadn't imagined in his wildest dreams that I would go ahead and name a dragon.

"Yes. We're going to be seeing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a lot of each other going forward, so it needs a name."

"……."

Ludwig gave a quiet nod. As the master of this shelter, my decision was to be respected.

"I'm going to head up to the river for a bit. Please keep watch here."

Hoisting Bbarmbo onto my back, I set off toward the river while leaving Ludwig at the shelter. With Ludwig guarding the premises alongside Ggobongi, the camp was more than secure enough.

"Hey, were you really not scared of that dragon earlier?" I asked Bbarmbo as we made our way up the path.

Everyone else had been frozen in sheer terror at the sight of the colossal beast, yet Bbarmbo had casually scratched his back the entire time. I couldn't tell if he was insanely brave or just utterly devoid of fear.

"……."

Naturally, Bbarmbo offered no reply, wearing his usual tranquil, unbothered expression. It would be nice if he could talk like the gorilla, but I wondered if he even possessed vocal cords in the first place. Still, he understood everything I said, which was good enough for me.

Ruuuush!

Since the rain had stopped hours ago, the river had settled to a normal flow. There weren't any fish stranded on the banks either; wild scavengers had likely dragged them off already. I had originally planned to come up here first thing in the morning, but the sudden arrival of a full-grown dragon had thrown all my plans out the window.

'Let's just set the fish traps.'

Because yesterday's downpour hadn't been excessive, there was no need to build stone barriers to break the current. I quickly set the fish traps in prime spots and headed straight back to the shelter.

Upon returning, an amusing spectacle greeted my eyes.

"Chirp! Tweet! Tweet!"

"Chirp! Chirp!"

While I had been up at the river, Ludwig had scattered wheat seeds across our small plot. The wheat had undergone an unnatural growth spurt, and naturally, swarms of hungry forest birds had descended upon the field. Normally, our entire harvest would have been stripped clean in seconds, but—

"PPEEEEEEK!!!"

"SCREEECH! Tweet!"

"Chirpchirpchirp!!"

Flap-flap-flap-flap!

The moment Tyrano let loose a piercing roar, the flock of birds scattered in frantic panic. Baby or not, it seemed the innate aura of an apex dragon was already alive and well within its lungs. Thanks to that little screech, Ludwig was able to harvest the golden wheat without the slightest disturbance.

"……Oh?"

That was an unexpected bonus. With Tyrano around, future wheat harvests would be a breeze. Ludwig seemed to share my thoughts, eyeing Tyrano with a strangely conflicted expression. Completely indifferent to our stares, Tyrano immediately went back to wrestling with Wonmo.

"All right, kids. Food first, playtime later."

Time to eat. As mentioned earlier, we still had leftover fish from the previous haul. The tricky part was that Tyrano could easily devour an entire fish in one sitting. That made five mouths to feed: me, Ludwig, Wonmo, Ggobongi, and Tyrano. A single meal burned through five whole fish. Thank goodness Largo only grazed on vegetation, or my head would have exploded from the logistics.

'I'll either have to place more fish traps or expand our farmland significantly.'

There was another concern gnawing at me: would Wonmo and Tyrano become picky eaters? Wonmo was an owlbear, making him an omnivore by nature, but Tyrano was almost certainly a strict carnivore. Unless Tyrano's mother brought meat back later, I needed to manage our rations carefully for the time being.

Bulge—

Once we finished eating, I noticed a distinct change in Wonmo. He had put on a noticeable amount of weight. It wasn't just his belly sticking out like a drum; his entire frame had broadened. That could only mean one thing: winter was fast approaching. We had made our preparations, but what about Tyrano? Would its mother return to take it back to her lair, or would it remain here through the cold months?

"Kkyuuuu……"

With his belly completely stuffed, Wonmo waddled off toward the cave to take an afternoon nap. Tyrano tried to block his path to keep playing, but the difference in their weight classes was far too vast. Even when Tyrano braced its whole body against Wonmo and tugged at his fur with its jaws, Wonmo didn't budge an inch.

"Ppeeeeee……"

When Wonmo curled up and drifted off to sleep, Tyrano slumped onto the ground with a crestfallen whimper. It even nudged Wonmo repeatedly with its forepaws as if asking why he had to sleep when there was still so much playing to do. But Wonmo was already deep in dreamland; there was no waking him now.

'Doesn't this little guy ever get tired?'

Most animal cubs spent more than half the day asleep, but it seemed dragons were built different. Tyrano was still brimming with endless energy. Watching the despondent little hatchling mope around, I offered gently, "Hey Tyrano. Want to play with me?"

"Ppeee?"

Flap! Flap!

Did it actually understand human speech? The instant I called its name, its tiny wings fluttered excitedly. Its large, luminous eyes lit up with eager anticipation. It wanted to play right this second.

'Come to think of it, didn't someone say dragons love shiny objects?'

I asked Tyrano to wait a moment and opened my storage chest. Inside lay the leftover mithril scrap from when we crafted Ludwig's prosthetic leg. Mithril gave off a soft, emerald-green radiance, so surely Tyrano would find it fascinating.

'We can roll it back and forth like a ball.'

I retrieved a fist-sized, spherical lump of mithril and presented it to Tyrano. Its gaze immediately locked onto the metal with boundless curiosity. Just as I expected, dragons were drawn to shiny—

CHOMP!

"……?"

CRUNCH! CRUNCH! CRUNCH!

……Wait, did it like shiny things in that sense?

Swallowing the fist-sized mithril ball whole, Tyrano began chewing on it with visible delight. Mithril was celebrated across worlds for being harder and more resilient than tempered steel, yet this newborn was crunching through it like a crispy butter biscuit.

Gulp!

"Ppeeeeee~"

"……Is it tasty?"

"Ppeee!"

Well, as long as it enjoyed it.

Dragons were universally acknowledged as the supreme lifeforms walking the mortal realm.

They possessed insurmountable physical might drawn from their colossal scale, keen intellects capable of wielding magic like human archmages, mighty wings that granted mastery over the boundless skies, and dragon breath that could reduce entire landscapes to molten slag. Few beings in existence could ever hope to clash with them on equal terms.

Because of this, humanity and beasts alike lived in perpetual terror of a dragon's wrath. If an animal encountered a hatchling in the wild, it would pay the youngster no mind and steer clear; if a rogue member ever provoked one, the pack would ruthlessly cast out the offender. Exiling one individual was infinitely preferable to seeing the entire tribe wiped from the face of the earth.

Yet that rule applied only to the world outside the Forest of the Four Seasons. Within this forbidden expanse lurked primordial terrors whose ferocity rivaled that of true dragons. Much like the colossal crab and lobster Grylls had spotted clashing by the lake—monsters ripped straight out of a kaiju film—this forest was home to apex beasts whose sheer mass and destructive prowess matched that of any mythical sovereign.

"Grrrrr……"

The Mother Grey Dragon glared forward, a low, terrifying rumble vibrating in her chest. Her slit pupils burned with lethal intent, looking ready to rip the intruder before her into shreds at any second. The place she occupied was none other than the Dragon's Lair—her home. Under normal circumstances, she would have curled up to rest her exhausted, battered frame, but an unwelcome squatter made that impossible.

Slither-slither-slither—

Coiled brazenly inside the cavern was a colossal, bone-white serpent. It exuded an oppressive dread entirely different from that of a dragon, its forked tongue flicking lazily through the air in an unmistakable taunt.

In length alone, the monster stretched more than twice the size of the grey dragon. Its sheer girth was equally monstrous; if it unhinged its jaws, it looked capable of swallowing a full-grown dragon whole. This was no ordinary imugi commonly spoken of in the legends of the Central Plains, but a mythical entity from a far higher evolutionary echelon.

"SHAAAAAA……!"

As the Giant White Serpent peeled open its gaping maw, glistening, curved fangs jutted into view. Droplets of virulent purple venom dripped from their tips, splashing against the cave floor.

Ssssszzzzzzzt!

The venom didn't merely seep into the earth; the moment it touched solid bedrock, the stone dissolved into boiling, smoking froth. This was the decisive reason the dragon had been forced to leave her wounded child behind, and the sole reason she had temporarily entrusted her flesh and blood to Grylls.

Much like the mythical Sky Whale, this was a prehistoric calamity straight out of the Age of the Gods.

"KRAAAAAAAAHHH!!!"

"SHAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!"

Deep within the ancient expanse of the Forest of the Four Seasons, a battle to the death erupted.