Prometheus's Humiliation
BOOOOM! The dirt floor at the center of the plaza split wide open. The unidentified roots and leaf fragments hanging densely across the drying racks were caught in a whirlwind and scattered in every direction. All of it was the result of this grand self descending from the sky.
With my wings spread wide, horns raised high, and neck bent at the most intimidating angle possible. It was a pose I had mastered in my previous life after admiring countless dragon illustrations.
“This grand self is the great dragon Yumitas! From this day forward, you are all slaves of a dragon!”
This should have been more than enough to establish the arrival of a tyrant, right?
“Hii, hiiiik……!”
One man dropped the pestle he’d been using to grind herbs in a mortar. A woman hastily gathered her children behind her back. Some people’s knees buckled as they collapsed on the spot, while an elder rolled his eyes back, foamed at the mouth, and fainted completely.
Clatter. Red and blue berries spilled from the baskets they carried, rolling across the dirt.
‘Yes! This is it! This is the correct reaction from inferior creatures!’
It was on a completely different level from the hunter tribe’s brainless cheering. These people were accurately recognizing this grand self’s violent nature. They felt the genuine threat to their survival and were trembling in fear.
My horns wriggled with delight. ‘This is exactly why quick-witted ones are the best.’
I was basking in satisfaction, humming internally, when someone stepped out from the shuddering crowd.
“…….”
A small frame. Blue hair that flowed down past her shoulders. She was a young girl who looked no older than ten.
The girl stopped right in front of my massive claws, then slowly knelt and placed both hands on the ground. She bowed so deeply that her forehead touched the dirt.
“Oh great being…… Our tribe possesses no strength. We are neither hunters nor warriors. All we have are the berries and roots we gather from the forest, and the skill to carve stone.”
A very realistic and rational self-assessment. I liked it.
“Even so, we will offer everything we possess. Therefore…… please spare our lives. This is our earnest plea.”
What I especially liked was that she wasn’t asking for mercy. She was straight-up begging to be allowed to live.
‘Is this little girl the chief?’
The fact that someone so young would step forward to represent the group meant this collective determined hierarchy through intelligence and judgment rather than brute strength.
In that instant, a spark of inspiration flashed through my mind.
‘Hold on. Do I really need to suppress them with nothing but force?’
When I thought about it, the answer was no. Up until now I had only relied on primitive violence—growling, breathing fire, stomping on things. Wasn’t that exactly why I kept getting those annoying misunderstandings about being some mighty guardian?
A dragon is not merely a monster with absurdly strong power. It is the symbol of wisdom and sagacity that observes eternity and penetrates the fundamental principles of the world. That is a dragon.
Especially this Yumitas-nim, who is clearly an individual of exceptionally high intelligence among dragons. After all, I’m a university-educated intellectual dragon. Even if my degree was in liberal arts.
Yes. Time to change course slightly. Instead of ruling as a tyrant who crushes everything with force, perhaps reigning as a ‘transcendent sage’ who looks down from an incomparably lofty height would be more effective with this clever tribe?
A certain interesting myth rose from my memories.
The being who brought fire to humanity. The titan who cast the spark of civilization into the darkness where primitive humans cowered, becoming an object of reverence.
Prometheus.
‘Kakak! Yes, this is perfect!’
I would bestow fire upon them. I would grant the light of civilization with my own hand. Then these clever bugs would despair at the vast intellectual gulf between us and spend their lives as parrots singing this grand self’s praises.
Now it was time to become the Prometheus Dragon!
“Mercy, you say. Very well. Your wretched circumstances are truly pitiable, so this grand self shall specially bestow one gift upon you.”
I lightly flicked the air with the tip of a claw.
Tick.
With a small friction sound, a fist-sized flame bloomed. A magical fire hovered and flickered in the air. I gently nudged it forward with a snort, settling it right before the girl’s nose.
Crackle. Crackle crackle.
“This is called fire. It is the light that slices through darkness, drives away cold, and erases the fishy stench of raw meat.”
Heh, solid line.
“A product of wisdom that insignificant bugs like yourselves could never have witnessed in your lifetimes. If you master the handling of this flame, even your trivial lives might become at least a little—”
“Um… Thank you, but……”
The girl’s voice sliced my majestic speech clean in half.
“Huh?”
She looked back and forth between the flame and my face, then moved her lips with extreme caution.
“We already know how to make fire.”
“……”
Whiiiish— A breeze blew past, sweeping away the scattered dust.
“What?”
The girl gave a slight nod toward the back. Only then did I turn my gaze and examine the village more carefully.
A neatly stacked pile of firewood in one corner. Gray smoke curling up from it. Beneath the smoke, earthenware pots bubbled merrily over glowing red charcoal.
That wasn’t all. At the plaza’s edge stood a crude kiln formed from molded clay, red flames dancing inside it. Traces of humans heating stone and bone over fire for crafting lay scattered everywhere.
……Ah.
That’s right. Come to think of it, even those stupid hunter tribe guys had offered deliciously grilled meat. Grilling meat obviously meant using fire. If even those muscle-brained idiots could use it, there was no reason this gathering tribe couldn’t.
‘GYAAAAAK!’
Heat surged through me. The skin beneath my scales burned with embarrassment.
Prometheus Dragon? Incarnation of wisdom? This was just the neighborhood fool who got caught pretending to know things!!
“Um, oh great being……?”
When I froze, the girl watched me carefully and called out again.
I absolutely could not let it show. If I blushed here, it was over. I would be treated as a stupid pink reptile for the rest of eternity.
I hurriedly chewed up the flame at the tip of my claw and swallowed it. Then I puffed a long stream of smoke from my nostrils and lifted my chin.
“Hmph, hmph……! O-of course I knew! I had already seen through the fact that you use fire long ago!”
As casually as possible.
“To become slaves of this grand self, you must at least be capable of handling fire! What I just did was merely a simple test to evaluate the level of your basic civilization!”
“Ah…… So you were testing us.”
The girl nodded.
“D-don’t get cocky over a mere flame!”
I couldn’t let it end like this. I had to restore my crumpled dignity. I would show them exactly what kind of being I was.
“Fire is nothing but a tiny crumb of nature. I shall show you what true dragon authority looks like!”
I drew magical power from my Dragon Heart. Dragon-tongue magic.
“Burn.”
Dozens of fire pillars erupted into the air.
“Pour.”
Dark clouds swirled in the clear sky and a torrential downpour crashed down. The fire pillars collided with the rain, sending up enormous clouds of steam.
“Blow.”
A light flick of my wings summoned a storm that swept the steam away in an instant.
“Split!”
Finally I lightly stomped the ground with my foreleg.
Kugugugung!
“Kyaaaaak!”
“The sky is splitting apart!”
“I-it’s the end of the world!”
The humans screamed and threw themselves flat on the ground.
“How about that?”
I barely held back the smirk tugging at my lips.
“This is the authority of a dragon. The power that twists the principles of the world and subjugates nature! It is a realm of miracles your pathetic tools could never reach.”
Surely that awkward ‘flame show’ from earlier was completely forgotten now, right?
I looked down at the blue-haired girl to gauge her reaction.
She neither fled, nor wailed, nor closed her eyes. While every other human in the plaza had their forehead pressed to the dirt and trembled, she held her head high.
“How did you do that?”
Still prostrated on the ground, the girl lifted only her head to stare at me.
“To think such power could exist…… Does this mean the world itself obeys the words of the great one……?”
She muttered as if in a trance.
Oh. The world obeys, huh. This kid actually grasped the core of it?
‘Hehehe. Yes. This is it. Finally, someone who truly recognizes the greatness of dragons has appeared.’
My mood improved slightly.
“Hmph. It must be difficult for an inferior creature’s brain to comprehend, but the principle is actually very simple.”
Perfect timing—I’d been itching to boast anyway.
“When this grand self says ‘Burn,’ fire burns. When this grand self says ‘Blow,’ the wind blows. Because even nature itself cannot dare defy a dragon’s words.”
“Cannot defy……”
The girl nodded.
“Exactly! The world is mine! The world originally belongs to dragons! The sky exists so this grand self may fly, the earth exists so this grand self may tread upon it, and fire exists so this grand self may spit it! Is it not natural for them to obey their owner’s commands?”
“……Obey their owner’s commands?”
“Well, don’t feel too wronged. It’s not the fish’s fault that it cannot fly in the sky. It’s hardly your fault that you were born as an inferior creature, is it?”
I burst into pleasant laughter. Having a proper conversation after so long felt like all my stress was melting away.
However.
The blue-haired girl kept muttering to herself.
“……Twisting the flow with will…… Infusing power into the voice to create resonance……?”
Her ten fingers began weaving together in geometric patterns. Thumbs and index fingers crossed, middle fingers bent, forming specific shapes. Then her lips moved ever so slightly.
What was this? Was she reviewing the theory I’d just given her? Admirable academic enthusiasm, but no matter how hard she tried, a human body should be incapable of producing any—
Crackle.
“……Huh?”
I doubted my own eyes. From the tips of the girl’s intertwined fingers, a very faint but unmistakable red light had flashed.
“Did you just use magic?”
The girl stared blankly at the tiny flame blooming from her fingertips. For the first time, a faint smile curved her previously expressionless lips.
“So this is what you call magic.”
A human using magic? And immediately after hearing just a few words from me?
While I floundered in shock, the girl suddenly sprang to her feet. She threw herself down once more at my feet, slamming her forehead against the dirt with an audible thud.
“Thank you.”
Her voice rang out powerfully across the entire plaza.
“To think such laws were hidden in this world…… I could not even dare to imagine it.”
“Ah, no, wait a second—”
“I believed carving stones and gathering berries was everything for us. We had drawn a limit, thinking there was nothing beyond that……!”
“Listen to me for a moment!”
“Taking pity on foolish us and granting us the great truths of the universe—what immense mercy! It is a grace we could never repay even if we devoted our entire lives!”
The girl lightly ignored my shouts and turned around. She raised both arms high toward the prostrated, trembling tribespeople.
“The great one has just revealed the hidden laws of the world! The divine dragon has bestowed upon us the wisdom to shape the world itself!”
“Wha…… what?”
“Just now, light came from the chief’s hand……”
“That was…… magic……?”
The tribespeople slowly lifted their heads with bewildered expressions.
“This person is the very source of wisdom and the progenitor of magic, the great dragon! From this moment on, our tribe shall serve you as our eternal teacher!”
“We greet our master!”
“Progenitor of magic!”
“Worship the dragon of wisdom!”
The hundreds of humans in the plaza all knelt at once and thrust their hands toward the sky.
I stared down at the scene in a daze.
Hey.
I was just trying to brag about how awesome my powers were. I wanted to show you how insignificant you all are. I didn’t have even a speck of intention to teach you magic!
“No! That’s not it!”
I came here to make slaves, but somehow ended up with hundreds of disciples instead.