Dragon's Wrath
The soft, sticky sounds echoed through the duty room. Chuup…! Chup, chup—♡ It was the wet sound of membranes meeting, the repeated touch and release of something smooth and slick. In the dim hours before dawn, the duty room should have been silent, yet it was anything but quiet.
“Haaah—♡ Ham… boke……”
Of course, it takes two to make a sound. At the source of those sticky noises lay a young Hatchling who had only just passed her two-hundredth year. More precisely, she was sharing a bed with a human servant, lying face-to-face with him.
The green-eyed Hatchling was far bolder than her age suggested. —Chup, churup…! Chup—♡ Her breathing grew rough, as if she might stop, but it was only a brief pause to catch her breath. Then she dove back in, pressing her lips to his once more, pouring kiss after kiss upon him as though bewitched. It was as if honey had been smeared across his lips.
Every time their mouths met, a strange excitement welled up inside Derke’s mind. ‘I can’t believe it-yap! I’m this close to Breeder Oppa……?’
Instead of clapping her hands, she created that sticky friction with her lips alone. Occasionally she lifted her head to gasp for air, and each time she caught her breath, she gazed at Breeder’s face with an affectionate, dreamy look.
‘It’s a shame he’s asleep… but I’m still so happy-yap…… Though I still don’t really know how adults kiss…… Or how to give someone a Dragon Heart……’
Derke kept planting light kisses on Breeder’s sleeping face, over and over. She wanted to give him a deep kiss and pass on her Dragon Heart, but a proper kiss was still far too difficult for her.
‘Just touching his lips already makes my head spin… If our tongues actually met……’
—Hwaaaah…!! The moment that indecent thought crossed her mind, Derke’s face flushed bright red, glowing like a soft crimson night-light. So far, it had only been lip against lip. A real kiss had yet to begin. Breeder’s lips, lost in deep sleep, were surprisingly heavy.
‘No matter how embarrassing it is, I have to do this-yap…! I can’t let Senior steal Oppa away from me-yap-!’
The little Red Dragon made up her mind. With her face burning, she nodded firmly, determined to overcome her shyness and claim Breeder for herself. Once she had steeled her resolve, Derke immediately……
“—Chup♥”
She showered him with kiss after kiss, so many that counting them became impossible. This time, something changed.
“Hnn……?”
Breeder’s lips, which had remained tightly closed in deep sleep, slowly parted. Thanks to her small tongue, they yielded at last. As the saying goes, even the toughest tree falls after ten strikes—his lips finally granted her entry.
‘This isn’t anything weird-yap…! It’s just the process of giving my Dragon Heart to my contractor-yap-!’ Derke kept telling herself, moving her tongue while savoring Breeder’s warm, gentle lips. Even if it was only self-justification, she was completely lost in the act of kissing. Her entire body already aflame, she could no longer stop herself.
—Churup…!
Just as they finally reached the point where it could truly be called a kiss—
‘If I go a little further, maybe I can pass the Dragon Heart through Oppa’s tongue……’
—Creaaak…! Thud!
“……?!!”
“Haaah—?! Y-You, you, you, you’re Derke……?!”
At the very moment she had been waiting for, the door to the duty room suddenly opened, and a familiar female voice rang out. The owner of that voice was Sofia, clad in a dust-covered white robe. She looked utterly disheveled after receiving group punishment from Benetric until dawn.
“Hyaaah—?!! S-Senior, why—? Why are you here……?!”
Startled by the unexpected intruder, Derke yanked her lips away in a panic, stammering loudly in her fluster. Her perfect secret rendezvous had been exposed, and during night-duty hours no less. But that wasn’t the only problem.
—Rustle!
“…Hnn? What… what’s going on……?”
The sudden commotion stirred Breeder from his deep sleep. He shifted and mumbled groggily.
‘Haaah? Oh no—! Oppa’s waking up?!’
‘W-What in the world is happening…?! And if I run into Breeder at this hour like this, I might be misunderstood too……?!’
Everyone froze at Breeder’s movement. They turned pale and stood completely still. None of them had anticipated this. Even supreme beings like them were reacting as if frightened by a mere human’s presence—like cats that had just poked a sleeping lion’s whiskers.
“…….”
Sofia and Derke stiffened as one, holding their breath and praying he would fall back asleep. But their desperate wish went unanswered.
“…What’s all this noise in the middle of the night?”
Breeder sat up, sleep having fled him. He scratched his head with one hand, then rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, forcing his tired eyelids open.
“Y-You mustn’t wake up yet-yap-!!”
Derke reacted violently, shouting outright. Then she immediately lunged into Breeder’s arms.
—Whoosh!
She threw herself against him and slapped one hand onto his forehead with a firm tap—! It looked almost like she was performing a touchdown in American football.
“D-Derke? What are you doing……?!”
Sofia could only watch in bewilderment. She had only meant to steal a glance at his face, yet not only had she witnessed her junior’s sticky secret meeting, she was now on the verge of an awkward situation with Breeder herself.
“J-Just sleep a little longer-yap-!”
Derke was equally desperate to avoid the awkwardness. She burrowed into his embrace and resorted to her final measure.
—Thud…!
“Derke? What… what is this……?”
The moment Derke’s hand touched Breeder’s forehead, he collapsed back onto the bed as if a switch had been flipped, like a marionette whose strings had been cut.
“Thank goodness I wasn’t too late-yap-!”
“You… what exactly did you just do to Breeder?!”
Sofia stammered in shock. Everything had happened far too suddenly. How could simply touching his forehead make him pass out?
“Phew…! If I’d been even a little later, it would’ve been a disaster-yap-! I just forced him to sleep for a bit-yap-!”
Derke wiped the cold sweat from her brow in relief, her hand still resting on his forehead. Strangely, a small, rainbow-colored cotton-candy-like wisp was now peeking out from beneath her palm.
“F-Force him to sleep…?! And what’s that thing stuck to your hand right now?”
“It’s Breeder Oppa’s soul-yap-!”
“Soul……?”
Sofia was dumbfounded by how innocently Derke answered.
“I pulled out a bit of his soul to force him to sleep-yap-! It won’t affect his life at all-yap-!”
Derke replied with complete confidence. For a Death Dragon, this was nothing unusual. Manipulating and controlling souls was her specialty. Temporarily forcing someone into an out-of-body state to make them sleep was as easy as breathing.
—Thud!
Muttering something like “This is the prettiest colored soul I’ve ever seen-yap…!” she slowly lifted her hand from Breeder’s forehead. Just as she said, Breeder—whose soul had been partially extracted—lay unconscious in a half-forced sleep.
“Whew… A-Anyway, Derke?”
“Yes-yap-?”
“What exactly were you doing here at this hour? And why were you kissing Breeder on the lips……?”
“As his first contractor, I was trying to give him my Dragon Heart-yap-! Just like Senior did during the day…!”
Though Sofia had asked with the intent to scold, Derke’s attitude remained utterly shameless. A day-old Hatchling fears nothing, after all. Even against a fourth-year senior, she showed not an inch of retreat. Once again, she asserted her rightful claim, emphasizing that she had formed her pact far earlier. She even hugged the unconscious Breeder tightly, as if to shield him from Sofia.
“S-So that means…! You weren’t able to give him your Dragon Heart either?”
“Yep! Oppa told me that Senior also couldn’t pass on her heart-yap…! So I was checking to see if maybe the method was wrong-yap-!”
“How could that be……?”
Sofia’s mind went blank at Derke’s answer. ‘The Dragon Heart is supposed to be an essential medium for the pact. Yet it failed to transfer twice now?’ It defied all common sense.
“I was sure the contract had gone normally……”
“I was wondering the same thing-yap-! But no matter how many times I kissed him, it just wouldn’t go through-yap……”
……
After the commotion passed, the duty room fell silent in an instant. Neither of them could bring themselves to criticize the other. No matter how much of a freshman Derke was, Sofia couldn’t treat her harshly. It wasn’t in her nature, and more importantly, Derke was the very first to form a pact. While overlapping pacts were possible, they must never interfere with or obstruct one another. If one tried to monopolize the contractor by interfering with another dragon’s contract or harming their existence, both the pact-bound dragon and the contractor could end up in danger.
“Hm? By the way, why does Breeder’s face look like this?”
—Tap!
“Aah…?! What are you doing to Oppa-yap-?!”
“Can’t you see it? There’s a huge bandage on his face……”
Having adjusted to the darkness, Sofia approached Breeder, gently took his chin, and examined his face. Her gaze focused on his right cheek—specifically, on a palm-sized bandage that stood out conspicuously. Worried he might have been injured, her concern came first.
“This won’t do. I don’t know how he got hurt, but I should heal it with the purification of light right away……”
—Rip…!
Sofia set everything else aside and peeled off the bandage. Ensuring Breeder’s safety at the academy was her duty as his contractor. However—
“Haaah…?!”
“W-What in the world is that-yap……?!”
Once the bandage came off, both dragons fell speechless. And for good reason……
A vivid red lipstick mark from a woman’s lips was clearly stamped on Breeder’s right cheek.
“Just who the hell is that bitch this time?!”