Chapter 0 Prologue
Prologue
Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 0
Chapter Title: Found You.
It was spring.
The forest bursting with fresh greenery,
wild beasts peeking out from their dens,
a season that proved the world was still warm.
Before I knew it,
it was the thirty-seventh spring I welcomed with open eyes.
"Nice weather."
I'd woken up earlier than planned.
Thirty-seven years spent like an endless vacation.
Wings folded away, tail hidden,
pretending to be human—the daily routine wasn't half bad.
A cabin deep in the woods,
gathering as I strolled through the forest like it was nothing,
bartering goods in a small nearby village to get by.
"The bread's still warm."
I gazed down at the bread bag tucked in my bosom and smiled lazily.
Day after day,
quietly, without a single incident.
Slowly, leisurely.
That's how I'd spent thirty-seven years.
Though midway through, I'd picked up a child destined to become the hero and raised her.
Aside from that,
it had been a serene, drifting life—like leaves floating lazily down a river.
"Three years left..."
On my way back to the cabin deep in the forest after stopping by the nearby village, as always.
I muttered to myself like it was nothing and halted my sluggish steps.
Yeah.
Now it was really just three years away.
"...Guess it's time to start preparing."
Three years until the prophecy kicked off.
As the Evil Dragon, root of all calamity, I needed to gear up for my grand reappearance.
'How should I make my entrance this time?'
A sky ablaze?
The earth splitting open?
Unfurl black wings amid thunder and lightning?
I've grown a bit fond of this place to just smash it all.
Maybe it'd be better to descend with a lazy yawn.
"Thing is, striking a pose the moment that kid spots me would be kinda embarrassing if she recognized me."
I muttered that, then chuckled and shook my head.
No way she'd recognize me.
Five years was a mere instant.
Human children shoot up in the blink of an eye and charge into their own lives.
And,
unlike a dragon like me, their memories aren't eternal.
New things.
Diverse things.
Dreams.
Meeting all of it, they'd have forgotten those brief five years with me in no time.
My name,
my face—probably all blurry by now.
'...It'd be convenient if she at least remembered my name.'
With that thought, I resumed my slow steps.
The spring breeze rustled the leaves, and warm sunlight settled on my shoulders.
- Crack.
A thick branch snapping somewhere.
"...Huh?"
The air's flow shifted.
Birds burst into the sky, scattering.
I stopped again.
In the forest that was always so still,
urgent footsteps echoed, closing in this way.
I turned my head slowly.
At the forest's edge.
A single black shadow.
Cleaving the wind,
a figure emerging between the branches.
"......"
Green eyes aglow with light.
Pink hair like cosmos flowers.
Unfamiliar, yet strangely familiar.
"...Eh?"
My body tilted backward.
Something wrapped around me with crushing force.
A scone popped from the bread bag and went tumbling across the ground.
"...What the—"
As if in answer to my question, the warmth pulled away.
A face that wasn't unfamiliar.
A presence I knew all too well.
But—
the figure before me
had eyes utterly unlike those of the child I'd raised.
'...Wait, what?'
Not the innocent gaze of that little girl.
No matter how I looked at it—
those eyes belonged to
a predator that had finally snared its long-hunted prey.
"Found you."
A single short phrase.
That one short phrase
began to slowly crack the unchanging life I'd known.