Is This My Form?
Is this my form?
'Is this my form?'
The one who once wielded overwhelming power to bring all things beneath his feet.
But no longer.
Even as the powerful Imugi he had been until yesterday.
The legendary serpent that must train for a thousand years to ascend and become a dragon had vanished without a trace.
And in an instant, he had become a powerless, fragile living creature.
'Ah... wait a moment. Calm down and think.'
He thought, 'That's right! Reincarnation! The thing I had only heard about must be true.'
The universe's cycle of reincarnation that could not be understood before ascending to become a dragon.
'...That can't be.'
He grabbed handfuls of his nonexistent hair and pulled.
Even he thought it was ridiculous.
'At the very least, does reincarnation while carrying memories even make sense?'
The Imugi shook his small head vigorously.
Lifting his head to look at the sky, he saw a faint light coming through the ceiling.
'Sunlight, perhaps.'
He twitched his nose and let the light bathe his face.
The gentle scent of sunlight seeped into his nostrils.
'Warm...'
His eyes began to close on their own.
With his heart at ease, his breathing felt calm.
It was as if he were breathing for the first time.
He felt strangely calmer and more at peace.
Releasing the tension from his shoulders, he felt his body melt with every deep breath.
Surrounded by the sensation of power flowing into his small body, he let his front paws hang loosely.
Within the quiet peace, the edges of his repressed emotions gently unraveled.
How many times had he breathed evenly as his belly rose and fell?
He slowly opened his eyes.
His gaze scanning the surroundings had become much calmer.
With room in his heart, he began to organize his thoughts slowly.
'First, I should do what I can right now. There might be something helpful. So... I need to figure out what kind of place this is.'
The Imugi shuffled on his unfamiliar small feet.
'A magnificent cave. I sense mana here. Spell tools or talismans... perhaps? There are items with curses.'
He, who had been the successor to the Black Dragon, had high resistance to darkness attributes and curses, so nothing bothered him.
But things that would drive even ordinary people mad just by touching them filled the cave.
'What a strange hobby that guy has.'
Some items had no way of knowing their effects, but some he could still see the curse's meaning in.
'A curse that turns you to stone and kills you just by looking at it. Common, but this one.'
'A curse that pushes you into a lifetime of hunger's hell... Quite the traditional curse.'
'A curse that takes your voice and gives you legs? This one is ambiguous to call a curse.'
'A potion that makes you lose your original appearance and turn into something else when drunk, and another that makes you look like the designated being... This one seems okay.'
They would ruin someone's entire life, but to the Imugi, they felt like toys made for fun.
That's why he found himself appreciating each item.
'...Not particularly interesting, but intriguing nonetheless.'
The Imugi looked around at the countless items.
'As the owner of a space managed by yin energy, his hobby is quite dark.'
His thoughts also suggested another possibility.
'Or it might be a sealed place.'
If it held so many items related to darkness and curses, that was likely.
'Oh? This one.'
After wandering around for a while, he spotted a jewel large enough to fit in both arms and his eyes sparkled.
'It contains powerful, pure darkness.'
He stretched out both hands and hugged a handful of black jewels to his chest.
The Imugi looked at the jewel containing the source of power, the darkness, and suddenly lifted his head.
And opened his mouth wide.
'A treasure mountain?'
His eyes widened at the mountain of jewels piled in front of him like a mountain.
Without realizing it, his tail wagged gently.
'I hit the jackpot! I hit the jackpot!'
With these treasures and artifacts here, finding power as an Imugi would be a matter of time.
Crack.
He grumbled while climbing the mountain of jewels, picked up one randomly, and examined the power within.
Then, as his foot slipped into a dip, he flailed his arms and lost his balance.
'...!'
Finally, he struggled, tumbled backward, and rolled down.
'Even if I fall, I can't let go of this!'
While rolling like a snowball down the slope, the Imugi clutched an especially large black jewel tightly to his chest with all his might so he wouldn't drop it.
Rumble. Thump!
He slid several meters further due to inertia before stopping and shivering.
Just as he was trying to recover his dizzy mind by hanging limp and groaning,
Zwoong!
He felt the distortion of space from above.
'...! What is this pressure?'
Sensing something enormous and powerful emerging, the Imugi furrowed his brows.
'An existence I couldn't even hope to surpass before.'
His pride was high, but his judgment was cold.
Feeling instinctively that this place belonged to him, he planted all four paws on the ground and raised his head.
Muscles tightening from tension, his tail stood up on its own.
'I won't back down. I don't know how great that guy is, but I'm... an Imugi of the Black Dragon, a Spirit!'
Determination filled his eyes.
Looking straight into the empty air, he opened a gap in space and a massive mountain began to emerge.
Kong!
Kwoong!
With just two steps, the ground trembled.
Powerful vibrations caused the mountain of jewels to collapse.
An unfathomable lifeform rose, very large, massive, and its entire body sparkled with gold.
An existence that instantly took over the space took a deep breath and then roared as if tearing the air.
The waves felt so intense that he nearly got swept away like fallen leaves.
'That's how it comes out, huh.'
Even in front of the being that blocked out the sky due to its size, he stared with wide eyes.
To suppress the opponent's momentum, the Imugi took a deep breath and shouted strongly.
“Kyu-u! ...U?”
'Huh?'
As if saying 'Eek,' a spirit came out and his eyes widened in surprise.
'What kind of sound is this!'
What he had imagined was a majestic roar.
But what came out was 'Kyu-u.'
Staring blankly at him, the one who seemed to think his entire body was made of gold revealed his blue pupils and looked down at the Imugi.
[You... who?]
Compared to the golden body, the Imugi was a tiny tadpole.
Even so, he hugged a mana crystal overflowing in his chest and stood tall, fidgeting, and shouted fiercely toward the golden owner.
“Kyu-t, Kyu-u!”
'Damn it!'
He had only tried to say his own name, but all that came out was a squeaky breath and fragmented sounds from his underdeveloped vocal cords.
“Kyu-uuu-u!”
'I'm going crazy!'
Frustrated, he shouted, but only sounds like he wanted to hide in a mouse hole came out.
He sat down heavily on the spot with his strength completely gone compared to before.
The one watching him blankly blinked his blue eyes and then turned his gaze toward the shell from which the Imugi had originally emerged.
[The egg... ?]
Seeing the remnants of the egg shell and the liquid hit him from inside and out, he swallowed hard.
[Is it... hatching? A Black Dragon's egg.]
It was a language he had never heard before as an Imugi.
Even so, because there were words he picked up here and there, he was able to roughly guess the meaning without much difficulty.
“Kyu-uk.”
He shook his head in affirmation.
And with gestures, he began earnestly trying to convey something.
'I am the one who came out from there. Not hatching, but trapped. I am not a Black Dragon... I am the Imugi of the Black Dragon.'
The opponent's expression turned blank.
[In the world...]
'A kid who can barely speak...?'
No matter how much of a dragon, it was impossible to communicate right after birth.
Yet, without words, trying to communicate through expressions and gestures was astonishing.
Christina looked at the child anew and thought.
'Is he a genius?'
Staring at the child in surprise, the child stared straight back at him as if challenging him to an eye war.
'Heh.'
The way he looked at him with round eyes was quite cute.
[Baby...]
The large golden dragon's head descended toward the Imugi with a whoosh of air.
Just pushing it in, the pressure was significant.
'Stay alert. I'm a Spirit who lived for 999 years! I won't easily succumb to pressure like this!'
The Imugi bared his teeth and clenched his small hands tight.
But...
'Why, why like this?'
Even if his mind was mature, he was a child's body.
He couldn't help but tremble with such a massive pressure in front of him.
'U-uw.'
His large eyes filled with tears that soon fell as droplets.
At that moment, the golden dragon flinched and, after looking at him, turned his head away.
[I'm sorry... child.]
The voice was noble but extremely soft and warm.
The warmth spread like a flower across the golden dragon's body, as warm as the voice.
Flash
The body wrapped in light gradually shrank until it became human-sized.
When the light faded, a woman in her mid-twenties with blonde hair and blue eyes appeared.
The pressure also decreased significantly, and she approached with a fresh charm.
“If I look like this, won't you be afraid?”
“Kyu-uku!”
'Who are you saying is scary!'
The Imugi growled with bared teeth.
Of course, that was... childish.
'The little one has a surprising amount of backbone?'
The Golden Dragon, Christina, smiled happily.
“I am Christina.”
Christina sat down on her knees in front of the wary one.
'So this is the last egg of the extinct Black Dragons left by the Dragon Lords.'
She looked at the cautious black hatchling with a faint gaze.
Christina, the head of the Gold Dragon.
She had been keeping the last egg left by the Black Dragon clan in her lair as per her duties.
At first, there had been hope that their last child might hatch someday.
But even after a hundred years, two hundred, or five hundred, the egg had remained cold.
Essentially, a dead egg.
'That egg... was still alive.'
She had come here not in hope of the hatchling hatching, but to manage the belongings left by the periodically trusting Black Dragons.
It was unfortunate that she had given up.
She had felt guilty, but the child who woke up like a miracle was precious and lovely.
Christina cautiously extended her hand.
“You haven't eaten... are you okay?”
The worried words made the Imugi aware of his hunger.
'Now that I think about it... I need to fill my stomach.'
Grumble.
“...Kyu-k.”
Once conscious, his empty stomach clearly showed his hunger.
He looked at his belly, then at Christina's offered hand, alternating between them.
'If you give me food... I wonder if I can trust you and eat it.'
The Imugi hid his body while hugging the jewel.
A clear gesture of caution.