On Becoming Female
I don't think it was particularly my fault.
"A-Aaargh! M-Monster!"
I think that was how it started. I had clearly marked my territory with mana, but without fail, invaders kept encroaching upon my domain.
"Aaaargh!"
But I was generous. I generously turned a blind eye to them rummaging through my home to some extent, and even to them occasionally touching my collection.
I generously ignored the invaders who came to find me that day as well. However,
"There it is!"
The conclusion of that day was slightly different from before.
"Kill it, quickly!"
There were far more people than usual. It was only about twenty, but that was more than enough to noisily fill my cozy cave. They unleashed their mana and began hurling various spells at me.
"Argh!"
Immediately after, they were crushed to death. I could not tolerate my home being destroyed.
"..."
For a mere fleeting moment—which, by my standards at the time, was about two months—I stared blankly at my pulverized home. This was the place where my forgotten creator had laid my egg and raised me. It was all gone.
For someone who had spent almost their entire life inside a cave, these ruins were the sole proof of my memories. And they had vanished in an instant.
"O-Over there!"
And then, they returned.
"Aaaargh!"
One hundred. Now that the small space of my home was gone, they showed up with even greater numbers. I did not resist.
"Stop."
I briefly mimicked their language to signal that I had no intention of fighting.
"I-It speaks human tongue?!"
"T-This evil spirit is mimicking humans!"
"Kill it now! Don't let it utter those cursed words ever again!"
But it was useless. The hostile attacks continued. Blood gushed from my wounds. It hurt. Though it wouldn't kill me.
"It's bleeding! It's working!"
I pondered for a moment. What should I do with them? The previous twenty had destroyed my precious home. What these hundred were doing wasn't particularly painful. But according to their words,
"Kill it! Now is our chance!"
They clearly desired my death.
"Aaaargh!"
"It's coming this way!"
So, I acted. I slaughtered the hundred humans. It was wet.
"..."
Silence returned. It was quiet. I was neither happy nor sad. Back then, I had little interest in such emotions.
"Over there!"
"My family's killer!"
And one year later, by their time. This time, there were a thousand. I tried to converse with them again. As expected, they only spat fierce curses and hostility.
"Aaaargh!"
A thousand took a bit of time. It went beyond being wet; it started to splash. Still, I thought it best not to inflict pain, so I squashed them flat. Every single one of them, without exception.
"Aaaargh! Father!"
One by one. Around this time, the flashing powers they used—what they called magic—flowed into my body.
"I-It even uses magic?!"
Mimicking it roughly made it easy to copy. After about a week, around 891 of them had been crushed painlessly. The rest fled, so I let them live. I thought that would be the end of it.
"O Gods who fashioned humanity from immortal blood and mortal clay! Grant us the courage to stand before this great evil!"
A massive cloud of dust rose in the distance. By then, their language had become easy to understand, so I listened closely. They were saying a great many things. They claimed their numbers were a million. In reality, it was about ten thousand.
"Aaaargh! D-Do not retreat!"
"Fight to the end!"
My practice with human magic paid off. I sent them on their way painlessly. I popped about a hundred of them per spell. It didn't feel very good. I disliked splashing around when it reached my ankles.
"Argh..."
This time, I made sure not a single one escaped. Otherwise, they would just return. Then, I went to their homeland. From what the dead had said, they had a place they called home. They, too, had a nest.
"W-What is that?!"
"It's a catastrophe! The monster has followed us to our homeland!"
Honestly, I was surprised. When they said "home," I had envisioned my own cave. I expected it to be around that size. However, what they called "city walls" stretched far longer than I imagined. They said it was a city where ten million people lived.
In reality, it was about two hundred thousand. As expected, destroying this didn't seem very pleasant. After all, I had been sad when I lost my own home. So, I tried speaking to them once more.
"Stop."
But the reaction of the two hundred thousand was no different from that of the single individual, the twenty, the hundred, or the ten thousand. Ultimately, I moved again.
What they called city walls became a massive dish containing what they used to be. The walls held all of their wet remains. If I stepped inside, my entire body would likely be submerged. But I did not bother to step in and dip my feet. I disliked it.
"..."
I left again. Having no home, I wandered aimlessly. After killing the two hundred thousand, it was finally quiet. No more humans came looking for me. Thus, a thousand years passed. But then, a similar event repeated itself.
Another thousand years passed in the same cycle. In the meantime, I rebuilt my home. I listened to the sounds of humans more precisely and actively avoided them. Yet, without fail, they crossed paths with me.
The destruction that followed was no different from before. And finally, five thousand years had passed since I first killed a human. I was truly exhausted now. It was obvious the same thing would happen again.
"R-Right here, milord! This is where the evil dragon, the Magic Dragon Cortos, lives! Would you like to test your strength against it, milord?"
I was sick of it. But because of that, I realized I needed to put more thought into this. To avoid bothersome things, I had to do some bothersome thinking.
"What's this? It's completely empty."
"H-Huh?"
So, I chose a different method from before.
"This bastard scammed me! Magic Dragon? It's just an empty cave!"
"N-No, milord!"
"Give me back my money, you bastard!"
"W-Wait, just a moment... Ah! Y-You there! By any chance, have you seen the dragon that lives inside this cave?"
The human, flustered by the empty cave, grabbed me. He grabbed me, who now looked exactly like them. And to finally confirm if my strategy was correct, I attempted to converse with him in his tongue.
"Don't know."
Finally. Nothing happened. The humans did not recognize me.
"This bastard really did trick me!"
"Argh! Please don't hit me!"
For the first time in five thousand years.
"Wait... but isn't that guy not wearing pants??"
"Who cares?! Give me my money!"
Time flowed once more. About a hundred years passed. Ah, honestly, it was a struggle. For the first year, I had to adapt to this thing called "clothes." Humans attack if you don't wear clothes. I suppose they recognize me if I don't wear them... Or do they? At any rate, human tendencies had been difficult to understand from the very beginning.
Still, time passed somehow. It passed within human society. I no longer had to deal with two hundred thousand humans like before. It was just as the saying went some three thousand years ago: "It is darkest right under the torch." By the time I heard the variation "It is darkest under the lamp" about two thousand years ago, I understood it perfectly. I literally hid among humans to avoid them.
"W-Who on earth are you?!"
Of course, hiding perfectly was difficult. The inside of human city walls was far more complex than I had anticipated. There were too many things to learn.
"T-This bastard isn't human!"
"R-Run away!"
And whenever I ran into something I hadn't properly learned, my identity was invariably exposed.
"Aaaargh! G-Ghost!"
Well, actually, my true identity wasn't completely exposed. Because it is darkest under the lamp. At first, I was caught once a month. Later, it was about once a year.
"Whoa! Mister, you're amazing! You don't seem human!"
Of course, the fact that I wasn't human was caught often. Still, they never realized I was a dragon. Anyway, whenever that happened...
"Ah! Mister, where are you going! You have to pay!"
I ran away. Running away was enough. Because it is darkest under the lamp. As expected, my brilliant judgment was correct. I no longer had to kill people. It was enough to simply sever the hands of the occasional bandits who pointed swords at me.
However, once it came to severing hands, I had to flee quite far. I had to migrate to another city—not a walled city—and change my appearance. From my thirtieth year onward, I made sure not to kill or injure any humans. Since they said thrill-killers and sex offenders weren't human anyway.
"T-That's the person."
"H-Hey. Show me your identification papers."
But.
"Ah! They're running!"
"Stop right there, you suspicious bastard!"
There were limits, after all.
"It's that guy! The one wearing a hat on his foot!"
Despite my perfect transformation magic and nearly a century of studying human habits, there were surprisingly those among them who saw through me. I actually looked under a lamp, and it wasn't really that dark.
"What is the problem..."
I want to live quietly, but it is not easy. Of course, it is much quieter compared to the old days. I am already quiet, but I want to be even more violently quiet. I want to live quietly for the rest of my life. If so, what must I do?
"..."
And once again, I focused my mana and mind. To listen to the words of humans and absorb wisdom from them.
"Yes. This time, will become female."
A few years later. Luminaris, capital of the Arcadium Empire.
"Uh... so."
"Yes."
"You are the newly appointed professor of our Sophinium?"
The heart of imperial intellect, cultivating the world's elite. The Vice Principal of Sophinium was facing a situation he had never experienced in his forty years of academy life.
"Yes."
"Mmm... T-The letter of recommendation you provided is undoubtedly genuine, but..."
"Yes."
"But... this letter was written twenty years ago?"
"Yes."
A special letter of recommendation written a whopping twenty years ago, one that could only be penned by those who had made monumental contributions to the Academy. In particular, it bore a magic seal, making forgery absolutely impossible.
"Um... E-Excuse me, but... how old are you this year?"
"Yes."
"No, I asked how old you are..."
The individual named in that legendary recommendation letter was currently sitting right in front of him,
(Tilts head)
looking younger than his own daughter.
"Selene is 17."
And she was holding a letter of recommendation written before she was even born.