A Dragon's Sense of Time
“Hey, you know humans only live for about a hundred years, right?”
So this was what a dragon’s sense of time felt like.
“Then what should we do?”
“How about this? I’ll come visit once every ten years and stay with you for a month. Sound good?”
I’d thrown the suggestion out there, half-joking, thinking I could ride the coattails of his completely alien concept of time. But the dragon just stared at me without even blinking.
Oh no. Was that bet too shameless?
Just as I started wondering if I should bump it up to two months because it felt a little harsh, the dragon suddenly broke into a huge, radiant smile and clapped his hands in delight.
“Wow! Really? That often?”
“Y-yeah… Every time I come, I’ll stick to you for a whole month and play with you.”
“Once every ten years is fine, but a month is way too short! That’s just the blink of an eye!”
“Then how about once every twenty years for two months?”
“Deal!”
I can’t believe the old “three in the morning, four in the evening” trick actually worked.
Is this kid an idiot?
[Rai, this dragon isn’t pretending to be stupid to trick me, is he?]
[He just seems genuinely dumb.]
[Hmm…]
[Young ones tend to be like that. Since they have almost no natural predators, they lack any real sense of danger. Also, Master! Dragons are a species that cannot lie. The only weakness they have is that telling a lie will lead to their death.]
[I didn’t know that.]
Then I guess I’ll trust him for now.
I had zero interest in babysitting a kid, but it was still better than dying. And once every twenty years for two months was manageable.
I felt a deep sense of gratitude toward the fact that the dragon who had kidnapped me was an idiot, and I even felt a twinge of sympathy for his parents.
Having given birth to something like this, how suffocating their hearts must feel.
“Well then, I’ll be counting on you.”
“You’re my first human friend!”
More like my first human pet…
“My name is Magikos Gold!”
“Jeanie Crowell.”
Since most people couldn’t pronounce “Jin” properly anyway, and I myself had grown far more used to Jeanie, I introduced myself that way.
Somehow, even though my fate was ridiculously savage, I had come to accept that I was now Jeanie.
“I won’t eat you, I’ll treat you well!”
“So you were planning to eat me after all…”
Magikos grabbed my hand and shook it vigorously with an overflowing expression of goodwill.
“That’s right. I should feed you first!”
“Can you call it a meal? I am pretty hungry.”
“There’s plenty to eat. Between ogre and gargoyle, which do you prefer?”
“…What?”
“I’m asking which one you want to eat—ogre meat or gargoyle meat.”
Ah. Maybe I should just run away after all.
I hadn’t known dragons ate monster meat.
Well, with that ridiculous size, I guess vegetarianism was never an option.
“We’ve also got orc meat! It’s been a while since I caught it, so it’s not super fresh. Personally, my favorite is minotaur hind leg, but I’d have to go catch one… Where are you going?”
I had unconsciously started backing away.
Excuse me, could you please wipe the drool from the corner of your mouth?
[Should I run, Rai?]
[You’d die instantly.]
[Yeah…]
[Let’s focus on surviving first.]
I can get out of here alive, right?
The cave of the newly independent gold dragon Magikos was absurdly vast.
It took a human about four hours of nonstop walking to make a full lap. After trying to map out the structure once and nearly collapsing from exhaustion, I decided to ride Undain for all future movement.
I wasn’t sure if this was typical for a dragon’s lair, but it was completely sealed off. The only way in or out was through teleportation.
It was clearly designed to prevent outside intruders.
Which also meant that without Magikos’s help, I had no way of leaving the cave.
I didn’t know how to use teleportation in the first place, and even if I did, I’d suffer from severe warp sickness.
On the seventh day of my kidnapping, after I’d thrown up several times from warp nausea, Magikos—whether out of pity or simply because it was too disgusting to watch—finally opened up an exit leading outside.
Whoooosh.
I rode Undain and shot quickly through the narrow tunnel.
It was the lair’s only exit, and the wind was so fierce that my hair whipped around savagely every time I passed through.
Since the lair was located deep in the mountains, the tunnel wasn’t short. Even at flying speed, it still took several minutes to get through.
[Master, we’re about to exit the tunnel. Hold on tight.]
I grabbed the fin on Undain’s back and leaned my body low.
Once we left the tunnel, we’d have to ascend almost vertically, so I needed to brace myself in advance.
The passage opened out onto the middle of a sheer cliff face, and directly across was another cliff. Below us raged a violent river—falling would mean certain death.
If I let my guard down even a little while exiting, I could easily slip off Undain’s back.
[Ascending.]
I hugged the dorsal fin while staring at the bright end of the tunnel where light poured in.
Beyond the glaring white exit, I caught a glimpse of the opposite cliff. Before we could crash into it, Undain shot straight up into the sky.
“Shooting upward” was probably the more accurate description.
I clung desperately to Undain as he climbed steeply along the cliff face, my eyes half-closed.
When defying gravity like this, the wind was brutally strong.
I always tensed up at this part.
Of course, as a water spirit master, falling into the river wouldn’t kill me even if I lost my grip on the fin. But it was still terrifying, because for an ordinary human, it would be fatal.
The reason the exit was designed so inconveniently was to deter intruders.
“Haaah.”
[Master, what shall we look for today?]
Once we cleared that hurdle, an endless panorama unfolded before me—something you could never see in a city.
A vast sea of green forest stretched out in every direction to welcome me.
Only now did I truly understand how refreshing the scent of deep, rich greenery could be.
Magikos’s lair occupied an entire mountain, and this ancient forest had no human inhabitants whatsoever.
I sat atop Undain and gazed out over Magikos’s forest.
The first time I came outside, I’d felt the overwhelming emotion of having been brought back from the dead. It wasn’t quite that intense anymore.
The reason Magikos had created a passage I could use was simple.
‘Today I want ogre!’
It was for meals.
Using high-quality personnel like me as a lunch delivery service. Only a dragon would do something like that. Still, the fact that I was flattering him just to survive made me feel rather pathetic.
But humans were creatures of adaptation.
“Since he wants ogre, let’s go find one.”
[Yes, Master.]
“If Magi can’t catch what he wants, he throws a tantrum. We need to search diligently.”
Undain was flying slowly over the forest canopy.
An intermediate water spirit like Undain wasn’t ideally suited for flight, but that depended on how the master used him. And I was a genius who could utilize spirits in quite a variety of ways.
It sounded arrogant coming from my own mouth, but it was the truth.
“There seems to be something over there.”
Flying over the wide-open forest canopy was actually quite cool.
If only the wind wasn’t so harsh.
Having flown a bit farther than usual, the cold wind blasting my face made the tip of my nose sting.
If I had a wind spirit, it could block this…
Hm? Actually, there’s no rule saying a water spirit can’t do it.
“If I create a water curtain in front… it’d be like a motorcycle windshield.”
That was definitely worth trying. As expected, I really am a genius.
[Found one, Master!]
“Where?”
[Over there. It’s an ogre.]
Undain, in his dolphin form, pointed toward one side of the forest with his long snout.
Even I could see the head of an ogre lumbering through the trees.
It looked nice and plump—perfect prey for Magikos.
I lowered my body again and clung tightly. Undain flew silently above the ogre’s head.
Whether I liked it or not, I’d been leveling up my monster-hunting skills quite a bit lately.
Ogres had sharp senses, but those senses didn’t reach all the way into the sky.
“Unbreathing.”
The moment I cast the spell, the ogre finally noticed something and looked up.
When our eyes met directly, the ogre immediately bared its furious yellow teeth.
Monsters generally fell into two categories: aggressive ones that attacked first, and weak ones that ran away first.
Ogres were the poster child for the former.
That was because they were such overwhelmingly powerful predators.
“Gruoooh!”
Still, compared to a dragon, it was less than a newborn puppy.
Faster than the ogre that had spotted me could leap, a surge of water erupted from below and swallowed it whole.
A few leaves got caught in the current and spun wildly inside the water droplet.
The ogre, suddenly trapped inside the giant water orb, let out a roar and began its usual violent display of strength.
As it thrashed with powerful force from within, the water droplet shook violently as if it might burst.
When I was younger, I thought Unbreathing was invincible, but it could still rupture if struck by an impact that was too strong from the inside.
“Adore.”
Ogres had impressive lung capacity, so suffocating them took too long. Leaving it trapped in the water orb and waiting for it to die would just waste mana. For a quick finish, I called Adore.
Intermediate Lightning Spirit
Crackling with electric energy and ready for battle.
[What? What? Huh? Master! What should I do?]
The instant he was summoned, Adore spun around me in circles as if he’d been waiting for this, urging me on.
I jerked my chin toward the ogre.
I was currently training Adore to understand my commands without needing words, just like Undine.
[What am I supposed to do? Why don’t you just say it?]
“Listen carefully. This is your master’s inner voice.”
[Umm… I don’t get it.]
“Focus and feel it. Then you’ll understand! The problem is you lack sincerity, Adore!”
[Ughhh…]