The Dragon Hatchling Who Called Her Mom
The word slipped out like a question carried on the wind.
Four hundred years had passed since Alan became a lich. Most mages chose that path in pursuit of knowledge, but Alan had done it for one reason only: he simply did not want to die. Exploration of the unknown? Challenging the limits of omniscience? To him, it was all meaningless noise. Those who became liches were ultimately just running from the end called death. His analysis was that it was their refusal to accept this truth that caused them to lose their minds and devolve into mindless undead. An obsession with life. The coward who had come within a hair’s breadth of shattering a dragon’s barrier through sheer stubborn fixation alone now had to greet an unwelcome intruder before he could pluck the sweet fruit he had labored for.
KILL IT! KILL THAT THING RIGHT NOW!
The senses honed by obsession screamed a warning. That thing had to die.
* * *
The instant his fingers closed around the hilt, pain flared from his left hand.
“Hah. So this is what a demonic sword truly is.”
Dark red veins the exact shade of the blade spread across his left hand. Yet the demonic sword, which had only ever preyed on the weak, had no means of advancing further. Ian’s body had been tempered to its limit through refined mana and relentless training.
“Kiaaak!”
“Grrraaa!”
Twisted demonic beasts and shambling corpses charged in chaotic waves. Any trace of the fear they had shown moments ago was gone, replaced entirely by rage toward the man standing before them.
“Huu.”
Ian waited. He gathered every ounce of strength in his body into a single point, holding it until the perfect moment arrived. When their foul breath was close enough to sting his nostrils, Rubedo came free from the earth with a dragon-like roar. The ground split in a straight line, flipping over completely. The disordered formation of the charging horde collapsed in an instant.
“Kraaaah!”
The larger beasts that had avoided the upheaval squeezed through the gaps. Ian used one massive outstretched arm as a stepping stone and leaped skyward. Blood scattered in the wake of Rubedo’s swing and was instantly absorbed into the blade.
“Whoa!”
The sword’s behavior brought a fierce grin to Ian’s face. Even with a lich that still possessed its intellect standing before him, he remained perfectly at ease.
YOU BASTARD!
It was only natural. This was a dragon’s barrier, after all. The lich could issue simple commands to the beasts and undead under its control, but nothing more. A lich that couldn’t cast a single offensive spell was little more than a pile of walking bones.
Even bones will let go when they’re about to die.
The moment the lich stopped trying to break the barrier in order to survive, it would be impossible for the warrior and rogue to finish it from the front. Rubedo was more than enough to draw attention, and Ian’s flashy techniques and movements pulled every eye in the room.
The moment a ripple disturbed the empty air, daggers connected by silver threads rained down. Beasts and undead threw themselves in the way, but it was only bait. The real strike came from above. Using her contracted wind spirit to erase even the faintest sound, Ivelin dropped a perfectly silent blow from the sky.
HOW… HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE…!
“Honestly. No matter how desperate you are, this is the first time I’ve seen a lich carry his own Life Vessel around like that.”
The short sword with its distinctive black blade sliced straight through the Life Vessel nestled inside Alan’s ribcage. Ivelin had destroyed many such phylacteries before, but never one so ridiculously easy to locate.
Obsession still lingered in the outstretched bony fingers, but everything that had maintained Alan’s existence crumbled into dust in an instant. The undead and demonic beasts collapsed like puppets with their strings cut, gradually disintegrating as their master vanished.
“Whew.”
Perhaps it was because he had cut down dozens of beasts and undead in such a short time. Rubedo had already eroded his entire left hand. Yet he felt no loss of sensation or control. He shook his hand a few times, forcing power through it, and the corrosion receded. When he sheathed the sword once more, every trace disappeared.
“Is your hand truly all right?”
“See? Perfectly fine.”
“We need to call Yelena immediately.”
“Eh? Why?”
At the mention of summoning the nagging priestess, Ian’s face twisted in disgust. Ivelin let out a long sigh. She had known they would eventually need to call her, but after witnessing the state of him while using that cursed blade, the decision became immediate.
“Being too strong can be a problem at times like this. Couldn’t you have been moderately strong instead?”
“If I were only moderately strong, wouldn’t I have died somewhere along our adventures?”
“I guarantee that if you hadn’t charged around so recklessly, there are more than one or two incidents that would have resolved without issue.”
Even as she sheathed her short sword and gently wiped the blood from Ian’s cheek, the scolding continued like a mother reprimanding a mischievous child.
“Lord Ian. You are no longer alone, and you sit in the position of Grand Duke. You should act with more caution. Even if you push yourself to make things easier for others—”
“Does this go through?”
“……”
While she was still speaking, Ian walked straight to the dragon’s barrier and shoved his hand inside. Ivelin’s fist clenched on its own.
“Huu. I told you not to go in there!”
“Ah… My mistake.”
That insatiable curiosity of his had finally won out. Ivelin followed, slipping her own hand into the barrier to test it.
“Let’s go.”
The anger that had been rising inside her vanished the instant Ian grabbed her hand and started forward. Emotions were one thing; duty was another.
“I’ll take the lead.”
Hiding her reluctance, Ivelin released his hand and moved ahead. She searched for traps using even the faintest sensations from her bare feet, yet after more than twenty minutes of walking she had found nothing.
“If there were magical traps, the spirits should have detected them. There’s nothing.”
“So they just threw up a barrier in a hurry and left?”
“It’s possible. But would a dragon have any reason to move in such haste?”
“Well. We’ll find out eventually.”
Unknown murals covered the walls of the straight passage. Countless dragons had fled in haste beyond the paintings, leaving behind a single egg. Two skies—one shattering, one whole—fell at once toward the unhatched egg.
“Ha… Hahaha…!”
“By the gods…”
At the end of the passage lay a vast cavern filled with mountains of gold and silver treasure. Yet what left the pair speechless wasn’t the wealth.
It was something no amount of money, power, or human authority could ever obtain.
A dragon’s egg rested before their eyes.
Ian’s hands trembled. He didn’t dare touch it, uncertain what effect the demonic sword embedded in his body might have. He could only breathe heavily.
Ivelin removed her gloves and placed her palm carefully against the shell. The powerful heartbeat made her pull back at once, but she sensed no fear within that pulse—only life.
“Th-this… This! This thing!”
“Please calm down. You look ridiculous.”
Leaving the now-incoherent Ian behind, Ivelin pondered whether they should even attempt to move it.
“We can’t just leave it here, can we?”
“I don’t like the idea of leaving something this valuable where anyone might take it. But is it safe to remove?”
Neither of them knew the first thing about a dragon egg’s incubation requirements.
As they debated, a sharp cracking sound suddenly echoed through the cavern.
“Huh…?”
Ian whipped his head around at the sound that should not have come. The egg was shaking violently.
“Uh… Uhh!”
“C-calm yourself!”
It was fortunate the shell had not yet fully split, but watching a person-sized egg rock and shudder as it tried to hatch left both of them flustered. They quickly backed away.
The movements grew more intense. Cracks began to spiderweb across the shell.
Perhaps the first non-dragons in history to witness such a birth, the pair waited with pounding hearts for the arrival of the world’s mightiest creature.
Crack.
The egg shattered completely. From within emerged not a reptilian beast, but a child who appeared to be about five years old, with beautiful silver hair. Two small horns and a reptilian tail clearly marked the child as a dragon, yet the hair color was the real problem.
“You…”
“I-I only touched it lightly!”
The hatchling wriggled free from a nest woven of some unknown plant and began to rise. The moment its eyes opened, they were a vivid red.
“Mom…?”
The single word was directed straight at Ivelin.
At that moment, Ian finally understood why dragons never left their lair until the egg had hatched.
* * *
Ivelin wrapped the dragon child in her assassin’s robe, lifted the now-sleeping hatchling onto her back, and began moving again. With the demonic beasts essentially wiped out, only small flora and fauna remained. There was no danger, but the hour had grown late, so they spent the night in the lair.
“So. How does it feel to be a mother now?”
“Da… Huu. Could you please be quiet?”
She had wanted to tell him to shut up, but with a child present she could only manage a low growl.
“We’ll have to hide the dragon, won’t we?”
“Absolutely. If word gets out that we possess a living dragon—especially a young hatchling—every faction imaginable will cause us endless trouble.”
“For now we’ll raise the child inside the castle. We can meet outsiders using the excuse that we’re busy.”
“Normally I would object, but considering the impact this child will have, that may be the wiser choice.”
Ivelin realized she was unconsciously stroking the dragon’s head, yet she did not stop. She caressed the silver hair even more gently, as though determined to give this child the love she herself had been denied when both sides had abandoned her for being a half-elf.
“Hmm.”
Watching the scene, Ian found himself thinking beyond mere pioneering. He had explored many ruins, but never before had he encountered murals that conveyed such a direct message.
If it was a warning, then it was a clear one.
Considering the dragon and the meaning behind those paintings, they would need to call for help.
“It looks like we’ll have to summon that person.”
“Haa… He really is the only dragon specialist we have.”
Ivelin sighed but offered no objection. In many ways he was cut from the same cloth as Ian, yet his competence could not be denied.
“Then the moment we reach the castle, let’s send word to Brother Zenon.”
* * *
Far to the west of the Empire, between the City Union and imperial territory, stood the Magic Tower. It occupied a vast stretch of land and served as the birthplace of all mages and the greatest repository of knowledge. Just beneath the pinnacle of the tower that pierced the heavens, the returned prodigal son was lost in his own research.
“Sigh. In my day we lived and breathed our studies. What is this nonsense about romance?”
Greyish hair, dull golden eyes, deep dark circles, and a patchy beard. Zenon, first disciple of the Tower Lord, fiddled with his loose glasses as he read the letter from the priestess, then immediately set it ablaze.
After the Ian party had disbanded, he had returned to the Magic Tower and still hadn’t finished organizing everything he had learned on his travels. He was hardly idle enough to offer advice on trivial love troubles.
“Haa… If only a dragon would fall out of the sky somewhere…”
Even organizing his travel notes ultimately served as material for his current research.
Primary sources: Dragon breath and Dragon Heart
Those beings had vanished far too long ago, yet because they had been the ones to teach magic to both humans and elves, he believed clues must remain.
“Lord Zenon! A letter has arrived from someone named Ian!”
“Slide it in.”
“Yes sir!”
Rather than opening the door, the letter was pushed through the narrow gap. Zenon unfolded it with care.
Though younger than himself, Ian possessed genuine talent as a leader and had even helped refine Zenon’s own theories. Out of curiosity, he began to read.
“Let’s go!”
There were greetings and personal matters, but none of that mattered.
The single word Dragon engraved within the letter was more than enough to move him.