The 5000-year-old Herbivorous Dragon

Chapter 43 - A belated graduation

I’m able to speak the human language. Rēko would probably explain it as “There’s nothing the omniscient and omnipotent Evil Dragon Lord doesn’t know.”

Naturally, that wasn’t the case. The reason I was able to understand human speech was nothing other than mingling with humans in the past.

Well, it wasn’t much of a good memory.

When I was still a lizard that couldn’t speak I had been kept as livestock, serving as emergency rations and weed disposal, whereas once I became able to speak, I was brought to various places as a spectacle. I didn’t earn much as I couldn’t really perform well, so I still remember my owners changing one after another and being frequently sold off using scam-like methods.

However, it’s not like nothing pleasant ever happened. It was the interaction with children, who instead of telling me to go earn money, ride the ball or do something fun, had fed me innocently. To begin with, the reason I had been able to escape the fate of a livestock animal in the first village was because I picked up some broken language from the children who fed me. Thanks to that I was evaluated as “I’d feel sick eating him” and escaped the literal hatchet.

That’s why to me, the human children were not only my lifesavers, but also the ones who granted me an irreplaceable time of respite.

Well then―― Coming back to the present time. In no more than a few days the fixed idea of a “human child” I had was shattered like a glass hammer. The “human child” I had imagined doesn’t suddenly go through an awakening, doesn’t soar to the skies with black wings and neither does it spout burning hot flames.

Hurled straight in Rēko’s direction, I focused on the front and muttered.

“But you know, Rēko. Since my body became big, you were the first child who came and talked to me without fear.”

Saying I wasn’t happy would be a lie. The overwhelming bewilderment to the astounding visitor in the form of a sacrifice was naturally large, but I truly felt that talking for the first time in a while dispelled my lengthy boredom. Like that I had ultimately fallen into days filled with too much stimulation where I didn’t even have a moment of boredom, but still, I became confident of one thing.

“You may be quite twisted and warped, but there’s no doubt you’re a kind child. Becoming something like an evil dragon doesn’t fit a good girl.”

The distance between me and Rēko shortened. I’ve just erased her powerful move. She shouldn’t be able to proceed to the next one so quickly.

However, it was after all Rēko, who was known for thwarting all norms. Immediately after she had promptly regained her stance from releasing the flame attacks, she spread out both of her wings, which were already rivalling my current size, and flapping them raised a storm like gale.

It was the one counterattack I didn’t want the most. Likely she sensed that magic power didn’t work on me after I’ve once again extinguished her attack.

“Kuu…”

Even though I tried to push through forcefully with my momentum and mass, the winds inexorably blocked my way just like a wall. The initial velocity I had thanks to Ariante throwing me with all of her might was rapidly falling and the linear trajectory to Rēko was starting to lack in altitude.

Amidst the dense winds where I practically couldn’t breathe, I mustered the air from my lungs and screamed with all my strength.

“Oi! Don’t you recognize me?!”

Rēko froze. While her body was still being corroded by the dragon transformation, Rēko’s movements stopped. Stiff, as if she was fighting against something, her body was twitching and shivering. As expected, Rēko was desperately holding out.

In that case I also ought to do it properly. I didn’t mean anything stiff like an evil dragon stopping his kin. It also wasn’t to prevent a genuine evil dragon from being born and saving the world.

After all I was an utter coward. Therefore, there was no way I could have the nerve to abandon the eccentric girl who idolized me.

“Hunt God! Please send me to Rēko!”

I focused with all of my strength on my claws. Not to use as a weapon, but for a more simple purpose: into a crooked form to『catch and pull.』A single hook stretched out vigorously from my right forefoot, and just as I wished it got caught on Rēko’s wings.

“Ngyaaa! Heavy! I’m too heavy!”

I intended to pull her towards me, but even though all my body’s weight was hanging on her wing Rēko didn’t budge an inch. Meanwhile, since all of my weight was being supported solely by my right leg I let out an almost shriek like scream. Whenever Rēko moved I was swayed like a pendulum, a truly hellish aerial stunt situation.

“I can’t! I can’t do it! These circumstances are more vicious than falling down normally!”

“Rēvendia! Those claws move according to your will! Shrink them and climb up to her!”

Ariante sent me an advice from the surface. Even though she was saying that, the driving force behind these claws was my physical strength. In these circumstances, it was the same thing as just pulling myself up all the way to Rēko with only my right limb――

“Nryaaaaa!”

I quit wasting my time on thinking. At any rate, logically thinking the number of things I wasn’t able to do was much higher. I shouldn’t think logically. Believing firmly I could do it, I single-mindedly exerted all of my strength.

―― Just like Rēko has always been doing.

Simultaneously with numbness so deep I couldn’t feel my right forefoot anymore, I pulled my body up in one go. And then, once I perceived Rēko right before my eyes, I embraced her tightly with both my arms.

“Okay. It’s, fine, now.”

At that time, inside the distant underground ruins on the grasslands. Looking up at the sky through the cavern’s ceiling, unbeknownst to everyone Hunt murmured quietly.

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