Chapter 29: The First Name I Called

The changes in my body continued longer than when I became a juvenile dragon.

Heat raced along my spine, while the bones deep within my limbs were forced outward. Each time I braced my forelegs, my claws sank into the ground a little farther apart.

The roots of my wings burned too.

When I drew a deep breath, I could tell that even the amount of air entering my chest had changed.

“Val…”

Lina’s voice came from a distance.

I’d signaled for her not to approach, so she hadn’t moved from that spot.

Dario and the chief had arrived too. Villagers who noticed something was wrong watched from inside the fence.

“He’s still getting bigger,” someone said.

“Much more than last time, isn’t he?”

Even I could tell.

My viewpoint continued to rise.

It wasn’t only that my body was growing longer. My chest thickened, and the muscles in my shoulders and hind legs increased. My tail grew heavier and longer too, but the area around my hips strengthened at the same time to support it.

My wings began to open on their own.

I hurriedly tightened them.

Fully spreading them here would be dangerous.

“Move farther back,” the chief called to the people around us. “Those inside the fence, don’t come any closer either. Val himself doesn’t know his new body yet.”

That helped.

He was exactly right.

I’d moved a foreleg with the same sensation as when I was a juvenile dragon, only for my claws to reach farther forward than expected.

When I shifted my tail slightly, it scraped a wider section of ground.

It was my body, yet it felt as though it belonged to someone else.

At last, the intense heat gradually receded.

The pressure constricting my back disappeared, and the creaking deep in my legs stopped.

I took one deep breath.

My lungs were larger.

Even after inhaling enough air to fill my chest before, there was room for more.

Then words appeared in my vision.

《Evolution complete.》

Another line followed.

《You have evolved from Juvenile Dragon to Adult Dragon.》

Adult Dragon.

I stared at the words for a while.

My body had certainly grown when I changed from a hatchling to a juvenile dragon.

But it hadn’t been anything like this.

The display continued.

《Racial Trait (Human Speech) acquired.》

My eyes widened involuntarily.

Human Speech.

It didn’t say I could understand the human language.

Speech.

In other words, I could talk.

“Is it over…?”

Lina spoke from where she stood.

I looked at her.

I began to nod as usual in reply, then stopped.

Something felt different in the back of my throat.

My tongue was different too.

My mouth itself hadn’t changed into a human one. Even so, I could move the base of my tongue and my throat with far more precision than before.

I tried.

“Gr…”

What emerged was my usual low draconic voice.

Dario tilted his head.

“What?”

No.

That wasn’t it.

How had I formed words when I was human?

Release air, vibrate the throat, and change where the tongue touches.

I knew it all in my mind.

I’d done it for decades.

But I was a dragon now.

I couldn’t simply use the memory of a human body as it was.

I breathed in once more.

What should my first word be?

There was no need to think.

The girl who’d given me half her black bread.

The girl who’d given the nameless creature I was the name Val.

The human who’d first treated me as an individual living being in this world.

I looked at Lina.

I opened my mouth.

“…Li…”

The sound emerged.

Everyone fell silent.

I couldn’t move either.

That hadn’t been a growl.

It was the sound of human speech.

Lina’s eyes were wide.

“What…?”

Again.

Don’t rush.

Move the tongue a little farther back.

Don’t cut off the breath too sharply.

“…Li-na.”

I said it.

My voice was hoarse.

There was an unnatural pause between the two sounds.

Even so, it was unmistakably her name.

“…Me?”

Lina pointed at her own chest.

I nodded.

“Did you just say my name?”

Once more.

“Li…na.”

“He talked!”

Lina’s voice cracked.

“Val talked!”

Her shout brought the air around us rushing back at once.

“I heard it!” Dario stared wide-eyed. “I heard ‘Lina’ too.”

“So did I.”

Even the chief couldn’t hide his surprise.

The villagers beyond the fence began murmuring.

But before anything else, I noticed something.

Everyone was lower than before.

They hadn’t seemed this low when my evolution began.

“Val, can I come closer?” Lina asked.

I nodded.

She approached slowly.

One step.

Then another.

When she reached the side of my foreleg, she stopped.

“…Huge.”

Apparently, the word escaped her.

Before, when I stood on all fours, my shoulder had been around the height of Lina’s chest.

Now, even if she looked up, my shoulder was far above her.

She couldn’t reach it when she stretched out her hand.

“You used to be about here, right?”

Lina indicated her chest.

She was right.

“Dario, come here.”

“Why me too?”

“I want to compare.”

Dario came over reluctantly.

The moment they stood beside one another, even I could clearly understand my current size.

Dario was an adult man.

My shoulder now stood above his head.

When I raised my neck to its natural position, he had to tilt his head all the way back to look at me.

“…No. Wait.”

Dario moved several paces away from my side.

“Do dragons really get this big?”

How would I know?

Even I was larger than expected.

“Try lying down,” Lina said.

I slowly lowered my belly to the ground, partly to test how my body felt.

Even this was difficult.

The lengths of my legs had changed, so trying to lie down as I had before didn’t place my body where I expected.

Somehow, I settled into position.

Dario’s gaze traveled from my snout toward my tail.

“That’s long…”

The distance from my head to my tail couldn’t be compared with my juvenile body.

Even if three adult humans lay head to toe, I still seemed longer.

And it wasn’t only that my tail tapered to a thin point.

My torso was noticeably thicker.

Even one foreleg, while not quite as thick as Lina’s body, could no longer be compared with a child’s arm.

My claws were longer and thick from the base.

“Is this really Val?”

Lina touched my foreleg as she spoke.

What kind of question was that?

I brought my face closer.

“Whoa, your face is bigger too.”

Of course it was.

“You look scarier than before,” Dario added unnecessarily.

I wanted to answer back.

But for now, even a single word required me to think about how to move my throat.

I stared at Dario.

“What?”

Remember that.

More importantly, my wings.

The sensation of their growth was particularly strong.

I stood and checked the surrounding area.

We were far enough from the fence.

“Are you going to open your wings?” Lina noticed.

I nodded.

“Everyone, move back!”

This time, Lina called out to those around us.

I carefully unfolded both wings.

When they were only half-open, voices escaped the villagers.

Even I nearly stopped.

They were enormous.

As a juvenile dragon, my wings had already taken up considerable space when spread.

Now, even before they were fully open, their reach was different.

I opened them farther.

The membranes drew tight, and the muscles at their roots moved.

By the time they were fully extended, Lina and the people nearby stood a considerable distance away.

“You could never do that near the entrance now,” Lina said.

“Forget the road. You look like you could blow everyone around you away,” Dario replied while staring at a wingtip.

Even without a single flap, they had that much presence.

I folded my wings.

The movement itself didn’t feel heavy.

If anything, I could put power into them from their roots, properly supporting wings larger than before.

Could I fly?

I wanted to know.

What had happened to my breath?

Even the amount of heat deep in my chest felt different.

But there was no need to test either immediately.

Leaping into the air at once with a body that had changed so suddenly would be more dangerous.

“Val,” Lina called again.

I turned my face toward her.

“Say something else.”

Of course she’d ask.

“Something other than Lina.”

Don’t increase the difficulty.

“Don’t push him,” the chief stopped her. “That’s a voice he couldn’t make before. Being able to speak doesn’t mean he can immediately say anything.”

“Oh.”

Lina looked a little disappointed, but backed down.

Seeing her face made me want to try one more thing.

When my evolution began, Lina had worried about me.

Was I in pain?

Was I all right?

She’d asked again and again.

Then I knew what I should tell her.

I breathed in.

“All…”

My tongue didn’t cooperate.

I stopped.

Lina waited silently.

“All…ri…”

Something caught in the back of my throat.

A low sound like a cough mixed in.

“Val, you don’t have to force yourself.”

If I stopped there, there would be no point.

Again.

I let out more air.

“All…right.”

I said it.

It was terribly clumsy.

But she understood.

Lina’s face crumpled.

“…Okay.”

She looked close to tears.

“You’re all right.”

I nodded.

This time, I didn’t try to repeat the words.

My throat was a little tired.

I’d gained a body capable of human speech, but apparently that didn’t mean I was accustomed to using it.

That was fine.

Until now, I hadn’t been able to answer with a single word.

Today, I’d said two things.

Lina.

All right.

That was enough.

The chief called for the surrounding villagers to return to their work.

“He isn’t a spectacle. Val is tired too.”

“But he talked.”

“I heard him.”

“Did someone say ‘adult dragon’?”

“Don’t ask me.”

They had no way to know about the words only I could see.

It seemed I’d need to speak a little more fluently before I could explain that I’d become an Adult Dragon.

The people gradually dispersed.

Dario continued looking up at me until the end, but eventually returned to the village after saying only, “Your old sleeping place looks too small now.”

That was indeed a problem.

I tried to lie down in my usual place and immediately gave up.

My body didn’t fit.

In an area where I’d once been able to place even my tail comfortably, only part of my torso fit now.

I moved to a broader area a little farther away.

I might have to reconsider where I landed from now on too.

Only Lina remained.

She tried to sit beside my larger body, nearly leaning her back against my foreleg as she had before.

“You’re too big.”

She laughed at herself.

Even the thickness of my foreleg had changed, so she couldn’t settle into her usual position.

She moved a little and sat closer to where my claws began.

“Val.”

She called me.

I turned only my neck.

“You really said my name, didn’t you?”

How many times would she confirm it?

Even so, I opened my mouth.

I hesitated slightly less over my tongue’s position than the first time.

“…Lina.”

This time, the pause between the two sounds was shorter.

Lina smiled.

“What is it?”

An answer came back.

That alone made me feel strange.

Since I arrived in this world, Lina had called my name many times.

When I was hungry, when I was injured, and when I learned to fly.

At last, I could call her name with my own voice.

I hadn’t decided what to say next.

So, as always, I only nodded once.

That seemed enough to satisfy Lina. She sat smiling beside my enlarged foreleg.