Chapter 30: The Dragon Answers

The morning after becoming an Adult Dragon, the first thing I noticed upon waking wasn’t my body’s size, but how little ground I had.

I’d only just finished evolving the previous night, so I’d lain down a short distance from my usual sleeping place. But when I stretched in the morning, the tip of my tail was farther away than expected, and extending a foreleg brought my claws to a patch where the grass grew thin.

If I moved with the instincts of my juvenile body, I was likely to hit something.

When I raised my neck, Lina ran toward me from the village.

“Good morning, Val!”

Her voice came from even farther below than it had yesterday.

When Lina reached me, she waited.

I knew what for.

Feeling out my throat, I opened my mouth.

“…Lina.”

“Yes!”

I’d only called her name, yet she looked delighted this early in the morning.

“What about ‘good morning’?”

Don’t add more all at once.

I tried.

“…Goo…”

Then I lost the right position in my throat, and it collapsed into a low growl.

“Ah, so close.”

I didn’t know what had been close about it.

Yesterday, I’d said only Lina’s name and “all right.” Even words I’d used without thought as a human had to be constructed one sound at a time with a dragon’s mouth.

“Then try again.”

I shook my head.

“You don’t want to?”

That wasn’t quite it either.

I searched for sounds I thought I could make.

“…Not yet.”

It came out.

Lina’s eyes widened.

“Did you just say ‘not yet’?”

I nodded.

“That’s another one!”

She shouted, then ran straight back into the village.

I didn’t need to ask what she was going to report.

Before long, even Dario arrived.

“I wondered what the noise was about this early. Apparently, you talked again.”

I turned toward him.

“‘Not yet’?”

I nodded.

“Can you say my name too?”

Was there a need?

“It was all Lina yesterday.”

What a strange thing to compete over.

Still, names might be relatively easy to pronounce.

“…Da…rio.”

“Oh.”

Dario looked strangely satisfied.

“That makes me a little happy.”

I didn’t care.

“You definitely just made a face like I was annoying.”

It would probably be some time before I could say a phrase that long.

The chief came to check on me too, but unlike Lina, he didn’t try to make me say one word after another.

“Does your throat feel all right?”

I considered it, then nodded.

It didn’t hurt.

But when I formed sounds repeatedly, places I’d never used before began to feel heavy.

“Then fine. But don’t make him do this from morning until night just because he can speak now.”

“I know,” Lina replied.

She probably didn’t.

I stopped practicing there.

There was something else I wanted to test today.

My wings.

◇

I hadn’t flown once since evolving and growing larger.

I still possessed 《Flight》, and my wings were larger than before.

Even so, it would be dangerous to take off as though I still had my juvenile body.

I moved south of the village to a place well away from the fence.

It had even more room than my previous landing site.

“This should be enough,” Dario said, looking around.

I checked too, then nodded.

We made Lina stand well away.

“I want to watch from closer.”

“Did you forget how big his wings were yesterday?”

“I didn’t forget.”

“Then stay back.”

For once, Dario was right.

I slowly opened my wings.

I’d spread them yesterday too, but seeing them again, they were undeniably enormous.

I put strength into their roots and gave one light flap.

All the grass on the ground flattened at once.

Even sand and fine soil flew into the air.

“Whoa!”

Lina covered her face with an arm.

That happened from only a light movement?

I checked my distance from everything once more, then aligned the magic inside my body with my wings.

The mechanism was the same as when I was a juvenile dragon.

My wings lifted my body, and magic supported the flight.

But although I thought I’d sent power through them in the same way, the sensation of supporting my body was much clearer than before.

I kicked off the ground.

I beat my wings downward.

My body rose.

Faster than expected.

The first beat lifted me, and the next added height.

I hurriedly reduced the force.

I’d thought my increased size would make me slower, but at least my power to ascend hadn’t weakened.

When I tilted my wings, my body responded smoothly.

However, my own length had changed.

When turning, moving my tail with my old instincts made the motion a little too broad.

I didn’t force myself to gain speed. I made only one circuit outside the village.

I had no intention of going far.

I still didn’t know my range or how tiring a long flight in this body would be.

I lowered my altitude and returned to the broad area.

I put my hind legs on the ground and slowed with my wings.

At that instant, a great cloud of soil rose.

“I told you to stay back!” Dario shouted.

“I was back!”

“Farther!”

Next time, I agreed.

I folded my wings and turned.

Lina was unharmed.

“Were you faster than before?”

I couldn’t tell from a single flight.

I tilted my head.

“You don’t know yet?”

“…Not yet.”

“That sounded so natural!”

Was that what impressed her?

Still, I too had hesitated less over the pronunciation than yesterday.

Perhaps my body was gradually learning individual words.

Flight was the same.

The ability itself hadn’t become something different, but I’d have to relearn how to use it with my larger body.

I wouldn’t test my breath today.

Even before evolving, I couldn’t use it repeatedly. I also didn’t know whether its power had changed. It wasn’t something to breathe near people or buildings merely out of curiosity.

I returned outside the fence.

◇

A while after noon, Heinz arrived with a packhorse.

When he saw me, he stopped.

The horse stopped too.

“…What is that?”

What did he mean, what was I?

“You’re Val, right?”

I nodded.

“You weren’t that big yesterday.”

“He grew yesterday,” Lina answered.

“Suddenly again?”

“Yes.”

Heinz looked me over from bottom to top.

He’d visited many times and seen my juvenile body, so he probably understood the change well.

“No, this is too much growth…”

Standing on all fours, my shoulder was already higher than Heinz’s head.

When I lowered my neck slightly, he stepped back.

“Too close.”

How rude.

I opened my mouth.

“…Heinz.”

This time, he retreated for a different reason.

“What?”

“Heinz.”

The second attempt came out more smoothly than the first.

The man’s mouth remained open.

“…Did you just talk?”

“He can talk now,” Lina answered happily again. “Since yesterday.”

“Wait. You got bigger and learned to speak?”

I nodded.

Heinz said nothing for some time.

“If I tell people below, no one will believe me.”

That didn’t matter.

“But eventually they’ll see you for themselves.”

After calming his packhorse, Heinz began taking his goods to the usual place.

Trading itself hadn’t changed because I’d grown.

He unloaded salt and grain and checked what the village could sell.

I didn’t decide the prices or give orders to the villagers.

After a while, a man who’d climbed with Heinz approached me.

I’d seen his face once in the village before.

He stopped at a considerable distance.

“May I ask one thing?”

He looked at me.

Having heard I could speak, he’d apparently decided to ask me directly.

I nodded.

After some hesitation, the man spoke.

“Does this village belong to you?”

I stopped moving.

No one had asked me that way before.

“I’d heard a dragon protected it. But if you even speak the human language, I wondered whether you were the village’s chief.”

I looked at Rue.

There was the chief.

Dario.

Lina and the villagers who’d always lived here.

There were also the eight from beyond the mountain and Mark’s family, who had later chosen to settle here.

I protected this village.

But I’d never decided the villagers’ work.

The humans had discussed and decided who could live here, what to sell, and what to do with the fields.

The answer was short.

“…No.”

The man’s eyes widened.

“No?”

I nodded.

Then I looked toward the chief.

The man followed my gaze.

The chief walked toward us.

“What did he ask?”

“Whether Val is the chief of this village.”

“He isn’t.”

The chief answered easily.

“Val protects the village, but he doesn’t decide everything in it.”

“Then what if someone wants to trade here or live here?”

“Talk to the people of the village first. Asking Val won’t decide it.”

I nodded.

That was better.

I could protect them, but I had no intention of deciding every part of human life.

The man compared me with the chief several times.

“When I heard there was a dragon here, I thought you might…force everyone to obey you.”

“We’d be in trouble if he did,” the chief said.

“Val would be in trouble too, wouldn’t you?”

I nodded firmly.

Heinz laughed from the side.

“That answer was easy to understand.”

Don’t say unnecessary things.

I turned toward him.

“What?”

I wanted to respond, but didn’t have enough words.

That was a little frustrating.

“Still, it’s significant that he can answer for himself now,” Heinz continued. “Until now, you and Dario watched Val move his head and explained for him.”

“That’ll still happen most of the time,” the chief said. “He can’t talk for long yet.”

“Even so, it’s different. He can say ‘no’ himself.”

True.

I’d answered the man’s question with my own voice.

The chief hadn’t explained on my behalf that “Val feels this way.”

It was only one word.

Even so, it was different from before.

The man looked at me again.

“Then it is true that you protect the village?”

I nodded.

“This village?”

This time, I tried to answer with words too.

“…Village.”

I paused to steady my breath.

“…Protect.”

Joining only two words required strength in my throat.

But he understood.

“You protect the village.”

The man confirmed it.

I nodded.

The chief immediately added a warning.

“That doesn’t mean you should think you’ll be absolutely safe no matter what happens. There are things Val can and can’t do.”

“I understand,” the man answered honestly. “I’m just surprised I got to hear it from him.”

He asked nothing further.

That helped.

I’d be in trouble if he demanded a long explanation.

By the time Heinz and the others finished trading, the fatigue in my throat had eased a little.

Heinz completed his preparations to leave and passed in front of me holding the packhorse’s reins.

“Then I’ll come again.”

I nodded as usual.

Heinz waited.

“What?”

“I thought you might say something.”

Don’t expect it.

I began to open my mouth, then stopped.

There was no need to force myself to add more words yet.

“Done for today?”

I nodded.

“All right.”

Heinz laughed and raised a hand.

“See you, Val.”

He walked toward the southern road.

The packhorse followed behind him.

I watched from outside the fence.

I’d spoken human words for the first time only yesterday.

Even after adding a few today, I could still count them on my claws.

But for the first time, I’d answered someone from outside the village in my own voice.

Was I the master of this village?

No.

Did I protect it?

Rather than merely nodding, I’d managed to say, “Protect village.”

“Val.”

Lina came beside me.

“You talked a lot today.”

It wasn’t enough to call a lot.

I rumbled my throat quietly.

“Do you think you’ll talk even more tomorrow?”

I didn’t know.

I already knew a phrase I could say.

“…Not yet.”

Lina laughed.

“Then not yet.”

I nodded too.

For a while, that pace was enough.