Chapter 34: Human Fire

I spotted people on the southern road while making a short flight near the village.

I was gradually getting used to my larger Adult Dragon body. Taking off and landing required more room than before, but when I was only flying around the village, I no longer had much trouble coordinating my wings with the magic inside me.

During that flight, I saw a packhorse moving through a break in the trees.

There were four humans.

A little way ahead of them, a gray shadow crossed the road.

I tilted my wings.

There wasn’t only one.

Two, three, and another emerged from behind a tree.

They had wolf-like bodies and small black horns, matching the magical beasts a man from the south had described. That time, he had only seen three and no one had been attacked.

This was different.

Four of them were moving to surround the packhorse.

The humans weren’t standing helplessly. They drew the horse close to a tree, and two people stood in front of it.

One was a man with a sword.

The other was a woman gripping a short staff.

The wolf-like beasts split to the left and right. While the man held one at bay with his sword, another circled toward the horse.

The woman pointed her staff at it.

At that instant, the surrounding magic moved.

I narrowed my eyes in midair.

It was the same thing I had begun taking faintly into my body after becoming an Adult Dragon. Magic drifting through the forest, soil, and air gathered around the woman.

She said something brief.

Red light burst at the tip of her staff.

Fire flew from it.

It wasn’t large. Compared with my breath, it was a tiny flame.

Even so, it had undeniably appeared in empty air and struck the beast in the flank.

“Yelp!”

It rolled across the ground, its fur scorched. It immediately got up, but its charge toward the horse had been stopped.

I nearly lost the rhythm of my wings.

Magic.

I didn’t know what people in this world called it, but I knew the concept. Back in Japan, it had appeared in novels, manga, and games. Humans created fire, controlled wind, and moved water.

Those things had existed only in stories.

Actually seeing it was entirely different from merely knowing about it.

And now I could even sense the flow of magic before the fire appeared.

Fascinating.

Part of me wanted to watch longer.

But this wasn’t the time to be a spectator.

One beast sprang straight at the swordsman. He blocked it, and the other two closed from both sides.

I descended and beat my wings hard.

The downwash threw grass and soil into the air, stopping the beasts in their tracks.

“A dragon!”

Someone shouted.

I landed between the humans and the magical beasts. All four feet found the ground.

Through Racial Trait (Magical Beast Empathy), their feelings flowed into me.

Hunger.

Irritation.

Fixation on their prey.

And intense fear of me.

They were different from the Armored Bear. They didn’t want to fight me. They had been hunting the humans and their horse out of hunger when something even more dangerous dropped from the sky.

I kept my wings half spread and growled low.

“Grrrrrr…”

If you withdraw, I won’t chase you.

If you keep coming, I’ll stop you.

I put that intention into my voice.

One immediately backed away. Another looked toward the forest. Only the burned one bristled and growled back at me.

The swordsman moved beside me.

“…Wait.”

“What?”

He stopped.

I kept my eyes on the beasts. They were already wavering between flight and attack. If the humans advanced as well, they might feel cornered and lunge.

I took one step forward.

All four stepped back.

When I spread my wings wider, one could bear it no longer and ran into the forest. Two followed. The burned one barked at me once, then turned and fled too.

I didn’t pursue them.

Feeling their fear recede through Magical Beast Empathy, I folded my wings.

“You saved us,” the swordsman said, exhaling.

The others checked the packhorse. No one seemed badly hurt.

I was more interested in the woman’s staff.

She noticed.

“This?”

She raised it slightly.

I nodded.

“…Magic?”

Her eyes widened.

“You know about it?”

It was difficult to say that I did. What I had known in my past life was imaginary magic.

“…Know. But…first time seeing.”

“You mean it’s the first time you’ve seen it for real?”

“…Yes.”

“Most people around here call it sorcery. The name changes from place to place, though.”

Sorcery.

At least that was what she called it.

I looked at the scorched ground. More than the flame, I was interested in what happened beforehand: magic gathered from the surroundings, passed through the woman, and became fire.

I could sense ambient magic.

I could take it into my body.

Then could I do the same thing?

Before I could think further, the swordsman took the packhorse’s reins.

“Let’s not stand around talking here. It’ll be trouble if they return.”

He was right.

The four had apparently been headed for Rue from the start. After checking the surroundings once more, I returned to the village with them.

◇

Dario immediately asked what had happened.

“How many were there?”

“Four,” the swordsman answered. “Gray, with small black horns.”

“Sounds like the ones seen to the south.”

Dario asked exactly where they had attacked. The chief heard the account too and warned villagers who had planned to go south.

“Don’t go alone today. If you must go, travel in a group.”

No one proposed hunting the wolves.

No one told me to track them either.

They had already fled. There was no reason to enter the forest simply to kill them.

Two of the four were transporting goods. The swordsman and staff-bearing woman had accompanied them as guards. The chief didn’t pry unnecessarily into their rank or affiliation.

When talk turned to their cargo, I returned to my usual place outside the fence.

A little later, the woman came over.

“You said you knew about sorcery, right?”

“…Yes.”

“But you’d never seen it?”

I nodded.

“That’s unusual.”

I had no way to explain that I had once lived in Japan, where magic was fiction, with the few words available to me.

I had something else to ask.

“…How do?”

“Sorcery?”

“…Yes.”

She looked at her staff, troubled.

“I’ve never taught a dragon.”

That was understandable.

“I don’t even know if you can do it.”

“…Try.”

The words came out more readily than I expected.

Dario, standing nearby, laughed.

“You’re really interested.”

Of course I was.

This was real magic.

Even Lina came closer.

“Will Val be able to make fire too?”

“I haven’t taught him anything yet.”

The woman smiled wryly, then pointed her staff at the ground.

“First I become aware of the magic inside me. Then I touch the magic outside.”

I focused inward while listening.

I knew the magic in my body. I used it to fly. And now I could sense the magic flowing in from the world around me.

“You gather a little of it. If you pull too hard, it scatters, so when you’re inexperienced, take only a tiny amount.”

“…Then?”

“Picture fire.”

That was surprisingly vague.

She saw my expression and shrugged.

“It’s hard to explain. You create the idea properly in your mind—heat, burning, things like that.”

An image.

That wasn’t wholly unfamiliar.

Fire was hot. It spread to other things. Without air, it couldn’t keep burning. I hadn’t been an expert, but I knew that much from ordinary knowledge in my previous life.

Above all, my current body could breathe flame. Imagining fire itself wasn’t difficult.

“Want to try?”

I nodded.

Keeping my forefeet on the ground, I concentrated.

First on the magic inside my body.

Then outward.

I touched the faint magic in the air. Normally I would draw it into my body. This time, I gathered it just beyond one forefoot.

Slowly, so it wouldn’t scatter.

The flow changed.

“Huh?”

I heard the woman but didn’t look away.

Small was enough. There was no need to create something like my dragon breath on the first attempt.

I pictured the gas flame I had used in Japan. A candle. A little flame flickering at the edge of a campfire.

It held heat. It would burn if touched, but wouldn’t spread through the surroundings.

I overlaid that form onto the gathered magic.

Snap.

A single red spark burst.

“It came out!” Lina cried.

My concentration broke, and the spark vanished immediately. It didn’t even leave a scorch mark.

“…Was that really your first time?” the woman asked.

“…Yes.”

“You started by gathering the surrounding magic?”

I nodded.

This time, she fell silent.

Dario looked between us.

“Was that fast?”

“Most people struggle just to get that far.”

“He’s been using magic to fly for a while.”

“You should’ve said that first.”

So I hadn’t truly begun from nothing.

I had used magic in flight. Since becoming an Adult Dragon, I had also been taking ambient magic into my body. Magic was already a familiar sensation to me.

And I had memories from my previous life to help me picture fire. Magic itself had been imaginary, but perhaps “creating fire” was easier to imagine for me than for someone encountering the idea for the first time.

“Want to try again?” Lina asked eagerly.

I hesitated, then shook my head.

“…Later.”

“Not now?”

“…Yes.”

I had only produced one spark by chance. I couldn’t claim to have mastered it.

And it was fire.

I shouldn’t keep experimenting beside the village without even knowing how to control it.

The woman nodded.

“I think that’s wise. Producing fire isn’t the end of learning to use it.”

I stared at my foreclaw.

Nothing remained, but I remembered the sensation of magic gathering and becoming flame for an instant.

It was different from breath.

I hadn’t expelled fire from inside my body. I had given form, through my own will, to magic that had been outside me.

It was only one spark. It couldn’t be used in battle, and I didn’t know what else it could do.

That was precisely why, when I next tried it, I would choose a place where no people or houses could be caught up in it.

Something that had been pure fantasy in Japan truly existed in this world.

And now the tips of my claws had touched its threshold.