I met with Arism a few minutes before heading to the meeting place. Aurora’s Grace was already waiting there and their leader was not very hard to discern from the others as he was standing above the rest of the members on a platform created with Magic.
He saw us approaching and us and although he looked at us with surprised eyes, he still showed us a smile. He was a middle aged man who looked like he was in the middle of his forties as his hair was grey and had a sharp but short beard.
The reason why he didn’t question two kids taking part in such a dangerous mission is probably because he had already experienced similar situations in the past and he now had the wisdom not to underestimate even the weakest-looking individuals.
He nodded slightly as we stood in front of us and greeted us with a firm tone.
“Welcome, we were waiting for you. My name is Den Morthorius and I am the leader of Aurora’s Grace.”
“Hi, sir… I am Arism and this is my teammate… Hell.”
Arism had decided before hand he would be the one to talk with Aurora’s Grace leader this time but his pride was further crushed as the already noticeable height difference between the two of them was made even more obvious by the platform Morthorius was standing on.
“Since you came for the Quest, I assume you already know your task and the risks, right ?”
“That’s right, sir.”
“Then let’s not waste any time. Here is the strategy : we will march together as one group and will split 500 meters before reaching the dragon den. As you can see, all of our guild members are there so we should be able to kill both dragons. But in the case we can’t defeat him, they will probably return to their nest to rest from the battle, which means that whether or not we win, you’d better finish the job quick if you hold your lives dear.”
“Understood.”
He finished explaining a few details and we started heading towards our objective with a fast pace. A night battle wasn’t conceivable as the guild would suffer more casualties in the dark.
As planned, we split before reaching the lair and waited for Aurora’s Grace to start the fight and draw the dragons away from their nest.
After having received the signal – a horn sound from one of the members – we hurried and reached the location without any problem.
I was expecting some kind of dark obscure cave with piles of bones everywhere on the ground but that wasn’t the case. It seemed like the couple of dragon living there had been feeding off nearby animals. Still, there was no telling when they might decide to change their diet to start eating humans.
“Wow, so this is a dragon’s lair, huh ? I’m feeling excited all of a sudden.”
Although Arism was the one to say that, I was thinking exactly the same thing. Sweat was dripping from my back but the adrenaline rush I was experiencing from the hazardous situation made the experience thrilling in my opinion.
We finally found some eggs but something threw us off. They were as hard as rocks !
There were around 10 of them but even breaking one was a hard task. It took us 10 minutes just to break one using a combination of Arism’s Magic and my raw strength.
Our deed was nearly finished as only 1 egg remained. More than one hour had passed since we penetrated the nest.
One thing I noticed is that the eggs had different colour patterns. Red, blue, yellow… Arism told me that the colour of the egg defines the attribute the dragon will have. For instance, red eggs will mean it will be a Fire Dragon whereas yellow ones show that it will be a Thunder Dragon.
The last egg was unique however as it was the only one in the whole lot that was white.
“I don’t know what this colour is for. Snow perhaps ? Or maybe ice ?”
“It looks so beautiful I feel bad to break it.”
Before we started attacking it though, the egg started shining, something that had not happened with the others.
Arism’s eyes widened and his confident expression was replaced by one of fear.
“This is bad ! The egg is hatching ! Dragon don’t stay babies for very long and they grow at an exponential rate right after they are borns. If we let the egg hatch, even if it’s still a baby, we’re screwed !”
“What can we do ? We don’t destroy it in time !”
“It will be most vulnerable right after it is born, before it starts growing. We HAVE to kill it then !”
Both on the edge, we waited anxiously for the egg to finish hatching and when it finally did, the light became so bright it was enough to lit the entire cave. Both blinded, we couldn’t see exactly what happened after that, however I could feel… an earthquake !? The ground had started shaking as the baby dragon was being born.
“I didn’t think that a dragon’s egg would be so powerful as to cause earthquake when hatching !?”
“It’s because it’s not the baby, Hell. One of the two dragons is back. We’re dead.”
Arism said that with a monotonous and rather calm voice. It seems he had already given up all hope of living to see another day.
I looked at the entrance and there was indeed a giant blue dragon in front of me. Something felt wrong though. One entire minute passed without us getting eaten or the dragon displaying any aggressive behaviour. Then I noticed the wounds on the dragon’s body.
Its wings were pierced, one of its eyes was missing and it had deep wounds on its cheat, tail and legs. The dragon was breathing heavily but it wasn’t using Ice Breath to freeze us instantly.
Arism didn’t look like he had noticed and instead screamed at me.
“For whatever reason, it’s not moving ! Let’s make a run for it, Hell !”
“What about the newly born dragon !?”
“Screw that, we have no time ! The cave’s about to collapse as well !”
Arism was right; perhaps due to the earthquakes caused by the Ice Dragon, rocks were starting to fall from the roof and cracks could be seen on the walls.
It was weird that the cave would collapse from the weight of the dragon since two of them had been living there for a relatively long time. Could it be the Ice Dragon crashed into the cave while trying to land ?
Arism and I started to run towards the exit, which was half blocked by the dragon. Arism managed to get outside first but the cave crumbled faster as I was nearing the outside. As I passed the dying dragon, I heard it whisper to me.
“Please… save… daughter…”
Astonished, I looked backwards and saw the dragon’s head getting crushed by a rock. I didn’t dream however : I could have sword the dragon talked like a normal human being, despite being a mere monster.
Swayed by what I had just heard, I did notice the shadow of the baby dragon in the back of the cave, although it looked humanoid, if anything. Without thinking, I started to rush through the cave once more and reached to the newly-born monster. I grabbed what felt like its hand and without looking at it, managed to make a run for it while holding on to it.
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By the time we reached the exit, most of the cave was destroyed and there were a lot of rocks in the way.
We almost made it but… as if in slow motion, I saw a giant part of the roof fall off towards us, ready to squash us. I gathered all my strength and threw the dragon towards the exit and tried to duck. I managed to avoid lethal damage but my leg got stuck underneath.
“Arrgg…”
The humanoid monster looked at me from the exit. I couldn’t see clearly what it looked like as my vision was already starting to fade. More rocks fell on my body and I thought it was the end for me.
Until a strong wind pushed all the remains away from me and the pressure on my leg was lifted. Arism appeared in front of me and dragged me out of the cave. Despite his small build, it looked like he was capable of carrying me to safety.
“Ah… ah….”
“You really scared me there, Hell… Don’t make me go through that ever again, ok ?”
“Ah… sure… thanks…”
We were both breathing in and out, trying to regain some energy. i suddenly remembered about the dragon and looked around me. The cave was gone and there was nothing like a rank A monster around us.
The only people there were Arism and me. And a lady.
A lady ? After closer inspection, she didn’t look as human as I first thought. Sure, he had the same figure but her eyes were black instead of white with purple irises. She had very long white hair that fell past her waist. She looked like she was naked at first but in fact, some hard looking scales were covering her nudity. She also had some scales on her cheeks and shoulders as well as on her arms.
If I had to describe her in more detail, she was rather tall, had a cold and serious face, her hair looked very silky and smooth whereas her scales looked like the ones of the dragons I saw earlier. She had nice curves and bursting breasts that looked like they could hardly be contained by the bra made out of scales. If I had to say her age, I would say 20 years old.
“Could it be… you’re the dragon… from the egg ?”
She turned around to face me. No, actually, she had been staring at me ever since I had been rescued from the cave. As soon as she heard the sound of my voice, the strict face she was displaying turned instantly into a meek and flushed face. Tears formed around the corners of her dark eyes and she jumped on me, pushing her breasts onto my face. My wounds hurt but I could not help but feel aroused by this.
“You ! Saved ! Me !”
“So you really are the baby dragon ! But… why do you look like a woman ?”
“…”
She looked at me and looked like she was struggling to find the right words.
Arism, who was watching dumbfounded until now, seemed to remember something.
“Ah, I did read about something like that…”
“Huh ?”
“I did say that dragons grow extremely fast after their egg hatches, right ? Well the organism living inside the egg hasn’t developed at all until the egg starts shining and is still undefined. You could call it a polymorph organism. Apparently, the light emitted is used to scan the genetic surroundings of the egg and help the baby to take a final form.”
“I see…”
The explanation was a bit difficult for me but I kinda understood the gist of it.
“Usually, the first thing scanned by a dragon egg will be its parents, hence the egg taking a dragon form. But here, it was humans – us. Of course, the baby already has dragon attribute and some genes from its parents when the egg is created so it won’t be totally human but this dragon here is special. I don’t even know if you can call it a dragon.”
“She’s almost like… a Hybrid.”
“That is pretty close to reality, yes. And that would mean she is the very first case of Dragon and Human Hybrid ever created…”
The woman, who looked like she had been listening attentively to the conversation suddenly started talking.
“I… am grateful. You… saved me.”
“So you can talk just fine. Even though you are the daughter of a dragon.”
“Dragons inherit most knowledge from their parents. My ancestor learnt the language of Humans so I can talk it too. I just.. need a bit of practice since I was just born.”
I glanced at Arism and he responded by shaking his head with a surprised expression.
“Hey, this situation feels weird, Arism… I don’t know if I should address her like a child or like an adult…”
“You don’t say… besides, you know… she’s theoretically a dragon… shouldn’t we kill her ?”
“What are you saying at this point !? Do you really see her as a monster ? She is more human than draconic to me.”
“At the very least, we can’t let Aurora’s Grace or anyone else know about her existence. They would hunt her down for sure if they knew. I heard they are also pretty harsh towards people from other races, just like most people the closer you get to the capital. We need to hide her.”
“Hmm… I might know a person who doesn’t judge others based on their race… but I can’t meet this person right now. I can only meet up with him next week.”
“She’ll just have to survive by herself for one week then. I mean, she said it herself : she’s got the passed down knowledge of all her ancestors, so she should already be more than ready to live by herself.”
Hearing that, the dragon girl who had been listening quietly up until now raised her voice.
“Living alone !? No way ! I am staying with Hell !”
“Huh ?”
“As I said, I am not going anywhere else other than where Hell is going !”
Arism and I looked at each other with a surprised face and I faced the woman.
“Why do you want to stay with me that badly ?”
“I owe you my life, Hell. You saved me when the cave was falling apart, I saw it.”
“I… I don’t want you to misunderstand. I am part of a punitive force that raided your cave. The reason your siblings aren’t there is me. And my comrades killed your parents.”
“… But you saved me. You could have killed me too, right ? But you didn’t.”
“I…”
Did this girl not understand ? Why did she feel the need to stay with someone who had caused her to not be able to be born in a happy family ? The more I was chatting with her, the more I was feeling guilty for what I had just done. Was destroying the eggs really the right thing to do ? Was killing the dragons really necessary ?
“Thinking about it, you heard my name but I haven’t heard yours.”
“Heh, that’s because I don’t have one yet, silly.”
“Ah… is that so.”
Of course she didn’t have one. We took her parents away from her !
“Then, you give me one.”
“Me ?”
“Yes, you. It can only be you.”
“Then… your name will be Glace.”
“Glace huh… I think it fits me well, fufu.”
“So Glace.. hum… I don’t think you should associate yourself with someone like me who took away everything from y-”
“Hell… you think too much.”
Before I could finish my sentence, she grabbed my head and kissed me.