Hastily, I checked to find out if I was a boy or a girl. Unfortunately, since my race was now a dragon wyrmling, I was back to square one. I would have to wait for another draconic evolution or two before I could prove I was a male dragon. Just like it was hard to determine if an alligator was male or female, I was facing the same problem. Kobold and dragons had indoor plumbing until they developed.

Of course, even if a kobold had been born a certain gender, kobolds could actually change gender based on population and environmental factors. Several species of fish or turtles would transform into females before hatching if the temperature was raised higher than normal. This was true for some other animals as well, such as the bearded dragon.

In fact, some animals changed as part of their nature. For example, ribbon eels were born male but transformed into females as they grew older. Other animals were both male and female. Some animals changed for other reasons. Frogs, copperhead snakes, butterflies, and banana slugs also exhibited gender-changing abilities. This adaptation enhanced reproductive strategies, and allowed them to adjust to environmental conditions and scarcity of mates.

There were even animals that didn’t need another gender. Asian water dragons were a type of lizard that could reproduce without males. Sharks, some wasps, and crustaceans were a few other animals that could sometimes reproduce that way. In fact, it even had a name, parthenogenesis. Kobolds and dragons were the same in many ways. If no male was around, the female was still sometimes able to lay eggs.

The system had said that I was extremely small for an extremely rare species of dragon. That meant that I would have to search far and wide to find another feathered dragon. As for twilight dragons, they would be even harder to locate. Of course, I had sort of expected this since feathered dragons weren’t depicted much in fantasy literature.

I frowned as a draconic racial memory bubbled up from the depths of my mind. After a moment, I realized why the draconic racial memories were emerging. It was because feathered dragons didn’t have one gender but possessed racial traits of both genders. They could change their gender according to the other feather dragon’s gender, or even lay eggs all by themselves.

That was one reason why feathered dragons were still able to reproduce even though they were so rare. It took a moment for me to realize that the racial traits that feathered dragons’ possessed were also traits that I now possessed. With this realization, I couldn’t help myself and expressed my displeasure.

THE FOLLOWING FEW MINUTES OF VEHEMENT LAMENTATIONS AND FURIOUS EPITHETS WERE REDACTED DUE TO GRAPHIC AND INAPPROPRIATE CONTENT. THE SYSTEM APOLOGIZES FOR THE INTERRUPTION.

By the time I organized my thoughts and calmed down, I came to the realization that, “I think, therefore I am.” I was a young male dragon who could change shape. Not only that, but I was also amazing enough that I could even change species, genders, and could even use spells to turn into inanimate objects. Afterall, wasn’t that what the Polymorph spell was able to do?

Whistling, I strutted out the door, having realized that since I could change myself into anything, I could also change anything about myself. For example, I would be able to “grow” into a big boy in the future.

Forsjá, the oldest maid, was waiting outside. She glanced at me, clearly puzzled. Then she asked, “Gothi?”

“Yes, it’s me,” I said, not bothering to explain my new appearance. In fact, I wasn’t even sure how I would explain it to her even if I wanted to do so. “I’m going to go check out the entrance tunnel. Please don’t bring any more food to my room. I should be fine without it,” I told her.

“Uh, okay,” she said, once again confused.

I could easily guess what she was thinking. The amount of food that had disappeared into my stomach was enough to have fed dozens of other kobold wyrmlings. Not only had I grown up overnight, but I also had suddenly stopped wanting food. I was tempted to change into a dragon in front of her just to see if that would tip her over the edge. However, being a benevolent future despot, I pitied her and chose not to do so.

Waving goodbye, I walked toward the side entrance tunnel. While I could have flown, now that I had grown bigger, the tunnels seemed much narrower. Either way, it didn’t matter since it would take me about the same amount of time. Once I reached the tunnels, I looked to see how much progress the invaders had made while I was studying the spellbooks. Of course, the other kobolds were studying me. They were obviously as confused as the old maid.

I ignored them though. After seeing the progress the invaders had made in the last week, it appeared that I could also ignore the presence of the soldiers for another week. They actually hadn’t made much progress, which I had already expected. Wanting to find out more information, I decided to use the Invisibility spell once again to see if I could find out anything else.

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After flying around the enemy encampment, I noticed one change. There was now an extra tent where the young noble children had been talking earlier. Apparently, the sun must have been too harsh for them to gossip under the last time. I wasn’t even surprised when I discovered all three boys sitting in chairs under the tent. Actually, it wasn’t even a real tent since it didn’t have any sides. It was more of a canopy instead.

Getting closer, I listened to what they were saying. Each minute I sat there listening to them, I could feel my IQ dropping. Was my mind that vacuous when I was their age? It seemed like all they wanted to do was to have someone listen to them talk. The problem was that they didn’t have anything important to say. When they did make statements about things, they were wrong half the time.

For example, the best way to eat an egg was not to eat it raw. People could contract salmonellosis if that way. While it wasn’t guaranteed, there was still a chance. Even if that wasn’t true, that was like arguing that the best color was blue, when in fact it was black. Just because he thought the sky and ocean were a beautiful blue didn’t make it the best color, even if it did match his shirt. I was tempted to drop the Invisibility spell and thump some sense into the boys.

Realizing I wasn’t likely to get any useful information out of the boys, I started reading one of the guard’s minds. “I don’t know if I can survive one more day listening to these simple-minded fops,” the guard I had chosen thought.

I almost started cheering. Not only did he share my opinion, but he even called them fops. I would have expected him to use dandy or effeminate to describe the boys since they spent an inordinate amount of time discussing different styles of clothing. Yes, I might have worn the Michael Jackson parachute pants, but I at least didn’t discuss it with everyone else around me. Hoping that he would further castigate the popinjays. I wasn’t disappointed.

“If they spent a tenth of the amount of time waving a sword around as they do flapping their mouths, they could be formidable warriors. Instead, I have to spend my time bodyguarding these morons. By the gods, I can’t wait until the baron returns. Lord Gamall has no idea what he is doing.

“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised since he was the baronet’s yes man and did whatever he was told. If he had any sense at all, he would have talked the baronet out of this expedition. I can’t believe I’ll have to listen to his orders for at least another month, maybe more.

“At this point, I guess it doesn’t really matter though. He can try explaining why he was invading a kobold village when the baron asks why his treasury room was looted. I bet it was that fat merchant Knarrar. He was the one that talked the baronet into attacking the kobolds. Now he’s disappeared. Yep, nothing suspicious there.

“Lord Gamall is probably only staying here because he hopes to salvage something out of this bungled attack. If he can obtain that mineral or avenge Baronet Daufi’s death, he might be able to survive. He has to do something to redirect Baron Réttr’s wrath. While the baron might have been disappointed with his younger brother, they were related by blood. If others found out he didn’t do something about his brother’s death, he would become a laughingstock.

“Oh gods, are we back to talking about your leather boots again? Yes, they are expensive. Yes, they do look good. However, they are too thin. They offer almost no protection. Of course, you don’t care about that. You didn’t even bother to tell the others about the blisters they give you. Yeah, guards talk, especially about idiots.

“Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to nudge these imbeciles into showing off their bravery by charging down the tunnel to avenge the death of the baronet. I know that Hermathr was joking when he made the suggestion, but the consequences couldn’t be much worse than having to listen to these boys every day for the next month or two. I might even “accidently” help the kobolds. Afterall, anything can happen during the chaos of a battlefield.”

“Dang,” I thought. These guys seemed to hate the noble boys more than I did. I guess that was one more reason why kobolds were better than humans. Kobolds would never betray another member of their tribe.

Considering the fact that the invaders had been trying to invade the kobold city for less than ten days, I wondered how the guards would feel about the boys after dealing with them for another month. Then again, they might have been dealing with them for years. While I know the guard was half-joking, the fact that the guards were fantasizing about murdering the noble kids was enough to tell me the general attitude most people probably had about the nobles.

I continued to sit there invisibly listening to the guard’s thoughts for several more minutes before growing bored. While I had dreamed about being able to read other people’s thoughts and had even worried about other people reading my thoughts, actually being able to do so didn’t turn out to be as wonderful as I had expected. Then again, I had mostly wanted to use the ability to read the thoughts of women to figure out why they avoided me like brain cells avoided gnomes.

Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration. It wasn’t that they avoided me. Instead, it was the fact that I was too scared to ask them out. I had no clue what I was doing. Somehow though, I still managed to get engaged three times and married twice. So, I guess I did a good enough job after all. Then again, I really couldn’t use that as an indication of success. However, it did show that I wasn’t hopeless.

Speaking of spouses, now that I was in a new world, was I going to have kids of my own? Would they be born as kobolds or dragons? Would it depend on whether I got together with a kobold or a dragon? Speaking of kobolds, while I might be one, I really didn’t like their way of parenting. Parents would spend a night together and the mother would lay an egg. Three months later an egg would hatch. Then the wyrmling would be raised communally by the tribe.

As for how dragons raised their young, I had heard different stories. Some dragons were protective and raised the kids together. Other dragons abandoned their kids to promote survival of the fittest. That sort of limited my choices if I wanted to raise my kids the way I thought they should be raised. Then again, did I even want to have kids? I’d already raised several kids in my last life. Growing bored with the noble boys and their guards, I flew away while I thought about if I wanted to have kids or not.