It hurts!

My chest, hurts!

I take a look at my Status. My HP is still regenerating and I don't remember getting any abnormal status. Then what is this burning feeling coming from inside me? I rapidly hits my chest with my fists. My hands are cuffed but they are still able to hit my own chest. Though it doesn't help at all, my hearts feel like they are going to explode at any moment.

The knights walking around the moving levitating cage don't seem to notice what I do. Actually they did steal a glance at me when I ended their fellow knight, they eyes were filled with jealousy. It gave me chill and almost made me puke but I restrained because I didn't want to make that knight's sacrifice become worse...

Huh? Why do I care for him now? I thought I could slaughter human like squishing bugs without a batting an eye... His eyes.. I suddenly recall his eyes in his last moment... It wasn't something that would make me chill or give me nausea. I feel good for allowing him to rest in peace...

"Rest. In. Peace." My fists open to cup my hearts. The burning feeling is gone. And I also understand what happened. I'm not kind or gentle, I will make people suffer if they even think of harming me. However, I'm not a heartless monster neither. In fact, I have two hearts. My code would be: Kindness has to be repaid with kindness.

In the rock-headed knight's case, what he did were all unintentional mistakes. He paid the highest price just for some clumsy mistakes. Furthermore, he happily sacrificed himself for me...

My disrespectful attitude toward the sacrifice hurts my own Conscience...

When creating this dragonic body, I thought two hearts would be cool, but I didn't expect such a "Conscience" as a price. Did those deities give me that Conscience?

"I should be more careful about it in the future." I think then try to search my own feeling for what I should or shouldn't do, imaging how I would react in different scenario. It seems I'm okay with slaughtering all of these knights because I see them no different than bugs...

"You are like a hatchling." The high priest's voice break my train of thoughts. Looking down, I see him climbing onto the cage's floor again. "Weak. Inexperienced. Confused."

"I didn't hatch from an egg." I look away from him as I answer.

"I'm not so sure about that." He says then laughs like an old man he is... Aren't I older than him? His voice is gentle and...

"Why does your voice sound familiar?" I'm sure the first time I saw him was when I woke up from meeting with the deity who governs life. However at that time his voice sounds really familiar.

"It wasn't the first time you heard my voice." He reads my mind, again. "Every day when you were asleep, I'd come to you and cast all sort of protection spells."

So that's why... Does that count as kindness? I ask my conscience. The answer I get is no. The high priest only does that because it's his duty to protect me. So complicated. The high priest simply laughs at my thought. It's unfair for him to read my mind but I can't know what he is thinking. I look down again and stare at him who is sitting on his chair.

"I would teach you how to ward off your mind. It's dangerous to leave your mind vulnerable like that. You can be mind-controlled or mind-damaged."

"Then why didn't you control my mind to capture me?"

The high priest's face suddenly distorted. The "gentle old man" face suddenly becomes scary. Why am I scared of a tiny human? Right, because he's Lv 60...

"How dare you say something like that? It's blasphemy to control the Dragon of Origin!"

Ah, how irony. I think I understand how those fanatic who follows Origin thinks now. They somewhat worship the "Dragon of Origin" but not "me"... Ah, it's even more confusing. Nope, scrap what I thought a second ago, I don't understand how they think at all.

"It's just common sense to us. You only experience this world for 4 days... Actually it's just 3 days, you were unconscious for an entire day." His face returns to normal as he speaks. Hmm, I think I heard something wrong...

"What? You wait a day before you cure my Bleeding? I could have died! Wait, I should have died.. Why didn't I die?" As I remember.. or more correctly, I thought that Bleeding was a lethal status effect. Those deities implemented it wrong?

"This cage can prevent any lethal effect from dealing lethal damage, Poison, Bleeding, Et cetera. While the chain cuffing your hands is healing you."

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

That reminds me, the knight I killed didn't die from Bleeding and still have a few HP left.

"Oh, so that means you can hit me to near death to keep me sleeping forever in your temple?" I say in a mocking voice. However, the high priest's face distorts to that scary face again and it startles me! "I know I know! It's 'blasphemy', right?"

"It's YOUR temple." He corrects me. I want to correct him that it's more like my prison but I don't want to see his scary face again. Still, I try to change the topic.

"So.. have you cast protection spells on me today?" Although I don't like being protected like a fragile baby, that's the first topic that comes to my mind.

"This cage gives you enough protection... Talking with you is so tiring. You should have just stayed asleep." He says then grumbles something.

"But it's only afternoon." I jokingly say while looking toward my left where the sun is setting. However the priest keep grumbling something.. is he chanting a spell?

Suddenly I feel sleepy. It's the same feeling as when I was captured. So this isn't a forbidden thing to do to the "Dragon of Origin"?

My mind drifts through various thought before I fall asleep. Ah... how is that wolf now?

Toward the Southwest, in the forest of Origin...

A brown streak swiftly runs like a wind through the forest, leaving footprints everywhere, sometime even scratches the trees' barks.

However, behind it, two green streaks are no doubt faster than the brown one. They dexterously avoid every tree in this dense forest without leaving any mark on the ground, just like flying.

"I knew hunting in the West would be a problem..." The brown streak, a wolf, think to himself. He is, of course, the servant of the Origin Dragon.

To the west of the Origin forest is an Alliance of non-human kingdoms. Occupy the swampy part of the forest is the kingdom of Reptiles. Although most of the races that inhabit this kingdom are considered Monster to human, like Kobold or Basilisk, some races have established a friendly relation with human's kingdoms; profited or not. For example, the Lizard folks in the north tribe, although they live in tribe-like society, they are quick learner so they easily adapted to human's culture and is accepted to enter even the capital of Northern kingdom. They export lake-products and labors while importing tools and weapons.

The two after the wolf are two anthropomorphic Lizards. These folks usually have blue scale which represents Water element, however these two lizard folks have Nature element thus they are tasked with Ranger-like job of hunting in the forest.

"Brother, are we two deep in foresst?" The one troubled with snake-talking asks. Usually they won't go this deep into the Origin region, however this time...

"He stole my dried fishes that I took all day to catch. If I return empty-handed, the chief would be mad at me." The other has better vocal and probably higher intelligent.

"Brother jusst make that up. Brother can not catch that much fiz.. fissh.. fishess..."

"Just shut up if you can't talk properly. I will bring the chief a whole giant dead wolf and he will let me go to the human's city. I heard they have delicious food..."

As the younger Lizard imagines the paradise of human city that he only heard stories about, the two reach an opening. A grass field around a big tree filled with countless floating light particles. They stop and the older Lizard collapses on all four to sniff at the ground.

"When would you stop doing feral things like that? The human would freak out if you do that in a city."

"Sss... This iss that wolf hole. Where iss he?"

"I think we outrun that beast." The younger Lizard says as he draws his favorite weapons, a small and short dagger made of fang. A growling sound can be heard behind of him. Slowly turning back, he grins at the growling wolf who just got out of the forest.

"Brother.. Chief warn you not usse that too much." The older whines while still on all four.

"Shut up!" The younger raises the dagger and licks its blade, his eyes showing sign of wild. "Only Lv25, I will finish it before you can even get up, Big brother!"