Chapter 5

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Chapter 5: This is a fluffy beast and a half dragon

Translator: yuzu

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The frigid night wind blows on your cheeks, and a slight sharp tinge of cold pulls you out of your trance.

You find that you are standing on an empty street, holding one umbrella in your hand and another against your chest. The dark cloudy sky showers with raindrops, and the once bustling streets are nearly empty because of the rain, leaving only a few passerbys panicking for shelter.

Ah, you suddenly remember.

You are going to the East Gate of the city to give your sister an umbrella so she doesn’t have to come home in the rain. Even though she frequently disregards her own health, if she gets sick, it would be problematic in this world with backwards medical technology. Commoners like yourself don’t have the money to go to the healer for treatment, so most people can only scrape by relying on their own bodies and cheap recovery herbs from the market.

With such a careless older sister, you are forced to become the adult worrying over her.

You sigh hopelessly as you walk on the rain-soaked streets. When you pass by a dark and narrow alleyway, you suddenly notice that there is a small figure right at the entrance.

It seems to be a small child.

You pause a little. After hesitating, you approach him slowly.

When you get closer, you realize that he appears to be a young boy no older than eleven or twelve years old. His arms are cradled around himself, and his head is buried motionlessly in his knees. The clothes on his body have long since been soaked through by the freezing rain, and his pretty blond hair is also wet. He seems to exude a lifeless gloomy aura, liked an abandoned, homeless puppy.

You can tell roughly from the boy’s clothes that his family situation must be quite affluent. He appears quite neat, so rather than an abandoned street orphan, he seems to be more like a rich young master who snuck out of his family’s mansion to play.

“Big brother…” You consider what tone to use, and then try to persuade him as gently as possible: “You’ll get sick like this, so go home earlier.”

Hearing your voice, the boy pauses and then slowly raises his head, revealing a white face that is so beautiful that you can hardly tell if he’s actually a boy or girl.

You can’t help but be stunned.

But it is not the boy’s overly beautiful face that stuns you. Rather, the main reason is because of those dead, numb eyes that hardly look like they belong to a child.

He looks like the empty soulless husk, without the slightest trace of vitality or light.

Just like a delicate puppet.

You notice that the boy has a faint bruise that resembles a strangle mark on his neck.

Even to a child…

Looking at the boy’s dull and blank appearance, you can’t help but frown and tilt your umbrella towards him, covering the top of his head.

The young boy’s golden eyelashes tremble. He slowly looks up at you, and his dim and out-of-focus blue pupils show your reflection.

You can’t bear to see this, but you are also a child with no way to help. Furthermore, you have to go pick up your sister now.

“Big brother, I’m sorry. I need to go.”

You purse your lips apologetically, and then tuck the handle of your umbrella into his hand.

“This umbrella is for you.”

You turn around planning to leave, but someone grabs your hand.

You lower your head in surprise, and you discover that that the motionless boy is now watching you with those beautiful jewel-like eyes. He grabs your hand, and his pale lips move slightly.

You don’t quite hear what he says, so you bend down and get closer. “Big brother, you were saying…?”

Before you finish speaking, the boy reaches out with his arms and hugs you.

You feel like you’ve been caught by a freezing corpse, and shudder in the cold.

“So warm…”

The boy murmurs, and a vague, low-pitched sigh lingers by your ears.

“…Big brother?” You cry out hesitantly in alarm.

He doesn’t speak, and simply holds you motionlessly, as if treating you as a small humanoid heater.

You can’t remember what happened later. You only vaguely remember that you fell ill after that day and scared your sister very much. It took half a month before you recovered, although your careless sister also received a stark lesson from this incident, and would never again treat her own health so carelessly in the future.

You wake up hazily from your sleep and stare blankly at the ceiling.

When your consciousness completely returns, you later realize that you dreamt about some things from when you were a child. However, the memory was very distant. If it weren’t for this strange dream, you probably would have forgotten about it entirely by now.

That boy you had briefly met, what is he like now?

You can’t help but wonder about it, but then you feel depressed. Perhaps in the eyes of most people, they think of you as a kind-hearted girl, but actually your kindness is often very limited.

For instance, if you find an injured dog on the side of the road, maybe you will heal it and look for someone to adopt it. However, you wouldn’t bring it home or take care of it yourself.

This is because you know that you don’t have the energy or patience to spend on this.

It was the same with the boy that you met on that rainy day. You felt sorry that he had been abused by others, but you didn’t have the strength to help him. All you could do was give him a disposable umbrella.

After that, the two of you would just be completely unrelated strangers.

Perhaps you only gave him the umbrella simply to satisfy your weak feeling of guilt.

Rubbing your groggy forehead, you feel like your throat is a bit parched, so you get out of bed and light an oil lamp. You walk over to the table, pour a glass of water, and sip the cup in your hand.

Looking out of the window, you see the night shrouded in darkness, so you know that there is quite some time before dawn.

It’s strange. By this hour, your sister should have come home a while ago.

A few days ago, your sister told you that the guild leader accepted a supply caravan escort mission. Originally, you wanted to go with them, but your sister asked you to rest at home. The destination wasn’t that far, and the main roads are relatively safe, so you felt that it was okay to wait at home for their return.

Yesterday, you eventually managed to convince that overly enthusiastic scary person to leave. You felt physically and mentally tired, so you wanted to rest for a while. As soon as your head hit the pillow, you had slept until now, and in fact overslept.

According to their schedule, their escort party should have returned to the city yesterday evening, but there hadn’t been any news at all. Suddenly, your heart tightens in a tinge of pain.

While you are restless and worried with your aimless fretting, a small black shadow flies in from a gap in the window.

You startled, but when you take a closer look, the shadow appears to be a small furry bat.

“Miss May, good evening.” A low and elegant voice with an immaculate command of the continent’s language1 comes from the bat’s mouth.

You speak up hesitantly, “Are you… Mr. Aleucus?”

Some races in this world can use familiars or other similar magical creatures, so you are not particularly surprised to see this little bat speaking.

“Yes, sorry.” The demon confirms your guess. He hesitates for a moment, as if wary of something, and then continues: “I think this matter might be related to you, so I decided it would be better to let you know after thinking about it for a bit.”

“Yesterday I received a message regarding a caravan collaborating with our shop. They were attacked by a Medusa on the road yesterday, and some of the adventurers that were hired to protect them were badly injured.”

…

Your face ashen and your long hair a mess, you stagger and run to the city gate like a ghost.

Since you are running too fast, you don’t notice the uneven cobblestone road, and you trip on some of the bumpy stones. Stumbling, you fall head first.

A sharp dull pain quickly spreads from your scratched elbows, knees, and toes all over your body.

You try to stand up again, but then collapse.

You clench your teeth, trying to contain the despair and sobs welling in the depths of your throat.

Because you know that crying won’t solve anything.

The only person you can rely on is yourself.

“What are you doing here?”

A calm yet somewhat startled male voice comes from above your head.

You lift your head vacantly from the ground. In the man’s eyes, he sees a battered and panicked black-haired girl with red and swollen eyes.

“Please!” You grab the corner of his clothes and plead, as if you’ve found the life-saving straw: “Please take me to the forest outside of the city! I will pay you however much money you want.”

At this hour, the stables haven’t yet opened, so it is impossible to rent a carriage or other means of transportation. You are not a wind or space mage, so you have no way to reach your destination as fast as you want.

But a canine half-beast, running at full speed, is as fast as a griffon flying in the sky.

The man frowns and looks at you for a while. Then without asking, he bends down and puts you on his back.

“Hold on tight.” He says with a deep voice.

You blink your sore eyes, quickly wrap your hands around his neck, and press your body tightly against his back.

The half-beast stiffens awkwardly, as if feeling something weird touching him.

“Mr. Dubin?” You whisper obliviously, your voice full of urgency and anxiety.

He recovers quickly and starts running in the direction that you point.

The strength and physique of this half-beast is incredible and powerful. When he jumps up from the ground, he can even leap over the towering city gate. The blurry picture of the surrounding scenery flashes by as he runs with all his strength, giving you the illusion that you are riding a four-legged werewolf.

The strong muscles on the back and shoulders of this canine half-beast are hard like rocks. Your arms and chest hurt, but you have to hug his neck tightly and you bury your face in the side of his neck to keep yourself from being thrown off.

Although this is an extremely uncomfortable experience for you, this is basically torture for the the male half-beast who is sprinting through the jungle with you on his back.

Canines have a notoriously sharp sense of smell and hearing. This meant that he had to endure the sound of your faint, shallow, and moist gasps right on his sensitive neck, as well as the soft rubbing of your warm body against his back. Your slender and smooth arms are wrapped tightly around his throat, tormenting him to death.

From an angle that you can’t see, the half-beast is hardly able to restrain his natural instincts as he bares his sharp canine teeth, and his rugged face contorts with ferocious excitement.

“Mr… Dubin.” As you hear the half-beast’s gasping and faint groaning, you speak up with difficulty: “If you can’t keep going, please put me down, I’ll keep going…”

“Stupid.” The canine half-beast coldly mocks your naivety. His dull voice carries a trace of hoarseness, as if he is forcing himself to say something difficult. “Do you want to be eaten by wild beasts?”

Perhaps he is the dangerous beast that wants to skin, tear, and eat her up the most.

The canine half-beast mocks himself with a terse expression.

You don’t really understand why that guy is suddenly angry. You open your lips apologetically, “Sorry…”

“Is that the only thing you ever say?” The canine half-beast tries to bait you into talking more with that soft adorable animal voice, in order to distract himself from the filthy thoughts that are tumbling and broiling in his heart.

You purse your lips slightly in displeasure. However, you still need his help right now, so do not respond to his provocation. You stop talking and say nothing.

You vaguely hear the guy curse under his breath, almost in annoyance.

Fortunately, this awkward atmosphere does not last long, because you soon see your objective.

It is a caravan of people that look extremely miserable. There isn’t a single intact carriage, and the wooden frames of the wagons are covered with claw marks and bites of wild animals. The wheels are soaked in dark red bloodstains. The wounded support each other in twos and threes, and the expressions on everyone’s faces are disturbingly numb and lifeless.

You see a young woman in a riding outfit at the front of the caravan. She looks to be exhausted yet unharmed, and tears of joy suddenly well from your eyes.

“Sister—” You shout, and then run flying to her.

“…May?” Your sister Shalena widens her eyes in amazement at your sudden appearance. “Why are you…”

You jump into her arms and hug her, then burst into tears without a single care for your image.

Shalena is also a little at a loss, but she suddenly laughs when she sees you crying like a baby. “I really miss this. It’s been so many years since I’ve last seen you cry like this.”

“Hey, don’t cry.” The young woman pats your skinny shoulders tenderly, using the hand that she uses to hold a sword all year round. She says with a soothing voice, “Aren’t I perfectly safe?”

At this moment, your heart fluctuates wildly to a sense of joy after swinging from the terrible fear of losing someone so important to you. You can’t imagine what you would do if your only relative in this world left you forever, leaving you alone in this world.

You lift your tearful, red, and swollen eyes, and look nervously at your sister’s injuries. “Sister, you…”

Before you finish speaking, you are surrounded by people from the rest of the caravan.

“Miss May, please save my brother!”

“My arm is about to break, I don’t want to become a cripple!”

“My injuries are the most severe! Don’t get in the way!

Light magic is the only one out of the seven great elements with a healing ability. However, light mages are extremely rare, and a majority of them are junior apprentices, not even full-fledged light mages.

However, even apprentice light mages are very popular. After all, a majority of light mages are divided between the Imperial Court and the Holy Church. The remaining ones are almost never willing to join a group of adventurers wrestling around in the mud with such meager rewards, especially when the occupational risks and hazards are so high. They only needed to stay in a safe place to heal people’s illnesses and other small injuries to get a lot of money. Why should they become an adventurer?

Therefore, adventurer guilds with light mages are extremely popular. After all, if you are injured, people usually need to go to the clinic to find a priest for treatment. The cost is prohibitive for most people, and many injured adventurers who don’t have a lot of money would rather bet on their natural healing power instead of going to the clinic.

It is no exaggeration to say that you, a light mage, were probably one of the main reasons why your guild was able to gather a large number of strong veteran adventurers.

Seeing that Shalena is still alive, you finally feel relieved enough to start treating the wounded.

There are too many injured people. Even though your magic is at an upper-middle level compared to mages of the same rank, after healing most of them, you are nearly completely drained of mana.

You wipe the sweat from your forehead, sigh lightly, and then look around. You don’t see a certain figure, so you ask Shalena worriedly, “Sister, where’s Larut?”

As you speak, a moment of dead silence falls all around you.

“If it weren’t for that halfblood, we wouldn’t have been attacked by the Medusa!”

Some people spat bitterly.

“That halfblood is a disaster. We should kick him out of the guild!”

“Right, we need to chase him out, otherwise he’ll kill us all sooner or later!”

The rest of them become riled up.

A Medusa isn’t a person’s name, but rather a species of snake-tailed lamias2 with a human torso. They excel at deceit and seduction, and they are dark monsters of calamity and despair.

Strangely, there are only males and no females in their species, but they are all very beautiful and gorgeous. Their eyes have strange magical powers which are capable of hypnotizing any creature that sees them. Only the strong-willed are immune to deceit. The living creatures that they seduce gradually lose their minds and become puppets. Even if their flesh and limbs are torn apart, their victims won’t react.

Once such a terrifying monster is encountered, the chances of survival are very slim, regardless if you are an adventurer or soldier. Medusas are extremely depraved by nature. If they encounter any prey they like, they will toy with it for a while and then inevitably kill and eat it. Women who fall into the hands of Medusa are particularly miserable. While wantonly enjoying their beautiful bodies, Medusa will treat the females they like as breeders, and use her to lay eggs to nurture the next generation of young Medusa.

No one knows why, but Medusa are especially fond of half-breeds that are a mixture of humans and other races. When adventurers and soldiers are attacked by Medusa, it is usually because there are halfblood members on their team. As a result, during the recruiting process, mixed race individuals are usually shut out.

Larut is a hybrid of a flame dragon and a human. When he was born, he couldn’t control the destructive nature of his dragon blood. His human mother couldn’t bear the excruciating pain of childbirth, and she actually cut open her own stomach and dug him out. His mother ended up dying of blood loss.

The people in his village thought he was a child of misfortune, so they sold him to a passing slave trader.

The slave trader sold him several times, but he was always returned because Larut would go crazy and injure the buyer. Since the slave trader didn’t make a profit and in fact sustained a loss, he angrily tied Larut up on a wooden stake and left him under the scorching sun. He would lash him with a whip soaked in toxic poisons every day as a warning to other slaves who wanted to escape or disobey.

When your group of mercenaries coincidentally passed by one day, you saw the dying young half-dragon covered in cuts and bruises. Moved with compassion, you brought him from the slave trader for a bit of gold.

After his injury healed, you let him choose whether he wanted to stay or leave.

The half-dragon stared at you with his doubtful and icy golden eyes for a long time, and then asked what your motives were in a hoarse voice.

In his world, there was no such thing as kindness or charity without asking for something in return.

He thought that you saved him in order to use him to obtain something more valuable.

You didn’t know how to explain yourself to him, so you left him alone.

But the half-dragon thought that this must have been a greedy and twisted trick of yours, and he followed you closely after you left, hoping to see what you would do.

Inexplicably, some time later he followed you and became a member of your guild.

You had never chained him, and you had never asked him to do anything.

Maybe one day he would lose interest in you, and then he would leave by himself.

Or so you thought naively.

But whenever you looked back, you would always see his silent figure hidden in the shadows, always watching you with those unusual golden dragon eyes. They never looked away from you, and fixated on you in almost obsessive paranoia.

“Enough, shut up!”

Shalena’s voice was cold, and she rebuked everyone with a deep voice: “If it weren’t for Larut desperately saving us, all of us would have died from the Medusa. I’m not asking you to like him, but at least give him the respect he deserves. As for all of you who want to kick him out vengefully, I’ll be the first to disagree!”

After Shalena’s words resounded, the resentful crowd slowly quieted down. Although there were some people filled with dissatisfaction on their faces, they didn’t not speak up or incite a riot.

You breathe a sigh of relief and cast a grateful look at your sister.

Then you stand up and start searching for Larut nearby.

As Shalena sees this, she points in a direction.

You nod and walk in the direction she indicated. A short while later, you see a tall figure standing in a pool with his back to you.

His limbs are covered in bright red dragon scales, and his flaming red hair is hot like flowing magma. The muscles stretched out on his back are well-proportioned and smooth, eliciting a sexual tension that emphasizes the area below his waist.

Just below his hips, there appears to be a long and thick nonhuman tail that reflects in the clear pool water. It is densely arrayed with scales, similar to a lizard, and it hangs quietly.

As if sensing your arrival, the red-haired man standing in the water slowly turns around. His handsome and human face reveals a dark deep gloomy look of hostility. A flame-shaped demonic mark extends from the corner of his eyes, and his chilling golden reptilian eyes stare straight at you.

It gives you the shuddering feeling of prey being watched by a snake.

Author’s notes:

This little dragon is actually super cute, and you can rub him around.

Translator’s notes:

A perfect voice well-suited to be a TV announcer. His pronunciation is precise, technically correct, and lacks any kind of accent. In the raw, it is described as a “model accent for the continent’s common language”.Lamia: This isn’t in the raw, but it is an apt description of what they are describing.

I translated this chapter fairly quickly, so it’s loose and might have some errors.

This chapter is also a first taste of this novel’s dark content warnings. If the things that you read here bothered you, this novel may not be a good fit for you… a lot of the characters have really twisted backstories, and the Medusa play a substantial role later in the story.

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