V1C2 Part1

Translated by 64990022

Chapter 2

Part 1

The girl woke up to the touch of a blanket on her fingertips. She was on a cot in a Norveland military hospital.

Her vision was hazy, she was barely conscious. She couldn’t move, not an ounce of strength in her muscles.

It was a nurse that happened to notice her half-opened eyes. The nurse scurried away with the news of the girl’s recovery.

The nurse returned with three doctors in white coats. They began a series of prodding and then shone light on her. It was fifteen minutes later when they hung back, seemingly satisfied.

It was about an hour since she awoke when her consciousness returned. Her body was still immobile, but she could now see the patterns of the cream-colored ceiling.

A man dressed in a military uniform entered the room. He had black hair, pronounced cheekbones, and eyes that fixed into a permanent scowl. The Great Balmung Medal gleaming on his chest spoke of his reputation as a dragonslayer. The rank insignia on his collar was that of a brigadier general, although the girl wouldn’t understand what it meant until later.

He studied her with his dark and bleak eyes, the one characteristic to those who had seen cruelty. His irises were black too. The deep crease between his eyebrows also indicated that the life he had led had not been a smooth one.

He said to the girl.

“Long time no see, it seems,” he said in human language.

She understood nonetheless. Every language has True Voice as their roots. To understand the True Voice meant understanding every language of the past and future. What the man had said was in High Lingo of Norveland, in which the girl decrypted the meaning without difficulty.

Alas, understanding and being able to communicate were separate matters.

Her body moved.

The body, which had refused every of her earlier commands, took action before her consciousness could comprehend. She sprung from the cot with unbelievable speed, the frowning man well within her sight.

–This was the man who killed the dragon.

She pulled back her right hand–the bandage wrapped hand, and imagined herself crushing the man’s unprotected features. She delivered the strike, unbelievably swift and forceful blow from a wounded girl. The attack was faster than human perceptible speed.

The man parried it with one hand.

With snake-like motion, he entwined their arms and used the girl’s own momentum to throw her on the floor.

With that, the girl was immobilized for good.

In a raw contest of strength, she could have easily won. She had bathed in the dragon’s blood and fed on the fruits of Eden, Her body was perfect, internally and externally. The man, on the other hand, was gaunt and sickly-looking.

Despite the odds, she was no match for the man.

“Woman, don’t ignore my words,” he scolded. There was a pressure in his voice that demanded obedience. “If I greet you, then greet back. Have your parents not taught you? Oh, I did not…”

The girl listened to him. That was all she could do at that moment.

“Then, let me introduce myself… or you might know me already.”

She had barely spent any time in the human world, she wondered how she could know him.

“My name is Sigibert Seigfried, head of House Seigfried, a dragonslayer.”

That was when a handful of memories clicked.

For example, the imposing portrait decorating the mansion hallways. The head of the family, whom she, as one of many children, had never met.

Father.

Sigibert Seigfried…

“Your look. I gathered that you have some recollection… hmm, Brunhild.”

Brunhild.

That was… her name until she was three. She was the daughter of a dragon, bathed in dragon’s blood, and also a descendant of the dragonslayer bloodline.

“I am not Brunhild. I have no name,” she corrected defiantly.

She remembered the dragon’s voice, [I will call you, ‘you’]. From that moment, she had given up “Brunhild” and became that “you.”

“I will pretend I did not hear that,” Sigibert continued, trampling on her sweet memories. “I do not know you. I never knew I had a daughter named Brunhild until the silver dragon’s island operation.”

“I don’t know what Seigfried is either.”

Sigibert silently rolled up his left sleeve. There was a tattoo on his left wrist.

“I saw the same crest on your wrist; you are of Seigfried blood. I have made inquiries… you are my daughter who was kidnapped thirteen years ago.”

She found the false unknowingness harder to play.

“Then what?” She demanded. “You expect me to be your heir?”

“Precisely.”

He didn’t sound like he was joking.

“Your worries are unneeded; I have no love for you, despite our blood. The point was, if I don’t appoint an heir soon, people are going to start asking around.” He said as if the words were poison. “I knew about you. Bathed in the dragon’s blood… raised by it, playing family with the creature,” Sigibert spat.

Brunhild tested her muscles, but it was no use, Sigibert had planted his foot on her back firmly.

So she twisted her neck at him and growled, “I am not playing.”

Sigibert looked down on her with a convoluted expression. “That guy, Sachs, said we could reach an understanding with proper negotiation, but… no good. Thirteen years apart. Or does it have something to do with our hair color?” He was anything but intimidated of her.

“Why! What have you done to me!” she demanded.

“Hm?” He watched her squirm for a moment before realization drew on him. “Oh, I will tell you. You will never beat me. You have no choice but… submission.”

He began to deliberately undo the bandage on her right arm. A shiver ran down her spine.

Fragments of her last memories on the island returned to her.

She had tried to shield the dragon. Her right half was blown off in the process.

Then why did she still have her right arm?

“Dragons are similar to lizards, after all,” he remarked, chuckling to himself.

The dragon’s blood increases the healing factor. However, growing a lost limb was far from possible.

“The reason you cannot is that I am a dragonslayer.”

The bandage fell.

“And you are a dragon.”

Her right arm was covered in shining white scales.

“ Ahhhhhh!”

No, the dragon’s arm was attached to the shredded remains of her right shoulder.

“Good for you, now you can finally be together forever.”

“No! No, no, no! I! No!”

“What are you saying… did you not have a great time savoring its blood?”

At that time, when I drank his blood. I won’t let him have it, the dragon is mine, was what she thought. So she drank and drank and drank.

The right arm was the result.

“You are a vile woman.”

Red haze filled her vision.

“Kill! I will kill you!! You snake!!”

“I share your sentiment. It itches me to not kill you. A stranger from Eden is a monster in my eyes, not a daughter. Alas…”

Sigibert could not kill Brunhild. Political pressure. The military and research institutions all demanded her, the first creature of Eden that had been secured from the burning. The process of taking her into military custody and caretaking was already underway.

“If only you hadn’t killed the dragon! I wouldn’t have had to live with such disgrace!” she snarled.

He sneered, “Laudable passion…”

She screamed, from the bottom of her lungs.

A doctor came rushing, probably from the scream.

During her short pause for breath, she heard, “Sedate her.” Then a sharp pain of a needle in her left arm. Her consciousness quickly faded away after that.

Sigibert turned his back to her and stepped.

“Re… member this… I’ll kill…you. Wherever you run…avenge, with my father’s own… hands.”

He gave her a sidelong glance.

“It is up to you if you want to kill me or not, but I doubt your ‘father’ would want that.”

Even with muddled consciousness, his words were clear to her.

–Don’t you dare patronize me.

She opened her mouth.

Nothing.

The sedate was already at full effect.

Brunhild listened as his footfalls disappeared into the distance.

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