The glossy black scales reflected the evening light. The giant wings created a wind so strong it made roadside signs tremble. That shadow had passed by too quickly, but the unique aura emanating from its body was unmistakable.
That really was a dragon.
A black dragon?
Kei narrowed his eyes slightly.
Even in the old world, he had never encountered a fully grown black dragon. Dragons were already so rare that most mages could only see them through ancient records or preserved body parts held in research institutes.
But actually, Kei had once been fortunate enough to meet a baby dragon.
That happened a very long time ago, when he was still traveling with the hero Daniel’s party.
After the battle against the Demon King’s army, their formation was split apart. Successive waves of magic shattered the forest, sweeping Kei away from his companions and dropping him into a completely unfamiliar land.
At the time, Kei wandered inside the Mist Forest for days.
The forest was perpetually shrouded in thick fog year-round. Sunlight struggled to penetrate the canopy of ancient trees, and the roars of magical beasts frequently echoed from deep within the woods.
Kei didn’t know where he was. He only knew he had to keep moving forward, searching for a safe place to rest.
One afternoon, heavy rain poured down. Kei was looking for shelter when he noticed a strange trace on the ground. The surrounding trees had been bent over in one direction, and large boulders bore deep gouges as if clawed.
He immediately recognized the traces of a dragon from the enormous claw marks.
Dragons were creatures beloved by the elements.
They could survive in lands where humans could never set foot, wielding the power of the elements as naturally as breathing. To mages, dragons were not just powerful creatures but beings nearly divine.
Any mage had at some point been curious enough to want to see a dragon with their own eyes.
Kei was no exception.
He followed the traces and eventually found a massive cave hidden behind a waterfall. The entrance had collapsed more than halfway, green moss covering the rocks. Inside, there was no trace of warmth left, only the smell of dampness and a lingering ancient aura.
A dragon’s nest that had withered away long ago.
Large bones lay scattered inside, and a few old scales were buried beneath the dirt. Based on their condition, Kei guessed the dragons here had left many years earlier.
Perhaps they had found a new land, or perhaps something had happened that caused the entire brood to vanish.
Kei didn’t know.
At that moment, he just wanted a place to escape the rain.
He went deeper into the cave, where the stone walls had been eroded by magical energy into strange, twisted patterns. At the far end of the cave was an old chamber, its stone door cracked into several pieces.
Kei stepped inside, and then he saw it.
A large egg abandoned in the corner of the room.
The egg was nearly as tall as a human body, its shell covered in dust and small cracks. It wasn’t in a nest, nor was it protected by any magical barrier. Around it lay only a few dried, hardened black scales, like remnants of something that had died long ago.
Kei approached and slowly placed his hand on the surface of the egg.
At that very moment, a faint flow of magical energy passed through his palm. Life still remained inside the egg, even if it was just a very weak pulse. So frail that one more gust of cold wind,The creature inside might never wake up again.
Kei was silent for a long time.
If this were before, when he was still a wandering mage, he would definitely have reported this to the dragon researchers in the magic tower. Discovering an abandoned dragon egg could become the greatest achievement of a mage’s life.
But at that moment, Kei only saw a life left behind all alone, too lonely and fragile to endure any more harm, and he could not bring himself to ignore it.
"Don’t worry."
Kei sat down beside the egg, set up a warming barrier, and slowly channeled bits of magical power into it.
"I’ll take you out of this place, and when that time comes, become a friend of mine, little dragon?"
The rain outside lasted all night, and Kei sat by the dragon egg, unaware that this decision would completely change his life.
"Kei? Why are you spacing out?"
Sora’s voice pulled him back to the present.
He blinked, realizing he was still standing in the middle of a street in Dong-San City. The taxi had stopped in front of them at some point, and the driver was lowering the window, looking at the two of them with an impatient expression.
Sora tilted her head and observed Kei.
"Are you remembering something again? Don’t keep being so gloomy and sad!"
"It’s nothing."
Kei bent down and picked up the box of books.
He did not tell Sora about the black dragon that had just flown across the city. Nor did he tell her about the dragon egg from back then.
Because he had just thought of something.
A fully grown black dragon could not appear here out of nowhere; perhaps this world held more secrets than Kei had imagined, and who knew if the races from Kei’s old world might also exist in this one?
Sora opened the car door, then turned her head to look at him.
"Kei, let’s get in the car. The box of books is heavy, right?"
"Yeah."
Kei placed the box of books in the trunk and then sat in the back seat.
As the taxi began to move, he looked out the window, toward the sky where the black dragon had vanished.
A vague sense of unease rose in his heart.
At the same time, in the deepest part of his memories, Kei also heard the sound of an eggshell cracking.
Crack.
Crack.
Crack.
A pair of golden-yellow eyes slowly opened in the darkness, the most beautiful vertical pupils Kei had ever seen in his life, impossible to forget.