When I woke up, the first thing I felt was intense hunger.
It wasn't something as simple as just being hungry. My stomach felt empty, and I felt like my body was drying up from the inside.
What’s more, my right hind leg was throbbing in time with the beat of my heart.
“…What is this?”
I meant to say it out loud.
However, what leaked from my throat weren't human words.
“Guh…?”
I startled myself with the low, guttural cry.
I lowered my gaze.
The limbs resting on the damp soil and dead leaves weren’t the ones I knew. I had four legs covered in dark reddish-brown scales, with curved claws extending from my toes.
When I turned my head, I saw a long tail extending behind me.
Something was folded against my back.
When I put some force into it, it opened to the left and right.
They were wings.
“Guru…”
Without fully understanding the situation, I dragged my feet towards a nearby puddle.
When I saw the face reflected in the murky water, I couldn’t move for a while.
I had an elongated, reptilian head. Two short horns protruded from my forehead, and even the skin around my yellowish eyes was covered in fine scales.
I was considerably larger than a dog.
Even so, I wasn’t as large as a horse.
And I certainly couldn’t compare to the gigantic, castle-sized dragons of legend.
No matter how I looked at it, I was a young dragon.
The last thing I remembered was Japan.
I was on my way home after finishing work.
A rainy night.
Car lights reflecting on the road.
A deafening horn.
The feeling of my body being thrown into the air.
I don’t remember anything after that.
I must have died.
And for reasons I didn't know, I had become a young dragon in a place that seemed like another world.
As I thought about that, the pain in my right leg brought me back to reality.
A steel trap was biting into my ankle.
A thick rope was tied to a nearby tree.
It seemed to be a trap for catching beasts.
Thanks to the scales, the flesh wasn't gouged deeply, but blood was seeping out from the gaps.
I hooked the claws of my forelegs into the trap’s iron jaws.
I tried pushing it, but it didn’t move.
I changed the angle and put my weight into it.
The iron creaked slightly.
I pushed it apart again, this time using both front legs, and finally there was enough space to pull my hind leg out.
“Gi…”
I pulled my leg free, scraping the wound as I did, then sank belly-first to the ground.
I was out of breath.
I didn't know what kind of creature I had become. But at least I understood now that I was far from invincible.
I had been injured by a single human-made trap, and just removing it was exhausting.
It would all be over if something attacked me before I could secure food and water.
First, I needed to find a safe place.
The moment I thought that, a branch broke on the other side of the bush.
When I moved my nose, I caught an animal smell, different from the wet soil and grass.
Mixed in was the smell of blood.
It was my own blood.
Three shadows appeared between the trees.
They resembled wolves.
However, they weren't the kind of wolf I had seen in Japan. Each had a build that almost reached the waist of a human, and one small black horn protruded from a forehead covered in gray fur.
All three were looking at my injured leg.
It seemed they could tell I was weakened.
I slowly stood up.
I didn't think I could escape.
I tried to spread the wings on my back and flap them strongly, but the dead leaves just flew up and my body didn’t leave the ground.
I couldn't fly.
One of them lowered itself low and then jumped at me.
I reflexively swung my front leg out.
The tips of my claws grazed the wolf's muzzle, and blood flew.
The moment that wolf flinched, another one bit into my shoulder from the side.
"Gyaaaah!"
My scales repelled the fangs, but they couldn't block the impact.
Shaking my head, I shoved the wolf's body away with my front legs.
If I faced all three head-on, I would lose.
The moment I made that decision, my chest felt strangely hot.
The heat rose from the bottom of my stomach to my throat, and I reflexively opened my mouth.
“Gah!”
Flames erupted.
It was only for a moment.
It wasn't the kind of flame that would burn a wolf to death. At best, it was like a big fire suddenly being thrown up in front of them.
But it was effective.
All three of them retreated together.
When I tried to do it again, I felt a burning pain in the back of my throat.
Not something I could use twice in a row.
In that case, there was no need to fight.
I ran down the slope while the wolves were still wary of the flames.
Every time I put my weight on my injured hind leg, a sharp pain shot through it.
Even so, I didn't stop.
The sound of the wolves' footsteps followed from behind.
As I passed through the trees, the ground suddenly ended.
It was a cliff.
Trees spread out below.
Go back, and there were the wolves.
Keep going, and there was the cliff.
I jumped forward without hesitation.
The moment I fell, I spread my wings to their fullest extent.
I couldn't fly.
Still, they seemed to have the power to support my body, and the trajectory that was supposed to drop straight down stretched forward instead.
The wind pushed against my wings.
I fell belly-first into a tree branch and rolled across the ground, breaking many branches.
“Geez…”
It was a terrible landing.
But I was alive.
The wolves were howling on the cliff, but they didn't jump down to chase me.
I lay face down on the grass for a while, waiting for my erratic breathing to calm down.
I didn't know why I had been reincarnated, or where this world was.
However, I'd think about that later.
All I needed now was food, water, and a safe place to sleep.
My stomach was growling loudly.
I moved my nose to pick up the scents around me.
It seemed this body had a pretty good sense of smell.
Not only the smell of the beasts, but also the damp bark, the moisture in the soil, and the smoke of burning trees in the distance.
Mixed with the smoke was a faint smell of grain.
There might be someone there.
I walked through the forest while protecting my right leg.
I don't know how long I walked.
Eventually, I saw a small figure beyond the trees.
It was a girl.
She must have been a little over ten years old.
Her shoulder-length brown hair wasn't neatly combed, and her clothes had marks from being mended many times. The basket she carried on her back was filled with thin firewood and dead branches.
The girl noticed me.
Her legs stopped.
Her eyes widened.
“…Dragon?”
I didn’t fully understand the meaning.
However, from that short sound and the girl’s gaze, I could tell that it was pointing at me.
The girl was scared.
It was no wonder.
Even to me, my current body looked like a small dragon, but to a human child I was probably still a large enough monster.
If she ran away, that would be better.
I myself didn't know how this body would react in extreme conditions.
However, after the girl took a few steps back, she looked at my right hind leg.
“Blood…”
I didn't understand what she said this time either.
However, her gaze was directed towards the wound.
After some hesitation, the girl lowered the basket on her back.
She took out a small cloth wrapper from inside.
What appeared was black bread.
The surface was completely dry and looked hard.
The girl tried to break it with both hands.
It didn't break at once.
After straining over and over in front of her chest, she finally divided it into two, and compared the left and right sides.
One side was a little bigger.
The girl placed the larger one on the ground.
“…Do you want to eat?”
I didn’t understand the meaning of the words.
But I understood this much.
She was giving it to me.
The girl moved away from the bread and took a few steps back cautiously.
After looking at her for a while, I slowly approached the bread.
I brought the tip of my nose close.
It didn't smell like poison.
I couldn't win against my hunger.
I took a bite.
Hard.
It was so hard that it would have damaged my teeth if they hadn't been fangs.
Furthermore, it had a strong sour taste and almost no moisture.
To be honest, it was bad.
“Guru…”
Still, my stomach was craving food.
I chewed it several times and swallowed it little by little.
Just by having something enter my stomach, I regained a little bit of the strength that had been leaving my body.
I suddenly looked up.
The girl was eating the leftover bread as well.
She tore it into small pieces and chewed it one bite at a time.
That’s when I first noticed it.
She hadn't given me leftover food.
That was this child’s meal.
Thin arms.
Thin cheeks.
Old clothes.
No matter how I looked at it, it wasn't a life where she didn't have to worry about food.
Still, she broke her bread in two.
What was more, she’d set the larger piece down for me.
I slowly swallowed the black bread that remained in my mouth.
The taste remained the same.
It was still hard and sour.
However, I no longer thought it tasted bad.
The girl put her hand on her chest.
"Lina."
Saying it again, she pointed to herself.
"Lina."
Even I understood that much.
It was her name.
Lina.
As I stared at her, the girl let her guard down a little.
This time, she pointed to the other side of the forest.
"Rue… village."
There were two sounds that I could catch.
Rue.
Village.
It was probably where she lived.
Lina put her basket back on her back and started walking, looking back at me several times.
I licked the crumbs left on the ground and stood up.
My legs still hurt.
It was hard to say that my stomach was full.
Still, I was curious about where Lina would return to.
If it was a place where people lived, I might be able to find water and food.
More than anything, I wanted to see where that girl who had cut her black bread in half lived.
I kept a safe distance and followed her.
Lina looked back several times along the way.
She called out to me, but I couldn't understand the long words.
Even so, it didn't seem like she was trying to chase me away.
By the time we passed through the forest, the sky was starting to turn red.
Houses could be seen beyond the trees.
That seemed to be Rue Village.
The first thing I thought was that it was small.
There were dozens of houses made of wood and earth.
There were noticeable repair marks on the roofs, and the fence surrounding the field was broken in many places. Crops that looked like wheat were sparse, and it was hard to imagine that the harvest would be bountiful.
There were even houses that weren't smoking.
It was much poorer than the human settlement I had imagined.
Suddenly, a scream came from the village.
“Run!”
I couldn’t understand the words, but I could hear the urgency in the voice.
Lina’s complexion changed and she ran towards the village.
Something huge was rampaging in a corner of the field.
It resembled a boar.
However, the size was completely different from the wild boars I knew in Japan.
Its huge body, the size of a cow, was covered in muddy skin, and the fangs extending from the sides of its mouth looked like short spears.
Every time the giant boar swung its snout, the fence shattered and the poorly grown crops were trampled.
Two men were standing against it holding crude spears.
The tip that one of them stuck out only pierced the thick skin shallowly.
The boar shook its head.
The man’s body floated into the air and fell into the field.
"Uncle!"
That much was clear from Lina’s expression and voice.
It was probably someone she knew.
Lina tried to run into the field, so I quickly stretched out my front leg and pressed the hem of her clothes to the ground with my claws.
“Eh…?”
Lina looked back.
I looked at the huge boar.
Strong.
At least the wolves from earlier were nothing compared to it.
Right now, I was injured and couldn't fly. Even spitting flames once had made my throat hurt.
If I fought head-on, I was more likely to lose.
To begin with, the people in that village had nothing to do with me.
There was no reason for me to risk my life.
However, if I didn't stop her, Lina would run into the field.
In front of that monster.
I lowered my gaze.
The girl was thin.
She was hungry.
Even so, she’d shared her own meal with me.
The larger one.
It was only half a loaf of black bread.
However, a debt was a debt.
I removed my claws from Lina's clothes and turned towards the field instead.
The huge boar started running towards the fallen man.
The taste of sour bread still lingered in my mouth.
"…That bread seems like it's going to cost me a bit."
No human words came out, only a low growl.
“Gururu…”
I kicked the ground with my injured hind leg.
This time, I didn't want to abandon the girl who gave me food when I was dying.
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