I was 210 years old.
After practically staking my life on spirit arts, I was looking for my next subject when the vast quantity of books filling Mom's study settled the question. But there really were so maaany.
“Wow, are all these books?”
“Yes, that's right. These are books. You'll be able to learn a great deal here.”
I'd always loved reading. I'd read books without distinguishing between subjects that interested me and anything else, so I was confident I could handle any book. But surely these weren't all written in Korean? Then how was I supposed to read them?
“But how do I read them?”
“Hoho, don't worry, child. We dragons are born able to read every language. There's no need for us to spend years struggling to learn languages like those puny humans.”
“Wow, really?”
“Of cooourse!”
Really? I was delighted. I didn't have to learn languages! Ah, how I'd sweated blood trying to learn English in middle and high school. But now I was a dragon, did that mean I could just read without needing anything else?
I plunged into reading. Just as Mom had said, I didn't recognize the shapes of the letters in the books at all, but I could read them and understand their contents.
Haha, wonderful.
And above all, this enormous study. An enormous study that looked as though it could easily contain over 1,000,000 books. There were so many that I wanted to call it a library instead.
Was this truly a private study?!
For reference, Mom was apparently a book collector of a kind rarely found in the Red clan, or even among dragons as a whole. She also said she loved reading to a degree rare both in the Red clan and among all dragons.
Even I doubted whether she really belonged to the Red clan, said to be the fiercest and strongest of all dragons and all living creatures on earth, because she loved books so much.
Whenever I was absorbed in spirit arts, I'd often see her a little way off, drinking tea and reading.
But Mom didn't seem particularly concerned about that assessment of her. She'd always smile and say, ‘There are exceptions to everything in this world.’
I remembered relatives and dragons who were Mom's friends occasionally visiting and saying I was quiet like her. Actually, that was just my personality, but compliments felt good whenever I heard them.
Still, even my supposedly quiet mother was a Red Dragon by nature. Having seen her dignity crumble in all sorts of ways, I could only smile at those words.—I thought she might be the quietest dragon in the Red clan.
Grinning, I lost myself in reading. This library, which seemed to contain more than 1,000,000 books—I'd stopped calling it a study. Who could call a place with this many books a study?—really had everything. Ordinary novels, cooking, fine craftwork, smithing, herbalism, psychology, medicine, magic, geology, astronomy, chemistry, physics, red books that would've been rated 18+ on Earth(erotic books with red labels), various kinds of personal writing such as poetry and essays, social sciences, politics, law, spirit studies, and even swordsmanship manuals. About 1,004,000 books covered every conceivable subject.
But Mom seemed to cast preservation magic on the books and leave most of them unread. Everything she read was a new book she'd brought from somewhere or borrowed. So I asked her.
“Mom, why don't you read the books in the study?”
“Hmm? Ah, that's what you're curious about. Mommy's memorized them all, so I don't need to read them anymore. You'll see when you read them. Once you've read something, you'll remember it.”
Memorized them? Gah! All of them?
I gazed at Mom with respect, and she stroked me with warmth in her eyes.
Seriously, that was deeply admirable. Could I become like that, too?
With that thought, I took out a random novel and read it. I'd wondered what the books were made of, but sure enough, they used something like parchment. The oldest paper books dated from around my birth, while the rest were ancient volumes from roughly 3,000 years ago or earlier.
There were even bamboo and wooden slips—thin strips of bamboo or wood with writing on them, tied together in rows and rolled up.—so it seemed to be a library with quite a long history. Reading one huge, thick, 400-page parchment book, each page apparently about 2–3 millimeters thick—this was practically a weapon. A blunt weapon, a blunt weapon!—took about 2 hours.
Wondering whether I could memorize books, too, I slowly went over the contents in my mind. Sure enough, I was a dragon.
I remembered the contents without a single letter or particle out of place!
Good grief! I hadn't known it'd be this incredible? A dragon's brain really was amazing!
I filed the book's title and category in one corner of my mental storage space, then took out the next volume.
After that, I slept for 1/3 of each day and devoted all the remaining time to reading. I read while eating meals Mom caught or made for me, and did nothing but read the books one by one—and memorize them.
I decided to divide the books by subject and read similar kinds together, and was about to sort them. But thanks to Mom's painstakingly neat, meticulous organization, I simply read the million or so books without needing to classify a thing. I only had to find a subject I wanted to learn and keep reading straight through.
First, I decided to learn about this world's geography and social customs. I wouldn't go out on a pastime for at least another 800 years, so it would all be useless by then, but I was a person(dragon) who'd already experienced one civilization. Wasn't indirect contact with another civilization exciting?
Oh, for reference, magic would be the last thing I learned. Somehow, I felt it'd take a long time to study.
Hehehe! Now, let the real studying begiiin!
As I'd expected, this place resembled medieval Earth. With a feudal social system, nobles, primitive weapons—swords, bows, spears, armor, shields, and so on—and monsters, it was a typical Western fantasy world. Of course, I'd already discovered monsters when summoning Psy.
First, the place I lived was called ‘Airipen.’ It was the largest of the 4 continents and had 7 countries. One empire, 2 confederations, and 4 kingdoms. Ordinary enough. Four countries were subordinate to the empire, and it was a simple situation of each keeping the others in check.
For reference, I lived in the ‘Red Lava Mountains.’
Oho, so this is a lava mountain range? A very fitting home for a Red Dragon? Well, since I'd never been outside since hatching, perhaps it was only natural that I didn't know.
Anyway, I steadily studied this place by reading its geography and history. But its history didn't seem particularly impressive.
After all, wasn't human history stained by war after war? When human groups arose, war was their final means of resolving disputes with other groups.
The currency was simple. One gil was the basic unit, and 100 gil made 1 pen. A gil was divided into 10 parts, each called 1 nil. So they only had equivalents of 100, 1,000, and 100,000 won? I thought paying amounts like 78 or 88 gil would be inconvenient, but it wasn't. It turned out there were 5-, 10-, and 50-gil coins.
Oho, a surprisingly well-organized currency system.
And, as I'd suspected, there were elves and dwarves, too. Sigh, I'd completely become a novel's protagonist. Who's the author?! Why'd you make the setting so predictable?! But naturally, no answer came.
After that, I spent my time reading, mastering what I'd learned, and putting it to use. As for cooking, laundry, and cleaning, I could now cook food as delicious as a first-class chef's, restore the original color of even the dirtiest laundry without trouble, and make even rough stone floors shine.
Honestly, these seemed like things you didn't need books for, but with books like ‘150 Simple Cleaning Methods for Housewives’ and ‘Essential Laundry Detergents and How to Remove Stains from Every Kind of Laundry’ around, how could I not read and learn from them?
Laundry and the like seemed almost useless to a dragon like me, but no one could predict life(a dragon's life?)! So I spent about 20 years thoroughly learning cleaning, laundry, and cooking. For reference, Mom served as my taste tester when I cooked, and gave me plenty of harsh criticism.
‘A Guide to Camping,’ ‘Survival, That Ruthless World of Staying Alive,’ and ‘You Can Do It, Too. How to Survive in the Wild’ were among the books, too.
To learn these things, I spent about 15 months a year practicing survival in a jungle Mom created with spatial magic, where all the dangers were artificial. Now, camping was like an afternoon nap to me. I could find enough food to eat my fill 3 times a day and still build a food storehouse, and I knew how to make huts and simple camping tents withstand a typhoon.
After almost 5 years living like that, reading and practicing, I felt as though I'd gone completely wild.
I also learned music for amusement, starting with piano and violin and eventually reaching the great achievement of smoothly playing every orchestral instrument by myself without difficulty, as well as every other instrument. In economics and politics, I lacked only practical experience; I'd mastered the theory perfectly.—Actually, practical experience mattered in those fields...... But what could I do, given my surroundings?
In first aid, I might not be able to help a patient who was more than 95% dead, but I could extend an emergency patient's life by about 3 hours if they were less far gone. In medicine, I'd learned anatomy and every other subject thoroughly enough to open a general hospital anywhere.
In fine craftwork, I could perform work precise enough to engrave 50 characters on a grain of wheat. In art, from still lifes to abstract paintings, I'd developed skills that would make a first-class painter weep. In sculpture, I could give a piece such artistry and vitality that it looked alive at first glance.
I picked up thieves' skills, too, so unless magic was involved, no lock, safe, or door could resist being dismantled by my hands. I also learned smithing and tried making swords, spears, armor, and such myself. At first, I couldn't even get the shapes right. But with plenty of time, I stuck to it out of sheer stubbornness, and a few swords and suits of armor I'd made had the honor of moving into Mom's armory.
For reference, dragons had a discerning eye and only collected things both beautiful and highly useful. Yet my creations, weapons hammered out of iron without any magic, had the good fortune to enter a dragon's lair.
Then I began learning swordsmanship with a sword I'd made myself, and developed the skill to wipe out an entire country's forces with a single sword at any moment...... Well, no, but by swordsmanship alone, I'd be among the top 3 in any country.
For reference, this world's swordsmanship wasn't the kind in martial arts novels, with named moves, mental training, and the accumulation of qi. Swinging a sword didn't accumulate mana inside your body, so naturally, there were no transcendent levels like Sword Master or whatever.
Anyway, this world's swordsmanship did have sword paths(the routes a sword follows when used) and set techniques. They felt like forms such as Haedong Kumdo or the Tai Chi sword practiced for health on Earth, systematized and developed for actual combat.
Although I'd never learned those myself, somehow they felt similar. Thanks to 50 years of training, I'd learned swordsmanship so thoroughly that calling me a master swordsman wouldn't be an exaggeration.
A dragon's learning ability was frighteningly good, so I'd reached that level despite spending a mere 50 years swinging a sword.