A little over ten minutes later, their mother returned with prey.
A Swamp Crocodile.
The beast was nearly thirty feet long, its body covered in thick armor-like scales studded with sharp, thornlike spines.
Most of those spines were gone now.
Acid had eaten them away, along with large patches of the creature’s armor, exposing raw red flesh and even parts of its internal organs beneath.
The remaining acid continued bubbling as it dissolved the carcass.
Pop. Pop.
Each bursting bubble released another wave of foul-smelling air.
There was no question what had happened.
Their mother had killed it with Acid Breath.
The moment he saw food, Darrien rushed forward and began tearing flesh from the crocodile with his teeth.
As a fellow black dragon, he was naturally immune to acid corrosion. Even if he swallowed some of the acid along with his food, his stomach wouldn’t complain.
Evelyn, on the other hand, lost her appetite just looking at him.
Raw meat by itself?
She could probably force herself to eat that.
Raw meat drenched in a generous coating of dragon-made acid?
That was pushing things a little too far.
“Ugh...”
Evelyn dry-heaved.
Nothing came up.
The eggshells she had eaten earlier were already completely digested.
She turned pleading eyes toward her mother, who had returned to the treasure hoard and gone right back to sleep.
Her mother had clearly noticed.
She simply pretended she hadn’t.
The enormous black dragon rolled over and continued sleeping.
Apparently worried that Evelyn might start using that unbearable whining voice again, she unfolded one wing and covered her head with it.
Then she cast several sound-dampening spells on herself.
Layer after layer of colorful magical light shimmered around her enormous body.
Evelyn stared.
Then stared some more.
Finally, she looked back at the Swamp Crocodile.
“Tch... Guess I don’t have a choice.”
At this point, she either ate it or started eating dirt.
With great reluctance, Evelyn crawled over to the carcass and found a section near the tail that hadn’t been touched by acid.
Then she began peeling away the scales with her claws.
Compared with Darrien, who was happily stuffing down everything from armored hide to organs and acid without the slightest hesitation, Evelyn’s eating habits looked downright refined.
Once the scales came away, pale pink crocodile meat was revealed underneath.
Gulp.
Evelyn swallowed.
Without the acid damage, it actually looked tolerable.
She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and bit down hard.
Rip!
A large chunk of raw meat tore free.
Evelyn tossed her head back, stuffed the whole piece into her mouth, and chewed twice with her eyes tightly shut.
“Mm!”
Her eyes flew open.
They practically lit up.
The meat looked terrible, but somehow...
It tasted surprisingly good.
A dragon’s sense of taste was clearly very different from a human’s.
Raw meat mixed with fresh blood should have tasted gamey and unpleasant.
Instead, Evelyn tasted something strangely similar to chicken, followed by a faint sweetness.
She swallowed.
Then took another bite.
And another.
After that, there was no stopping her.
At first, she still bothered peeling away the scales.
A little later, she stopped bothering entirely and simply shoved meat, bones, and all into her mouth.
She wasn’t worried about indigestion.
A dragon’s stomach was practically a miniature furnace.
It could digest almost anything.
Bones were nothing.
Even soil and metal could eventually be broken down.
If a dragon became desperate enough, it could literally survive by eating dirt.
Of course, that was far too humiliating for most dragons to seriously consider.
With one notable exception.
White dragons.
The famously dim members of dragonkind apparently didn’t always share everyone else’s sense of dignity.
Without a mother around to feed them, a particularly foolish white dragon might try using its tail as bait to catch fish.
And if that failed...
Well.
Dirt was still edible.
Chomp. Crunch!
Dragon hatchlings had enormous appetites.
In less than ten minutes, Evelyn had eaten the crocodile’s entire tail.
The amount of food she had swallowed already weighed more than twice as much as she did.
Strangely, there was no visible change in her body at all.
Darrien had eaten less than Evelyn, mostly because he was smaller, but even he had consumed far more than his own body weight.
Now he was sprawled on the ground, already asleep again.
Evelyn looked down on that kind of lifestyle.
Eat until full.
Collapse.
Sleep.
Like a farm hog.
Naturally, Evelyn, whose way of thinking had never quite matched an ordinary chromatic dragon’s, stubbornly resisted the urge to do the exact same thing.
She crawled over to Darrien instead.
Then she rested her head on his soft belly and used him as a pillow.
Only after arranging herself properly did she finally give in to her body and close her eyes.
I really am a civilized dragon, Evelyn thought.
Her breathing gradually slowed.
Soon, she was asleep as well.
As True Dragons, creatures standing near the top of the world’s food chain, they didn’t need to spend every day studying and meditating like humans.
Once a dragon had awakened the Draconic Inheritance, even a hatchling that did nothing but eat and sleep would gradually awaken spellcasting abilities and develop a stronger body as it grew.
By adulthood, a True Dragon would naturally reach Gold Rank.
And if it actually put in some effort and successfully formed a Law Domain, it could step into the realm of the Legendary.
...
By the fifth day, the Swamp Crocodile their mother had brought back was finally gone.
Technically, in the humid swamp environment, combined with the effects of their mother’s acid, the carcass had already deteriorated into something barely recognizable by the third day.
Evelyn ate it anyway.
She hated wasting food even more than she hated looking at it.
Besides, hunger had a way of lowering standards.
And the flavor honestly wasn’t terrible.
The acid itself tasted strangely like very tart yogurt, with a sour sweetness to it.
Once the crocodile was finished, however, their mother clearly had no intention of going hunting again anytime soon.
Dragons could go a long time without eating after a large meal.
From what Evelyn could tell, her mother’s entire childcare strategy could be summarized very simply.
If the hatchlings weren’t starving to death, everything was fine.
Unfortunately, not starving to death and not being hungry were two very different things.
Evelyn was so hungry she was seriously considering dirt.
Literally.
She already had a clawful of damp soil scooped from the ground.
The only thing stopping her from putting it into her mouth was Darrien sleeping nearby.
What if that stupid little dragon suddenly woke up and saw his domineering sister eating dirt?
No.
Absolutely not.
That image was too horrible to imagine.
She would never be able to hold her head high in front of him again.
“Sigh...”
Being alive was hard.
Being a dragon was apparently no exception.
Evelyn looked toward her mother sleeping on the treasure hoard.
The magical glow around the adult dragon had long since disappeared.
Maintaining spells took energy, after all.
A thought suddenly occurred to Evelyn.
She turned and kicked Darrien straight in the rear.
“Yow!”
Darrien shot upright with a startled cry and immediately glared at Evelyn.
He didn’t even need to ask who had done it.
Of course it was that savage Evelyn causing trouble again.
“You stupid brute! What do you want?”
Apparently, he had stopped bothering with even calling her his sister.
Under Darrien’s suspicious stare, Evelyn leaned closer to his ear.
Then she lowered her voice.
“Do you want some meat?”