After leaving the dragon lair, the two little black dragons surfaced in the swamp and swam toward shore, their tails swishing behind them.
Once she climbed onto solid ground, Evelyn shook the water from her scales and looked around with burning curiosity.
Aside from the lair itself, this was the first time she had truly set foot anywhere in the outside world.
She was fascinated by everything.
Even an ordinary tree beside the water was enough to make her walk over and prod it with a claw, comparing the real thing with the description stored in the Draconic Inheritance.
Darrien was the complete opposite.
While Evelyn wanted to inspect everything she saw, he had absolutely no interest in the scenery.
There was only one thing on his mind.
Meat.
Once most of the water had dried from his scales, Darrien spread his still-small wings.
He gave them a few light beats, and his body slowly rose from the ground.
From a purely physical standpoint, wings like those should never have been capable of lifting something as heavy as a dragon.
But this was a fantasy world filled with magic and Aura.
Dragons were magical creatures.
They had never relied on their wings alone to fly.
Every True Dragon possessed a powerful passive magical ability similar to an advanced flight spell.
All they had to do was spread their wings, and the innate magic would draw upon the surrounding magical energy to lift their bodies into the air.
Their wings were mainly used for balance, steering, and changing direction.
“Hey! You stupid...”
Darrien caught himself halfway through.
Evelyn looked up at him.
He immediately corrected himself.
“My dear Evelyn, I don’t see any prey around here.”
Floating above the ground, Darrien surveyed the area from the air.
“Of course not,” Evelyn replied. “Mom’s scent is everywhere around the lair. Nothing weak enough for us to hunt would dare come close.”
Moving with the agility of a cat, Evelyn jumped down from a crooked tree and scanned the surrounding swamp.
“Let’s head upstream. Most animals need water sooner or later. Following the water should give us the best chance of finding something.”
“Fine.”
Darrien beat his wings and flew off toward the upper reaches of the swamp.
He hated admitting it, but sometimes his savage sister really was a little smarter than he was.
Only a little.
Evelyn watched him fly farther and farther away without showing the slightest intention of waiting.
She curled her lip.
Then she spread her own wings.
Dragons might have been born to rule the skies, and every instinct in her body told Evelyn that the sky belonged to her kind.
But when the time came to actually leave the ground for the first time, she still felt a strange sense of unease.
Put simply...
She was afraid of heights.
She had only been alive for a few days.
She had barely climbed above the treetops before, and now she was supposed to fly straight into the open sky.
“Whew...”
Evelyn exhaled and gently beat her wings.
An invisible force slowly lifted her.
Her claws left the solid ground one by one.
Excitement and fear mixed together in her chest.
She climbed higher.
Then higher still.
Soon she rose above the treetops.
Looking down, the forest resembled an endless ocean of green and black. When the wind swept through the canopy, the leaves rolled in waves.
The discomfort Evelyn had expected never came.
Instead, she felt strangely refreshed.
“So this is what flying feels like?”
She gave her wings a stronger beat and climbed higher.
Her golden eyes swept across the endless forest.
Far ahead, Darrien had already become a tiny black speck in the distance.
Evelyn immediately accelerated after him.
“Woohoo! Up we go!”
...
The two hatchlings flew farther and farther from the territory surrounding their lair.
Dragons were apex predators.
Their eyesight rivaled that of an eagle, and their hearing was equally sharp.
With bodies naturally designed for hunting, it didn’t take the two hatchlings long to find prey they liked.
On a hill where the trees grew more sparsely, a herd of Forest Antlerdeer grazed peacefully.
They resembled oversized spotted deer.
Their coats were golden brown, and each had a single short horn growing from its head.
Even the smaller adults were at least ten feet long, making them two or three times larger than Evelyn and Darrien.
And their strength matched their size.
Forest Antlerdeer weren’t ordinary animals.
They were magical beasts capable of using simple spell-like abilities.
The herd was grazing lazily across the hillside when two little black dragons began circling overhead, staring down at all that fresh meat.
Darrien licked his lips.
He was just about to dive straight at them when Evelyn grabbed his tail.
His entire body jerked to a halt in midair.
“What are you pulling my tail for?!”
Darrien twisted around, clearly annoyed.
“My stupid little brother, I just saved your life.”
Evelyn raised one claw and pointed.
Darrien followed her gesture.
Near the edge of the herd stood an exceptionally powerful stag.
It was at least sixteen feet long, with a pair of enormous antlers stretching more than ten feet from end to end.
“That’s probably the herd leader,” Evelyn said. “If you charge down there without thinking, there’s a very good chance you’ll end up hanging from those antlers.”
She paused.
“Then we’ll get to watch you turn into a piece of sour, smelly black-dragon jerky.”
Darrien ignored the jerky comment and quietly pulled his neck back.
“So what do we do? Find something else?”
He was a proud black dragon.
He was not, however, completely stupid.
That Forest Antlerdeer leader looked like a Bronze Rank magical beast at the very least.
Evelyn and Darrien were still newborn hatchlings.
Even being generous, they were only around Black Iron Rank.
If they charged in recklessly, Darrien suspected Evelyn’s prediction might actually come true.
They could end up as a pair of black-dragon jerky strips decorating those antlers.
Evelyn narrowed her eyes and said nothing.
Her gaze swept across the herd.
After a while, with Darrien growing increasingly impatient beside her, she finally pointed in another direction.
Darrien looked.
There was a fawn near the center of the herd.
It seemed to have been born recently and was only a little over three feet long. Its coat was so thick and fluffy that it looked more like a sheep than an antlered deer.
The adults had surrounded it protectively.
“That one is our target,” Evelyn said.
“You go down and draw the herd’s attention. If you can, lure the strongest stag away.”
“While they’re focused on you, I’ll grab the fawn.”
“It’s small enough that I can carry it off in my mouth. Once I have it, we fly higher. These Forest Antlerdeer won’t be able to do anything to us because they can’t fly.”
When she finished, Evelyn patted Darrien on the head.
“If you understand the plan, go pull aggro. You’ve got this.”
Darrien didn’t move.
Instead, he slowly turned his head toward her.
“Why am I the one drawing their attention? Why don’t you do it?”
Oh? The idiot actually got smart for once...
Evelyn forced a pleasant smile onto her face.
“Well, obviously because you’re so strong and impressive, Darrien.”
“A responsibility this important could only be entrusted to a powerful black dragon like you.”
“Don’t you agree?”
Evelyn blinked innocently and did her best to look as fragile and helpless as possible.
“Hmm...”
Darrien nodded.
Then he planted his claws on his hips, clearly pleased by the compliment.
But he wasn’t completely foolish.
“I want seventy percent of the food.”
Greedy little bastard...
Evelyn complained silently, but her expression never changed.
“Fine. Seventy percent is yours.”
Darrien had been prepared to negotiate.
He hadn’t expected Evelyn to agree so easily, and he nearly lost control of his flight from sheer excitement.
After forcing himself to calm down, he cleared his throat.
“Ahem. Then the great black dragon Darrien shall begin the hunt. Try not to fall behind, my stupid sister.”
“Sure, sure...”
Evelyn agreed without hesitation.
They could decide who got how much once they were back home.
And when that happened...
Well, claws were very persuasive.
Having reached an agreement, the two hatchlings folded their wings and dove toward the herd together.
Unfortunately, reality had no intention of cooperating with their carefully crafted plan.
They hadn’t even gotten close when the Forest Antlerdeer suddenly reacted as though they had sensed something.
Without even looking up, the herd scattered in every direction.
The massive herd leader immediately moved beside the only fawn.
Then it lowered its head.
Its enormous antlers pointed directly at the two black dragons diving from above.
Evelyn instantly understood what had gone wrong.
The Forest Antlerdeer had sensed the aura surrounding them.
The presence of True Dragons.
The Draconic Inheritance called this innate ability Frightful Presence.
More commonly, it was simply known as Draconic Presence.
It wasn’t merely an intimidating aura.
It was an actual supernatural force unique to dragons.
An adult dragon could overwhelm weaker creatures with its presence alone, leaving them too terrified to move.
But newborn hatchlings had a problem.
They couldn’t consciously suppress it yet.
The moment prey sensed their Draconic Presence, terror would take hold.
Instead of making hunting easier...
It warned everything nearby to run before the dragons even got close.
Their greatest natural advantage had somehow become a hunting handicap.
Evelyn pulled up sharply in midair, barely avoiding a collision with the enormous antlers below.