Chapter 4
“You usually only eat special foods, so I guess you don’t even know how to eat trivial things like bread that primitive humans consume. Huh?”
Jaina blinked her clear eyes at the gaze fixed on her, propping his chin. Was he interested in what dragons ate?
“Are you going to keep staring at me? Aren’t you going to eat?”
“Ugh.”
When Jaina spoke softly, Michael’s face turned bright red. He awkwardly cleared his throat and replied.
“Hmph, hmm. Does it bother you that I’m looking? Why?”
“If you want to look, you can keep looking.”
“I wasn’t looking because I was bothered by you! I just wanted to tell you that at the Mage Tower’s dining hall, you ‘absolutely’ must not leave any food!”
Although he answered brazenly, Michael’s face showed no sign of calming down. Especially the tips of his ears, which were as red as a ripe apple.
For most people, it might have looked comical, but Michael’s smooth features remained unaffected.
“Still, you’ve taken so much bread ignorantly, so of course some would be left. I clearly warned you—not to leave any! You fool.”
‘Even though he hates it when others bother him.’
Michael, a disciple of the Mage Tower Master and Jaina’s cousin, truly despised attention from others. Jaina couldn’t quite understand why he showed interest in her.
‘Anyway, now that I’ve said this much, even if his pride is hurt, he probably won’t interfere anymore.’
Actually, Jaina’s question—“Are you going to keep staring at me?”—wasn’t entirely for Michael. Everyone else around them was glancing in their direction, and she said it deliberately for them to hear. It was just that Michael alone turned red and babbled awkwardly.
Still, even though all the clinging eyes hadn’t fully gone, Jaina decided to focus on the food in front of her.
‘Freshly baked white bread… nice and warm.’
Jaina tore the bread with her small hands. It split along the grain effortlessly, which surprised her.
“Mmm.”
Chewing the soft bread, her cheeks blushed faintly.
‘Delicious.’
The thin crust broke crisply, while the inside was chewy yet soft. As she chewed, the bread yielded smoothly in her mouth.
The bread wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to Jaina. In her previous life, she often ate cheap bread as a quick meal. But this was the first time she had eaten freshly baked bread.
The bread she had eaten before was usually old and dry, sold in bundles to clear inventory or just with a new sticker slapped on.
But this bread was different. So chewy and soft…
‘How can other people eat this kind of bread without any reaction?’
Jaina dipped a piece into some jam and brought it to her mouth.
‘Wow.’
Her eyes sparkled.
‘The jam changes the flavor of the bread in such an interesting way.’
The jam was excellent. She had tried grape jam before in her past life, but the jam here felt different.
‘So tasty… maybe it has more fruit?’
Thinking carefully, Jaina realized that the jam’s flavor varied depending on the fruit content.
‘Really delicious…’
She continued eating the bread without pause, occasionally murmuring in delight. As a result, what Michael had expected didn’t happen—Jaina nearly finished all the bread by herself.
After a while, Jaina stopped chewing and lifted her head.
“……?”
Michael, who had been glaring down at her, now looked flustered.
“Hey… kid, are you crying?”
“No.”
“No? Don’t lie.”
Her eyes were red, and her voice cracked slightly. Realizing this, Jaina quickly closed her chattering mouth.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
Michael was dumbfounded. She had previously denied being the Mage Tower Master’s daughter, didn’t waver despite his teasing, and yet now she was crying while eating bread…
“You must be mistaken.”
Well, to be precise, the tears hadn’t flowed, just pooled for a moment and disappeared…
Jaina had calmed down and now wore her usual clear expression. However, her small nose still had a slight redness, which Michael noticed.
‘Whether she’s sniffling or crying, it’s the same.’
Had she heard something harsh in the dining hall? If that had made her cry, it would’ve bruised his pride. He couldn’t accept that someone else had made this kid cry.
‘Right… apart from the Mage Tower Master, who could be more irritable than me?’
Surely there was another reason—maybe she had been physically hurt…
Michael’s eyes shone sharply.
“Was there something spicy in the bread?”
“Ah.”
He snatched the white bread Jaina was holding and chewed it thoroughly.
But it was just plain bread. Nothing more, nothing less than the usual dining hall bread. His frown relaxed.
Then he looked at the jam.
‘Not the bread… maybe the jam?’
But the jam was normal too. Nothing unusual. Michael tilted his head.
“What the… the bread and jam are fine.”
Chewing the bread with an expressionless face, Michael was startled by Jaina’s reaction.
“……….”
Her face, now deprived of the bread and jam, looked utterly devastated. That calm expression had crumbled as if she had lost everything in the world.
Yes, it was like a face that had lost the entire world.
Her mouth hung open, her short arms stretching out uselessly, and Michael found it utterly ridiculous.
“…….”
Jaina fidgeted for a moment, then returned to her neutral expression and quietly said:
“Can I have more bread?”
There was no limit to how much one could eat in the dining hall. Somehow unable to ignore such a straightforward question, Michael nodded absentmindedly.
“What am I even watching right now…”
Watching Jaina tirelessly work through the bread, Michael’s mouth fell open. He couldn’t take his eyes off her chubby cheeks.
“How on earth does she eat all that? A monster? A human…?”
Mid-sentence, he snapped his fingers.
Jaina realized he had cast soundproofing magic to ensure no one else could hear.
“Damn, with all these people around, I almost said something wrong.”
Yet it was astonishing. For a ten-year-old child to eat twenty-five fist-sized breads consecutively was no ordinary feat.
Jaina chewed calmly and said:
“I didn’t expect you’d question whether I’m human.”
“Your mother being a dragon has nothing to do with it. Even as a half-blood, kid, you look a couple of years younger than your age.”
“Right now I’m in human form, but I’m originally a dragon. Before transforming, I weighed hundreds of kilos. I haven’t measured exactly, though.”
Even Michael, the Mage Tower Master’s disciple, didn’t know the full details about dragons.
Feeling quite pleased after eating such tasty bread, Jaina kindly explained.
“Right now I’ve reduced my weight in human form, but considering my original size, I need to eat this much every day.”
However, when Jaina had lived in the dragon village, she never had meals of this quality. Her relatives intentionally withheld good food from her or gave her poor-quality meals.
When she needed to eat more, but the food was disgustingly bad, it was utterly miserable.
‘I hated it most when people acted petty over food rather than words.’
Jaina glanced at the wizards quietly, eyeing the empty dishes stacked in a corner.
Though her magical energy was enough to sustain her with little food, she refused to rely on that. She had come to the Mage Tower and stayed silent to simply enjoy small luxuries in her remaining time.
‘Well, I’m not using magic, nor revealing my true self, so it should be fine.’
It was the first time she had eaten such delicious bread.
Just as Jaina took a big bite of the bread…
“……?”
She suddenly felt a sharp gaze on her and turned her head.
“Huh?”
“What are you doing suddenly stopping in the middle of eating, like you’re about to bite the plate?”
It wasn’t the curious glances of the crowd.
‘It felt… like a thick, sticky gaze…’
Jaina looked around briefly, then turned back forward.
“No, I think I was imagining things.”
The dragon’s sensitive senses were excellent but sometimes overly so.
Michael pointed somewhere with his chin.
“That old hag was probably glaring because she was disappointed you weren’t leaving any food, right?”
A woman stood with her arms crossed, leaning against the wall in the direction Michael indicated. When the two stared at her, she disappeared into the kitchen. Michael chuckled.
“Looks like she lost her steam.”
Jaina understood why Michael had repeatedly warned her not to leave any food. The Mage Tower’s chef and alchemist, ‘Hilbenza of the Green Notes,’ never forgave anyone who left food.
‘But… the direction of that gaze seemed a little off.’
Jaina looked at that spot for a moment, then turned her head back.
