Chapter 113 …
If I hadn’t known that the hunting party had succeeded and withdrawn, I would have thought that Ezekiel was asleep.
He looked that peaceful.
How could this be?
Ezekiel’s huge, magnificent body bore not a single wound—not a scratch from a blade, not a mark from an arrow.
“The hunting party… didn’t take any proof of the hunt?”
Lemarte muttered.
Usually, after heroes slay a massive, powerful monster, they take some form of “trophy” to prove their victory and show off.
Sometimes it would be a claw, sometimes a scale, and in extreme cases, even the head.
But this enormous, beautiful dragon had not a single scar. It lay elegantly, as if it had just fallen asleep, with its eyes closed.
Then.
[It’s not that he’s uninjured.]
Ex’s voice echoed in my ear.
Ex, who had been silent for a while, opened his mouth with effort.
[It’s not that. He just cast a final spell because he worried you’d be shocked if you saw him like this.]
A spell?
We stepped forward toward Ezekiel as if hypnotized.
Then, I saw a faint blue light emanating from Ezekiel’s body.
[It’s an illusion, Eve…]
Ex whispered.
[He cast his final spell so that his body wouldn’t remain intact after his death, because he worried about you.]
Listening to Ex, I reached out, almost instinctively, to touch the space between Ezekiel’s eyes.
Because the words Ezekiel had spoken to me in life came to mind.
“Only you will be able to take the egg from me.”
Ezekiel had definitely said that.
And this giant dragon, being kind, gentle, and warm-hearted… he must have prepared it so that I could take the egg without difficulty.
Sure enough, as soon as my fingertips touched him, Ezekiel’s body shone brightly once more.
A light so bright it illuminated the dark cave.
And in that moment.
Ssshhh…
Ezekiel’s body began to scatter.
The illusion he had left for us, and beneath it his real body, started slowly dispersing.
It looked like tens of thousands of pieces of starlight raining over our heads.
Blue starlight flickered endlessly, scattering in all directions.
Lemarte’s red eyes flickered blue for a moment.
[So your eyes too… They’re like the bluest jewel in the world.]
I unconsciously looked at my reflection in Ex’s sword.
In the transparent blade, my eyes shimmered an intense blue.
My irises glowed, as if responding to Ezekiel’s power.
As Ezekiel’s body scattered, a warm breeze gently swept through the cave.
Softly.
The wind stirred my hair, brushed my fingertips, and danced around the torchlight, ensuring it didn’t go out as it faded away.
Ezekiel was completely leaving.
The empire’s guardian dragon, who had protected the empire for so long, was disappearing entirely, wrongly branded as an evil dragon…
I closed my eyes briefly, then opened them to watch Ezekiel’s body vanish slowly.
And soon after.
“Everything… has disappeared…”
Ezekiel’s body was gone.
The magnificent, beautiful blue dragon had scattered like starlight, leaving us entirely.
And beneath him.
“Look at this, Lemarte…”
A massive egg, hidden inside Ezekiel’s body, appeared.
Its white shell was studded with blue jewel-like marks, slightly larger than my head.
The egg emitted a mystical blue glow and trembled slightly, as if ready to hatch.
“Will it hatch?”
“I don’t know… We can’t take it out like this. We’ll have to wait until after it hatches.”
I squatted beside the gently trembling egg, watching it carefully.
Then.
[Touch it again.]
“Huh?”
[Touch it again. If you do, you’ll feel its power, and it might break out of the egg immediately.]
Ex urged me.
I nodded and cautiously placed my hand on the smooth eggshell.
The shell was surprisingly warm, as if it had been held by someone until just moments ago.
“……”
“……”
[……]
But for a moment, nothing happened.
The slight movements had even stopped once I touched it.
“It’s not moving?”
Then,
Crack!
A jagged line appeared on the eggshell!
Lemarte and I widened our eyes, staring at the large egg beneath our hands.
Once the shell cracked, everything happened quickly.
Tap, tap!
A knocking sound came from inside the egg, and soon a piece of the shell fell off with a clatter.
Holding our breath, Lemarte and I waited desperately for the baby dragon to emerge.
And after a while.
Tap!
The shell broke apart a little more… and finally.
“Kiiung?”
A tiny baby dragon sprang out of the egg.
“It’s born!”
“A real hatchling…!”
Still damp from just hatching, the dragon immediately scrambled toward me.
“Kyuung!”
“Whoa!”
The small blue dragon nuzzled my cheek, wriggling happily in my arms.
It was very small, with tiny wings.
Its body shone blue like Ezekiel’s, and its eyes sparkled gold.
One of the most beautiful living creatures I had ever seen.
I was momentarily entranced, staring at the newborn dragon in my arms.
But surprise didn’t last long. I grabbed the dragon and wiped its damp body with my sleeve.
The dragon, slightly uncomfortable, didn’t resist my touch.
Once I finished drying it…
“What… do we do now?”
Holding the now-dry dragon, I looked at Lemarte and Excalibur.
Excalibur spoke first.
[That… this dragon is so young, why is that?]
“Because it’s a baby, isn’t it?”
[Even so, dragon hatchlings usually know how to speak basic language. This one is only making animal sounds. Seems like it hatched before it fully developed. Let’s just take it with us for now.]
“Hmm… but can we really just take it like this? Won’t it be obvious that it’s a dragon?”
I held the soft little dragon in my arms, looking at Lemarte and Excalibur.
Ezekiel had asked us to raise the hatchling but hadn’t explained how.
‘That… that’s the most important part!’
I should have asked, but Ezekiel’s voice had broken, and his orb shattered before I could.
So here we were, holding the dragon, looking a little foolish.
Taking it out like this…
It would be like shouting: “Look, there’s a baby dragon here! A just-hatched, super cute little dragon!”
Hiding it, however, risked leaving it behind, where servants of the so-called evil dragon or heroes might harm it.
[Then just hide it while you take it out. Put it in a bag.]
“Okay.”
Following Ex’s instructions, I opened my bag and emptied everything inside.
Then carefully placed the baby dragon inside.
Luckily, it fit comfortably.
“Kyuung?”
The dragon, having just lost its mother, tilted its head and looked at me.
I stared at it quietly, then carefully asked Ex.
“But this one… it’s a dragon, so it’ll keep growing here, right?”
[Yes.]
“Then… where should we keep it? There’s a limit to raising it secretly, isn’t there?”
[You don’t need to worry about that.]
Ex glimmered in the darkness.
[Even though it’s a hatchling, it’s the transcendent guardian dragon Ezekiel’s offspring. Soon, it will be able to change its appearance at will and even deceive human eyes.]
At that moment, the dragon peeked its head out of the bag and cried, “Kyuung!”
As if understanding everything Excalibur had just said.
