At one time, the Calais Empire was called ‘the country where dragons live’, because dragons appeared so often, even though It was only two or three hundred years apart.
However, it was about 300 years before Rabes hatched that the dragons decided to stop their frequent visits.
Humans, whose numbers quickly increased, damaged nature to obtain resources and fought to increase the land to dominate.
Humans, once worshippers of gods, water, and nature, quickly became slaves to money and power, so the dragons gave up on coexisting with them.
They could have wiped the humans off the face of the earth with their magic, but that wasn’t what they wanted.
The dragon elder gathered all the clans and had them collect the magic cores they had sown into the ground, and they prepared to leave the land.
But then, a small egg fell into the human world.
[Elder. What should I do?]
[Leave it alone. It’s not destined to come with us.]
[Well, the egg shape is strange, I don’t think it will hatch.]
The dragons left the human world after they judged that the egg, which was smaller and flatter than a normal dragon egg, would not hatch properly.
However, the egg contained the dragon’s soul and magical power core that was not broken. That was Rabes.
For many years, Rabes was trapped in an egg and rolled around, learning about humans and the world.
In the meantime, he had matured enough to be born at any time, but the conditions for hatching an egg not carried by a mother dragon were the same as for breaking the seal, so Rabes had no choice but to wait for little luck.
However, there is no fate to die in the world, so one day, someone threw Rabes’s egg to another human.
The hard egg hit the human forehead and tore the tender skin, and the blood and scattered tears stained the egg.
It was the moment when the seemingly impossible condition for unsealing was fulfilled: the blood and tears of a human.
“Kyaaak!”
The girl’s scream. It was the first ‘real’ sound of the world that Rabes heard.
With a small crack, the egg cracked and Rabes got out of the prison-like egg while growing in size at once.
The air of the human world was pungent at first, but for the fire-breathing dragon, it felt familiar.
[Huftt, barely hatched.]
After shaking his head and brushing off the remaining eggshell from his nose, Laves turned his head towards the human who became his contractor with a heart of gratitude and joy.
She was a small, thin girl who seemed to be in her mid-teens in human age.
The black hair was a mess. and the skin peeking out of her ragged clothes was dirty and covered with blood stains.
“Dra…Dragon…!”
[Yes, nice to meet you too. But….]
As he could have guessed from her appearance, Rabes’s first contractor was not in a situation to greet him.
Not just because she was skinny and dirty, but because she was tied to a pile of firewood.
[You don’t look good, so let’s start with something important. A human who became my contractor, I can grant your three wishes. I think it would be better to make a wish quickly before dying.]
“Save me! Please save me!”
Two eyes full of fear were desperately looking at Rabes. And Rabes saw through the eyes of the contractor’s sincere wish.
[Are you satisfied with just saving your life? I guess we need to add one more?]
The girl stared blankly at Rabes at the end of his teasing words, then clenched her teeth and spoke.
“Please kill all the villagers!”
[I like it. I’ll grant you your first wish.]
Rabes smirked and quickly whirled around the pole to which the girl was tied.
The flames that had threatened to consume the girl at any moment were pushed to the outside of the pole and not a single ember was left around the girl.
Since Rabes was invisible to humans other than the girl, the people shouted in surprise.
“Why are the fires off!”
“As expected, she was a witch! It’s the witch’s last act! Throw a stone at her and kill her!”
Surprised, the people picked up stones that had fallen nearby and started to throw them at the girl.
However, unlike before, none of the stones reached the girl, and the flames charred the wood and then went out.
Rabes, who was giggling, spread his wings wide and rose into the air, and finally showed himself.
“what is that!”
“It is a monster!”
Unlike the girl who knew that Rabes was a dragon as soon as she saw him, the villagers called Rabes a ‘monster’.
[Stupid things. Be thankful to see the dragon before you die.]
Then he faltered back and spouted black flames at the villagers.
“Aaaah!”
“Disaster! A witch has brought disaster to the village!”
“help me!”
The humans who wanted to burn the little girl to death without remorse, ran away begging for their lives this time.
Rabes burned them all to death like he burned trash. Not only the men who took the lead in trying to burn the girl to death, but also the woman carrying a baby on her back and children of the same age as the girl.
It took less than an hour to burn the entire village, as well as the villagers.
After finishing his work, Rabes smirked as he approached the girl who was sitting on a pile of firewood in disbelief.
[how is it? Do you like it?]
“hmph…hmph.”
Instead of answering, sobs came out.
The girl stared at the empty village for a long time and cried without making a sound. Countless teardrops formed on her face, but each one seemed to carry a different emotion.
Rabes looked at the girl with interest and asked.
[Little human, what is your next wish?]
The girl who had been sniffing and wiping her face stared into the sky for a long time before replying as if she was determined to do something.
“Please make me the greatest wizard in this empire…”
The knowledge of the girl’s wish came naturally to Rabes’ head.
[Isn’t the title of wizard given only to males in this empire?]
“That’s right. Even if they use magic in the same way, women are called witches. And if it is discovered that she is a witch, she would be burned at the stake.”
[Are you a witch?]
“yes…”
It’s not like she wasn’t, but Rabes felt a weak magic power in the girl’s body. So there wasn’t much she could do with that level of her magical power.
[You don’t have much power. How did you get caught being a witch?]
“I wasn’t caught, I was just accused of being a witch. There was a plague in the village, and I, who was poor and could barely eat, didn’t get sick…”
Rabes shook his head, saying, [ The people like to blame others.]
[Hmm…Then, should I completely change your gender to male?]
“I just need people to mistake me for a man. To be honest, I don’t really want to be a man.”
After living as a girl for 16 years, she didn’t want to have a man’s body.
Then Rabes had no choice but to make her look like a man in the eyes of others.
[If you, who is actually a woman, have to live pretending to be a man…. are you sure you’re okay with that?]
“It doesn’t matter. I’d rather pretend to be a man and live alone for the rest of my life than be a woman without a family in this world.”
So, Rabes gave her the illusion of a man. To others, she would look like a man with the same color of hair and eyes as hers.
[Okay, this time about magic power…]
Rabes thought the girl was surprisingly clever.
To make her a great wizard means that her magic must be stronger than any other wizard in the world.
And if she could create that much magical power, the girl would be able to fulfill all her desires even if she didn’t ask Rabes for it.
There was no feeling of loss, but if the girl died of natural causes, the contract would end there anyway, so Rabes said with a feeling of enjoying a little bit.
[I will remove part of my magic core so that you can be stronger than any wizard in this country.]
“Magic core…?What is that?”
[My heart. Do you know that the dragon’s heart is the essence of magical power? I’m going to give you a little bit of that. With that, you will be able to become the greatest wizard in the human world.]
“What? Is that okay?”
[Is that okay? What are you asking?]
“You took off your heart. Doesn’t it hurt then?”
A dirty human girl who seemed about to collapse at any moment was worried about the safety of a huge dragon.
Rabes couldn’t stand it and burst into laughter.
[Ahaha! That sounds so cute. But don’t worry, it won’t hurt me if I take a little bit of it.]
“Really?”
[Yes. But keep in mind. The moment you betray me or make me angry, I will take that magic core in the most painful way.]
The girl trembled and nodded quickly with a frightened face.
‘I never thought that I would treat humans like this, but she was such a cute contractor.’
* * *
