What Does That Evil Dragon Live For?

But Rabes wasn’t angry.

[Hmm…Well, if I destroy this country, there will be no point in surviving alone.] 

“Yes! That’s it.”

While Elaine seemed convinced of the validity of his wish, Rabes seemed to think more about something. Then, scratching his side with his back foot, he said,

[I will not destroy it while you are alive.] 

“Can’t you not destroy it forever…?”

[I have said that the wish should be related to you. The world after your death is out of your control.] 

That made sense. Not only was it not related to Elaine himself, it seemed a bit presumptuous to attach “forever” as a condition to the wish.

‘Yes, I’ve tried this much. What if the dragon gets angry and doesn’t even grant this wish?’ 

Elaine thought the situation was a dream, but nodded nervously. 

“Then, uh, as long as I’m alive…”

Elaine thought she had overcome a major obstacle, but she should have remembered at this time that dragons are a very selfish race.

[If I want to grant your wish, I must erase all the power of evil I have accumulated. So I have no choice, I have to go back to the beginning.] 

“What?”

[I will make your first wish come true.] 

“No, wait a minute.…!”

Elaine sensed that something was wrong when the dragon said, “I have no choice but to go back to the beginning.”

but before she had time to stop Rabes, a tremendous wave of magic swept through space and time.

The air that filled the cave seemed to expand, and dazzling light burst from all directions, making her mind go blank.

In an instant, all sensation in her body disappeared, and she felt as if she had become a flurry of dust or a soft breeze.

‘What’s this! I’m scared!’ 

She thought it was scary, there was no physical body to give her goosebumps. Her thoughts and feelings were just scattered in the air.

Then, a loud, humming sound and a harsh wind rattled her soul until she couldn’t think straight anymore.

The time has passed. 

The humming sound died down and it was quiet all over the place.

She felt relaxed and refreshed, like she had slept in a long time.

However, as the senses of her body awoke, Elaine felt an inexplicable sense of incongruity.

‘huh… ?something feels strange…’

Her body didn’t feel like it was moving at will before she blacked out; it felt like it was shrinking, or like it was creaking.

As her consciousness gradually returned, it was the pain that struck her in the middle of her forehead with the sound of “Tak!“

“Ouch!”

Elaine unconsciously grabbed her forehead and crouched on the floor. 

“Ahahaha!”

“Hit! hit!”

“Great, Martin!”

Someone’s happy voice was heard.

However, Elaine, who was crouching on the ground looking at the dry grass and bloody stones in front of her, couldn’t smile.

‘No way…’ 

Elaine slowly removed her hand from her forehead and looked down at the bloody hand. Her rough hands, dry and peeling in places, as if her bones would pop out. 

“Kyaaa!”

She screamed, goosebumps breaking out all over my body before she could fully recognize the situation.

It was clearly the hand from the days when she was living with Count Newt’s family and couldn’t eat properly. She couldn’t forget that.

Even though Elaine couldn’t see the fearsome dragon, her body trembled with fear, and tears burst out uncontrollably.

And the tears that fell in the middle of the day were splattering over the small pebble that was stained with blood. 

“Blood, blood!”

“ugh, dirty!”

The children who were laughing in the distance flinched when they saw Elaine’s bloody forehead and hands, and ran away towards the mansion in disgust.

Left alone, Elaine slowly raised her head and looked around.

It was a very familiar, but not very memorable place. 

‘It’s the garden of Newt’s mansion. how…why…!’

The moment she tried to figure out what had happened, the first thing that came to her mind was the dragon’s words that said he had no choice but to go back.

‘It felt more like a dream now than before, but the pain that had just hit my forehead was too vivid to be a dream.’

Elaine’s heart is beating fast.

In addition, this situation was clearly embedded in her memory.

‘It was my 16th birthday…’ 

Of course, no one knew that it was Elaine’s birthday. It’s a day she wants to erase rather than celebrate.

Elaine, who was born in the Newt family’s detached house, had no father.

Her mother, known as the illegitimate daughter of the previous Count Newt, gave birth to Elaine without a father, and as an illegitimate child of an illegitimate child, she was called ‘the stain of the Newt family’ from then on.

At least when her mother was alive, she got better, but her mother, who was said to have started to deteriorate after giving birth to her, eventually died when Elaine was seven years old.

“Like the bitch who ate her mother! What beastly seed is it that kills her mother!” 

Her uncle, Earl Newt, gnashed his teeth and cursed at Elaine whenever he saw her. That she killed her mother.

“A dirty bitch died leaving her filth behind.”

Her aunt, Countess Newt, cursed both Elaine and her mother.

Since the householder couple hated her so much, Elaine was an easy toy for their children.

Ever since she was young, they slapped, pinched, pulled her hair, and pushed her.

The scars on Elaine’s body never went dry.

This day, when she was hit in the head with a stone, was just another day of injury. It’s not her birthday or anything like that.

‘Why did I come back to this time? It would have been better if I had come back after I entered the temple.’

She was harassed even at the temple, but better than at Count Newt’s mansion. She hadn’t been beaten directly, and she had three meals a day.

‘Embarrassed and scared, I felt like I was going to cry more, but suddenly I heard a strange sound.’

[Beep!] 

Startled, Elaine looked down at the floor to see that the pebble that had hit her forehead had split in half, and a small, black lizard-like creature had sat in its place, squealing.

But its sound quickly turned into swear words of displeasure.

[Damn it, this is the third time I’ve done this, but these hard eggshells are so annoying!]

“No way…Lord Rabes…?”

I wanted to believe it was a baby lizard, but the fluttering wings were too conspicuous for that. Before that, it even spoke.

[Yes, my human contractor. Do you remember where and how you met me now?]

“Oh my God…”

Elaine stared blankly at Rabes, forgetting about the wound on her forehead that was dripping with blood. 

‘I did not forget the moment a small pebble hit my forehead.’

‘However, at that time, Rabes did not appear in front of me, and I, who had been crying on the floor, wiped away the tears and blood with my hand, then got up and went back to the mansion.’

“yes…I remember But you didn’t appear in front of me like this at that time, did you?”

[At that time, I was sealed for a long time, so I took some time to come out. But it wasn’t that long, but in the meantime you ran away.] 

Rabes, who shook his tail and brushed off the egg shell that was hanging on, looked around his body.

In the meantime, Rabes’ body continued to grow, but it stopped growing when his body reached the size of two adult men’s fists.

“So, the stone that Martin threw…Are you saying it was a dragon egg?”

[Yes. If the human who threw me at you had put his blood and tears on the egg before you did, my contractor would have become him, not you.] 

“Blood and Tears…?”

[Does your memory run out? I told you in the cave it was a necessary condition for breaking the seal. I’ve been stained with blood a few times, but surprisingly, it’s difficult to meet the tears.] 

Rabes answered, flapping his still-damp wings lightly.

Perhaps because he was in the form of a baby dragon, Elaine’s fear of Rabes had faded considerably. No, she thought it was a little cute.

However, the sound that came out of the cute dragon’s mouth was not very cute.

[By the way, let me guess your second wish, you wanted me to kill all those humans earlier, right?] 

Elaine suddenly came to her senses when she heard that he was going to kill everyone.

“No, no! Don’t kill anyone!”

[Why? they attacked you, Aren’t you angry?] 

“You can’t kill people just because you’re angry!”

[That’s for the ones who don’t have the power to. Oh, I forgot to tell you, you can borrow some of my power while you’re my contractor.] 

Rabes whispered, as if it were a sinister plan.

“Even so, I can’t.”

[What? Because it’s not worthy of a wish? Then fine, you will borrow my power to kill a few humans and it won’t even count as a wish. Let’s just say it’s a bonus. What do you think? Do you want to kill him now?] 

Perhaps it was because the smaller Rabes seemed easy going, Elaine couldn’t help but look at Rabes with an absurd face.

‘They say dragons are gods, aren’t they just like children? The way he grants wishes seems to be arbitrary…’ 

Even his tone has changed subtly. He has to pretend to be intimidating, but his playful nature keeps popping up.

Elaine, who had been brought back to her 16-year-old because of Rabes’s arbitrary ways. looked down once more at her bloody hands and shrugged.

* * *