It’s a dragon.
Everywhere I look, dragon this, dragon that.
As I look up at Gemma’s reunion, the giant dragons stomp around, greeting each other, making it feel like an earthquake as I struggle to keep my feet on the ground.
Was this how Gulliver felt in the land of giants?
Suddenly, as I see the dragons welcoming Gemma, something dawns on me.
‘Those weren’t the dragons I saw.’
These are not the dragons I encountered.
Dragons are perfect just by existing, so when they return to their original form, they don’t wear any separate clothing.
Instead, they prefer shiny accessories for decoration.
The two green dragons welcoming Gemma sported various adornments, but the most noticeable was the accessory resting on their shoulders.
It seemed to indicate their standing here.
The dragon that guided me when I had my audience with the Dragon Lord was a white dragon, and its shoulder accessory was even more extravagant.
[Seriously, I was shocked you just ran off without a word.]
[Right? Do you know how much we got scolded by the Lord for that?]
[I never imagined you could just walk out if you set your mind to it.]
How did you manage to run away? Apparently, there’s no facility to stop or obstruct someone from leaving.
[Alright, let’s stop there and introduce this person.]
[Oh, my mind… I forgot. This is Atlas. He’s helped me in various ways down below.]
[A benefactor you met during your fun times.]
Benefactor?
After giving it some thought, I suppose he could be called that.
Although our first impressions weren’t great, we ended up getting along well enough to face our enemies together and he’s helped me quite a bit, so there’s that.
At first, I really laid into him during socialization training, but in the end, we managed to correct things, so that’s a relief.
Let’s try not to let this slip.
If that fool finds out, he might try to kill me.
[Did you bring him here because you wanted to reward him?]
[That’s part of it, but… that’s not the main issue.]
I’ve heard that among dragons, it’s not uncommon to reveal one’s identity and give rewards when mingling with mortals during recreational activities, but that’s not why I came here.
[I need to see my father. Where is he right now?]
The important thing is confirming whether the dragons currently at the Academy truly received orders from the Lord.
Seeing Gemma asking for a private audience with her father, Jade calmly said,
[Right, that’s important. I will escort you to where the Lord is.]
.
.
.
Throughout the journey, I was perched on Gemma’s palm.
Since we weren’t flying but walking, I figured riding would be pointless.
“Why did everyone suddenly go quiet?”
[Father doesn’t like noise.]
Jade respectfully bowed at the door and announced,
[… Lady Gemma has returned.]
After a brief silence, the tightly sealed door opened.
[You may enter.]
[… Understood.]
I wondered if it was okay for me to enter as well, but since no one stopped me, I followed in.
Gemma sensed something odd about the atmosphere and, with a questionable expression, stepped inside.
The room, presumed to be the Dragon Lord’s bedroom, naturally had a lot of structural differences from a human’s bedroom.
There wasn’t a grand bed, but instead, a quaint and elegantly decorated nest where one could curl up and sleep.
[… Father?]
As I entered the room, the sight before me was a gigantic dragon gently glowing with gold, curled up in its nest.
It looked even bigger than Gemma, just as I remembered.
Without missing a beat in its timeless form, Dragon Lord Lux remained silent.
Gemma, thinking that silence was because of her fault, bowed her head and confessed her guilt in a trembling voice.
[Father… I’m sorry. The reason you didn’t let me out of the nest was that I was still inexperienced, yet I selfishly ran away without understanding that… ]
She was not a stranger to asking for forgiveness, detailing what she did wrong and what she would do going forward.
However, despite Gemma’s repeated questions, the Dragon Lord did not respond.
[…. Father?]
At this point, she should normally be granted forgiveness, but as Gemma sensed the unusual silence, a white dragon standing nearby blocked her from approaching the Lord.
This was definitely the dragon that had guided me when I visited before.
[What has happened to the Lord!!]
[The Lord is still in a state of rest.]
[Nick, what’s going on! Why… why is Father like this!!]
Nick, was that the name?
The sight of the Dragon Lord unable to awaken was quite a blow to me as well.
It hadn’t been so long since McKinto met with the Dragon Lord, so what could have happened in the meantime?
Nick calmly tried to calm Gemma down and began to explain.
[It’s been about 2 weeks since the Lord fell into this deep slumber.]
Two weeks prior was just around the end of the school vacation.
[After finishing the conversation with the red dragon McKinto, the Lord learned of Gemma’s whereabouts and tried to act as if it didn’t bother him, but he was evidently worried and occasionally checked on her situation.]
[… What?]
Gemma’s expression hardened as she realized the Dragon Lord had been secretly watching over her.
“Watching me from a distance?”
[“Watching you from a distance”? Your choice of words is a bit off. Isn’t it the nature of a parent to worry about a child who has run away?]
I get that a parent would be worried when their child is outside, but I was astonished to learn that they were keeping an eye on me as soon as my whereabouts were established.
Who could they have asked to keep an eye on me?
With no searing gaze on me, I found myself subconsciously looking around.
[While I was typically hearing the latest news about Lady Gemma… suddenly, he yelled and then collapsed.]
[Why… why did that happen?]
[This was the image he was looking at.]
Nick presented a photograph.
Naturally, Gemma was in the picture, but what could possibly be so troubling about it?
[W-What is this photo??? Ugh… you saw this too!?]
However, the moment Gemma saw the photograph, her emotions seemed to surge, and the golden scales began to glisten fiercely.
Seeing her making such a puzzled expression left Nick to add an explanation.
[What you said back then was very clear. “The back… the back is off-limits.”]
Upon closer inspection, it not only depicted Gemma but also showed me rapidly flying on her back.
She had indeed proposed to further hone our fighting skills together during training.
“Why does that matter??”
The two dragons stared down at me intently.
What’s this… could it be because of me?
.
.
.
While considering how to not interfere with each other during our movements, it just so happened that I ended up riding on her back, but I never imagined this would turn into a matter of concern!
I understood to some extent that for dragons, allowing someone to ride on their back held significant meaning, but for Atlas, it was rather perplexing.
First of all, there were a few misunderstandings.
Atlas’s understanding of dragon knowledge was quite skewed.
What he knew about dragons came solely from what he read in the original novel and records left in the Imperial library, which mostly consisted of information about their traits or their strength as a species, rather than their customs.
Therefore, it was mostly cases where he knew one thing but was clueless about two others.
In the first place, it’s quite absurd for the customs of dragons to be documented.
Unlike mortals, dragons are a superior race reigning above the clouds; they have no reason to share their customs with inferior races.
Thus, the broadly spread history of dragons was merely spouted by some loquacious dragons who played around and mingled with mortals.
So it could only be a collection of highly biased and narrow-minded knowledge, and consequently, Atlas found it challenging to understand that a dragon could allow a person to ride on its back.
It was commonly recognized that allowing someone to ride on them denoted that they are an equal… or even greater being.
However, this only applies to ‘male’ dragons.
For a female dragon, allowing someone to climb onto their back is tantamount to granting permission for mating.
It signifies that they have allowed everything for the rest of their lives, but of course, this is something only dragons could possibly know.
