Ch.101Black Dragon and Explosive Dragon – 2

I was the first to assess the situation and got up. The chairwoman hastily covered her chest with her hands and crossed her thighs to hide her intimate areas. Even so, her palms could barely cover her areolas and nipples.

“G-get out for now! I’ll call you when I’m done!”

Brunhild and Aria, who regained their senses next, practically pushed me out. I left without resistance. Staying would only complicate things.

“You can come in now.”

It didn’t take long before Brunhild opened the door and peeked her head out to call me. When I returned to the room, I saw the chairwoman wearing a slightly different style of formal attire than usual.

Her top was still a vest-style shirt, but it revealed parts of her back and sides. As a bonus, the front buttons seemed slightly too small for her, stretching tightly as if about to burst.

Aria and Brunhild stood beside her with dazed expressions. Aria was staring down at herself, muttering something in a trance-like state, while Brunhild absentmindedly touched her own chest.

“What’s wrong?”

“Um, well… you see…”

After hesitating for a while, Brunhild whispered in my ear.

“When we helped her dress, I saw up close that one of hers is bigger than both our heads combined…”

There was no subject in her sentence, but her meaning was clear. I didn’t understand why this was so shocking to them, but I couldn’t pretend to understand women’s feelings, so I let it go.

“I-I’m sorry. My mind wasn’t clear, and I made a mistake. And thank you. I heard you treated me when I was nearly dead. I swear on the name of Erestica that I will repay this debt.”

The chairwoman, her face flushed red, stumbled through her apology and thanks. Her shoulders slumped.

“I still haven’t granted your previous wish either… And now I owe you my life again. I don’t know how to repay such a debt.”

“In that case, I’ll use both wishes right here. Tell me who you mistook me for when you called me ‘child,’ and where you’ve been and what you were doing to get so severely injured.”

The previous offer was more about giving me an item I wanted rather than a wish, but I didn’t particularly want anything right now anyway.

“W-well…”

The chairwoman hesitated, clearly uncomfortable. I could tell something was bothering her. I quickly backed down.

“If it’s difficult to answer, that’s fine. I’ll think of something else. You don’t have to force yourself to tell me.”

“N-no. Not once but twice you’ve helped me. I should tell you now. However, it requires some mental preparation… And you don’t need to use your wish for this. I overheard while getting dressed. You must be curious why I was absent from the Academy at such a crucial time.”

Her hands, which had been searching for somewhere to rest, finally interlocked in front of her lower abdomen. Her fingers dug deeply between the joints. After a brief pause, the chairwoman spoke haltingly.

“When I said ‘child’… it was literally what I called my child.”

“What?”

“Chairwoman, you had a child…?”

Brunhild and Aria opened their eyes wide in surprise. I was quite shocked too. I never imagined the chairwoman was married. I wasn’t sure if her partner was a dragon or a human.

“It wasn’t a child I gave birth to,” the chairwoman shook her head.

“It was a human child.”

When Meligor was known as the Dark Dragon, she wasn’t particularly hateful or hostile toward humans.

Sometimes when the Demon Lord ordered her to burn the human world, she would just singe the border areas and return, essentially slacking off.

She simply sided with the demon faction because her lair was in the demon realm. That was the extent of Meligor’s operating principle. She was too unmotivated to actively move or hate anything.

Following the logic of serving the stronger being, Meligor’s life consisted of not taking orders from anyone unless specifically summoned by the Demon Lord, spending all day holed up in her lair sleeping or lazing about.

Meligor thought such days would continue forever.

—Waaah! Waaah!

—…A human child.

Until she happened to discover a human child caught in a fire.

It was after she had carried out the Demon Lord’s orders by half-heartedly burning the border areas and was about to return to her lair. The dragon’s transcendent sight and hearing caught a child crying in the distance.

Next to the child was a woman, half-dismembered and dying, likely attacked by monsters fleeing from the dragon’s presence. Even as she was dying, the woman cared nothing for her own life and tried to comfort the child.

But her wounds were severe, and she soon breathed her last. The child, left alone, continued crying without even realizing what had happened.

—…

Meligor, who had watched the entire scene, somehow took the abandoned child to her lair.

She didn’t know why she did it herself. Perhaps she was bored with her idle days, or perhaps it was similar to how humans pick up abandoned animals.

But one thing was clear: Meligor decided to raise this child.

After returning to her lair with the human child, who wasn’t even the size of her smallest claw, Meligor first polymorphed into a human woman’s body based on her memory.

Although she didn’t know much about humans, she knew she couldn’t raise a human in her dragon form.

“Tell me how humans raise children.”

“…Why are you asking me that?”

“You’re the demon who interacts with humans the most. So, are you refusing to teach me?”

“Ah, fine! Fine! Hey! Don’t breathe fire in the castle!”

Next, she half-threatened Astaroth into giving her information about raising human children, and she fed the baby with magically synthesized milk from her fingertip.

“Mama!”

“…”

When the baby first called her “mama” after what was a mere moment by dragon standards, Meligor felt something peculiarly stirring in a corner of her heart.

It was around then that the curiosity in her heart disappeared, and she truly committed to raising this human child.

“Mama! Look! A flower!”

“It’s very pretty. Just like you, child.”

“Hehe, you look like it too! Here! This is for you!”

“Really? Thank you.”

What were mere moments for Meligor passed several times. The human child grew vigorously.

She would have surely made many men weep with her beauty had she been in the human world, but neither Meligor the dragon nor the child raised under her cared much about appearances.

Only the continuation of their current relationship mattered.

“My name is Eres! And Mama’s name… hmm… let’s call you Erestica, meaning Eres’s mother!”

“Oh my. Does that word mean mother in human language?”

“No! I just made it up!”

At some point, Meligor left her lair. She spent more time in human form than in dragon form. The lair was too large for living as a human-sized being.

Instead, she built a house sized for humans and lived there. The longer she left her lair unattended, the more accustomed Meligor became to her human form. She even began to think in terms of human time.

After about 20 years—very brief for a dragon but sufficient for a human to grow up—Meligor received a very special gift.

“…What is this, child?”

“It’s a gift for you, Mama. We decided to make the day we met your birthday, remember? Thank you for raising me, Mama.”

“My child…”

It was a gray hair tie, made by gathering materials from mountains and fields, spun thread by thread. Meligor smiled and hugged her daughter tightly.

Eres laughed brightly, saying she couldn’t breathe because of Meligor’s chest.

“The Demon Lord’s orders have arrived. I’ll be back soon, so be good.”

“Yes, Mama. Take care.”

Not long after receiving the hair tie, the Demon Lord’s orders came. As always, it was an order to burn the human world. Meligor surrounded the house with all kinds of protective spells before flying toward the human world.

When Meligor returned home after barely fulfilling the order by burning just a few trees at the border, she discovered that the protective spells on the house had been broken.

“…Child?”

The dragon’s transcendent senses detected something with a fishy, bloody scent. She had an ominous feeling.

“Child! Are you alright? My child!”

What Meligor discovered after tearing open the door was a blood-soaked house and Eres being devoured in the middle of it.

“You returned sooner than expected.”

The human—no, the dragon polymorphed as a human—who was devouring Eres slowly turned his head.

It was the Violent Dragon, Mahbat.

While Meligor trembled, unable to comprehend the scene before her, Mahbat calmly continued to devour Eres’s corpse. The sound of tearing flesh echoed.

“Hmm. Nothing special after all.”

Then he tossed aside what he had been eating. Thud! The human head hit the wall and burst open. Though it was a very brief moment, Meligor clearly saw the agonized expression on that face.

“What… is… this…”

“I wondered what a human raised by a dragon would taste like, so I tried it. Nothing special. Tsk, just wasted my time.”

Mahbat, seemingly finished with his meal and about to return to his original form, looked at Meligor’s expression and spat out contemptuously.

“Why that look, Meligor? It was just a human you picked up. Raise another one. If that’s too troublesome, I’ll catch one for you.”

That was the breaking point. Meligor, exploding with rage, returned to her original form and fought Mahbat for seven days and nights, only to be subdued when the Demon Lord, having heard the news, personally intervened.

But the difference in power was clear. While Meligor was half-dead, Mahbat had only a few wounds. Had the Demon Lord not appeared, Meligor would surely have been the one to die.

“You weak thing, if you’re so resentful, you should have defeated that one in battle.”

The Demon Lord, having heard the whole story, opened his mouth with a cold sneer at Meligor.

“Had I not appeared, you would surely have died at Mahbat’s hands. How dare you plead injustice when you couldn’t even avenge your pet with your own hands? Just raise a new one as he said.”

The Demon Lord left after saying only that, and the other corps commanders followed, mocking the dazed Meligor. Astaroth’s mockery was especially severe, as he had some grudges.

Mahbat, despite having essentially gained the power of life and death over Meligor, did not kill her. His reason was that she wasn’t even worth killing.

After kneeling in that spot for a full month, Meligor left the demon realm that day and headed for the human world. The Demon Lord knew Meligor had crossed over to the human world but did not stop her, for the same reason as always.

“I request a deal, Emperor of Humans.”

The first person Meligor sought after crossing into the human world was the being humans called Emperor. Despite being shocked to hear that the woman before him was a dragon, the Emperor calmly agreed to the deal.

It was the day the Bellium Academy was established.

“…Why do you think this academy was founded with the assumption of fighting demons? Because the interests of humans and myself aligned.”

At this shocking revelation of the past, Brunhild was astounded, and Aria covered her mouth, tears streaming down her face. I too was thinking about Mahbat with downcast eyes.

After all, I also had someone I couldn’t protect.