Chapter 20 : The Dragon Who Awoke from Sleep (2)

When I blinked my scales to accept the children’s greeting, they looked at me and suddenly started talking about the bath they had taken before leaving the cave.

“Lisette, come to think of it, what’s a bathhouse?”

“A bathhouse is, well, a place where you soak your body in hot water.”

“Ooh…!”

The children were excited at the mention that I would make them a bathhouse and chatted among themselves, while I watched them fondly and planned dinner.

‘Alright, today’s a special meal.’

Coincidentally, there was that snake I dragged down earlier when it tried to go up into the sky, and we still had some leftover wolf meat.

We also had some root vegetables, so with a good mix, it would make for a hearty dinner.

Especially the snake meat—Sori had really enjoyed it last time, so she’d probably like it again.

First, I neatly laid out the plates and forks I had brought last time on a clean rock so the kids could eat comfortably.

“Snake… I wonder how snake would be.”

Lisette glanced at me as I prepared, blushed slightly, and nodded.

I thought she would dislike it, but apparently, even Lisette was looking forward to the meal.

Alright, time to get cooking for real.

I brought the snake I had packed onto a flat rock suitable for cooking.

It was quite long, so even dragging it by the tail took some effort.

‘This one’s pretty big… It’ll be hard to prep.’

I stared down at the snake, lost in thought.

How should I cook it so the kids can eat it easily?

Grill it whole? Or cut it into pieces? But I didn’t have a knife or anything like that, so chopping wouldn’t be easy.

It had a lot of scales, so I’d probably need to skin it… Should I tear it with my claws?

‘Let’s lightly sear it with fire and think after the surface is cooked.’

That might make it easier to prepare.

I took a deep breath and got ready to breathe fire toward the snake, carefully adjusting the intensity.

A familiar sensation of heat slowly rising from deep inside my throat.

By now, I could confidently say I was better than skilled at controlling fire.

I couldn’t burn it—it was for the kids.

But just as I was about to breathe out a gentle flame—

Flash!

The snake in front of me suddenly began to emit a faint glow on its own.

At first, I thought it was just a reflection of the firelight, but it wasn’t.

A translucent energy, similar to what had formed the snake’s shape when it tried to ascend earlier, started to emerge and release a much denser aura glowing softly from within.

‘…What is this?’

I stopped what I was doing and stared at the scene.

It hadn’t done this when it tried to ascend into the sky.

Why was it glowing now? Was it even safe to eat this thing?

While I was lost in thought, the light grew stronger and stronger.

The snake’s shape was no longer vague like a mirage—it now felt like a solid mass of concentrated energy.

The surrounding air seemed to tremble subtly, and I could feel an unknown force gathering at that spot.

‘This… feels wrong.’

An uneasy feeling began to creep in.

“Wow…”

“A glowing snake!”

Sori and Lisette, who were watching the scene from the cave wall, seemed to find it purely fascinating, their eyes wide with amazement and holding their breath.

Just in case something happened, I decided to stand in front of the kids and moved my body accordingly.

Then the light reached its peak, shining so brightly it hurt to look at.

In the next moment, the light began to rapidly contract inward.

The snake’s long form suddenly shortened, puffed up, and began to change.

Like clay being molded, the glowing mass quickly took on a human shape.

Arms, legs, torso, and a head… Flashes of light burst forth as the details were formed.

When the light finally faded, there was no trace of the snake left on the rock before me.

Instead, in its place…

Stood a young girl with patches of scales across her body.

!………

I froze on the spot.

As the light vanished, the children also turned to look, curious.

“Huh?”

“Lisette, look! A person came out of the snake…!”

What did I just see? Just now? Did the snake… turn into a girl?

My mind went completely blank, unable to process any thoughts.

It took several seconds before I could accept the scene before me as reality.

The girl lying on the rock looked a little older than Sori or Lisette.

Was she over ten? Her long black hair was spread out across the ground, her skin pale but smooth.

Her eyelashes trembled slightly, lips tightly closed.

She didn’t seem conscious yet, but the faint rise and fall of her chest showed she was definitely alive.

Only a suffocating silence filled the cave.

Sori and Lisette were also too shocked to say anything, simply staring at the girl with wide eyes.

What on earth had just happened? The snake I was about to cook—or whatever had been the snake—suddenly transformed into a human girl.

Could something like this really happen? Was it magic from this world I didn’t know about, or was I hallucinating?

Even when I closed and reopened my eyes, the girl with scales scattered over her body was still lying on the cutting board.

While I was lost in this confusion—

“O…”

The girl on the rock let out a faint breath and furrowed her brow.

Then very slowly, with great effort, she lifted her eyelids.

Her unfocused eyes wandered through the air for a moment, then quickly locked onto my massive form right in front of her.

Suddenly, her eyes filled with horror.

As if she had just seen the most terrifying and unbelievable thing in the world.

“Huuh…!”

She froze completely, forgetting to even breathe, staring up at me.

Her eyes shook with terror, and her once-pale face turned ghostly white.

Then, as if she fully realized her situation, she let out a nearly tearing scream!

“KYAAAAAA!”

It was a scream loud enough to shake the entire cave.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

The girl screamed and tried to jump up, but staggered, then flattened herself on the ground and started begging with both hands.

“Please spare me! Please! I’m sorry! I’ll do anything! Please don’t eat me!”

The girl cried out frantically.

Her body was trembling, her face covered in tears and snot.

She looked completely out of her mind, consumed by fear.

I thought I’d heard this from kids not long ago, and now I was hearing it from a snake — I was so shocked I froze.

I could only watch in silence as this absurd and bizarre scene unfolded before my eyes.

The snake I was about to cook had turned into a young girl and was now begging me to spare her.

‘…What am I supposed to do with this?’

My head was a mess from this first-ever experience.

I figured I should calm her down first, but how? If I said or did anything, she’d probably freak out even more.

Just then, I heard both Sori and Lisette gasp behind me.

The two kids seemed completely overwhelmed by what they were witnessing.

‘Hah… seriously.’

It was clearly a huge misunderstanding.

Of all things, the meal I caught turned out to be a person — this definitely wouldn’t be good for the kids’ emotional well-being.

When the snake flew into the sky, I was certain I had to catch it, but why did I think that?

Regret hit me late, and I told her I didn’t plan on eating her.

[I won’t eat you.]

I conveyed my intention to the snake girl.

If I spoke aloud, it would surely scare her even more.

[If you’re not a snake, there’s no reason to eat you.]

Maybe she heard my thoughts directly — her sobbing body flinched slightly.

She paused her crying and slowly looked up at me, disbelief in her eyes.

Her tear-streaked face was still filled with extreme fear, but also confusion, like, ‘What was that just now?’

Okay, it seems like she got the message.

I tried again, this time more calmly.

[Calm down, I won’t hurt you… I won’t ‘cook’ you.]

Ah, maybe I shouldn’t have said the last part.

Sure enough, the word ‘cook’ seemed to drain the color from her face again.

But at least she seemed to understand I wasn’t going to eat her right away — she wasn’t crying like before.

Instead, she asked in a trembling voice,

“Y-you’re not going to eat me…?”

[I said I won’t.]

“Really?”

[I promise.]

“You’re the one promising, right?”

As a dragon,

I nodded slightly, feeling frustrated inside.

The girl seemed relieved for a moment, but then… she reacted in a totally unexpected way.

Her face started to twist.

Not with fear or relief, but deep sorrow and rage — and… injustice.

“Hhng…”

Her small shoulders began to shake.

“Huwaaaaah!”

She burst into tears again.

But this time it was a different kind of crying.

Not screams of fear, but the devastated wailing of someone who had lost something deeply precious, like they’d lost their whole world.

I was bewildered, not knowing why.

I mean, I said I wouldn’t eat her — so why cry again? Did I do something wrong?

“Because of you! Because of you, I…! Huwaaah!”

She pointed at me, shouting in rage.

Her eyes now glared at me with nothing but fury and resentment, fear seemingly forgotten.

‘Because of me? What did I do?’

I still had no idea what was going on.

I said I wouldn’t eat her — so what’s the issue?

“My ascension! I was almost there! I was about to become a dragon!”

She sobbed and spoke in fragments.

Wait — ascension?

“But then you! Who do you think you are?! You dared to grab me and slam me to the ground?! Just to… just to cook me?!”

“Huwaaaah! My thousand years of effort..! Everything I worked for…!”

‘Ascension? Dragon?’

At that moment, I recalled what had happened in the forest earlier.

The image of the snake slowly floating up into the sky.

Could that have been ‘ascension’? And she was just about to become a dragon?

If she’s an imugi, then she was probably becoming an Eastern dragon, not one like me.

“This is why dragons are impossible to understand! You always torment us!”

Huwaaaah!

My mind grew more tangled with confusion.

To think I ruined a thousand years of her effort — and not just any effort, but a sacred and crucial process like ascension.

And I… ruined it, mistaking that miraculous event for something to eat for dinner?

‘…Wow, I really messed up.’

Now I understood why the girl cried so bitterly, why she looked at me with such resentment.

To me, it was just hunting food.

To her, it was a once-in-a-lifetime — no, once-in-a-millennium — sacred ritual.

And I interrupted it.

In the most humiliating way possible.

I felt sorry.

Truly.

If only I’d been a bit more careful — if I had stopped to think or tried to figure out what that strange phenomenon was, this wouldn’t have happened.

Why did I immediately think it was a waste if I didn’t catch her?

I thought and regretted it, but what good is regret now?

It was already done.

I couldn’t say anything — I could only watch the crying girl.

No matter what I said now, it would sound like an excuse.

An apology wouldn’t undo a thousand years of her effort.

‘…What a mess I’ve made, seriously.’

Is there no way to fix this?