Chapter 54
The moment I received a name, my body turned a deep blue.
My body grew larger, and the wing I had lost before birth sprouted.
With that wing, I flew into the sky.
―――My first flight! It felt so wonderful!!
The ground receded rapidly, and the Fenrirs looked no bigger than grains of wheat.
"Gwooooooooo!"
I let out a roar from deep in my belly. It felt good.
I swooped down from high above.
Straight toward the Blue Dragon that had lost its chance to fly after being attacked by the Fenrirs.
Looking back, I was overestimating my own strength at the time.
I felt as though I had gained tremendous power by adding the leader's strength to my own. And that worked in my favor.
Fenrirs and Blue Dragons are generally evenly matched. A single Blue Dragon would normally face a single Fenrir, but I charged alone into a pack of them.
Fenrirs are clever and have sharp instincts, but perhaps they were overwhelmed by my extraordinary presence.
In reality, even with the leader's power added to mine, I could only send a few Fenrirs flying at a time. Yet about ten of them dodged me all at once.
And so the Fenrirs instinctively backed away from the Blue Dragon they had been holding in their jaws.
My companion wasn't about to let that momentary opening pass. The Blue Dragon they'd been pinning down shot into the sky in an instant.
Now that my companion was free, I had no further interest in the nesting ground.
I soared high into the sky once more and began flying east.
My fellow dragons must have realized that I had inherited the leader's power.
They had been circling overhead, at a loss as they looked down at the fallen leader, but the moment I took flight, they all followed me.
I was heading for the cave where I had been born.
Perhaps we instinctively feel at ease in the place where we were born.
Having lost our nesting ground, I tried to think of somewhere safe, but that was the only place that came to mind.
There was an unfamiliar Blue Dragon in the cave where I was born. When it saw my companions landing one after another, it raised a warning cry. Another Blue Dragon heard it and came out of the cave.
―――The one who emerged from the cave was my older brother.
Over those twelve years, my brother had grown into a fine adult dragon, formed his own group, and become its leader.
Mother Dragon was also a member of that group.
My brother's group consisted of about five dragons, but they had been here first and had prior claim to the cave.
We decided to borrow a corner of the place.
Having inherited power from the previous leader, I had duties and responsibilities as the new leader.
That meant bringing my fellow Blue Dragons together and promising them peace and safety.
I had power. In addition to my own strength, I had inherited all of the previous leader's power, making me stronger than any Blue Dragon I had ever heard of. I had wings, too.
I believed a leader's job was to protect everyone through strength, so fulfilling my responsibilities as leader didn't seem difficult.
Ten years ago, I had only one wing, and my body was small. I was hardly a useful fighter. Even so, the members of the group had accepted me and let me live with them all that time. Now it was my turn.
No matter how young or weak a dragon was, I would protect them.
It seemed only natural, and it became a goal for me, who had been drifting through each day without purpose.
I wanted to talk to my older brother, whom I hadn't seen in so long, but he openly avoided me.
We had hatched from the same egg. It was true that he had eaten one of my wings, but monsters are the kind of creatures who will do anything to survive. As a fellow monster, I understood my older brother's actions, so I couldn't bring myself to resent him.
―――Could we, as brothers, work together to protect our companions?
I thought so, but my older brother never gave me a chance to talk to him.
Even Mother Dragon never came out of her cave while I was nearby.
For a while, I thought things were going well.
There were minor conflicts between companions, but nothing serious, and we could hunt enough prey.
We were ambushed by other monsters a few times, but I drove them off almost entirely by myself.
Having gained the strength of two dragons and gradually learning how to use it, I grew stronger and stronger. And that made me happy.
Monsters naturally admire strength, so I was glad simply to have become stronger, but I was even happier to have the strength to protect my companions.
And just as I felt joy in protecting my companions, I believed they, too, felt joy in the safety and security of being protected.
The problem I had at the time was where we lived.
This place was a little too small for two groups to live in.
So I began looking for a new nesting ground and started leaving this place often.
And then came that night―――
A moonless night, with a storm raging.
I was suddenly attacked in my sleep by my older brother and his companions. I woke to the pain of his fangs digging into my neck, caught completely off guard.
I could probably beat my older brother one-on-one, but there were five of them.
When dragons choose a new leader, they decide through a one-on-one duel in front of their companions.
It should never be done through a sneak attack like this.
Since the Fenrirs' ambush, we had strengthened our watch against outside enemies, but had never even considered keeping watch within our own group.
My older brother glared at me with blazing eyes, then growled around me, still clamped in his jaws.
"I should have eaten all of you while we were still in the egg, not just one of your wings."
Then he continued, his voice full of resentment.
"That power is mine. It was originally my power, and you stole it from me. So give it back."
Amid the intense pain, I tried to understand my older brother's deranged words.
...What was my older brother talking about? Even if he ate me, my power wouldn't transfer to him. If that were possible, everyone would start killing their own kind.
For the first time, I called him my brother.
"Brother, calm down. You know that eating me won't pass my power on to you, right? We're brothers. I think there are things we can do by working together."
"That's right. You were a tiny, one-winged failure and a piece of trash. That's why I left you behind, thinking you weren't worth eating. I even thought eating something like you would lower my own worth. And yet, what are you now?! You treacherously ambushed the leader of your group and stole his power, then strut around with borrowed strength!! Ah, you're the biggest scumbag I've ever seen, a vile heap of garbage!!"
And then my older brother continued to spew insults at me without end.
There was no way to reason with him.
I decided to sacrifice some of the skin and flesh on my neck and forcibly wriggled free from beneath my older brother's fangs.
A piece of flesh from my neck was caught in my older brother's mouth.
I broke away from my older brother and his companions and left the cave.
There were five dragons in my brother's group and ten in mine. If my companions realized what was happening, I would win.
Thinking that, I emerged from the cave only to realize that many dragons were standing around the entrance to the cave where I had been sleeping.
A flash of lightning illuminated the dragons surrounding me.
For some reason, they were the dragons in my group.
―――What was going on?
Had my companions noticed that my older brother was attacking me?
And if they had, had they chosen not to come help?
The dragons in my group spoke to me as I stood there, unable to understand the situation.
"I've always hated having you above me. You were at the bottom of the hierarchy, yet you stole the previous leader's power and took the position above me. It's humiliating enough to make my blood boil."
"Why are you the one giving orders?! Why are you the one making decisions?! You were nothing but the lowest-ranking dragon!"
"You didn't even have wings and weren't fit to be called a dragon. You stole the previous leader's power through cowardly means! You pretended to be our obedient underling as the lowest-ranking dragon, letting everyone mock you, all the while waiting for a chance to steal the previous leader's power, you thief!!"
...What were they talking about?
Then why, back then―――when the previous leader had been knocked down by half a dozen Fenrirs and was being bitten to pieces all over, hadn't you gone to save him instead of me?
Why hadn't you plunged in among all those exposed fangs, in the midst of the Fenrir pack that had attacked us with overwhelming numbers?
If you had, then look.
By now, you―――you could have been the leader, and I would never have ended up above you.
If you could have survived beneath the fangs of those Fenrirs, that is.
These dragons understood.
They couldn't beat the Fenrirs themselves, and they wouldn't have been able to charge into that situation.
They knew it, and that's exactly why every dragon had been circling overhead back then.
I opened my mouth, clinging to the faintest hope.
"If you were so dissatisfied, why not challenge me for the leadership? You can do it now, even. If you want to be the leader, then challenge me fairly."
But my companions opened their mouths wide in a threatening display.
"Why should we face you fairly when you killed the previous leader through underhanded means and stole his power?! You have no honor or pride. You deserve to be killed here by some unknown dragon and die for nothing!"
...That's right. There probably wasn't a Blue Dragon who could beat me one-on-one.
But a one-on-one challenge for leadership was supposed to be the rule of our proud dragonkind.
I raised my head and looked at the dragons standing around me.
I understood how the male dragons felt.
Then what about the females? Did they all agree that I had no place here?
Every female dragon I met eyes with casually looked away.
"...Don't take it personally. But if you defeat all the male dragons, we'll become your mates."
"...Yeah, I guess that's a difference in perspective. I don't want you."
What strange dragons.
The male dragons were trying to kill me by twisting what should have been a point of pride for dragonkind: choosing a leader through a fair contest of strength.
The female dragons were blindly following another dragon custom: submitting to the strongest dragon who survived through strength.
...Heh. The females probably didn't believe for a second that I would win, so in the end, they were simply turning a blind eye to my death.
They followed the rules when it suited them and ignored them when it didn't.
What free-spirited, selfish dragons.
...Had I only imagined that this group had accepted me, that they had protected me and that I owed them a debt of gratitude?
Had they only thought of me as 'convenient' and 'useful' because I never rebelled, always obeyed, and served as a shield for everyone, without ever considering me a 'companion'?
I looked at the other dragons with an unnervingly calm mind.
Was this the situation, then? Me against every other dragon?
The females probably wouldn't actively attack me, but they wouldn't help me, either.
The fact that I was alone wouldn't change.
―――I had no chance of winning. No matter what I did.
So escaping would be the best option, but...
I still couldn't completely put my hesitation aside.
I was the strongest fighter in the group.
And, in the end, I owed them for having been my companions for ten years.
I had thought my strength was meant to help my companions, but...
The male dragons around me let out threatening roars as I struggled to make up my mind.
"Gwaaaaaah!"
"Geeeeeeeeh!!"
Then one of them bit down on my arm.
―――With a strangely calm mind, I watched the dragon sink its teeth into my arm.
The face, lit by a flash of lightning, looked both crazed and perfectly calm.
...Ah, my companions surely understood exactly what they were doing. And what the consequences would be.
In that case, there was no reason for me to stay here. They didn't need my protection.
I knocked away the dragon biting my arm with a swing of my tail, then looked up at the sky.
The lukewarm rain falling in heavy drops onto my body felt like snakes coiling around me.
―――There it is again. Rain always brings something bad.
I beat my wings once and soared high into the sky. In an instant, my companions became as small as grains of wheat.
I looked at the dragons who had once been my companions and roared once.
"Gwooooooooo!!"
―――Goodbye. Thank you. And take care.
...We had spent ten years together, but our parting took only an instant.
None of the dragons―――not even me, felt any sadness at parting.
Perhaps I feel little attachment to my companions because I'm a monster. I had spent ten years with them, yet felt nothing at all as I left them behind. Even parting from my twin brother and mother didn't cause even the slightest pain.
To feel no pain at being betrayed or knowing we'd never meet again...
I decided to head north.
At the northernmost end of the continent lay the Sacred Peak of Kurodake, home to fearsome monsters.
It was the perfect place for me, now that I was alone.
―――And so I reached the Sacred Peak of Kurodake and spent nearly a thousand years there.
Blue Dragons live at most five hundred years, so living for a thousand was highly unusual.
Surely, when I inherited the previous leader's power, I inherited the time he still had left to live, too.
And so a thousand years passed. Just as I thought death was finally near and my end had come, something strange happened―――I gave birth to myself.
What was born was small and frail, ...but beautiful, and black... yes, a black dragon.
The "Black Dragon," said to exist only in legends.
―――That was me.