Chapter 1
‘...C-cold...?’
At the sensation of a chill seeping into my body, cold enough to reach my bones, I quickly sat up.
In my memory, I’d definitely lost consciousness in a fire, so I wondered if I’d somehow survived after all.
If I had, though, there was no stinging pain like you’d get from burns, no medicinal smell or sounds characteristic of a hospital, and the only thing I could hear was the wind.
‘What... is this...’
No, was this really Busan, Korea, where I used to live?
Even if I’d woken up in the middle of Gangwon Province, I didn’t think I’d feel this cold.
And soon, as if to prove that the chill I’d felt was nothing but an illusion, the cold enveloping my body turned into something warm and cozy. When I slowly lifted my closed eyelids, a beautiful snowy plain spread before me.
‘What in the world... is this...’
Growl—
When I, bewildered by the situation, tried to say something, a low animal growl—not a human voice—came out.
It had only lasted a moment, but one thing was unmistakably clear: I wasn’t human anymore.
Coming back to life was certainly a good thing, but the fact that this wasn’t Korea and that I wasn’t human was pretty shocking.
My body felt far too heavy to be human, and since I was walking on all fours, I definitely wasn’t a human or an ape.
To get up, I stretched my body forward, and what came into view was an arm covered in beautiful sky-blue scales.
Or should I call it an arm?
If I was built for walking on all fours, shouldn’t I call these forelegs instead of arms?
And then, what exactly had I turned into?
Putting the questions that kept arising to the back of my mind, I began to entertain a tiny possibility.
If these sky-blue scales were what I thought they were...
If this was really a form familiar to me, then this would be a world all too familiar to me—and one that would shock me.
As I slowly turned my head, I saw a leg with a thin layer of frost over sky-blue scales, and when I lowered my body slightly, I saw gray skin and wings encased in thin, sharp ice.
‘...This is... so familiar somehow...’
Sway—
Just in case, I turned my head toward my waist and saw a swaying tail, shaped like a finely honed estoc.
To get a better look at myself, I stood up and quietly turned toward the lakeshore beside me.
‘...Huh?’
Reflected in the lake was the final boss of the <Guardian Knight of White Snow> chapter in <Icarus Chronicle>, the game I’d loved playing—the character I’d so desperately wished I could live as.
The Iceflower Dragon, Mircania, was clearly reflected there.
Blue scales and a beautiful, orderly coating of thin ice.
And the powerful wings spread behind me, sharp claws, and a tail shaped like a rapier.
My reflection in the lake was exactly the one I knew.
And if this was the world of a game, and the figure I was seeing now really was the Iceflower Dragon...
Then I must have become Mircania, the Iceflower Dragon.
‘...Ah, so... that’s why my voice isn’t coming out properly...?’
A dragon’s body was obviously different from a human’s, so when I tried to make a sound naturally, thinking of my old human body, it must have felt like my throat was hoarse or locked up.
At any rate, the Iceflower Dragon was known as a fairly powerful and capable dragon, with a strong sense of initiative. So couldn’t it use the so-called polymorph too?
Moving around in human form would be far more familiar to me than being in dragon form, at least.
‘...But how do I polymorph?’
There were quite a few dragons in <Icarus Chronicle>, but the only ones classified as Ancient Dragons were the Iceflower Dragon, Mircania, and the Blood Tiger Dragon, Zernisha.
The others hardly appeared as major characters in the game and weren’t particularly popular, either.
In Zernisha’s case, its rather beautiful polymorph appearance had become quite popular, so lots of people had speculated about Mircania’s polymorph form too.
However, as if to mock the expectations of everyone looking forward to Mircania’s polymorph form, in the <Guardian Knight of White Snow> chapter, Mircania appeared only in dragon form as the final raid boss.
So if I managed to use polymorph and transform into a human, that would mean I was the only person in the world who could see Mircania’s polymorph form.
And by the time-honored tradition of <Icarus Chronicle>, whenever there was one male character, there was also a female character. Since Zernisha was a beautiful woman, I was excited to see what Mircania would look like too.
Filled with anticipation over what kind of appearance it might have, I quietly began to imagine.
Would the hair be sky-blue? Or gray?
Would the face have sharp features, or perhaps unexpectedly gentle eyes and features?
Maybe it would be a young man with long hair and a very androgynous charm, but there was no way to know without trying.
They’d said Mircania was younger than Zernisha, so its appearance would surely be that of a young man or even a boy.
Zernisha’s polymorph form looked to be in its early to mid-twenties, so Mircania’s was certainly about the same age or perhaps a little younger.
So I was really looking forward to seeing what Mircania’s polymorph form looked like, but the obstacle was that I had no idea how to polymorph in the first place.
In-game, it only showed that the current individual was in polymorph form with a dummy buff; it never showed Zernisha actually using polymorph.
‘Haaah... Am I stuck living as a dragon until I figure this out?’
If I could just figure out how to polymorph, then in this world...
No, among all the players who’d played <Icarus Chronicle> in the world I used to live in, I’d be the only one to learn what Mircania’s polymorph form looked like.
But right now, since I didn’t know how to polymorph either, all I knew was how it felt to move Mircania’s body—the sensations of it, and nothing more.
So I was thinking hard, trying to come up with every possible approach and figure out how to make polymorph work.
‘Zernisha always seemed to treat polymorph as something easy, appearing in human form whenever it helped Icarus or came to assist in the <Slayer of the Verdant> chapter...’
Then it couldn’t be anything too difficult...
Mircania was on par with Zernisha both magically and physically, and was said to be even more talented at magic, so it should surely be able to use polymorph with ease.
If so, maybe I could polymorph just by imagining it?
‘...Ah, guess that wasn’t it.’
It seemed that just thinking of the spell Polymorph didn’t automatically turn me into something else, so I fell into quiet contemplation.
Magic in this world was surely a highly advanced art, a miracle accomplished by creating flows of mana and changing its properties.
That must be why, in my arrogant assumption that I had a natural talent for it, I’d treated it too casually.
Magic was often depicted as a miracle, so the reason I’d failed was probably that even I, who knew nothing about magic, had assumed I could use it easily.
Once again, I began to think carefully about magic as an element of <Icarus Chronicle>.
Magic was usually cast with incantations, like the light magic of white mages, or with catalysts, like battle mages.
And a dragon’s voice and soul were more powerful incantations than any spell words, and more effective catalysts than any other.
I was no longer an ordinary human living in the outside world.
There was no longer a person named Yeon Harang. I had become a dragon named Mircania, so no matter how much I missed the past, for now I pushed those feelings to the back of my mind and focused.
I reshape my body into the form of a person.
I reconstruct once more, through mana, the mighty body of Mircania, who had become a dragon.
The head should be small enough to hold easily in my forelegs, and the two arms and two legs should be perfectly balanced.
I shape mana into a form that fits the definition of a human exactly, then transform my body to match the framework I’ve shaped.
The body thus created contains my soul, and thereby becomes the new body I’ve obtained.
Polymorph
Flash—!
In an instant, my body was enveloped in cold, sky-blue mana, and its shape began to change smoothly.
Two arms and two legs I could proudly call human, a fully human body, and soft hair.
Along with the sensation of that texture touching my body and the feeling of all my nerves being reconfigured, I opened my eyes, faced the pure white snowy plain and bright sunlight, and breathed out.
“Hwaaa...! I did it...?”
Wait a second...
“...Eep?”
But this voice...
And why is my hair so long...
What are those lumps of flesh on my chest that absolutely shouldn’t be there...?