Chapter 8
Silestin thumped her chest and shouted.
But Jade wasn't expecting much despite her words.
It was obvious she'd only be standing around admiring the Gold Drake egg.
“Sure, sure.”
-I mean it!
“Sure, sure.”
-Hmph!
Seeing Jade answer halfheartedly, Silestin pouted.
Then she tugged at his hair, but Jade didn't even blink.
“Shall we begin?”
Inside the hut, Jade reached for the frozen-solid heart of the Gold Drake.
Then, as if by magic, the frozen heart melted, filling the room with the heavy scent of blood.
-You have to eat it all at once!
“I don't know if I can eat all of it.”
Worry clouded Jade's eyes.
He was wondering how long it would take to eat a heart as large as he was tall.
But then something amazing happened.
The Gold Drake's heart shrank and became bite-sized.
-She really did plan for this.
“That makes things easier.”
-Don't let yourself be swept away by its power. Keep your balance.
“Of course.”
Seeing that it had apparently been prepared for this, Jade swallowed the Gold Drake's heart without hesitation.
Then he immediately sat cross-legged and closed his eyes.
He intended to absorb the Gold Drake's heart completely through his mana cultivation method.
Crackle!
Unlike its bloody scent, the Gold Drake's heart wasn't fishy at all.
Instead, it was sweet enough to remind him of the chocolate he used to eat on Earth.
But he only had a moment to savor the taste.
The lightning energy characteristic of the Gold Drake instantly filled his body.
‘Ugh!’
Jade involuntarily groaned at the prickling sensation throughout his body.
Though he was in pain, he guided the lightning energy, which was rampaging as it pleased, along his mana circuits.
He did so to keep as much of it as possible from escaping his body.
The more mana leaked out here, the less would accumulate inside him, so Jade desperately struggled to control the lightning energy.
Creeeak!
His entire body felt as though it were being torn apart by the unruly lightning energy, but Jade endured it.
Even through the pain that made his mind go blank, Jade never lost consciousness.
He kept trying to control the lightning energy somehow.
Perhaps beginning to recognize his efforts, the lightning energy that had been trying to scatter in every direction gradually started obeying his control.
Tremble, tremble!
But unlike his insides, which were slowly stabilizing, Jade's body began to tremble like a leaf.
Not only that, but the sound of bones twisting came from all over his body.
-No way!
Silestin, who had been watching Jade anxiously without blinking once, cried out involuntarily.
Something about the sight before her had reminded her of one possibility.
-I did think he might be able to undergo a body change!
Crrrck!
No sooner had Silestin finished shouting than the bones throughout Jade's body began to move.
At the same time, every hair on his body—including his hair, eyebrows, and beard—slid down onto the floor.
-Oooh!
Seeing Jade return to his original appearance in an instant, Silestin clapped her hands in delight.
Meanwhile, black impurities began to flow from every pore in Jade's body.
As his body was reconstructed, the impurities that had accumulated inside him until now were being expelled.
Silestin blew all of them away with the wind.
-You can hardly call him human anymore, can you?
Silestin grinned.
The body change was one thing, but absorbing the Gold Drake's heart had changed the very essence of Jade's existence.
He looked human on the outside, but it was difficult to call him a pure human anymore.
The same was true of the beings humans called Masters.
Beings who were human, but not human.
Jade had entered that realm.
-Huh?
Silestin gazed at Jade with a maternal smile before tilting her head.
The energy flowing from Jade, who was sitting in the unusual cross-legged position, was flowing toward the egg.
As if drinking its mother's milk, the egg was absorbing all the lightning energy flowing from Jade.
-Was this what she was aiming for?
Silestin stroked her chin.
For some reason, it seemed as though even this had been planned by the Gold Drake mother.
-What of it? She's letting her child absorb energy that would otherwise disperse into nature. Strictly speaking, the energy flowing from Jade right now is the mother's energy, isn't it?
-Why did you suddenly show up?
-Am I not allowed to come out?
Sluuurr.
Droplets gathered in the air, and a spirit about as large as Silestin appeared.
It had a blue body like an Undine, but its appearance was completely different.
-You haven't come to the Middle World all this time!
-I only stayed away because I thought it might be hard on Jade. I'm not as thick-skinned as you.
-What did you say?!
Silestin's face turned red.
But the newly arrived spirit paid her no attention whatsoever.
Instead, she gazed at Jade, whose aura had settled, with a pleased expression.
-From now on, I'll be staying with you, too. I think it's all right now.
-Tch!
Though her expression clearly said she had plenty to say, Silestin ultimately kept quiet.
As another highest-grade spirit, Elestera had no grounds to object.
-It looks like it'll be fun in many ways, too.
Elestera grinned at Silestin, whose face was turning red and pale by turns.
Meanwhile, Jade opened his eyes after completing the body change.
“Huh?”
-Long time no see, Jade.
“What is Elestera doing here?”
-I came to visit, too. Heehee. How do you feel? Your body has changed completely.
Elestera picked up the underwear and clothes hanging in a corner of the hut.
The heat pouring from Jade's body during the body change had melted what he was wearing, so she had thoughtfully brought him replacements.
“Good. Though everything's changed completely, so I think it'll take some time to adjust.”
-You'll get used to it soon.
“I think I might even be able to use an Aura Blade now.”
Jade muttered.
He hadn't gained any particular enlightenment, but that was what his intuition told him.
Even before the transformation, he'd been able to manifest one, albeit unstably.
But its efficiency had been atrocious, making it unusable in actual combat.
-We've got plenty of time, so you can work on it little by little.
“True. But it looks like Silestin's sulking.”
-Heehee! If she sulks, she's only hurting herself.
Whatever her grievance, Silestin's lips were sticking out in a pout.
Not only that, but she had folded her arms and was looking away entirely.
“Get along. You'll be living together from now on.”
-I don't dislike Silestin. She's the one who dislikes me. More precisely, she doesn't want to share Jade's attention with me.
“What kind of explanation is that?”
Jade laughed incredulously.
He took it as a joke.
But Elestera was serious.
Crack.
Once Jade had finished dressing, a strange sound came from one side of the hut.
It was the sound of something cracking.
At that sound, all three of them turned their eyes toward the same spot.
-Looks like it's hatching!
“It did absorb plenty of lightning energy.”
Even while concentrating completely on his mana circuits, Jade had been aware of what was happening outside.
More precisely, he had been aware that the Gold Drake's egg was absorbing the lightning energy it released.
Crackle!
Even as they talked, the crack continued to grow.
The tiny fissure spread across the entire egg in an instant.
Both Silestin and Elestera's eyes lit up at the sight.
Despite having lived for countless years, this was the first time Elestera had ever witnessed a drake being born, so she watched with a tense expression.
Crack. Crack-crack.
A moment later, the entire top of the egg split apart and fell to the floor.
It was as though a lid had been opened.
Yet even though a third of the egg had broken open, the hatchling drake was nowhere to be seen.
-Wh-what happened?
-Did something go wrong?
Concern appeared in the eyes of both spirits.
They wondered if something had gone wrong because of the battle with the Black Drake.
Jade, on the other hand, merely watched in silence.
Kyu?
Just then, an adorable head poked out from the egg's wide-open top.
A hatchling Gold Drake appeared, with small bumps on its forehead rather than horns.
-S-so cute! It's so, so cute!
-It's really cute!
The two spirits reacted intensely to the sight of the hatchling drake's yellow skin and chubby cheeks.
It looked as though it possessed all the cuteness in the world, and they completely lost their composure.
But unlike the two spirits, the hatchling drake instinctively looked at Jade as soon as it poked out its head, then smiled brightly and shattered the shell as it emerged.
Kyu-u-u!
After boldly breaking through the shell, the hatchling drake threw itself into Jade's arms.
It had recognized at a glance that he was its guardian.
“It is pretty cute.”
-Pretty cute? No! It's incredibly, unbelievably cute!
-I agree!
Silestin and Elestera made a great fuss.
They were at a loss for what to do as they looked at the hatchling drake in Jade's arms.
But the hatchling drake was actually afraid of the two spirits.
Even though they were not in their true forms, it seemed to instinctively sense the power they possessed.
“I think we should give it something to eat first. It needs to eat well while it's young.”
-I want to hold it, too!
-But I think it's scared of us. It seems to feel a kinship with Jade.
Silestin made all sorts of different expressions as if trying to play with it, but the hatchling drake didn't even spare her a glance.
Instead, it nestled even more deeply into Jade's arms.
-Whiiine!
At the hatchling's decisive refusal to look at her, Silestin pulled a dejected expression.
It seemed overly shy, even for a shy creature.
-To a human, it's basically a newborn, so that's only natural.
-Jade was a stranger to it at first, too!
-But he carries energy similar to its mother's. And its mother asked Jade to care for it.
Unlike the pouty Silestin, Elestera reacted as though it was understandable, if a little disappointing.
All beings felt fear toward unfamiliar existences.
After all, even spirits ignored humans who lacked any affinity with them.
Kyu-u?
Meanwhile, whether the spirits were chattering or not, the hatchling drake nestled snugly in Jade's arms and gazed up at him with bright, clear eyes.
With eyes full of trust, as if it were entrusting him with everything, Jade involuntarily chuckled and stroked its head.
“To be honest, I'm not your parent.”
Kyu?
The hatchling drake tilted its head.
Its expression made it clear that it had no idea what he meant.
-Eek!
-S-so cute!
“But I suppose I am your nanny from now on.”
Jade had been thinking the same thing as Silestin.
He suspected that the mother drake had offered her heart with precisely this in mind.
If he hadn't absorbed the mother drake's heart, the hatchling would not have shown such immediate affection for him.
-I want to help, too!
-Silestin alone won't be much help.
-What?
-I'm not wrong, am I?
At the second round of bickering that ignited in an instant, Jade shook his head wearily.
Their constant bickering wasn't anything new, but it was noisy every time he saw it.
Previously, Elestera had tactfully stayed out of the Middle World because of the mana problem, but the body change had resolved that issue.
So Jade would be seeing this sight constantly from now on.
“Sigh.”
Kyu-u-u!
At his quiet sigh, the hatchling drake looked at him with concern.
It didn't know exactly what was wrong, but Jade seemed to be having a hard time.
“It's not something you need to worry about. Anyway, I need to give you a name.”
Gr-r-r.
Apparently enjoying the hand stroking its head, the hatchling drake closed its eyes and purred like a cat.
And just then, Sylaphe arrived carrying part of the Black Drake's corpse.
Since a sylph couldn't cut through the Black Drake's corpse, Jade had asked Sylaphe to do it.
“Melt this for me.”