Chapter 12: Age of Dragons (7)

A problem has arisen.

It's not a minor problem... it was more serious than expected.

"Don't you think there are a bit too many dragons these days?"

"It's more than just a bit."

I add to Ifrit's grumbling.

At first, it was just me alone, then there were seven children born from self-aware natural phenomena, and it was fine when dozens of dragons were born from receiving those children's scales, but...

Now, after hundreds of years have passed, dragons have been mating and laying eggs, and their numbers have grown to nearly thousands.

"I never imagined that the dinosaurs' extinction crisis would come not from a meteor, but from dragons... I couldn't have imagined it."

The dragons born after me and my seven children, perhaps because they originally changed from dinosaurs, couldn't escape the limitations of being living creatures.

Simply put, they were creatures that needed to eat food to survive.

Dragons need to eat a lot of food to maintain their huge bodies. And now there are thousands of such dragons roaming this land.

Naturally, their food was the large dinosaurs, the most common creatures spread across this land.

It's fortunate that they don't touch the smaller dinosaurs, Lizardmen, or the not-so-numerous small mammals.

Well, eating such small creatures wouldn't even register for dragons of their size.

"I'm worried that the number of dinosaurs is gradually decreasing. But we can't tell the children to starve either."

"I hear there are even dragons starving because they're losing in the competition for food. Some came to me asking for help, so I used magic to turn large rocks into meat, but..."

It was the first time I used transformation magic to turn stones into meat.

I did it because I felt sorry for the children clutching their hungry stomachs and groaning... but honestly, it wasn't very tasty meat. It had little fat and the flesh was tough.

But the hungry children still devoured even such meat eagerly.

"Shouldn't we do something? At this rate, all the children might starve to death..."

I understand that we need to do something, but what should we do?

Should I scatter new creatures here? No, the ecosystem that's finally stabilizing would become chaotic again.

Well, it's already chaotic with dragons rampaging... Hmm... Does it not matter?

No, we don't know what other problems might arise. Let's leave that as a last resort. If it's not a simple creature like slime, there will surely be problems.

Then... should we change the dragons instead? But changing already created creatures is very tricky. It's not impossible, but... honestly, I don't want to do that.

If only these children could photosynthesize like trees, it would be easier...

Wait, photosynthesis?

"Have you thought of something good?"

"I'm not sure if it's good, but... a small idea has occurred to me."

I'm not sure if it will work well, but an idea worth trying has come to mind.

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Dragons are living creatures.

But at the same time, they were beings who received scales from self-aware natural phenomena.

From this background of their birth, I came up with one solution.

To put it briefly:

'If there's no meat, why not eat magic?'

That's the conclusion.

Well, it's a parody of a saying falsely attributed to a queen from another world. But let's skip that. It's not even about eating magic in the first place.

Dragons are living creatures with physical bodies.

At the same time, they were children of natural phenomena.

Therefore, they can be seen as half natural phenomena.

From there, one thing: what if we utilize the magic that has become quite abundant in the world now?

What if we could maintain the body through magic and minimize eating?

What if we could use magic like nutrients to maintain the body?

"Therefore, I'd like to teach you children magic to change your bodies."

I gathered my seven children and brought up the topic.

I explained that at the current rate, dinosaurs are on the verge of extinction, and if dinosaurs go extinct, most dragons won't be able to survive either.

"Was the situation that serious?"

"Yes. There's a limit to how much meat I can distribute. Rather, teaching magic to substitute the body with magic will be more helpful in the current situation."

"To think the situation had deteriorated to this extent... I had no idea."

I nodded slightly at Tethys's words. In the ocean, Tethys and the Blue Dragons' domain, countless fish were swimming.

The situation was different from the land where dinosaurs were facing extinction.

Well, some hungry dragons do go to the sea to try to catch fish and end up having conflicts with the Blue Dragons... but that's just a cute squabble.

"But for children to maintain their bodies with magic... Is such a thing possible, Mother?"

"What would be impossible?"

I replied briefly to Erebos's words.

In fact, Erebos was largely responsible for the situation coming to this.

Thanks to him creating dragons until almost all the scales on his neck fell off, Black Dragons now make up the largest number of the increased dragon population.

If Erebos had shown a bit more restraint, the situation might not have become this serious.

"Ahem. Then I'll start the explanation."

I began to explain to the children about the magic I wanted to teach them.

Magic is a force of infinite possibilities that changes according to will. If you can handle this power well, nothing should be impossible.

Well, what you can do with magic depends on your own magic quantity. But let's skip that for now.

"The magic I'm going to teach you now will minimize the biological elements that dragons possess and increase the proportion of natural phenomena. In addition, it will change the heart to have the function of collecting magic through breathing."

"Changing the heart, is that okay?"

"Theoretically, there should be no problem."

In fact, this magic was inspired by the concept of Dragon Heart that I had seen in fantasy novels.

In addition to the large amount of magic that dragons originally possess, as time passes, the magic gathered in the heart will be used to maintain the body automatically. So unless it's a newly hatched hatchling, it should be fine to eat minimally.

For newly hatched hatchlings, well, there's no choice! We have to feed them meat!

"If we don't act now, it will be too late, so we need to hurry as much as possible. Understand?"

"Yes. Well, it means the children can live without eating like trees. Then everyone will be happy that they've become more like me."

At Yggdrasil's words, I and the other children burst into laughter. Come to think of it, Yggdrasil was the World Tree itself.

"Now, you've all memorized the magic I taught you, right? Then use it on all your children without exception. Just by using this magic, your children will no longer go hungry."

And so my children left to use the magic I taught them on their own children.

With this... I hope we can delay the extinction of dinosaurs a bit.

I'd like the dinosaurs to survive far into the future if possible.

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And so, after some time had passed.

The effect of the magic I taught was extremely excellent.

For dragons who no longer needed to swallow food, eating became not something they had to do to survive, but entertainment to enjoy taste through their sense of taste.

There were fewer instances of two dragons fighting bloodily over a piece of meat.

Lizardmen also had fewer occasions where they had to hide to avoid dragons hunting dinosaurs.

Especially the Lizardman... no, the Lizardman chieftain who inherited the spear I enchanted was very pleased.

The meat of a large dinosaur was a special treat that could feed the entire tribe to fullness with just one hunt, but they couldn't even attempt it because dragons were slaughtering and devouring the dinosaurs.

Thanks to this, the Lizardmen began to flourish more and more, and started to develop little by little from a hunting-centered tribal life.

They began to create primitive languages bit by bit, and showed signs of entering a slightly agricultural society, not just hunting.

And the most surprising thing was that they started to build structures that looked like temples.

The god they worshipped in that temple was... well, of course. It was me.

More precisely, they were worshipping the name "Creation God Dragon".

It was a name that tasted strongly of chuunibyou... but what could I do? It had already become a name that couldn't be removed.

I had now entered the mode of just enjoying it.

Oh, right. Yes. The magic that changed the dragons worked almost perfectly, but... there was one unexpected side effect.

You see, in the situation where dragons were half biological and half natural phenomenon, now that they've changed to about 10-20% biological and 80-90% natural phenomenon... for some reason...

Dragons were laying eggs very rarely.

No, is it that as the proportion of natural phenomena increases, things like sexual desire disappear? Or does the thought of creating offspring become diluted? If not that, is it that as their lifespan increases, they stop having children?

The annual birth rate among dragons plummeted, and soon it reached a situation where not even 10 were born in a year.

What is this, it's scary...