If you looked at the map of this world, there was the one diamond-shaped continent, Landia, and several outlying islands of varying sizes. In the center of that continent, called Landia"s Navel, there were the three-thousand-meter cla.s.s mountains that made up the Star Dragon Mountain Range.
This was where the dragons lived, gathering around the living G.o.dbeast, Mother Dragon, who was the subject of worship. It could even be called a nation.
The nations of mankind understood the Star Dragon Mountain Range to be the nation of the dragons. There was no clearly demarcated border, but no country wanted to infringe upon their territory so badly that they were willing to fight the immensely powerful dragons over it. And so, mankind and the dragons naturally stayed apart from one another.
Even though times had been chaotic since the Demon Lord"s Domain had appeared on the continent, the Star Dragon Mountain Range was a natural fortress, isolated from the effects of that.
In the high plateau in the center of the Star Dragon Mountain Range was Dracul, the dragons" paradise.
Perhaps due to some act of Mother Dragon, the plateau enjoyed an eternal spring despite being at an elevation of over five thousand meters. It was a fertile and verdant land with an abundant supply of clean water.
In Dracul, the dragons lived a unique lifestyle.
Despite their large bodies, ma.s.sive wings, and powerful horns and fangs, dragons could speak the human language. They could also take on beautiful humanoid forms. They formed riding contracts with the knights of their ally, the Nothung Dragon Knight Kingdom, under which they would become the knights" favored mounts, swearing an oath to fight together on the battlefield. At the same time, they were to become life
partners, giving birth to the knights" children.
Members of the race of dragons were s.e.xually ambiguous, and unable to produce children between themselves. In other words, in exchange for fighting alongside the knights of Nothung, they had the knights guarantee they would have prosperous offspring.
Each child would be born either as a dragon, a dragonewt, or the race of the knight.
If it was a dragon, it would come in the form of an egg, and it would be taken from the parents to be kept by Mother Dragon in the Star Dragon Mountain Range. This was partly to keep the parentage of a dragon from being considered important, but it was also unclear how long a dragon egg might take to hatch. Because it could sometimes take hundreds of years, it couldn"t be left with the parents.
In any case, these partner contracts were formed between the new knights and the dragons at the Contract Ceremony held at the end of spring each year.
That time… had almost come.
In the middle of the 3rd month, 1,547th year, Continental Calendar
It was a forest on the east side of the plateau Dracul in the Star Dragon Mountain Range.
With its everlasting spring, the forests of the Star Dragon Mountain Range were always decorated with fresh growth. The leaves were a deep green, and when you looked up at them from inside the forest, they sparkled brilliantly in the sunlight shining through the treetops. However, further down, at ground level, there was little sunlight, and it was gloomy.
In those gloomy woods, there was a small cave.
A white dragon landed in front of that cave. Her white scales glistened in the light. Her silver mane blew in the wind. On her head was an exquisite pair of goat-like antlers. The silver dragon folded her large wings, craning her neck to look into the cave.
“Naden, you"re in there, aren"t you?” the white dragon called into the cave.
Though she was speaking, it wasn"t aloud. Dragons could converse by willing it,
without using their voices. There was no response to the white dragon"s call, but a little noise did escape from inside the cave. Its occupant was probably pretending not to be there.
The white dragon groaned. “Stop ignoring me! I know you"re in there!” she called, sounding exasperated, and then took a deep breath. When the air she inhaled returned to her mouth, orange flames leaked from the corners of her lips. If she opened her mouth now, she would unleash her dragon"s breath, the flamethrower attack known to lay waste to entire countries. “If you"re too uncooperative, you"re going to get burned, you know!”
“H-Hold on, Pai! You"ll burn the books!” came the panicked voice of a young girl from inside the cave.
When she heard that voice, Pai swallowed her flames, then let out an exasperated sigh. “Honestly… Stop holing yourself away in there and get out here.”
“But I was watching Music Port…”
“Music Port? Wuzzat?”
“It"s a music program from the Gran Chaos Empire.”
“The Gran Chaos Empire?!” the white dragon exclaimed.
The Gran Chaos Empire was a strong nation with a firmly entrenched power base in the west of the continent. Though they had been on the defensive since the appearance of the Demon Lord"s Domain, they were still effectively the most powerful of all the nations of mankind.
During the time in which the Gran Chaos Empire had been trying to establish its hegemony over the continent, it had invaded the Star Dragon Mountain Range. This had been the Empire at its peak, with an army numbering in the hundreds of thousands, facing around a thousand dragons. As one might have expected, given that it was said that a single dragon could destroy a small nation, the Imperial forces were overwhelmed, leaving them no choice but to retreat. Ever since that battle, it had been hard to call relations with the Empire cordial.
“The Empire is hostile to us, you realize!” Pai cried. “What are you thinking?!”
“It"s not like we"re at war right now, are we?” Naden retorted. “The current Empress, Maria, is beautiful and seems peaceful. I think we should take the chance to try and make friends with them.”
“You say that, but… wouldn"t Lady Tiamat be angry if she heard you?” Pai protested.
Tiamat was the leader of the Star Dragon Mountain Range, the one that mankind knew and worshiped as Mother Dragon. She was like a mother to all the dragons who lived in this area, and when her name came up, the girl in the cave sounded a little panicked.
“Ahaha… That"s kind of scary… You"re scaring me, so keep quiet about this, okay?”
“Oh, for goodness sake…” Pai sighed. Her entire body emitting a bright light, she instantaneously transformed into a beautiful young girl with pale skin and long, flowing white hair, wearing a white one-piece dress. She looked unmistakably human, but the goat-like horns sprouting from beneath her hair and the white tail extending from her rump clearly showed she was the white dragon from before.
Pai walked into the cave. It wasn"t as dank as it looked. If anything, the air was fresh.
This was normal for caves in the Star Dragon Mountain Range.
Pai progressed through the cave, coming to an area where it suddenly opened up.
Before her eyes spread a room that, completely unlike the rock walls of the cave up until this point, was very girly. There was a cute dresser and bed. The bookshelves were lined with books from the nations of mankind (mostly romance novels). Pai addressed the person watching the simple Jewel Voice Broadcast receiver in the middle of that room.
“Oh, Naden, there you go, watching that simple receiver again…”
“Yeah, and?” the girl called Naden responded. She had black hair and was wearing a black one-piece. “I can watch what I want.”
There were deer-like antlers growing out of her voluminous black hair on either side of her head, and a black tail sprouting from her rear end. At a glance, she looked to be around fifteen years old. She was short, and looked underdeveloped. However, when looked at in profile, her young face had a hint of beauty, and if she dressed right, she would probably look very cute.
Knowing that, Pai sighed all the more at her disappointing friend. “Sigh… I don"t know which is worse: this, or when you had your head full of dreams, reading too many romance novels.”
With the past suddenly brought up, Naden coughed in surprise. “I-I was just reading books! It"s not like I was only reading romance novels, okay?”
“You were obsessed with them. Saying things like, ‘I"d put love before duty!"”
“I read ordinary adventure stories, too!”
“Dragons don"t usually read human books to begin with…”
The reason for that was simple. Since the only country that had diplomatic relations with the Star Dragon Mountain Range was the Nothung Dragon Knight Kingdom, not many products from the nations of mankind made it here. If one wanted to acquire products from the nations of mankind, one had to go to those nations directly, leaving the Star Dragon Mountain Range. Most dragons were not interested enough in the world outside, or in products from the nations of mankind, to do so. Those like Naden, who used every opportunity she could find to go outside and come back with foreign products, were a rarity.
“Wait, where did you get that receiver anyway?” Pai asked, startled.
“Hmm? I found it at a flea market in the empire. It was broken, basically a piece of junk, but when I gave it a little zap, it started showing things. Hee hee! It was a great find.”
As she said that, Naden"s black, lizard-like tail slithered toward the simple receiver.
When it got there, there was a clicking sound, and the image on the receiver vanished.
Naden could store electricity in her body. By releasing that stored electricity, though Naden didn"t understand the principle behind how it worked herself, she was able to turn the simple receiver on and off. There were definitely other creatures that could store electricity in their bodies, but Naden was probably the only one who could control it so skillfully.
Watching her do that, Pai shrugged in exasperation. “You"re skilled in the strangest of ways, you know that, Naden?”
“Hey, I was lucky enough to have an electrified body. I"m not going to let that go to
waste.”
“I know, but is that really something a dragon should be doing…?”
In Dracul with its everlasting spring, the dragons who had yet to form a contract lived their lives as they pleased. They did things like fly around in dragon form, play in the water, and go hunting.
There were times when the dragon priestesses who served under Tiamat would teach them about dragon traditions, the outside world, and reading, writing, and arithmetic; but other than that, they could each use their time to do whatever they liked.
Among all those dragons living in that old-fashioned way, Naden was probably the only one who could use tools from the outside world so skillfully.
Pai asked her with some exasperation, “Are you really a dragon?”
“…I wish I knew that myself,” Naden said, her gaze returning to the screen.
Pai got a look on her face that said, “Oops, I screwed up.” That subject was probably painful for Naden.
“Um, uh… So, this music program thing? What is it?” Pai asked, trying to change the subject.
“They broadcast cute girls in cute outfits singing and dancing for the people to see,” Naden said. “It"s fun just watching it. Though, from what I hear, the ones who are the real creators and masters of broadcast program production aren"t the people of the Empire, they"re the people of the Elfrieden Kingdom. It"s a shame I don"t get them on this simple receiver.”
“The Elfrieden Kingdom? You mean that country where they summoned a hero, and he became their king?” Pai asked, surprised. When she heard the name “Elfrieden,” the image that came to mind was a very traditional, or, to put it less kindly, old-fashioned kingdom.
Naden waggled a finger at Pai and tut-tutted her. “You can forget everything you think you know about Elfrieden. Oh, wait, they"re the Kingdom of Friedonia now, aren"t they? I don"t have all the details, with my information coming from the Empire, but it sounds like they"ve been growing in power really fast under the new king"s program
of reforms.”
Naden picked up the simple receiver with her tail and played with it.
“I think the way he took the Jewel Voice Broadcast, something the royal family had only used to make one-sided announcements of things that were already decided, and used it to create something fun like these broadcast programs shows incredible foresight. Unlike this country, which never changes, the Kingdom of Friedonia is pressing further and further ahead. I"d like to meet this hero king of theirs myself. Maybe I"ll land in Friedonia next time I go out.”
Pai stomped her feet in indignation. “Good grief! What are you thinking?! It"s almost time for the Contract Ceremony, you know? There"s no way you"ll be allowed to do that at an important time like this, when our futures are going to be decided!”
“That doesn"t… really matter,” Naden said. “I"m sure no knight would ever choose me. I mean, I can"t fly, and I can"t breathe fire, after all.”
“…”
Naden"s eyes filled with resignation.
There was nothing Pai could say in response.
Though she, Naden Delal, was a dragon of the Star Dragon Mountain Range, she had no wings with which to fly through the skies, and she could not breathe fire. Her appearance was very different from the other dragons, too.
That was why the other dragons called her a worm (saying she was long, thin, and not much else) behind her back. That was part of the reason why Naden tended to hide away in the cave. Pai was one of Naden"s few friends, but there was nothing she could do for her about this.
“Erm…” Pai said, thinking frantically. “B-But you can shoot lightning, Naden!”
“…What good is that? No knight will choose me as a partner. If they did, they"d be the only knight who couldn"t fly, you know?” Naden averted her eyes.
The dragon knights of Nothung were famed across the continent.
These knights, who rode atop the already tough and powerful dragons, would soar through the skies, tearing through enemy lines and burning everything away with dragon fire. Though they were a small country, the dragon knights had been responsible for making the Nothung Dragon Knight Kingdom capable of fighting on even terms with the Empire, even if it was only on the defensive. There could be no place for the flightless, fireless Naden in their ranks.
“You"ve got it good, Pai,” Naden sighed. “A pretty white dragon like you… I"m sure you"ll have your pick of the litter.”
“…I"m sensing some hostility in those words.”
In the ceremony held to form contracts with the dragon knights, the knight would first choose a dragon to become his mount, and then the dragon would decide whether to accept or not. That meant a dragon who received multiple offers would have her pick of them. Naden was probably thinking that Pai was sure to have that.
“Maybe I should just leave the country?” Naden asked, moping. “I could probably pa.s.s myself off as a sea serpent.”
From what Pai had heard, the race known as the sea serpents and Naden in her human form looked quite similar. As for what made them different, the antlers on Naden"s head were bigger, and sea serpents lacked the ability to transform like true dragons, but there were few enough of them that no one would notice unless she said something about it.
Pai groaned in exasperation. “If you take a defeatist att.i.tude, you"ll become a defeatist at heart!”
“But…”
“Besides, didn"t Lady Tiamat give you a prophecy? It"s going to be fine.”
The dragons who would attend the Contract Ceremony in any given year were chosen by Tiamat. The will of the individual and how old they were didn"t come into it. Those dragons who were chosen would receive an oracle from Mother Dragon at the beginning of that year. Naden had been one of them.
“Eventually, one who knows your value will appear. That is when you will leave the nest.”
That was definitely what Tiamat had said to Naden, who had all but given up on her future. Tiamat said it with the gentle eyes of a mother. Naden couldn"t imagine that Tiamat had been lying to her. However, at the same time, she couldn"t see that prophecy coming true.
“That"s… got to be something Tiamat said to console me,” Naden said at last. “Even I don"t know what my value is. What is a complete stranger supposed to see in me?”
“But, from what I hear, Lady Tiamat has never had a prediction fail to come true.”
“Fine, I"ll be the very first failure. Hurray for me.”
Pai groaned. “You"re such a defeatist.”
“Pai, if you keep making that groaning noise, you"re going to develop black spots like a cow, you know?”
“Moo! Moo! Moo!” Pai exclaimed.
While watching Pai get angry out of the corner of her eye, Naden sighed. If there really is some value to my existence, and someone could find it for me… how wonderful would that be? If a miracle like that happened, and they take me away from this boring place where it"s always spring and nothing exciting ever happens… Well, it"s just not possible, is it?
Naden forced that earnest wish of hers deep into the recesses of her heart.