Chapter 5: Divine Offering

「I did it! Look, Nina！」

As I cheered, Nina fixed me with a cool, flat stare.

「…What did you do？」
「Can’t you tell just by looking？」

Eyes wide, I pointed at the ground at my feet with the tip of my forepaw.
There was a gap of only a few centimeters between my feet and the ground.

「I’m flying right now！」
「You’ve been flying plenty up till now, haven’t you？」

Her response to my barely contained excitement was downright chilly.

「You don’t get it… What I did before was flight. This is levitation。」
「How is that different？」

Put on the spot, I struggled to explain. Elvish has no phrasing to distinguish the two.

「I mean… uh, I’m not moving my wings right now, and I’m staying in the same place, see? Instead of flying through the air like a bird, I’m just floating like a leaf on a pond。」
「What’s so amazing about that？」

At Nina’s simple question, I really had no answer.
If you asked whether it was impressive or not, it wasn’t impressive at all.
Any way you look at it, flight is more impressive. That much is certain, but…

「It’s magic, Nina. This is magic too。」

I don’t know how heavy a dragon’s body is, but one thing is clear: these wings don’t have nearly enough surface area to generate the lift needed to fly this bulk.
I seem to be quite young for a dragon; my standing height is only about two heads taller than Nina’s. Even counting to the tip of my tail, I’m maybe three meters.
Even so, I’m far bigger than any bird—and my mother is more than ten times bigger than me to boot. There’s no way we should be able to fly by common sense. And yet both she and I could move freely through the sky, at speeds far faster than any bird.

If something that shouldn’t be possible is happening, then magic must be involved.
That hunch of mine hit the mark perfectly.

「But just a moment ago you were happy you couldn’t use magic, weren’t you？」
「The flames, I mean. See? I’ve stopped breathing fire entirely, right？」

Fuuu, I carefully blew a breath at Nina.

「…You’re right… it looks like you’re not breathing fire anymore…」
「S-sorry！」

As Nina trembled, smoothing down the hair my breath had left all frizzy, I hurriedly bowed my head in repeated apology.

「So you’re going to teach that magic, or whatever it is？」
「Yeah。」
「How？」

She threw the same question at me she had asked yesterday, and I suddenly realized it again.
——In the end, I still haven’t solved the fundamental problem.
All that’s changed is that I can consciously use magic now.

「Well, that’s a pickle. I kind of forgot about that。」

When I gave a wry smile, Nina stared fixedly at my face.

「What is it？」
「You’re weird。」

When she noticed my gaze, Nina suddenly averted her eyes.

「You say you’re in a bind, but you don’t look troubled at all。」
「Huh? No, I’m very much troubled right this moment…」
「Liar。」

Nina glanced at me again, pointed at my mouth, and grinned.

「You’ve been smirking happily this whole time。」

I reflexively touched my mouth, and sure enough the corners were curled into a smile.
Well, of course, I thought.

「I’m happy I get to be troubled。」

In my previous life, where magic didn’t exist, I couldn’t even be troubled.
Being troubled means there’s a problem.
Having a problem means there’s room for trial and error.

How wonderful is that!

「You’re weird。」

My feelings didn’t get through to Nina, but she was quick to sense that I was happy, and with a bashful smile she repeated the same words.

Then, all at once, her expression hardened and she whipped around to look behind us.

「…Something’s coming。」

Whether this, too, is a kind of magic, Nina’s senses are sharp enough to pick out a rabbit hiding motionless in the forest underbrush.

A dragon’s senses seem to be far keener than a human’s as well, but I didn’t notice their presence until they were almost upon us.

「You are…」

It was the same humans I had tried to make contact with a few days ago.
Two of the men who had been first to hurl their spears, and the girl who’d been right in front of me when I landed from the sky. In my previous life I was terrible at remembering faces, but dragons must have good memories—because I remembered theirs perfectly from a single glance.

The men still held their spears, but showed no sign of attacking. I kept Nina behind me just in case and watched their movements; then, leaving the girl, the men suddenly dropped to their knees on the spot.

『Offering』

A short word, yet one that clearly carried some deliberate intent.
With that, leaving the girl behind, the men stood, turned on their heels, and hurried away.

「Uh…」

The girl left behind looked up at me, trembling.
She was even smaller and younger than Nina—around ten years old, if that.
Black hair and yellowish skin, with shallow features that reminded me of the Japanese faces I knew so well.
As for clothing, this was an age without elaborate garments—she wore only a pelt draped over her—but her hair was adorned with flowers and her face painted with some dye; she had clearly been dressed up.

「This is probably… you know… that…」
「A sacrifice。」

Nina casually voiced exactly what I’d been thinking.

「Would it be bad to give this girl back？」
「They’d probably kill her for failing to appease your anger, wouldn’t they？」
「I’m not angry at all, though…」

Back then I’d been so excited at seeing humans for the first time that I lost my cool, but thinking about it now, I had dropped out of the sky, roared at the top of my lungs, and spewed fire from my mouth.
You can’t blame them for thinking that.

「It’s all right. I’m not going to eat you。」

For the moment, I spoke slowly to the terrified girl to try to put her at ease.

「What’s your name…？」

Of course she doesn’t have one.
They don’t even have developed language yet.

「All right then… Ai. From today, your name is Ai。」

I’ve heard the word “alphabet” comes from alpha and beta.
Following that, I just took the a and i from a‑i‑u‑e‑o—simple as that.
A name that short and easy to pronounce should be simple for her to pick up, and it has a girlish ring to it too.

「A… i。」

After I called her by her new name several times, Ai, still bewildered, clumsily tried to imitate my words.

「Nice to meet you, Ai. If you’re willing—」

With Nina’s and my abilities, having one more person around wouldn’t make life difficult.
More than that, this encounter might actually be a stroke of luck.

「Would you be my first student？」

That’s what I thought.