Chapter 18: Compensation

「...Hey, Sensei.」

Rin suddenly spoke to me as we flew side by side on the way home.
Maybe the excitement of her first encounter with the lizardmen wore her out; at some point Yuuka had started breathing softly in sleep on my back. Even though I’m flying trying not to jostle her so I don’t drop her by accident, she’s got nerves of steel.

「Sensei, why did you take human form?」

Drifting along at my side, Rin asked.
She’s probably mulling over what Sig said earlier.

「Hmm... I was human to begin with.」
「Eh, no way!?」

Rin reacted far more surprised than I expected.

「But Nina-sensei said your true form is the dragon!?」
「Yeah, Nina’s been my friend since back when I couldn’t take a human form yet. It’s no wonder she thinks that.」

Come to think of it, I never actually told Nina I’d originally been human.

「Do you know what reincarnation is? I used to be human, but I was reborn as a dragon. So it’s not wrong to say this body’s true form is a dragon.」

I left out the ‘from another world’ part and explained it that way.

「Then Nina-sensei doesn’t know you used to be human?」
「At least, I’ve never told her directly.」

It’s not like I’m hiding it; I just never found the right moment.
And if you asked whether my heart is human, even that’s dubious by now.
I’ve lived for centuries watching people live and die; I doubt my sensibilities still match an ordinary human’s.

「The reason I like humans despite being a dragon is because I was human. I take human form because... the person who mattered to me was human.」

In Ai’s case, that was far too late to matter.
If only I’d confided in her sooner.
If we could have been together while I was in human form, maybe I could have made her happier.
That regret is always lodged somewhere in my chest.

Maybe that’s why I keep believing her words that she’ll be reborn and come to see me again, and keep waiting—as a form of penance.
Of course, I also simply want to see her again.

「I see...」

Hearing that, Rin fell uncharacteristically silent, wearing a serious look, as if turning something over in her mind.

「Hm? Then how did you become a dragon in the first place?」
「Who knows. I don’t. Honestly, I just realized one day that I was.」

My human name happens to include the character for “dragon,” but that’s surely just coincidence. If that alone made you a dragon, the world would be packed with ex-humans turned dragons.

That said, I don’t think it’s completely unrelated, either.
After all, magic in this world is made of names.

「Maybe it’s because I’d always wanted to become a dragon.」

Magic. The occult. The mysterious.
Everything I pursued in my previous life is packed into dragons.
Perhaps one reason I’ve long chased after magic I should have forgotten by now was a yearning for the creature written in my own name.

「Why did you think that?」

Rin’s guileless question catches me off guard.
It was so obvious—so obvious I’d never even examined it.

「Let’s see...」

I think for a moment, then answer.

「Because dragons are cool.」

Rin’s face instantly blossomed into a smile and she nodded.

「Yeah. They’re cool. I think so too.」


* * *


The next morning, I woke to a loud crash, like something had fallen over.

I leapt up in a hurry to find Nina—who should have been sleeping beside me—gone. She might have just gotten up earlier than me and gone somewhere, but it nagged at me, so I opened my room door and peeked outside.

...There it was again.
A heavy thud, thud—irregular, like footsteps or like something falling. But it was definitely drawing closer.

It wasn’t some natural sound like the wind. It was clearly something alive making it.
For a second I wondered if the rats were back, but it was too loud for them. Something bigger... yet moving sluggishly.

A zombie movie popped into my head.
The halting, unnatural noise had that kind of creepiness.

Nina and I have been living on the third floor of the school building lately.
The sound seemed to be coming from down the corridor, from the stairway leading down to the second floor.

When I cautiously peered down the stairs, I glimpsed something big crawling up toward me and hastily ducked out of sight. It was dim, so I couldn’t see well, but it looked about human-sized.

With a slither, slither, it climbed the steps one by one.
Holding my breath, I focused on the sounds it made.

Three steps left... two... one... and then the sound stopped dead.
Not because it noticed me—if it had, it would have lunged.
So why did it stop?

I eased my face around the corner to check.

And then—

Rin’s face was right there as I poked my head out. At the same instant her body swayed and pitched toward the floor. I reflexively reached out to catch her, but couldn’t stop her momentum and we both went down in a heap.

「Th-that scared me... Rin, you okay?」

Holding her soft body without thinking, I asked, and Rin nodded up and down in my arms.

「Good... Why were you going up the stairs like that?」

A mermaid’s waist fin is quite dexterous and strong; climbing stairs is nothing to her. And she can swim through the air in the first place, so she doesn’t even need to bother with stairs.
So it hadn’t even occurred to me that the thing crawling up the stairs was Rin.

「Nn.」

Letting out a low, groaning sort of sound, Rin pointed downward while still sprawled over me.
I followed her finger and saw a beautiful waist fin spread like a skirt there.

And a pair of long, slender legs—so white they almost dazzled the eye.

「Wha—」

I was struck speechless—because she wasn’t wearing anything on her lower half.
No, that’s not it—that’s normal for her.

「Your tail!?」

The problem was that her fish tail had become a pair of humanlike legs.
At my question, Rin flashed a mischievous grin and made a V-sign.

「Not the V... Did you do this with magic?」

When I asked, Rin nodded. Her responses had been odd for a while now.

「...Can’t talk, can you?」

Rin nodded again.

「What have you done...!」

Trading your voice for human legs—just like The Little Mermaid.
Thinking that, something comes back to me.

“Let us trade. Odin offered his right eye and gained wisdom. The Little Mermaid gave up her voice and gained legs.”

I’m the one who taught that spell—that fairy tale—to Sig. And Rin probably heard it from him.

「To throw away that beautiful fish tail, and that bright, lively voice, to get clumsy human legs... that’s something you can’t take back—」

The moment I said that, Rin flushed and averted her eyes.
Then she stroked her own legs with her palm, and in an instant they turned back into a tail fin.

「Sensei, you’re laying it on too thick... it’s embarrassing.」

Ah. So it was reversible.

When you think about it, that makes sense. Unlike the fairy tale, the magic-user is she herself.
She can change back and forth at will.

「...Sorry, I lost my cool.」

Rin scooted off me, flapping her waist fin, and I sat up.

「I gave up aiming straight for dragon and tried for the closer shape—human—first. Even then, I can’t just change normally, but... “What I offer is the mage’s life. In exchange for the throat that shakes the air, grant me legs that walk the earth.”」

As she chanted, Rin stroked her tail and it changed once more into those white, beautiful human legs. At once she lost her balance and clung to me. Her legs trembled violently as she planted her feet, and she looked up at me with a smile as if to say, “See?”

「A price... you’re converting the function of speaking into the function of walking.」

Up to now, the only thing magic consumed was something internal—mana or stamina, or whatever in the body—and I’d never conceived of temporarily losing anything else.
But if this is possible, then the possibilities of magic might expand far, far more.

「...What are you two doing?」

As I let my thoughts drift over this new horizon, a cool voice pulled my awareness back to reality.
I looked over to see Nina, fingers linked with Yuuka’s hand, giving me her usual exasperated look.

「Rin-chan’s butt is showing!」

Yuuka’s remark reminded me that Rin’s lower half was completely bare.

「Rin, change back! ...No—Rin came to show us she can finally use transformation magic. Next time we’ll have to have clothes ready, too.」

Thinking about it that way drove home how grateful I am that my scales properly turn into a coat—if I had to change clothes every time I went from dragon to human, it would be a hassle.

「So... what about you, Nina? Why are you here with Yuuka?」

I eased away from Rin—who had changed her legs back into a tail fin—and shifted the topic.

「Light Blue said she wasn’t feeling well, so I went to check on her and took this one off her hands on the way back. It’s hard to look after a kid at a sickbed.」
「Huh. Is she okay?」
「Just a cold. Three days in bed and she’ll be fine.」

Still sleepy from being woken, Nina let out a lazy yawn.
Yutaka’s a worrier. Elves hardly ever get sick, so I understand why he’s anxious, but...

「So even elves can catch colds, huh.」

As far as I know, Nina’s never once taken to bed with illness.
Elves may look human, but they’re a very sturdy race.

Well, ever since I reincarnated as a dragon, I haven’t either. I doubt this world has pathogens tough enough to multiply inside a creature whose body literally has a fire burning in it.

「Normally, elves don’t get sick.」
「You make it sound like Light Blue isn’t an elf at all.」

I laughed off Nina’s stiff tone.

I figured it was just a matter of self-care—or grit.
But Nina’s expression didn’t so much as twitch.

「...Nina?」
「I think... so.」

Nina murmured, then patted Yuuka’s head and said:

「Light Blue isn’t an elf anymore.」