Apex Predator

 

It is the incarnation of ruin, the avatar of destruction.

Death given form, and harm itself.

That which brings all things to a halt, the mightiest existence in the world.

 

"No one here either, it seems."

Chryse spoke in a near-whisper as she surveyed the remnants of the ruined village.

"There aren't many lingering souls, so I don't think everyone here died."

Walls riddled with holes, long past serving any purpose. Shacks on the verge of collapse.

A month had passed since we left Shirogane. This was a sight we'd encountered time and again.

"The dragon around here seems to be a white one. With damage this light, we should be able to patch things up well enough."

Nina sounded almost pleased as she poked through the shacks.

The weakest of the five-colored dragons was the white dragon, also known as the ice dragon. Its breath of freezing cold was the polar opposite of a fire dragon's, so it inflicted relatively little physical damage, and buildings in its territory often remained more or less intact.

Had this been the domain of a black dragon, which spat acid, or a green dragon, which breathed poison, the roofs would have caved in and left everything in a wretched state. A blue dragon's territory would be razed almost beyond recognition. We hadn't passed through any areas inhabited by fire dragons yet, but I imagined the surrounding forest would have been leveled to bare ground along with everything else.

"Y'know what I think?"

While we were sorting through the dilapidated buildings for ones still in usable condition, Rin spoke up.

"Teacher Yuuka staying behind in that village was kinda pointless, wasn't it?"

I gave a wry smile at her blunt assessment.

Yuuka had been furious that the people of Shirogane spent their lives hiding and running from dragons, and had stayed behind to whip them into shape.

But the farther east we traveled, the more we found that everywhere was the same.

People split into small groups of around a hundred, forming clusters of settlements. When a dragon attacked, they scattered in every direction. They survived by repeatedly merging with other groups and splitting apart again. That, apparently, was what life outside Scarlet looked like.

And so abandoned settlements like this one dotted the landscape wherever you went.

"It really is… so different from home. I'm shocked," Chryse said, patting the dust from a set of bed sheets.

I had to agree. I'd never imagined people were living under such harsh conditions.

"When I traveled around before, it wasn't like this at all."

"That would've been… about a hundred and fifty years ago?"

Rin had stayed in Scarlet the entire time since Chryse got her current body. As for what major change might have occurred in the interim…

"The monsters, maybe?" Nina said, as if reading my thoughts.

"Could be."

The monsters were capable of harming dragons. They could scratch even my… a fire dragon's scales. And they were extremely aggressive, so it wasn't strange at all to think they might attack dragons too.

Every monster took humanoid form. From a dragon's perspective, they would be indistinguishable from humans. And since humans built homes and stayed in one place, they made even easier targets than the monsters did.

"If anything, maybe Yuuka training those people is a good thing. If more humans gain the strength to fight dragons, it could make life a lot easier for everyone."

"And how many centuries is that going to take?" Nina said, exasperated.

"I'm not saying they need to reach Yuuka's level. The Swordsaints back in Scarlet can handle everything up to a blue dragon, at least. With that kind of strength, people wouldn't need to spend their lives hiding and running."

"… Are you okay with that, Mentorrr?"

Rin's question caught me off guard.

"Okay with what?"

"You're a dragon, right? Is it okay for you to be siding with humans over other dragons?"

It was probably just an idle, innocent question on her part. But it stopped me cold.

Ever since I'd been reborn into this body, I had never once thought of myself as human. Even after learning to take human form, I'd always seen myself as "a dragon who could assume the shape of a person," and the villagers had always treated me that way too.

And yet, when asked whether I felt any kinship with other dragons, the answer was an unequivocal no. I had naturally, instinctively, always thought from the human side.

"… Well, even if humans gain enough power to drive dragons off, it's not like the dragons will be all that inconvenienced."

That felt terribly cold-hearted somehow, so I said it more as a deflection than anything.

"When we get back to Scarlet, I'll look into developing some technology that can make them leave peacefully."

If we had a device, for instance, that projected such an overwhelming draconic presence that any dragon approaching a settlement would instinctively want to flee, then at least the weaker dragons would stay away.

Yes, something like…

—this.

Chryse reached me first. She buried her face in my chest and locked her arms around my back with every ounce of strength she had.

Rin seized my left hand and cradled it as if pressing it against her chest. I could feel her heart hammering, feel her fighting to steady her ragged breathing.

Nina moved to my right side, slowly, slowly raising her arm as if to shield Chryse.

All I could do was draw Chryse and Rin close and stare, wide-eyed.

Sweat traced a line down my forehead and dripped from my chin. I couldn't even wipe it away.

If I did—

The red dragon watching us would kill us in that instant. I could feel it.

It was enormous. The fire dragon sat atop a distant mountain with serene composure, yet despite the distance between us, it was so vast that it seemed to loom right before my eyes. Unmistakably more than twice the size of Mother.

And there was no question it had spotted us. Despite its colossal bulk, it had found us before we'd even noticed it.

There was no running. Even if I transformed and flew at full speed, I would never escape in time. Fighting was out of the question. Even with Yuuka here, every last one of us would have been slaughtered without hope of resistance.

A long, long few seconds crawled by that felt like centuries.

Then, as if it had simply lost interest, the fire dragon turned its gaze from us, spread its great wings, and took flight.

"What was that…?"

Only after its shape vanished into the distant sky did we finally exhale, our bodies going slack.

"That dragon… did it notice you, Mentorrr…?"

"I don't know."

I shook my head. Rin's question, of course, was whether it had noticed that I was a fire dragon. There was no doubt it had noticed our existence itself.

It had noticed us, and let us go.

"Did it recognize me as a fire dragon and spare us as kin… or did it simply deem us not worth the effort?"

Either way, our lives had rested entirely on that fire dragon's whim.

If what we'd just experienced was the reality people outside Scarlet lived with, the fear they carried every day…

Then I… no, we had not understood it at all.

"Let's… move somewhere else, at least?" Nina said, sounding drained.

"Yeah."

It wasn't just me who agreed. Chryse and Rin nodded as well. The chances of that fire dragon returning here were vanishingly small.

Even knowing that, none of us felt like staying put.

We used Chryse's magic to breathe life into the beds and had them walk alongside us. Even if we were going to camp outdoors, we at least wanted something soft to sleep on.

We chose a spot in the forest. It crossed my mind that if a fire dragon found us here, we'd be incinerated along with the trees, but Nina pointed out that once we were found, it wouldn't matter whether we were on a plain or in a valley. I had to concede.

Better, then, to be somewhere harder to spot. And with Nina around, we didn't need to worry about beasts or monsters.

We pushed three single beds together, lay down side by side, and huddled close.

I was sure I wouldn't be able to sleep… but perhaps the extreme tension had worn them out. Before long, I heard two sets of soft, steady breathing. Chryse made no sound in her sleep, but when I sneaked a glance, she was out as well.

When I closed my eyes, the image of that fire dragon rose unbidden behind them.

Eventually the sun climbed into the sky. Morning came, and I told the other three.

"… I think we should head back to Scarlet."