Became an Evil Dragon



1 – 1. The Dragon’s Meal (1)

“Evil dragon! Accept my sword!”

A man in shining armor was threateningly pointing a sword the size of a chopstick at me.

Of course, from my perspective it looked chopstick-sized, but I’m sure it didn’t seem that way to him.

How should I deal with this situation?

I’m scared and nervous, my heart is fluttering.

In my confusion, I stop thinking for a moment and take a deep breath. As I inhale deeply, some gravel from inside the cave must have entered my huge nostrils, making my nose itch terribly.

I feel something coming up my throat. This must be a sneeze. Definitely a sneeze.

Unconsciously, I’m about to let out the sneeze, but suddenly I realize there’s someone standing in front of me.

The man with the chopstick-like sword, that is.

My giant sneeze could be like a gale for him, I think. Out of consideration, I clench my mouth shut tightly to hold in the sneeze for this person’s sake, even though he’s threatening me with that tiny sword.

But the tickling feeling inside is only getting stronger.

“I, Ardamir the knight of DinoMax! I was taught swordsmanship by Sir Maleoni and promised a title by the noble Lord Boldwen! I’ve come here myself after hearing rumors of an evil dragon tormenting innocent villagers. Evil beasts, surrender quietly to my sword!”

The armored man was waving his chopstick sword aggressively and shouting something, but I no longer had the spare attention for that.

Because the gravel inside my nose had brought the sneeze all the way up to the back of my throat.

Ah, ah, ah,

“Atchoo!”

Whoosh!

The sneeze I’d tried to hold in by clenching my mouth, it came out through my nose instead, aimed right at the man standing in front. Something hot surged up from deep in my throat, blocked from exiting through my clamped mouth, it burst out unrestrained through my nostrils.

It was fire.

Tiny flames ejected from both nostrils straight towards the armored man in front of me.

The small fireballs launched from my nose engulfed the man’s upper body.

“……”

Where the flames had licked past for that brief moment, only blackened armor that had lost its former shine remained, along with the stimulating smell of burnt meat.

Oh dear. This wasn’t my intention at all.

“Kyaa!”

Unlike the armored man, the person hiding behind a rock far away saw the scene and let out a scream before turning and fleeing in panic. I didn’t bother chasing him to explain, it seemed pointless anyway.

I heaved a sigh and turned my giant body around, slowly crawling back into the cave.

Deep inside the cave was a massive underground lake, large enough to fit my whole giant body.

The high cavern ceiling was studded with natural crystals that hung like chandeliers, glowing softly to illuminate my reflection in the lake surface below. I didn’t know what they were made of.

Covered all over in red scales, sinister-looking huge golden irises, sharp jagged teeth, a snakelike flickering tongue, a long tail, sinister claw-like talons, an enormous body.

Red dragon.

My appearance reflected in the lake was the archetype of an evil dragon from fairy tales, no exaggeration.

A violent dragon who extorts nearby villages, kidnapping fair maidens. A passing righteous knight appears wielding a legendary sword pulled from the lake, valiantly charging forth to slay the dragon with one stroke and marrying the rescued village maiden.

I now bore the form of the very dragon that appears in those common fairy tale plots.

Of course, I wasn’t born a dragon. If I was, I wouldn’t be sighing like this.

I had been an upstanding citizen of South Korea. Just that now I was nothing more than a giant reptile.

And it had all started with such a cliché, getting hit by a runaway truck with no brakes.

Stopping by a bookstore on the way. Picking up a fairytale book on a whim as a gift for my young nephew.

As I mentioned, the fairytale with the common plot of the evil dragon getting defeated by the righteous knight was perfectly suited as a gift for my nephew, who had been misbehaving lately, making me feel the need to teach him about doing good.

And after leaving the bookstore, I immediately got hit by an out-of-control truck with no brakes, and when I came to, I was here.

That’s the simple story.

hahahaha, damn.

***

Let me summarize what I know about this world:

1. It resembles a typical medieval world. Many commoners tilling fields and plowing land. There are fewer extravagant castles with nobles.

2. But it’s not a realistic medieval setting. Sometimes when I fly over the nearby forest, I see below a minotaur-like cow giant devouring beasts. Impossible creatures seem to live and move about. Let alone me, a giant red dragon.

Anyway, putting aside all the issues of being possessed into a dragon after dying from the truck, or strange humans coming in trying to kill me, and so on, there was one huge problem with this dragon body:

Matching its massive bulk, it needed massive meals.

Maybe it’s the reptilian nature, but the mileage is excellent, letting me go a long time without eating after a meal. But I can’t just never eat.

But where am I supposed to find food?

When I opened my eyes, I was deep inside a giant underground cavern. Naturally it didn’t contain some sci-fi food production facility tailored just for me like Batman’s secret base.

And hunting in the nearby forest was fraught with difficulties. It was hard to locate prey amidst the dense trees, and killing something leaving it intact for me to eat was tricky. This dragon body was so powerful, if I didn’t control my strength perfectly the prey would end up a pile of minced meat caked in dirt.

Moving is difficult.

I had lived upright my whole life, I couldn’t suddenly adapt to four legged walking. And these wing appendages were so hard to control, for the first week after the possession crawling was my sole means of transportation.

I still didn’t feel adept at flying, but at least I had made some progress, able to bumble through the air haphazardly.

So with all these issues in mind, how was I obtaining ‘meals’?

Amazingly, there was a ‘food production facility’ right nearby for me!

That was…

A human village.

While searching for food desperately due to hunger, I discovered a human village nearby. It had farmers, and accompanying those farmers were ‘livestock’ that looked most appetizing.

Cows and horses, meats I’d often eaten in my past life.

The human village was like a delicious buffet laid out just for me.

Easy to find, easy to catch, and the taste was f*cking amazing!

Of course it’s essentially theft, the villagers aren’t raising those livestock for me to eat. But maybe it’s because becoming a dragon has dulled my ethical senses, or survival desperation has brought out my true nature, but I didn’t feel particularly guilty about it.

“Alright, time to head to work.”

Bright sunshine greets me as I emerge from the underground cave. I stretch out my whole body enjoying the sunlight for a bit before unfurling my wings and taking flight.

Rising above the sea of foliage that is the dense forest of trees below, I fly towards the human village.

Today was a day for meals, after all.

Soon the village starts coming into view beneath me. The people look like ants from this height above.

As my shadow starts covering the village, the people busily working the fields begin running around in chaos scattering in all directions.

Seeing that gives me an uneasy feeling. Could that knight who was burned by my nostrils earlier have actually been sent by them to kill me?

As I thought about this, anger welled up inside me and I opened my mouth wide and

ROOOOOaaaRED!

The dragon’s roar echoing through the mountain valley.

Hearing my roar, the humans who were scattering in all directions fell to the ground, their legs giving out beneath them.

By the way, I’m absolutely not an evil dragon.