Became an Evil Dragon

2 – 2. The Dragon’s Meal (2)

It was noon.

Under the bright sun high overhead, the land was scorched with heat.

Farmers working the fields dripped with sweat as they busily worked, while innocent children played tirelessly with their friends, the lively midday scene.

Suddenly, the area darkened.

A thick shadow cast the land in black, created by something overhead.

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The villagers bent over tilling the soil looked up briefly, thinking clouds had momentarily blocked the blazing sun.

Up in the sky was a dragon.

Silently soaring high above was a crimson monster.

Huge wings spread wide. A mouth that could swallow a whole person in one gulp. Talons more vicious than any beast’s claws.

A fairytale monster that only appeared in old folktales told by grandparents to put their grandchildren to sleep.

A winged calamity that scorched the earth, enslaved humans, plundered wealth with bottomless greed, looking down on all creation.

Magical overlord, mystical fountainhead, absolute being.

Seeing the dragon’s form, people screamed, threw down their farming tools, and fled home in blank terror, overcome with fear.

Though the flimsy roofs of the farmers’ shabby houses had little chance of protecting them from the dragon, the foolish humans still wanted desperately to cower beneath them, bodies shaking with fear.

Like swarms of ants, people scattered in all directions.

At that moment, the dragon opened its mouth and unleashed a roar.

RaaaGH!

The gigantic roar shaking the mountain valley. The eerie low-frequency roar, in the bass range, instinctively made any creature hearing it realize one thing.

The destroyer of the world has come!

A sound informing that overwhelming terror existed right next to them, impossible to resist.

Winged calamity.

Terror makes no distinction between old and young.

Though their bodies had grown frail, the experienced elders who had lived long lives, and the youngsters inexperienced but vigorous and robust, all alike collapsed to the ground.

Let alone, they were ignorant farmers with no professional combat training or systematic education.

None could resist the dragon’s roar.

One roar shook the entire land, and just as the people’s hearts had calmed somewhat from the breath-stopping fear,

The dragon spread its wings and slowly landed on the ground.

Red dragon.

A massive body the size of a mansion. The overwhelming power and weight emanating from that body. That alone was a weapon more powerful than any other weapon.

Covering the giant body without gap were red scales. With hardness rivalling steel, those scales formed a natural armor thoroughly preventing human-made swords or spears from harming that body.

The dragon’s evil flickering golden eyes. Magic eyes possessing the power to easily mesmerize and terrify any creature meeting their gaze. What dragon warrior could face the dragon’s eyes directly and not quail in fear?

The dragon’s flickering snakelike tongue. Though at a glance it looked like a devil’s tongue, the dragon’s tongue itself possessed mysticism, able to easily manipulate human hearts through speech. A dragon’s words always carried magic.

The red dragon slowly landing in front of the village mayor after descending from the sky.

It stared at the old human trembling violently before it.

With the long tongue shooting out and dancing eerily through the air, just its existence exuded faint shimmers of arcane essence, the dense magical power causing the village mayor to be unable to move a finger without the dragon’s permission, even as his vision blurred from drying eyes forced to keep staring directly at the dragon.

Because that was what the dragon desired.

If only he could lose consciousness and faint, at least his heart would feel some relief. But the mayor couldn’t do that.

Because the dragon did not permit it.

Unable even to bat an eye of his own will, the mayor kept staring at the dragon with his vision darkening.

Because that was what the dragon wanted.

The dragon’s sharp fangs were bared, its flickering snake tongue withdrawn back into its mouth.

The pitch-black hole visible in the opened dragon jaws, like an abyss.

When the mayor sensed death,

The evilly smiling dragon opened its mouth.

“You’re scared out of your wits, aren’t you-“

“There’s no need to be afraid.”

***

Refreshingly yelling out a roar of anger, I flapped my wings leisurely, circling once around the village airspace.

I wanted to show off to the humans my sublime form and beautiful red light rippling through it, more magnificent than any work of art.

Providing a performance for the audience below watching me from the ground, I felt the anger churning inside settle down a bit.

After becoming a dragon, controlling emotions was harder than I’d thought. Maybe because the amount of hormones secreted matched the larger body size? Unsure.

Flap flap

Flapping wings while descending, I pondered where to land. Somewhere near someone I could converse with would be good.

I hadn’t come here to kill everyone, after all.

With the dragon’s incredibly sharp vision I could easily distinguish people’s faces even from high above.

Not him. Not him either. The face of the village mayor who had looked like the leader definitely seemed a bit rounder, with deeper wrinkles.

Ah, there he is. That’s the one.

Having located my target, the village mayor, I slowly flew towards that spot flapping my wings.

And landed near the mayor, stirring up dust.

Thud-!

The mayor looking up at me, his whole body trembling. The other villagers around were also lying on the ground similarly staring up at me.

Hmm, now what?

Halting there for a moment, flicking my tongue, I pondered what to say.

Before when dropping by the village I had quickly flown in at night, snatched up a cow, and left. But today was different from those times, broad daylight instead of deep night, with people awake instead of asleep.

Of course, it wasn’t at all because I was scared of the awake people here that I was carefully selecting my words instead of immediately seizing a tasty-looking cow. In fact, even if the people here went crazy and charged me with weapons, they couldn’t inflict the slightest harm on me.

Now then, in old folktales there was a story about a goose that laid golden eggs.

A goose that laid eggs of gold every day, but its greed-blinded owner couldn’t resist and cut open the goose’s stomach. Of course the goose died immediately when its stomach was cut, no longer able to lay golden eggs for its owner.

Inside the cut-open goose’s stomach there were no golden eggs.

The moral is not to pointlessly try to do something to or tamper with an insane investment source steadily generating returns, losing it in an instant due to short-term greed.

Yes, like the goose that lays the golden eggs. To me, this village was like a goose laying golden eggs. A goose that will dutifully provide me food with no effort, as long as I let it be. With this village, I don’t even need to hunt.

Wouldn’t it be far more beneficial in the long run to steadily take livestock, rather than killing all the villagers now and feasting on what’s left?

After organizing my thoughts, I give the village mayor in front of me a kind smile.

A kind smile is never a bad way to start a conversation, after all. Thinking that, I open my mouth grinning, and as if understanding my intent, the mayor stops trembling.

Though he still seems a bit frightened, I speak to put the mayor at ease:

“You’re scared out of your wits. There’s no need to be afraid. I have something to discuss.”

For some reason, after becoming a dragon my speech patterns had become a bit more formal. But with so little conversation after the change, I hadn’t paid it much mind.

Glancing to gauge his reaction, he looks about to faint, face white as sheet. I’d best get straight to the point before he actually passes out, necessitating another tiring return trip tomorrow. Considering the human elder’s position, I voice my request directly:

“I will be taking one cow and one horse each month going forward. Have them prepared.”

There cannot be a second dragon as good-natured as I. Surely not.

I am truly the perfect dragon.