Chương 22: Reborn as the Dragon: — Chapter 22 - Hear the Dragon's Explanation

Su Nian stared at the cascade of system rewards and felt his jaw drop. As expected of an initial SSR, three thousand system points, just like that. He'd spent half a day grinding bandits and losing Kobolds for a fraction of that. And all it took was Anna's Favorability hitting fifty. The biggest gain, though, was [Intermediate Devour]. No age restrictions on growth and development, that was genuinely broken. Every dragon keeper knew juvenile dragons had no business wielding an adult dragon's strength or size.

That was simply how the species worked. Except for special variants. Plutonium Dragons, Chronos Dragons, but those were vanishingly rare, most of them one-of-a-kind. The more he thought about it, the better he felt. Su Nian couldn't resist. He leaned down and dragged his tongue across Anna's tender cheek. The rough slab of it caught her completely off guard. She went still mid-sob, blinking, a string of tears still trembling at the corner of her eye, utterly lost.

"Schlorp!" He did it again. Anna nearly toppled sideways. With his system points replenished, Su Nian decided not to be stingy. He redeemed Voice Modification without a second thought. [Ding! Voice Modification has been solidified.] The moment the notification landed, his throat tickled once, and it was done. No pain, no discomfort, nothing. He turned it over in his mind and decided that made sense. Simple structural changes were quick.

Only modifications that fundamentally rewired his physical capabilities came with agony.

"Ah — uh — An... Ane, Anna Hathaway!" A voice scraped out of his dragon throat. Rough, hoarse, like a man who'd been chain-smoking for fifteen years. But it was perfect Standard Common Tongue of the Continent. Anna's eyes went wide. Those starlit irises filled with a joy she couldn't even begin to hide, completely forgetting, for the moment, the enormous sandpaper tongue that had just nearly knocked her over.

"Mr. Dragon, you, you can talk now?" She pushed forward and threw both arms around his neck, her pretty face pressing softly against his rough, dry scales. The affection in the gesture was plain and unguarded. He had been good to her, genuinely good. But the inability to speak had always been a quiet ache between them. Most of their communication had relied on gestures and pantomime, and when even that failed, the Black Dragon had resorted to scratching words into the dirt for her to read.

"Oh, Mr. Dragon." Anna tilted her head. Her pale fingers rested against her lips.

"How did you know Anna's surname is Hathaway?" Ah. Su Nian's dragon face went carefully blank. He couldn't exactly say because I have a system and it tells me everything, including the sore on your thigh, and once my Insight Technique levels up I'll probably know your x-preference too. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Several excuses cycled through his head. He composed his expression into something dignified and said, without blinking:"Ahem.

I learned it from the king. That's all I know."

"Oh..." Anna nodded slowly, processing this. Then her eyes lit up again, because she had more questions, many more, and she wrapped her arms snugly around his neck, two little dimples appearing at the corners of her mouth.

"Then... why did Mr. Dragon abduct Anna?"

"Uh..." Su Nian's claw scraped at the dirt. Why does she have so many questions? The string of them was doing something uncomfortable to his draconic instincts, a restless, irritable energy rising in his chest. But then he looked at her face, and the dopamine hit hard. His brain delivered the draconic irritability gene a firm smack and told it to sit down. He glanced away. Considered his options. Then looked back without a trace of guilt.

"To save you. Obviously." Anna's eyes brightened like stars catching light.

"That's right." Su Nian nodded with great conviction.

"That wicked king tied you to a sacrificial altar to be offered to an evil dragon. Monstrous behavior. I may be a Black Dragon, but I cannot stand that kind of filth, and on top of it all, you were gravely ill." He pressed on, building momentum.

"So I beat the evil dragon senseless before it could eat you, drove it out, took its place, and carried you away to safety. That's why I've protected you so carefully this whole time, and why I gave you the medicine." There. Clean. Airtight. No loose ends.

"But..." Anna bit her finger. Her clear, guileless eyes studied him for a moment. Then she reached into her skirt and produced a booklet. The Tsundere Princess Raising Plan (Evil Dragon Edition) Su Nian: Σ(°△°|||)︴!!! Oh no. Oh no no no. He'd spent the whole departure from the lair searching for that book. Every corner. Every crevice. He'd assumed it was simply lost. It had been in Anna's skirt the entire time.

"That — Anna, okay, this book." Su Nian's claw was digging into the dirt now, throwing up enough soil to half-bury Bolikri standing nearby.

"This isn't mine. It belonged to the evil dragon I drove out. When I claimed the lair, everything in it became mine. War spoils. Simple."

"But..." Anna looked at the flustered Black Dragon, and a giggle escaped her. Her face went pink.

"Mr. Dragon, Anna has seen you reading it. And while you were reading it, you were making these sounds, heh heh heh," The dirt pile was threatening to swallow Bolikri entirely. In Su Nian's eyes, his simple, sweet little Anna was currently smiling like a tiny demon brandishing a whip. He pulled up her status panel in a hurry. [Personality (changing under the influence of dragonification): timid, gentle, kind, mischievous] When did that happen?! And what does this have to do with his dragon saliva?!

He was losing his mind. Where was his shy, well-behaved little treasure? Not that this version wasn't adorable, it absolutely was, but she needed to put the book down first. He dug for a few more seconds, then the inherited memories surfaced. Creatures that spent prolonged time around dragons didn't just undergo physical dragonification. Their personalities shifted too. Irritable Red Dragons bred followers just as irritable as themselves. Dim-witted White Dragons had a particular fondness for goblin companions.

During the medicine feedings, Anna had ingested dragon saliva. The influence was inevitable. But this fast? Maybe her weakened state made her more susceptible. He wasn't sure. Su Nian shook his head.

"Of course, ahem, the storybook is war booty. Reviewing one's war booty is entirely normal behavior." Anna considered this with a solemn nod. Then, while Su Nian watched in helpless disbelief, she tucked the book back into her skirt. She had made up her mind. She was keeping it. Actually... If she lived, if she somehow managed to keep living, maybe she really could become something like the princess in those pages. The evil dragon's little princess... A quiet light flickered in Anna's eyes.

Something small and tender took root in her chest, delicate as a bamboo shoot after spring rain. She didn't know what the future looked like. But this moment, this warmth, this strange and unlikely peace, was hers. Under Su Nian's bewildered gaze, she hugged his neck and held on, the way she used to hold her favorite stuffed animal at the edge of her childhood bed. Woof. ➤ Next: Explosive Dragon Form