Chương 3: Reborn as the Dragon: — Chapter 3 - Warm Her Up Before Eating?

After activating the Temporary Recovery Card, a flash of white light passed through his body — visible only to Su Nian. He felt it immediately. He was back. His body had its strength again. The wounds were still a mess — pitted craters of charred black, scales curled up and away from the flesh, a few spots still dripping blood. But the pain was simply gone, like someone had switched it off. Exactly as the System had described. One extremely hardcore death rally. Su Nian moved his body forward two steps.

His limbs were still unsteady, but clearly far better than before. At least he wasn't rolling around on the cave floor anymore. He had fully merged with Votrus's memories, but controlling the body still felt off somehow. Dragon locomotion wasn't just legs — it was wings and tail working in tandem for balance, the force applied in ways that had nothing to do with walking upright. The sensation was like someone who hadn't touched a game in years suddenly sitting back down at their desk.

The muscle memory was there, somewhere. But the moment their hand wrapped around the mouse, that rustiness hit, and then they noticed the game had added a whole new row of skills since they'd been gone. Su Nian kept walking. A few more steps, and then the muscle memory kicked in properly. The parts of his body started fitting together, faster and faster, until he was moving through the cave without thinking about it. Then he looked at Anna again.

Something stirred deep in the dragon's chest, a restlessness, hot and immediate and very inconvenient. She reminded him of his college girlfriend. He didn't know why. He just felt it. Her face was delicate and fair, a little round with baby fat, sickly pale in the dim light, but looking at it, you already knew exactly how it would feel. Soft. The kind of soft where you'd poke it and it'd spring right back.

Her bare feet were small and exquisite, smooth as carved ivory even with the bruises and scrapes on them, the skin still pink and flawless underneath. And the shackles on her wrists and ankles added something to the whole picture that the dragon's brain, apparently, found very stimulating. Tearful eyes. Long lashes. A perfectly upturned nose. Dry little cherry lips. Something went thump in his chest. Spring had arrived. Su Nian's heartbeat climbed, a deep drumming like muffled thunder.

Something primal started gaining ground in his head. No. Absolutely not. He raised a claw and slapped himself hard across the face. His mind cleared a little. He was a dragon. He was a literal dragon right now. Sure, dragons technically had no concept of reproductive isolation, but launching himself at her in this state would be pure insanity. Shouldn't he at least wait until he could get his human body back? Or, if nothing else, shouldn't he make sure the fox-eared girl survived first?

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. He'd read enough novels to know how dragons worked. It had seemed like an interesting character trait from the outside. From the inside, experiencing it firsthand, it was considerably less charming. He was too big. He would absolutely kill the elf. Su Nian crushed the thought down. Human rationality reclaimed the high ground.

He looked at Anna, trembling head to foot, shivering against the cold, and started searching the cave, looking left and right, pushing into the darker corners of the narrow lair until he found a bear pelt in reasonable condition. He picked it up in his mouth and carried it over to her, then laid it gently across her shoulders. Anna had been sitting with her head down, a dull chunk of rock clutched in her hand, knees pulled to her chest, shivering against the cold stone floor. She felt something approaching.

Sharp claws scraped across the ground in a dry, rasping sound. Was the evil dragon finally going to eat her? Should she fight back? How could she possibly fight back? The shackles on her wrists were so heavy she could barely lift her arms, and that pathetic little rock was the only thing in the world that gave her even a sliver of comfort... She hugged her legs tighter. A grim sort of resignation settled over her. She was originally a demi-elf from the Elven Forest.

A series of catastrophes had seen her taken by a human slave-hunting party, and somewhere along the road she'd caught a terminal illness, and then she'd been sold to a kingdom whose name she didn't even know, and then the king had put her on an altar and offered her to an evil dragon as bait. A cold wind cut through the cave. Her teeth chattered. Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes and went cold before they could reach the floor. Heavy shackles on both wrists, both ankles. She was too weak to run.

She was barely strong enough to walk. All she could do was sit here and wait for whatever miserable end was coming. But the evil dragon didn't eat her. It seemed to notice she was cold. It draped something over her, thick and heavy and faintly warm. Anna looked up, bewildered. She glanced at the dragon's face, all fangs and scarred scales and burning red eyes, and quickly looked back down, flustered, delicate as a fawn that had wandered somewhere it shouldn't be. She stared at her bare, reddened toes.

And then, very quietly, she stammered:"E... Evil Dragon Sir... are you... are you warming Anna up before you eat her?" Su Nian: "..." Honestly, he supposed cold and warm would taste about the same. He did feel something like a food-related instinct toward her, but it was faint, nothing like the springtime restlessness that had nearly gotten away from him. That part was at least understandable.

Black dragons were relatively omnivorous as dragons went; their weaker, younger bodies couldn't exactly afford to be picky about fresh meat. He shook his head at her. Then he reached out with his front claws, a little clumsy about it, and tugged the bear pelt more snugly around her before giving her a small nod. Dragon speech was useless here. Anna wouldn't understand a word of it. Pantomime was all he had. The pelt had been his bedding not long ago and still held a trace of warmth.

Anna was still cold, obviously, but she was shivering noticeably less. She confirmed it herself, the evil dragon didn't seem to want to eat her. At least not right now. He'd even brought her something warm. She'd been taught her whole life to be grateful for kindness received. So even with the fear still coiled in her stomach, she gathered her courage, looked up into Su Nian's crimson eyes, and said softly:"Th... thank you, Dragon Sir. It's not as cold now." [Anna Hathaway's favorability increased by 50. Current favorability: -30 (Awe)] Su Nian stared at the notification for a moment. Something about this felt off. Shouldn't awe be a positive number? He pushed the question at the System. [Ding! Anna's current emotional state toward the host is primarily fear. Favorability remains negative.]"Ah." So if respect were the dominant emotion, it would tip positive. That made sense. A bear pelt had gotten him fifty points.

Su Nian looked at the number, then at Anna, and quietly concluded that grinding her favorability wasn't going to be that hard. She'd seemed hungry earlier, hadn't she? He nodded at her once, then pointed a claw at the ground, stay here, and without waiting to see whether she understood, he turned and crawled out of the cave. He didn't have time to explain. The temporary recovery wasn't going to last. He needed to find food. ➤ Next: Jungle Slaughter