Special Skill “Divine Voice” Lv 1 is unable to provide that explanation.
Can I really level with you for a sec? I’m so lonely that I feel like I’m gonna die. I really think I’m about to start crying. Can eggs cry?
Gained Resistance Skill “Loneliness Resistance” Lv 1.
Oh, hey. Thanks, I guess. You really don’t have to go to all that trouble.
I appreciated the gesture, but that wasn’t what I actually wanted. I wanted to feel someone else’s warmth. I didn’t want to be strong, I wanted to live my life as a man—no, an egg—who acknowledged his own weaknesses. It sounded ridiculous when I phrased it like that.
What was I even doing before I wound up here, anyway? I couldn’t remember at all. I knew I was Japanese, and I was pretty sure that monsters didn’t exist. What’s more, I wasn’t even sure if I was a guy or a girl. I felt like a guy, but how could I know?
Did I get kidnapped and taken to some secret lab where they messed with my body and shipped me off to some other country to fight four-armed bears?! Well, Divine Voice? What’s your guess?
Gained Title Skill “Just an Idiot” Lv 1.
Cut it out. This is starting to actually hurt my feelings. Also, can you stop being so…clinical? Just talk to me normally. Or wait—don’t tell me you’re secretly shy or something.
Since I kept accumulating all these strange skills, I decided to check the Status Screen again. Over the past two days I’d learned that, the same as it worked with Roll, if I focused hard enough, I could make that display pop up in my head whenever I wanted. Useful, right?
Species: Dragon Egg
Status: Normal
Lv: 1/5
HP: 5/5
MP: 1/1
Attack: 1
Defense: 3
Magic: 1
Agility: 10
Rank: F
Special Skills:
Eggshell: Lv —
Divine Voice: Lv 1
Resistance Skills:
Physical Resistance: Lv 1
Fall Resistance: Lv 2
Hunger Resistance: Lv 1
Poison Resistance: Lv 1
Loneliness Resistance: Lv 1
Normal Skills:
Roll: Lv 2
View Status: Lv 1
Title Skills:
Dragon King’s Son: Lv —
Walking Egg: Lv —
Klutz: Lv 2
Just an Idiot: Lv 1
Hey, my Klutz skill leveled up, too! Not that I needed the reminder… This Status thing is pretty useful, though.
My HP seemed to recover with sleep. After the fall, I’d been extra careful not to get hurt over the past two days. I stayed far away from monsters and satisfied my hunger with fallen fruit and small bugs. When I got thirsty, I drank the water from a cool spring, and when I ate suspicious mushrooms, I writhed in unbearable agony. In other words, I did my best to survive.
I resisted the bugs at first, but eventually I got hungry enough to give in to desperation. Better than the mushrooms, at least.
To be real for a second, I felt kind of pathetic that I’d only held out two days on my staunch no-eating-bugs line before I gave in. But who could blame me? This hunger was way worse than any I remembered experiencing as a human. Maybe I was going through a growth spurt? I was an egg, after all. If I wasn’t going through a growth spurt now, when would I be?
The Divine Voice kept saying stuff about me being a baby dragon, but I sure didn’t feel like one. Was I growing at all? Did I have to level up before I could get bigger? How, though? By fighting monsters? There was no way I could do that! I was an egg!
Wait, eggs hatch in nests, don’t they? I thought I fell out of a tree, but what if I had actually fallen out of a dragon’s nest in the tree? I should go back and check. I think it’s over there—oh, no!
A grotesque caterpillar thing had crawled out from between the trees. I’d been too deep in this whole “thinking” business to notice.
This gigantic gross bug was a darkwyrm, and it had been playing hide and seek with me ever since the day I got here. To be clear, I was the one who was hiding.
Besides the darkwyrm, the forest’s monsters mostly politely ignored me. And as long as I stayed still, most of the animals would just walk right past me, too. The Divine Voice mentioned that dragon parents attacked anyone who touched a dragon egg. Maybe the other animals knew about that, too.
But then why did this stupid darkwyrm keep coming after me?!
I squinted at it, bringing up my View Status skill.
Species: Darkwyrm
Status: Normal
Lv: 3/8
HP: 8/12
MP: 3/5
Attack: 5
Defense: 2
Magic: 3
Agility: 8
Rank: F
Special Skills:
Caterpillar: Lv —
Resistance Skills:
Poison Resistance: Lv 1
Normal Skills:
Bite: Lv 1
Call Allies: Lv 2
Title Skills:
Egg Eater: Lv 1
Uh-oh, that wasn’t good. Its stats were nearly all higher than mine. I had slightly better agility, which was probably how I’d accidentally managed to outrun it so far. And I definitely didn’t love the look of that Title Skill, Egg Eater: Lv 1.
That must have been why this creep was following me. It definitely earned that skill by eating, although I didn’t even want to imagine it. We weren’t going to be friends. There would be no mutual understanding between me and the darkwyrm. And even if I got away for a while, it totally had the vibe of a jerk who’d ambush me in my sleep.
But I also noticed that its HP was pretty low. Should I fight it now, before it has a chance to attack? It was a higher level than me, but I had better defense and agility. I was pretty confident I could take it in a single hit. Yeah! I’m gonna go for it! If I won, I could probably level up, and maybe even hatch. That would be the end of this egg life where all I could do was roll around. Get ready to meet your maker, darkwyrm!
PART 3
THE DARKWYRM wiggled towards me, drooling. It thought the game was over, and now it was dinnertime.
Bring it on, wormy jerk! I’ll lure you out to better terrain and kick your tail. I don’t wanna spend the rest of my life as an egg. This game of cat and mouse is over!
The Status Screen told me that I had better defense and agility than the wyrm, but it had me beat in all its other stats. Most notably, its attack power was far better than mine. Its HP was low, but mine was way lower. If this nasty guy landed just one hit on me, I was done.
Should I use my agility to strike first? That would give me an advantage, but all it would take was one counterattack and my egg life would be cut short. That was why my plan was to move to more favorable terrain, get the first strike, and deplete its HP before it could attack me back. I had no idea what attack I should use or how much damage I would do—but I thought it was a pretty good plan, considering the circumstances.
“Ssshhk!” the darkwyrm hissed.
Okay! I gotta get away from it! Just keep running!
I rolled up a hill, quickly scanning my surroundings for a good place to make my stand. I wanted to find a place with a small drop—just a few meters, so that even if I fell it wouldn’t break my shell. I spotted a small bluff and rolled alongside it.
All right, it’s still following me. That’s a good darkwyrm. Just keep it up!
I slowed down a little, drawing the darkwyrm in closer.
“Ssshhk!” It must have seen that my stamina was dropping, because its cries were growing distinctly pleased. It was probably thinking, “Oooh, now I’ll finally get to eat a delicious egg!”