I screamed as the air trembled with an intense vibration. A terrifying howl, like the cry of some monstrous beast, caused a ringing pain in my eardrums. The source of the noise was alarmingly close.
“I-Is it in the air?”
I instinctively looked up. Of course, all I could see was the tent roof.
The creature—whatever it was—could fly.
“Just go away already...” I muttered, cowering in fear. However, the thunderous booms and the monster’s howls showed no signs of stopping. After a while, I started to get used to the chaos; I’d already stopped flinching at every noise.
But then—
Boooom!
A massive tremor shook the tent mercilessly, throwing me off-balance.
I let out a scream as I lost my footing and fell to the ground, overwhelmed. Everything had been happening so fast, I barely had a moment to catch my breath or even think. I gritted my teeth against the aching pain in my knee and grunted as I pushed myself up. Making my way to the tent’s entrance, I cautiously poked my head outside to survey my surroundings—but the night, thick with dust and smoke, had swallowed everything in darkness.
“I can’t just sit around here.”
I quietly crept outside, wearing some makeshift sandals I’d woven from grass in preparation for a day like this. They weren’t much to look at, but they certainly beat going barefoot.
“Light Wind,” I chanted.
Using a magic spell for blowing wind into a furnace, I blew away the dust and smoke. As the haze thinned, the monster appeared right in front of me.
“Whoa! Th-That’s insane!”
Its majestic presence made me gasp in awe before fear even had a chance to set in. I stood there, admiring what lay before me.
“Is this a dragon...?”
There, just beside the tent, lay a colossal dragon easily fifty meters from head to tail. The earlier tremors must’ve been caused by this giant falling from the sky. Its scales glowed a deep crimson, shimmering like crystal or enamel. Its shell resembled a massive boulder, while its horns were thick and gnarled like tree trunks.
It was my first encounter with an otherworldly creature—it radiated a divine majesty. Then I calmly registered where the dragon could’ve fallen, and a cold sweat broke out across my body.
“That was so close!” I said in shock. “If this thing had fallen a few meters over this way, I would’ve been flattened!”
The image of myself being crushed—tent and all—beneath the dragon’s massive body sent a chill down my spine. I’d come within inches of death. Even if one of those claws had grazed it, the tent would’ve been torn into pieces. The thought of being reincarnated and getting crushed to death without even knowing what had killed me was downright terrifying.
“But who took this thing down?” I wondered.
Its wings had been slashed wide open. That must’ve made it unable to fly, and the impact of the crash had finished it off. I could tell the dragon in front of me was completely lifeless thanks to my knowledge of ingredients, because to my eyes, every part of its body looked like a massive collection of edible parts. If it had still been alive, I wouldn’t have been seeing it broken down by cuts; it would’ve appeared to me as just one edible magical beast.
“Heaven dragon meat, heaven dragon marbled cuts, heaven dragon blood, eyes, bones, fat, liver...”
A dragon was a treasure trove of rare and precious materials that could not only be used for blacksmithing or alchemy but for cooking too. I tapped into my ingredient knowledge, digging up everything I knew about the creature before me.
Name: heaven dragon. Species: wyvern-type. Rank: nine. Average body length: thirty meters. True to its name, it possesses exceptional flight ability. The meat has an inherent sweetness and a clean flavor that works with any cooking method. In terms of taste, it is mid-tier among dragon species, but as a material, it ranks among the best. It holds a high concentration of mana and must be cooked using at least mid-level fire magic.
If I’d wanted to, I could’ve stuffed the entire dragon into my storage, but if a creature this huge had vanished without a trace, it would’ve no doubt caused an uproar. Whoever had defeated it would have the rights to it, and if anyone discovered I’d taken it, things could get way too messy. That said, there was no way I could just walk away from this giant dragon.
“Over there!” a voice called out.
“Did they get it?”
In the fraction of a second I hesitated, some people had come rushing toward the dragon.
“Crap!” I said in a panic. “There’s got to be something I can grab!”
I reached out without even thinking, in hopes of grabbing even a part of the creature. Hunger had taken over me, and it didn’t matter that the meat was rare or valuable; the heaven dragon was nothing more than a massive slab of meat in my eyes. I grabbed a severed right claw and a torn piece of wing membrane that lay nearby—and for some reason, I also scooped up an eyeball that had fallen out of its socket. I shoved everything into storage.
I turned to dash back into the tent—but froze.
“M-My tent! It’s on fire!”
The heaven dragon’s breath had set the area ablaze, and stray embers had leaped onto my tent. By the time I’d realized it, more than half of it had burned down.
“Ahhhh, dammit!” I screamed.
I hurled the tent and its content into storage. I’d made sure to exclude the flames, so that should’ve extinguished it, but I was also sure the tent had been scorched beyond use. And just like that, I had obtained heaven dragon meat—but had lost both my parents and home.
✦ ✦ ✦
The room, richly decorated and opulent, was unmistakably meant for a noble or someone of similar standing. Some, however, might have called it the taste of a new-rich—gaudy even. It lacked any sense of cohesion, like someone had bought flashy furnishings on a whim and tossed it all together without a second thought. Every piece was expensive, yet their conflicting styles collided, canceling out any charm they might have had individually. What’s more, anyone with a keen eye could have seen that beneath the flashy look, a considerable number of pieces were counterfeit. The owner of the room had proudly plastered it with flashy decorations, clueless that many were fake, oblivious to the mockery behind their back. The room was a physical embodiment of the owner’s vanity and folly. In the midst of this flamboyant display, two men were facing each other.
“What?! You still haven’t found them?” the older man reprimanded.
He clearly looked like a noble and was wearing a loud robe that perfectly complemented the room’s interior. A staff hung at his side, marking him as some kind of mage, but his movements were slow and clumsy, hardly those of a seasoned practitioner—any skills he had were merely for self-defense.
This was Viscount Holm, the master of the room and lord of Erunst. He was thin, though not quite withered, and gave off little sense of vitality—understandable, perhaps, given his age. His eyes blazed with a fierce, unnatural light, glowing so intensely they lent him an almost demonic or undead aura.
His voice carried anger and a faint trace of panic. The stout man in front of him started bowing frantically, visibly the more shaken of the two. Having sensed the old man’s mood, he may well have feared for his very life. Even as he forced a flattering smile, his eyes spoke of the terror within him—the beads of sweat covering his body weren’t from the heat.
“I-I’m terribly sorry!” he said. “It’s been sheer chaos in town ever since—”
“Shut up!” Viscount Holm snapped back. “They may be beastfolk, but they’re just two children! Chaos or not, you should’ve found them by now!”
“W-We are searching!” shrieked the stout man.
Holm paused for a moment and said, “I should’ve finished the task sooner!”
He slammed his slender arm down on a nearby nightstand. The dull thud made the stocky man’s shoulders tremble.
“Eld, take a look at this,” said Holm, taking out a small pendant adorned with two gemstones. “This is linked to the health-monitoring spell I’d cast on them. If the girls are hurt, the stones turn red. If they are dead, they lose their glow. Yet they both shine blue, do they not?”
“Y-Yes,” replied the stout man, Eld.
Holm pressed the pendant close to Eld’s face and leaned in. The blue light flickered across the old man’s face, warping it into something not quite human.
“This means the girls are still alive, and they are close enough that the spell’s link remains intact!”
“I-I see...” replied Eld in fear. “Would you be able to tell their location with the spell?”
“It’s not that convenient. It’s merely for monitoring the physical condition of sacrifices. But there is no doubt they are still in this town! Find them! Turn over every stone if you must!”
“Y-Yes, sir!” said Eld as he rushed out of the room.
Holm stood there, staring into a mirror, the pendant clutched tightly in his hand. He muttered the same words over and over, unaware that his face had twisted into something truly demonic...
“I will get back the sacrifices... I shall live...!”
There was no mistaking the madness in his clouded eyes.