With the sensation of a blanket touching her fingertips, the girl’s eyes opened.
She was in bed in the infirmary of a Norvelland Imperial Army camp.
Her vision was hazy. She didn’t feel fully conscious. Her body was weak, and she couldn’t move at all.
As she was blinking with half-lidded eyes, a nurse who happened to be there noticed her. Learning she had awoken, the nurse left the room in a hurry.
The nurse returned with three doctors. Clad in white coats, the doctors touched the girl’s motionless body and shone lights on her to check her reactions. This sort of behavior ended after about fifteen minutes.
It had to be about an hour since her awakening.
She still couldn’t move, but she was clearly conscious. Her vision had sharpened, and she could distinctly see the patterns on the cream-colored ceiling.
A man in a military uniform came into the room.
He was a skinny man with black hair and irises like dots.
Sparkling on his chest was the proof that he had killed a great many dragons: a gray Order of Great Balmung. The rank insignia on his collar indicated that he was a commodore. Though the girl didn’t understand such things at this point in time.
The man’s eyes had the particular violent gloom of one who had seen much darkness. His irises were black, too. The deep wrinkles carved into his forehead also expressed that the life he had led had not been a peaceful one.
The man said to her, “It’s been a long time… Or so I’m told.”
He spoke in the human tongue, not the True Language.
But the girl was able to understand what those words meant. The True Language, which the girl had spoken until that day, was the root of all languages of the world. Understanding the True Language meant being fluent in every language of the past—and into the future. The language the man spoke was a high-status language used only by the upper classes in Norvelland, but the girl understood it without difficulty.
But even knowing what he was saying, whether she would attempt to communicate with him was a completely different issue.
Her body moved on its own.
Previously, her body hadn’t listened to her at all, but now it moved before her brain could even give the order.
Leaping from the bed like a spring, the girl flung herself at the dot-eyed man.
This is the man who killed the dragon.
She meant to smash the man’s composed face with her right arm—the arm that had bandages wrapped around it. She was going to unleash a beating with a speed and force one would never expect from an injured girl. She was moving faster than the human eye could detect.
The man blocked the strike with one hand.
He caught the girl’s arm like a winding snake, forcing her facedown on the floor.
And then the girl couldn’t move at all.
In terms of pure strength, the girl had to be stronger. The girl had been bathed in the dragon’s blood, and she had eaten the fruits of Eden. Her body was, in both appearance and substance, close to perfect.
The man, on the other hand, was too thin—sickly, even—and didn’t look like he was very strong at all.
But despite that, the girl couldn’t stand up against him.
“Don’t ignore me when I speak, woman.” The man’s voice was mechanical, and there was a force behind it that would brook no argument. “If you are greeted, then you respond with a greeting. Didn’t your parents teach you that? Oh, I suppose they didn’t…”
✦ ✦ ✦
The girl decided to silently listen to him. That was all she could do.
“Then I’ll introduce myself to you… But…you may remember me,” he continued.
The girl had hardly any memory of the time when she’d been in the human world.
“I am Sigebert Siegfried. I am the head of the dragon-killing clan, Siegfried.”
But she could still vaguely remember some things.
For example, the portrait that had decorated the great hall of her estate. It had been of the head of the family, whom she had not met even once, being one of so many children.
Her father.
That was who Sigebert Siegfried was.
“That look. It seems you do remember, after all…erm, Brunhild.”
Brunhild Siegfried.
That had been the girl’s name until she was three years old.
The girl who was the daughter of a dragon, who had been showered with the blood of the dragon, had belonged a family of dragonslayers.
“I am not Brunhild. I have no name.”
The dragon’s words echoed in her mind.
Ever since the dragon had said <I will call you you,> Brunhild had abandoned her name.
“I will continue, Brunhild.” Sigebert went on, as if to trample upon her unspoiled memories. “I don’t remember you at all. I didn’t even know I had a daughter named Brunhild until the attack on Silver Island was over.”
“I don’t know any Siegfried.”
Sigebert rolled up the sleeve of his left arm. There was a tattoo of a crest on his wrist. “There is one just like this on your left wrist. You are most definitely of the Siegfried bloodline. I have already conducted an inquiry. You were kidnapped thirteen years ago…daughter.”
It was difficult to feign ignorance any longer. “So then what? You can’t mean to have me inherit the Siegfried family name?”
“I do.”
It didn’t sound like he was joking.
“Don’t you worry. Our shared blood is not enough for me to feel anything for you. But everyone has been hounding me to choose a successor,” he said wearily. “I can make a guess as to how you were raised. After being taken to Silver Island, you were bathed in a dragon’s blood…and raised by a dragon. Imagine…pretending to be family,” Sigebert spat.
Enraged, Brunhild tried to move, but with him on her back, her struggling was futile. It was the most she could do to twist her neck around, glare at Sigebert, and groan, “It wasn’t pretend.”
Sigebert’s expression as he looked down at her was complicated. “Sachs said if I talked to you, you’d understand… But it’s no use. Not after being away for thirteen years. Or is it because that hair color is the opposite of mine?” he said carelessly, completely disregarding Brunhild’s anger.
“Why…? Why can’t I move…?”
“…Hmm?”
She clenched her teeth and tried to twist around, but she couldn’t even do that.
“Ah. I’ll tell you. You’ll never beat me, no matter how long you live. You have no choice…but to submit.” Sigebert started to unravel the bandage that was wrapped around Brunhild’s right arm.
A chill ran up Brunhild’s spine.
She recalled her final memory on the island.
Brunhild had failed to shield the dragon, and her body had been blasted apart. She had lost the right side of her chest and her right arm.
So then…
…why did she have a right arm now?
“It really does look draconic—reptilian, at the very least.”
Humans who had been showered with the blood of dragons gained a superior ability to heal themselves. But it was impossible to regenerate flesh that had been lost.
“You can’t win because I am a dragonslayer…” The bandages slithered and fell to the floor. “…and you are a dragon.”
“Ah—ahhhhhhh!”
A dragon’s arm was growing out from the scar where her right shoulder had been torn off.
“Isn’t that nice? You get to be together.”
“No! No, no, no! I—! I…!”
“What are you prattling about…? Your mouth was absolutely filthy with it…”
She remembered drinking the dragon’s blood that had soaked into the beach.
To prevent them from having it. The only thought in her mind had been, He’s mine.
She had drank, and drank, and drank, and drank.
This right arm was the result.
“What an unsightly girl.”
Her vision went red.
“I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you, you bastard!!”
“I feel the same. I want to kill you. A stranded girl from an Eden… You’re no daughter of mine. You’re nothing more than a monster. However…”
Sigebert could not kill Brunhild. His reputation was on the line. The military and the research institutions had decided that Brunhild was a creation of Eden—one of the first things they had managed to recover from an island without having it turn to ash. There were already discussions of putting her in custody and adding her to the military registry.
“If you hadn’t killed the dragon, then I never would have suffered this humiliation!” she cried.
“…What a fine attitude,” the man sneered.
Noticing the cries, a doctor rushed in. After they yelled, “Sedatives,” she felt a needle being thrust into her left arm. In the next moment, she felt her consciousness slipping.
Sigebert turned his back to Brunhild and started to leave.
“Mark my words…,” she moaned. “I’ll kill you… No…matter…where you try to run… I’ll take…revenge…for my father…with these hands…”
The strength rapidly faded from her body.
Turning just his head back, Sigebert said, “You’re free to try to kill me. Though, I don’t think your father would want that.”
Her consciousness was too dim, and all sound was fading rapidly.
But…
Don’t speak like you know what’s best for me.
…even with her awareness fading, she could clearly hear what he said.
Her mouth wouldn’t move.
She couldn’t reply.
The sound of his military boots could no longer be heard.