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Chapter 1
“Good heavens, look at the young lady.”
“She’s sitting there so pitifully…”
The attendants whispered behind me as I sat silently, unmoving.
They thought they were speaking quietly, but as a great dragon, there was no way their voices could escape my ears.
“Every time I see her, my heart aches.”
“Indeed. I wish we could do something to comfort her…”
Get lost.
I don’t need your pity.
“She’s just… got such a terrible temper.”
“She screams her head off if anyone so much as approaches her.”
That’s right. I do have a terrible temper—
…Wait, that sounds kind of insulting.
I turned sharply, glaring at the maids gossiping behind me.
“You lot.”
I pointed two fingers at my eyes, then at them.
“You’d better keep those mouths shut. I can hear everything.”
“Gasp!”
They stiffened, clamping their mouths shut, though their whispers didn’t stop entirely—just turned into things like, “How did she hear that?” and “Her ears must be amazing.”
Humans… never underestimate a dragon’s hearing.
I am the mighty Black Dragon!
How could a dragon like me not hear the murmurs of mere mortals?
…Or so I wish I could say.
Because right now, I’m not a dragon—
I’m a five-year-old child.
There was no point arguing with them, so I just snorted and turned back toward the window, staring intently outside.
By now, he should be arriving.
“Oh my!”
“Young Lady! The Master has returned!”
Just as I expected. The moment I thought of him, they all cried out his arrival. I jumped to my feet and ran to the window.
From afar, that dazzling golden hair was unmistakable. A man with sculpted features and a strong build entered the mansion, leaning slightly on a cane with his left hand.
He was limping faintly on his left leg—barely noticeable unless you were extremely perceptive.
I glared at him with sharp eyes, determined not to miss a single movement.
“The young lady… she adores the Master already.”
I don’t adore him. I despise him.
“What a poor, pitiful thing…”
Don’t you dare pity me.
Right now, my rage is reaching its peak.
And why am I so angry, you ask?
Isn’t it obvious?
“Young Lady, the Hero has arrived!”
Because that man is the hero who sealed me away!
And if that weren’t enough—
“Shall we go greet him, Young Lady? After all, your father has returned.”
Yes. The cursed hero is my father.
“I’m not going! I’ll never go! I hate himmmm!”
I’m furious—absolutely furious!
***
I am a dragon.
One of only five in the entire world—amazing, isn’t it?
But that’s not even the most amazing part.
I’m not one of those five dragons. I’m an exception, an irregular existence.
Dragons, born from fragments of gods, are said to protect each empire.
But I was not born from any divine fragment, nor do I know how I came to exist.
Thus, I was not a guardian deity.
I was a disaster.
A calamity no one could stop.
The great catastrophe—Selus.
That was the name the world gave me.
Wherever I passed, not a single blade of grass remained.
Nothing could stand in my way.
Humans, non-humans, even the five guardian dragons themselves tried to stop me—
but all were in vain.
I was, as my name declared, a disaster incarnate.
I thought it would always be that way.
Until he appeared—
the hero Heros Akion.
“Die, calamity.”
What nonsense from such a frail human.
As always, I thought if I toyed with him a little, he’d give up and flee like all the others.
But—
“Guh!”
He was stronger than I expected.
“Wait, wait! Hold on a moment, hero!”
“Die.”
The hero drove his sword into my left eye.
My left eye—
where my only weakness, my core, resided.
How did he know that?
No one in the world knew!
I tried to fight back, but my body was collapsing.
My knees buckled, my jaws clenched shut, and holes riddled my wings—I couldn’t even fly anymore.
“…A difficult battle.”
The hero raised his sword toward me.
“It ends now.”
I can’t die here.
I won’t die like this!
“Kuaaaaah!!”
I let out a desperate roar.
Perhaps drained from our long battle, the hero didn’t finish me off.
Instead, he chose the next best thing.
“You shall not awaken for a thousand years.”
And with that, he sealed me away.
“When you open your eyes again, my descendant will end your life.”
“I’ll kill you, hero! I’ll kill you myself! I swear it!”
But my final roar never reached him.
The seal consumed me completely.
Why?
What did I ever do wrong?
Just because I was born a calamity?
Because some prophecy claimed I’d bring ruin to the world?
I didn’t choose to exist like this.
It’s unfair. So unfair!
I didn’t deserve this!
My cries echoed in the void, and slowly, my consciousness faded away.
I thought I would be trapped for a thousand years.
But then—
“…”
“Young Lady?”
When I opened my eyes, I was at a funeral.
I was lying in a coffin—
inside the body of a small child.
“She—she’s alive! The Young Lady’s alive!”
“Quick! Call the physician!”
I had awoken inside the corpse of a dead girl.
“The Hero! The Young Lady has come back to life!”
And that hero…
was the very man who had sealed me.
I was now the youngest daughter—
of the Hero himself.
