Ch. 97
“Oh my, Rai! Long time no see.”
[Master…….]
“How have you been?”
I joked, but Rai puffed out his cheeks and glared at me in annoyance.
A snake, puffing out its cheeks. He mimicked humans so well, it was uncanny.
[How could I be well! This is too much, Master! You left me with that stupid dragon and spent your days just lazing around by yourself!]
“What! Lazing around? I’ve been barely surviving every day, struggling with sorrow, you know?”
I protested, but it stung. Because it was mostly true.
[Lies! You offered me up as a sacrifice and got your freedom! How could a master sell out their spirit!]
“That’s not true!”
Anyone could see it was true, but I stubbornly denied it, because if I admitted it, Rai would just grumble even more.
[Day by day, only Master’s face is glowing more and more!]
“That’s a misunderstanding. Do you know how much I worry about you? I can’t even sleep or eat properly……”
I trailed off, glancing at the rabbit meat in my hand, and wiped the grease from my lips onto my clothes.
“Oh right! I brought you a present!”
[You’re just trying to change the subject!]
“Rai, remember what you said before? That you wanted the body of a four-legged animal. So I caught a cool-looking wolf for you.”
Rai’s eyes sparkled like Magi’s in an instant.
[Really?]
“I mean it!”
[Can I trust you? You’re not bringing back something weird again, are you, Master?]
Since that day, Rai’s outer shell was still damaged.
It looked shabby, charred, and shriveled—a permanent scar that couldn’t be healed, from when he blocked the breath in the imperial palace.
As expected of a dragon’s breath, known as the most powerful attack on earth.
Anyway, Rai needed a complete new coating with a new material, and since things had come to this, I decided to make Rai a new body.
It was a really bothersome job, so I’d put it off for years, but with Rai sulking so much lately, I had no choice.
“Weird? When did I ever?”
[Last time, you brought me a salamander! That’s not much different from what I already am!]
“That’s not true. That one had four legs.”
[Still, I don’t want something like that! Master, you just don’t get how I feel!]
Rai hated every new candidate body I brought him.
Like a middle school boy who hates every piece of clothing his mom buys him.
“Such a picky guy.”
[It’s Master’s taste that’s strange! So, where is my new body? It’s not some polka-dotted wolf, is it?]
“Would something like that even exist? If it did, I would’ve used it. Anyway, I put it in the freezer… but Magi just went in there. I don’t think I told him not to eat it since it’s yours.”
Rai whipped his head around and shot toward the storage at lightning speed.
Not long after, the sounds of the two of them bickering echoed from inside, and I hurried to finish off my rabbit meat before the two noisy reptiles returned.
—
It was a good thing I finished my meal quickly.
Magi insisted I sit across from him because he didn’t want to eat alone, then started tearing into the ogre raw.
I was used to watching monsters get eaten whole by now, but I still couldn’t eat while watching that.
Magi sucked up the ogre’s long, thick intestines like they were noodles.
In dwarf form. (T/N: Damn. That’s gross. lol)
I still wasn’t used to it.
“Magi.”
“Yeah? What? Want a bite?”
“No, I’m fine.”
Didn’t even want the offer.
I wasn’t curious about where it all went, either.
“I wanted to ask you something. There are only magic books in the storage. Isn’t there a spirit book or… anything else?”
“What’s there is all there is. I didn’t collect them, my mom filled it up, so I’m not sure.”
“You said your mom gave you this lair, right? Is that a dragon thing? The mom prepares everything for their kid when they’re about to live on their own…?”
“That’s not it. My mom was super worried about me living on my own. That’s why she took care of everything!”
I understood. Magi was a dragon who was lacking in a lot of ways.
Turns out dragons love their kids just like anyone else.
As I watched Magi chew off the ogre’s fingers like squid legs, I thought, I really have a strong stomach now.
“I was supposed to live on my own at five hundred, but I was only four hundred, so I lied to the Dragon Lord that I’d live with my mom for a hundred more years and got in trouble.”
“Aren’t dragons supposed to not be able to lie?”
“Why? We lie just fine.”
“I thought I’d heard that somewhere. That dragons can’t lie…”
“Breaking a promise is bad, but we lie all the time!”
How shamelessly he says it.
“When you polymorph and wander the human world, you end up lying all the time.”
“Oh, I guess that’s true.”
“Just don’t make promises with humans! Trusting a human is for when you want a short life.”
So Magi was basically doing everything his mom told him not to.
Letting a human live, bringing one to his lair, making friends with a human, even making promises.
Honestly, this guy was such an easy target that if I ever got any bad ideas, I could probably do something about it.
It’s probably why young and naive dragons like Magi always end up as dragon slayer trophies in human myths.
But I’m so safety-oriented that instead of taking risks, I’m just wiping the ogre blood off Magi’s mouth…
I totally understood why mama dragon didn’t want him living on his own.
The world’s a dangerous place.
“By the way, Magi.”
I put down my book, struck by a sudden question.
“Why are there so many magic theory books in the storage? Dragons don’t need them, right?”
“Magic books?”
The book I was reading out of boredom was pretty basic.
Of course, that’s from the perspective of someone with a good education like me.
It was complicated for a normal person, since it was about magic, but at Drike Academy, it was the kind of thing kids learned.
In other words, for a dragon—ancestor of magic—it was totally unnecessary.
“They’re the books I studied.”
“…Who did?”
“I did!”
“You’re a dragon, though?”
“Yeah, but I’m not good at magic. That’s why.”
At first, I thought he was joking. One of Magi’s not-funny jokes.
“Pfft!”
I laughed in his face.
That’s ridiculous!
“You’re polymorphed right now!”
“Yeah.”
“And you teleported me here.”
“Yeah.”
“And you can’t use magic?”
“That’s all I know. Oh! There’s one more. Creating subspace.”
No way.
That was so absurd I forgot how to speak for a second.
“So, that’s it…?”
“That’s all.”
It was unbelievable, but Magi’s face was dead serious. What kind of fish-drowning logic is this?
“Are you really a dragon?”
“I get asked that a lot.”
Magi kept munching away at the ogre, unfazed by my surprise.
His round eyes would’ve looked cute if he wasn’t in dwarf form.
“Aren’t dragons supposed to be able to use magic like breathing?”
“I guess? Usually.”
“……”
“But it’s too hard for me, so I don’t get it.”
“Oh my god.”
I knew he was slow, but this was another level!
What kind of dragon has trouble with magic!
“Even things like polymorph and teleport—my mom said they’re essential, so she beat the formulas into me until I memorized them. It took me twenty years just to memorize one!”
Wait, you can just use magic by memorizing it? If all you need is the formula, anyone could do it!
“So, you… you can’t use [Fire Ball], but you can use teleport?”
“Yeah!”
“That’s actually amazing in its own way…”
Skipping all the steps and just memorizing the formulas for advanced magic meant he still had the basic talents of a dragon.
An unlimited mana heart, or a natural sense for handling mana.
For example, if humans barely control mana through coaxing and cajoling, dragons are born ruling it.
That’s just a physical trait—of course they’d have it.
So what Magicos lacked was…
“My mom always said, ‘Why can’t you just understand it?’ But if you don’t get it, you don’t get it! I hate numbers.”
“Numbers…”
“You’re supposed to just get the formula as soon as you see it.”
“……”
“My mom and dad both get it. But I don’t.”
“So you just memorized it?”
“Memorizing was so hard!”
I get it now.
It’s just a fact: Magi’s intelligence is below average.
At least for a dragon.
Dragons, famed for their magical genius, are known for their intellect—not just mental arithmetic but never forgetting anything for their whole lives.
Their brains are so extraordinary, they see forgetfulness as a blessing.
But Magi forgets. Like a human.
“Come here, Magi.”
“Huh?”
“Can you solve this formula?”
I flipped open the book to a page. It was a third-class magic formula.
“I think I learned it…?”
“You don’t remember?”
“I don’t know.”
“The teleport you always use is a seventh-class spell, you know?”
“I know that much!”
That’s just how Magi was.
Like being able to sing and write the national anthem but not knowing what the words mean.
Memorizing the letters like pictures, not words.
If basic spells are like double-digit addition and subtraction, advanced spells are like seven-digit multiplication and division. You have to start with the basics, but Magi just gave up at addition.
For dragons, someone like Magi is so below average, they probably wouldn’t know how to teach him.
It’s like having a genius try to teach a toddler.
Maybe dragons don’t even need teaching—everyone just awakens and understands on their own.
“Magi…”
“Why are you looking at me like my mom, Geenie?”
“Do I really look that pitiful?”
“Yeah.”
What a waste of talent.
Born with a dragon’s magical gifts, but only a human-level brain!
This guy probably needs remedial lessons aimed way lower.
Not that I could enroll him in a human academy…
Wait, maybe…
“Magi. Want me to teach you magic?”