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A few more days passed since.

At first, Kafal was carefully detaining Lucella from going out, releasing low groans every time he tried to and pushing him back into the nest, but after learning that Lucella sat still whenever she was out hunting, she gradually allowed him to leave the nest when she was with him.

One day, Kafal called Lucella a step away from the nest.

Lucella was curious but still went to her, and then Kafal continued her advance while crushing trees and bushes alike underfoot.

Before long, the dragon and human duo reached the bank of a beautiful river.

Mount Kuguse was a mountain full of spring water.

Massive rains like the recent one were a rarity, but it still was rich in water due to abundant rainfall.

The flowing river was the source of life for the people downstream.

The filtered sunlight shone on the river’s surface and reflected on it like a mirror. A clear wind blew and played with Lucella’s hair, and then escaped away.

Kafal thrust her head into the river and started to gulp down the water along with the pitiful fish that happened to be present.

She was drinking so much that one would worry the river’s level would fall.

Raw water was said to be harmful to the body.

Maybe it was safe for dragons, but Lucella was just a human. He hesitated on drinking it, but he couldn’t afford to be picky when living on a mountain.

Thinking he just had to get used to it, Lucella walked next to Kafal and prepared to drink the water.

But then, a beautiful girl with freely grown red hair stared back at him from the mirror-like river surface.

“…Who the heck is this?!”

The girl reflected in the water said with a cramped smile.

He looked completely different.

He didn’t clearly remember how he used to look, but he at least knew that it was nothing like this.

In human terms, the girl looked to be around ten years old. Her deep scarlet hair, the same color as Kafal’s scales, reached down to her waist like the wool of a grazing sheep.

Her features were like her age—her outward age to be specific—lovely and innocent. Her clear tawny eyes like Kafal’s, unlike a human’s, had a vertical slit in them like that of a cat’s under the sun.

Her skin was sharp and pure white, similar to the dragon’s horns.

Her body was both slim and flexibly firm, giving off a sense of functional beauty of a wild animal.

Incidentally, what the girl wore now was the hide of a dark brown wolf-like monster that was ripped into two.

He had wrapped the belt that he had on him when he came to this mountain over half of the hide and put it on his upper body, while wrapping the other half on the lower half.

He did have second thoughts about not wearing underwear at least now when he looked like a little girl, but he didn’t have any tool that could handle such delicate craftsmanship so he gave up.

As for the bear-type monster’s hide that Kafal gave to him initially, it was far too big so he used it for protection against cold and a sleeping bag.

“Groar…”
“Huh, what?”

While he was busy staring at the girl in the water in shock, Kafal poked Lucella on the back with her knuckle.

Flames were born in her giant hand that could even crush a boulder, eventually converging into a ball of fire.

“Graah!”
“Woah!”

As Kafal roared, that flame ball flew across the river’s surface and caused a giant explosion.

It didn’t even touch the surface but the river ended up denting in, producing large waves.

Lucella’s ears started to ring. Many fish floated on the surface with their bellies up and got carried away by the clear currents.

“It’s…not a breath. Is this magic?”

It had a huge scale and might, but Lucella knew a similar spell.

It was a spell that attacked enemies with exploding flame ≪Fireball≫.

“…Grrrrr…”

Kafal hummed her throat and a huge numerical formula, or perhaps some kind of blueprint showed up in Lucella’s head.

There was so much information his head seemed like it would burn off. This was a different voice from her usual one, as if she was trying to convey something.

Kafal once again produced a flame fall in her hand and threw it. Another mountain-shaking explosion followed and the scorched river started bubbling as if screaming.

“…Grrrr…”
“Oh… are you perhaps trying to teach me?”

The same information entered his head once again, but Lucella guessed what it was despite failing to understand it.

Kafal was trying to teach this to Lucella.

“…Grrrr…”
“No way. I feel like I’ve been told I had no talent for magic…”

Magic was—at least for humans—not a handy skill that anyone could use.

To start, one in ten had no talent at all for it.

And most of the rest may be able to use some trivial spell or two if they train for it. They would have to train a lot to finally reach even a remotely decent level.

There were only a handful of people who made success in life with magic. But even among them, there was a wide gap in talent… and most likely, Kafal’s magic far exceeded even those practitioners of the highest level.

—All the dragons can use powerful magic, after all. She probably doesn’t even realize that there are people who can’t use that power……

Seeing Lucella becoming gloomier, Kafal started restlessly shaking her head.

“Whimper.”
“Okay, okay, fine, I’ll give it a shot!”

Seeing the dragon’s expectant gaze, Lucella desperately faced the river and held out his hand. He tried to take a stance for starters.

Lucella didn’t know how to even cast magic.

But the most important part, when it came to magic, was envisioning what should happen in your mind accurately down to every grain of sand.

Did that mean he just had to strongly imagine the earlier explosion?

He started to regurgitate in his mind what seemed to be the formula that Kafal taught him without understanding the meaning.

But then, the heat started to gradually revolve in his body.

“≪Fireball≫!!”

Lucella screamed, his voice flaring up.

A dazzling flame produced from his palm flew straight and exploded.

“Huh?”

As Lucella stood in mute amazement, the gust of wind from his own explosion clashed against him.

—Wasn’t ≪Fireball≫ quite a difficult spell… An adventurer skilled enough to use it wouldn’t have trouble putting food on the table, you know? How can I use it? Because a red dragon directly taught me?!

Red dragons, just like their burning crimson scales suggested, were monsters closely related to flames. If one such red dragon personally taught the basics to them, even an incompetent person could use magic… maybe.

“…Grrr…rowl…”
“Waph!”

Kafal restlessly shook her head while approaching and licking Lucella with her big tongue.

The soft, lukewarm giant tongue zealously slammed on his body, toying with it.

“Eugh, I’m all gooey now.”

Lucella got licked all over and got drenched.

This has happened several times so far. It was perhaps a way for the mother dragon to clean her hatchling and fend off diseases. And perhaps also an expression of affection.

But in this case, she was probably praising him. And zealously at that.

It didn’t feel or smell as dirty as human saliva, but it had a hard-to-describe fragrance. Speaking of which, dragons were like big lumps of magic, so even their saliva was an ingredient for some kind of medicine.

“…I guess I’ll take a bath.”

Thinking no one was looking anyway, Lucella stripped off the fur and jumped into the river stark naked.