Leave a comment

Holding up the card was all well and good, but… nothing happened!

“Did… did it work?”
“What are you doing, Alim?”
“Well… I thought if I held it up towards her, the dragon could…”
«Skill cards hold nay meaning for magic beasts, dost thee not know that?»
“Eh…”

W-What should I do, then? Does that mean, the experiment was a failure?

“What should I do…? I’m not sure.”
“Doesn’t it tell you, how to use it, when you hold it against your forehead?”
“Ah… right. I did do that once, but I forgot to look at the description.”
“As I thought, you do mess up every once in a while, don’t you, Alim… Geez, you’re such a joker.”
“Te-heh…”

I held up the skill card against my head.

So, in other words, the SKP I allocate into the skill will be lost, in exchange for the creation of a single human being?

Huh, isn’t this more like a 5-star skill? A skill like this sounds like it’s on the same level² as Amritas. Though there’s also gender conversion, so I guess the skill system allows absurd things, every so often.

“How does it look?”
“It’s fine, I know how to use it now.”
«Oh, so thou art able to turn Us into a human, art thou…? We would ne’er have dreamed, We might become human.»
“It’s all good, just give me a moment.”

I held the card against my forehead once more and acquired the skill. I tried allocating SKP to it immediately.

This is a ton of SKP for a 4-star skill.³ Well, that’s no problem at all.

I immediately maxed out the skill. From further looking at its description at max level⁴, I also learned that I could turn something into a human by touching it while consciously using the skill.

“Good… Then, are you mentally prepared to be transformed into a human, Miss Dragon?”
«Aye, We are.»
“Here we go, then!”

I consciously used the skill. Thereupon, my right hand started to shine with a bronze color. To be honest, I didn’t like that color.
Well, that shouldn’t matter.

I rushed up to the Golden Rose Queen Dragon and touched the tip of a claw on one of her feet with my right hand. I was looking forward to how this dragon, whose claw by itself was roughly as big as I was, would transform into a human.

«U-Uoh… Ugroaah~~!!» the dragon roared loudly.

At the same time, an incredible amount of smoke rose up in our surroundings for some reason. Due to that smoke, I could no longer see what was happening around me.

Maybe it failed, or maybe I should have done this outside, shouldn’t I? No… This room has its own air conditioning, so it shouldn’t be an issue, I guess.

Those worries of mine had apparently been unfounded, since the smoke cleared up by itself.

“That was an awful lot of smoke, right?”

Mika also came to my side.

“Yeah, it sure was. What happened to the dragon?”

When I looked at my surroundings carefully, I saw a naked girl, lying on her back some distance from us. No matter how you sliced it, the Golden Rose Queen Dragon had turned into a human.

Mika and I rushed up to her. From her appearance, she seemed to be roughly between 15 and 18 years old.

She had very long, golden hair. It was different from normal blonde hair to the point that it shone, as if it was actually made of gold. Then, she had black spots, shaped like roses, similar to moles here and there on her body. Furthermore, there were fin-like things on her ears, like vestiges from her dragon form. Regarding the last point, it looked just like a dragon beastfolk, I’d seen in a reference book at some point⁵.

“Uhm… Huh?”

After a short while, the Golden Rose Queen Dragon opened her eyes.

“Good morning, how do you feel?” I tried asking the girl, who used to be a dragon, while handing her something she could use to cover herself with.
“We feel grateful. Forsooth… Our head is spinning…”

After taking the clothing from me and draping herself in it, she was looking around restlessly, apparently trying to confirm something.
Good, it looks like she can talk normally.

At any rate. She had incredible eyes. You could see something like a blooming rose inside her pupils.

Her face is also rather beautiful, isn’t it? Good for her.

“Do you recognize us?”

She turned to us.

“Thou art the red-haired and green-haired lasses, art thou not…? Didst thou grow taller?”
“No, you shrunk down, Miss Dragon…”
“Alas… thou art correct… Hark on that.”

The girl got to her feet without any difficulties. It also didn’t look like she had any problems using her legs.

“Human beings… art small.”
“Well, yeah. Oh, do you want to take a look at your appearance?”
“Aye, prithee. Anon, We might prefer our form beautiful, same as thee, alas…”
“No need to worry about that, you see.”

I prepared a mirror and showed it to her. Her appearance was reflected in it.

“Right?”
“Oh… We find Our hair a smidgen too long, but… ’tis a marvel, We turned human. Might Our appearance be that of a dragonkin beastfolk girl?”
“Looks like it.”

She seemed to be in high spirits, after seeing her own appearance. It was quite interesting to watch.

“For the time being, how about you try to check your status screen?”
“Aye, thou art correct.”

Urged on by Mika, she seemed to look at her own status screen. After some time, likely because she had stopped perusing it, she turned her head back at us.

“How does it look?
“We possess a high level from the beginning. We can also use all magic, We have knowledge of, t’would seem.”
“Well, that’s because you were rather strong as a magic beast.”
“Right on… Oh, in passing, Our name appears to be Rose… Rose Goldie⁶. How sayest thou.”

Rose held out both her hands to Mika and me. We shook them.

“Hm, nice to meet you. My name is Alim.”
“I’m Mika. I’m happy to meet you.”
“Oh, save thee, Alim, Mika!” Rose waved her arms in apparent joy.

TL notes:
Looks like we got ourselves a new party member. I thought about changing the way she talks to something less excentric once she becomes human, but it doesn’t really change in the original, so I kept with the Shakespearean.

1. Okay, I get animals and magic beasts. Dolls are toeing the line, but still thinkable (while rather creepy), but what the hell about plants and portraits?
   Especially the latter, do photographs of people count as portraits and couldn’t Alim simply create pictures of his family members with Dark Matter and use this skill to make copies of them? Would they have the personality and memories of the people depicted?
2. The original is 級の禁忌 (“taboo grade/rank”).
3. As if you don’t have enough SKP to max out more than 500 of these…
4. The original is レベルの項目 (“Level entry”). I assume that’s what it’s supposed to mean, but maybe it’s a typo?
5. Wait, he actually read some books and didn’t just scan them and then forget about them? I’m shocked!
6. The original is ローズ・ゴールディ (roozu goorudi). It’s the name of the staff from chapter 111 turned around.