CH 22

Chapter 22: Dragon’s Kiss

Translator: yuzu

+ + +

After several thunder bolts, Luya blasted an entire group of ants to pieces.

The ants scattered in terror, but no matter how fast they crawled, they couldn’t escape from the speed of lightning. The red dragon took several passes through the sky, and Luya cleaned up the ants outside.

A steady stream of ants crawled out of the mansion. After a while, a mountain of charred ant corpses were piled outside of the abandoned mansion. It had a pungent and horrible smell like burnt rubber and plastic.

After she killed dozens of them, the ground around the abandoned mansion suddenly loosened. Immediately afterward, the queen killer ant crawled out from underground, hauling its enormous body.

Luya’s eyes immediately lit up.

After clearing the mobs, the boss finally appeared!

The queen ant looked much bigger than an ordinary soldier ant. Its exoskeleton was covered with a thick and hard carapace, and it dragged along a large and full white egg sac. It looked so disturbing that Luya could feel her SAN1 stat plummeting.

The queen ant suddenly looked up and stared at Luya atop the dragon’s back. It lifted its wings, and suddenly flew into the air.　　

Luya didn’t know how to deal with this thing.

Lightning strikes weren’t enough to make this thing disappear. Who knew how many more ants could be born from the egg sac behind the queen.

As the queen ant rushed over, the Shiba Inu suddenly looked extremely nervous, and its hair stood up on end.

The queen ant had been enraged by Luya’s previous actions. The corpses of its children were scattered all over the ground, and it caused the queen to go berserk. It launched a vengeful attack on the red dragon, prepared to go down fighting until the very end.

The red dragon faced the killer ant queen and opened its enormous mouth.

“Dragon flame—” Luya had waited for this precise moment, and she shouted out loud.

Hot flames spewed out of the red dragon’s mouth. In a blink of an eye, the fire enveloped the queen ant’s body, and it quickly dissolved in an instant. The queen was turned into a pile of ash.

The smell of burning embers hung in the air. Luya rode the red dragon around the abandoned mansion, and they returned to the dragon’s lair.

…

“You guys, go get rid of those ant corpses.”　

Luya bluntly issued an order to the goblins. “Go to their nest to see if there are any unhatched eggs. If you find any, burn them all together. Don’t give them a chance to come back.”

“Guuuu—”

Perhaps since the killer ants posed an existential threat to the goblins of this mountain, they were suddenly very excited when they heard that the ant queen was destroyed. They immediately took action.

Luya thought it would be fine to leave it to those goblins. Even though they had low IQ, they weren’t completely dumb. At the very least, they were smarter than dogs, and could follow directions.

So she continued to carry on with her farm work.

The Holy Grass that she had taken from the goblins grew extremely fast. It had only been one night, yet seedlings had already emerged.

From their appearance, they looked like ordinary plant seedlings, so it was impossible to tell what they were.

She remembered that the goblin chieftain seemed to value it a lot, so Luya was a little excited to see what this would grow into.

Could they be elixirs of immortality? Hehe.

Although it was probably impossible, it wasn’t bad to have high expectations. Who said that it was bad to have dreams?

Luya happily watered the seedlings, and then began to prepare today’s food.

Today’s menu: Dried salmon + radish and cabbage soup.

She originally wanted to cook pumpkin porridge, but Luya had no way to thresh the wheat. She still had to go to the place where humans used to live to find tools, so for now she couldn’t eat wheat.

These days, her diet was severely unbalanced, so she decided to become vegetarian for now.

She still hadn’t finished the salmon that the red dragon brought back. In order to prevent it from spoiling, she had dried the remaining parts to preserve it. The radish and cabbage tasted too plain, so it was helpful to have a seafood soup base.

Since the red dragon hadn’t gone hunting in the past two days, Luya could only count on the food that she had stocked up. Although she didn’t like radishes or cabbages, she couldn’t be a picky eater if she wanted to survive in this world.

While the Shiba Inu looked at her with disdain, she brought a pot of water to boil. Then she washed the radishes and cabbage. When it started boiling, she broke up the dried fish and threw it in to simmer. When the umami flavor emerged, she poured in diced carrots and cabbages all at once.

When the soup started bubbling, Luya couldn’t help but think this would have been better if she had some spare ribs.

Radish pork bone soup was delicious. If she had the right ingredients on hand, she wouldn’t have bothered to try such a strange combination.

It wasn’t that this world lacked wild boars. When she was with the group of mercenaries before, she had eaten wild boar a few times.

The main issue was that Luya just didn’t know how to deal with those ingredients. Even if she had a wild boar right now, she didn’t know how to slaughter and butcher it by herself.

Ai… but she still really wanted to eat pork belly2.

Since the dog was also eating with her, she had to leave out the salt until the last step.

Today, she couldn’t let the dog steal the bowl of food with salt again. She decided to feed the dog by itself first.

After the radishes and cabbage was almost cooked, she prepared one serving of soup and intentionally put some more radishes, which she hated.

“Time to eat, Lu Dahuang!”

She banged the pots and bowls together loudly.

The Shiba Inu trotted over and sniffed. But the dog didn’t touch the food, and it merely turned around, shook its butt, and walked away.

?

Why was it so shameless?　

Luya stared at the dog’s butt helplessly. No matter what she tried to say, the dog refused3 to try the bland-looking and dull-tasting soup.

“Don’t tell me? You won’t eat anything without meat?”

The dog’s ears twitched a little.

Luya immediately reacted and suddenly had an idea: “Oh, do you hate having no meat, or do you simply want to eat some protein?”

This sentence finally succeeded in stopping the dog. It turned its head and glanced at Luya, seemingly interested in the direction she was going.

“There’s protein in the soup. If you look carefully, there’s chunks of fish in it.” Luya kindly reminded her dog.

The dog immediately walked away without looking back.

???

How could this dog be so picky? It even refused the fish in the soup. Did it really have to eat pure protein?

It was so irritating. She didn’t know how it survived before, and she was curious where the red dragon had found this dog.

But where could she find meat for this dog? She also wanted to eat meat… oh, right.

Luya thought for a while, and then she suddenly had an idea. She grabbed the caterpillars that she had picked out of the cabbage leaves, and she shook it in front of the Shiba Inu’s mouth.

“Why don’t you try this then? It’s high in protein, and if you boil it, it tastes like chicken.”

At that moment, the expression on the Shiba Inu’s face was incredible. It contorted in disgust as if smelling feces. It bared its teeth as it grimaced, growling threateningly.

Luya swore that this was the first time she had ever seen a dog with so many expressions.

But faced with such a fierce Shiba Inu, she was completely unruffled.

If it didn’t want to eat her radish soup, then it could go eat bugs.

With the dog baring its fangs, she tried to pry open its mouth to throw the bug inside. However this dog was incredibly strong, and it quickly struggled free of Luya’s grip. It kicked up sand as it backpedaled frantically, and a lump of dirt flew into Luya’s face as it ran away.

…

Luya trembled as she rubbed the dirt off her face, swearing a mountain of curses in her heart.

…Fuck!

Luya flew into a humiliated rage, and she chased the dog as she wiped her face. However, the dog was extremely agile, and she couldn’t catch it before it vanished like a wisp of smoke.

Luya had no choice but to run to the hot spring to wash her face. She yelled at the dog, “There’s no dinner for you today!”

Of course, the dog ignored her, and Luya had to pour the bowl of radish and cabbage soup back into the pot. She refilled her own bowl with extra minced fish chunks, and then added pink mineral salt.

It didn’t taste that bad… simply having food was already good in this world. She didn’t understand what the dog was so picky about.

Luya watered the crops again, and then she returned to her bed in the dragon’s lair and slept until morning.

Perhaps she used too much magic, so her body felt extremely tired. In fact, she didn’t know what it cost to use the Thunder Emblem to launch lightning bolts. For now, she felt a little overdrawn, so she decided to sleep. She’d figure out the rest tomorrow.

The next day.

The goblins needed several days to clean up the killer ant corpses and the unhatched eggs in the nest. Construction of the house would be delayed for three days.

Luya was not in a hurry, and she felt refreshed after waking up. After obtaining the Thunder Emblem, she felt like the monsters in the wilderness weren’t that scary anymore. In the next few days, she wanted to explore the neighboring settlements where humans used to live to see if there was anything useful that she could salvage.

One worrisome thing was that the “Holy Grass” had a rather abnormal growth rate, and it grew much faster than she expected.

Overnight, the holy grass already sprouted stems and leaves, even though yesterday they were just ten seedlings.

They looked more and more like pineapple leaves. They grew so fast that Luya was beginning to doubt whether they really were precious things.

They grew faster than weeds! Aside from watering them, she didn’t bother with them much at all, and she didn’t even apply fertilizer. It was so easy to grow, so why didn’t the goblins plant it? They hid it away guiltily, like it was a precious treasure…

Luya’s expectations for this so-called Holy Grass dropped. She no longer expected that they would grow into a super rare thing, so she’d leave them alone for now.

After examining the farmland, Luya heated up yesterday’s leftover radish soup, and prepared to eat it for breakfast.

Even since she obtained the never-melting snowman, she had been able to extend the shelf life of her food substantially. She simply had to leave her leftovers beside the snowman. This was a huge improvement to her primitive life.

As she was heating the radish soup, the Shiba Inu strolled over to her side like it was taking a walk.

Luya left the dog hungry for a day, so she couldn’t help but feel bad. She thought that the smelly dog must have been starving by now, right?

She had fed stray dogs before. They were so hungry that they’d eat anything, even the Tanghulu4 candy she bought on the streets. Dogs could also eat vegetables, so probably wasn’t hungry if it didn’t want to eat it.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry, it’s time for breakfast.”

Luya went to get the dog bowl as she said this, but when the dog saw her ladling some soup, it immediately turned around and walked away without hesitation.

? What the heck?

Why didn’t it want to eat?! It’s been an entire day! Wasn’t it hungry?

Was this dog secretly eating its own poop?!

Luya couldn’t help but entertain an unpleasant thought. Could it really be eating poop?! She always thought this dog was very elegant, and it never pooped around the dragon’s lair. At least, she had never found any dog poop anywhere nearby.

…Could it really be eating it???

…

If you thought about it, it wasn’t impossible.

Well, it was normal for dogs to eat poop… so perhaps it was just eating poop to survive in the wild.

Luya looked at the Shiba Inu somewhat differently. Fortunately, she still thought it was a good dog that stood out from the rest, although maybe she was overthinking it…

“Fine, you can eat whatever you want.”

No one could stop a dog from eating poop. Luya looked at the Shiba Inu who was facing away from her, and she shook her head. She looked very tired underneath the sun.

It seemed like she couldn’t let the dog drink her water in the future!

?

Not knowing when Luya was thinking, the Shiba Inu followed a trail down the mountain. It went through the forest teeming with monsters, escaped from some monster birds, and then finally arrived at a clear stream.

Like an extremely patient hunter, it laid next to the stream and adjusted the rhythm of its breathing to match the slow flow of the water.

Then it suddenly struck out with its claws and slapped a plump carp out of the water. The Shiba Inu promptly pounced on it like lightning, and bit the fish with incredible accuracy.

The Shiba Inu shook the water from its fur as it held the fish, and then turned around and walked away the creek.

…

Meanwhile, Luya continued to wonder anxiously if a dog could really get enough nutrition from eating its own shit. During this time, she noticed that the vegetables she planted seemed to have grown even more.

She didn’t know when they might be considered ripe. Luya tried to break off one of the leaves, and it seemed tough and probably inedible. She guessed that it was perhaps a root crop.

Turnip? Or maybe not? Or yams? Lettuce?

Normally these things couldn’t grow so fast, but with crops from another world, it was hard to say. She thought about it, and then decided that she should figure out what she planted first.

There were a total of ten anyways, so it didn’t matter if she just pulled out one to see? Even if it wasn’t ripe, it shouldn’t be a problem if she it right back into the ground.

Luya didn’t think too much about it. She loosened the soil, grabbed a leafy stem, and then immediately pulled the root out.

Unexpectedly, she pulled out a weird root plant that resembled a human figure. There was a human face on the rootstalk. The moment it left the soil, the human face opened its eyes and suddenly unleashed a deafening and ear-splitting scream.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH—”

Luya had no idea what was going on. Blood suddenly flowed from her eyes and nose, and that terrible scream almost made her deaf. Her vision went pitch black, and in the next moment, Luya completely lost consciousness. She passed out and fell to the ground.

What she didn’t know was that the goblin’s so-called “Holy Grass”, was actually a mandrake.

And when mandrake is plucked from the ground, its screams are fatal.

…

The imperial crown prince Zero Aguiros Gaias, currently a Shiba Inu, finished eating the fish he caught in the stream. He strolled back through the dangerous forest, and headed back to the dragon’s nest.

He didn’t bring back food for the girl because he didn’t think it was necessary.

The red dragon took good care of her.

In fack, Zeros didn’t understand why the legendary red dragon, Farus, was so patient with a human girl.

No matter how you looked at it, she was just an ordinary human girl. Although she possessed a special gift, it was meaningless for the dragon.

The Empire’s strongest fleet had once fought with Nidhogg the Evil Dragon. The final result was that the human side suffered heavy losses. Dragons were an extremely dangerous and elusive existence, and they existed since the birth of the world, mostly sleeping underneath the World Tree. Even the demons were afraid of them.

Based on Zeros’s judgement, that girl didn’t possess any skills to attract monsters. There were a very small number of talented individuals who could communicate with monsters, but this girl lacked that ability. Perhaps she had been able to attract the red dragon due to some other special reason.

If you had the assistance of dragons, it might even be possible to eliminate the Demonic World Eye.

In order to figure out why the red dragon liked this girl, Zeros decided to stay and observe. He was in no hurry to leave the dragon’s lair, and in truth, he currently had no way of returning to the Empire.

He tentatively did not know how to change himself back into his original body. This animal form limited his strength as well as his thinking, but he would never forget who he was.

That warlock did not kill him, and instead turned him into a dog to humiliate him. They had thought that this would bring him great shame, but Zeros actually didn’t care.

As long as he was alive, he planned to take the heads of those demons one day.

Of course, when the girl used her special gift to take his injuries, Zero felt something unexpected. He didn’t like kindness, and it was meaningless for the weak to be kind. However, the girl unexpectedly survived and became the first human to return from the dark city of monsters, Dünbruck.

Perhaps she could bring him some more surprises… or so Zeros thought.

However, when Zeros returned to the dragon’s nest, he found Luya lying on the ground.

He paused, but then immediately bounded forward. When he saw the human-shaped mandrake beside the girl, he immediately understood what had happened.

Those plants that she had been growing turned out to be mandrakes.

The roots of the mandrake were hidden under ordinary stems and leaves. They were often confused for plants in the Mandragora5 family. Aside from experienced pharmacists, it was difficult for ordinary people to tell them apart.

Zeros admitted that he made a mistake. When he saw the seedlings of those plants yesterday, he didn’t think about what they would grow into.

Previously, it took a long period of time to grow mandrakes, but after the Demonic World Eye appeared, the world became filled with magical power. The low magic era ended, and magic revived. Magical plants grew like crazy at rapid rates, and it wasn’t unusual for a mandrake to grow and mature overnight.

And the girl pulled out its stem without knowing it…

Zeros was an exceptional warrior, but he was bad at saving people. He tried to wake up the girl by pushing her, only to find that her breathing6 was extremely faint.

The deadly screams of a mandrake pulled out of the soil were like a curse. Regardless if the victim was human or a monster, it would destroy their brain and nerves. Even if they somehow survived, they would descend into madness.

This girl was too weak. Zeros didn’t think she would survive, and in fact, she was already very close to death. Her breathing was so weak that it was about to disappear.

A dog’s brain had a limited intellectual capacity, so Zeros could hardly think of a solution. He hesitated for a moment, and then decided to bet everything. He bolted into the dragon’s lair, and then woke up that sleeping red dragon with his barks.

…

When the red dragon discovered all of this, the mandrakes on the ground were no longer screaming, and the girl’s body was already beginning to turn cold.

She was dying.

He7 stared silently at Luya, as if considering something.

Without a doubt, he liked this girl, perhaps even a little more than he liked his own siblings.　

If he wanted to save his girl, he just had to give her a bit of dragon blood.

Dragon blood could completely transform a human being. Even if they were nearly in the grave, a dragon’s blood conveyed the power of an immortal life force, and the recipient would become like a dragon. Gudius had hinted that the girl should ask for dragon’s blood in his teasing, because Gudius knew that no dragon would share their blood with a human.

That was a secret that shouldn’t be told to humans, because human greed would destroy everything.

The red dragon didn’t want to lose this girl, so what consequences was he willing to bear?

…

The red dragon hesitated for a long time. Finally, he chose to keep his little girl.

……

Luya felt like her body was sinking. Then a scorching sensation like fire burned through her body and soul.

Her consciousness was very fuzzy, and her brain was filled with memory fragments that were a mixture of her own and her body’s. She felt very uncomfortable, so uncomfortable that she wanted to die, but her soul seemed unable to leave this body.

She couldn’t feel the passage of time, and everything had stopped. There was only endless emptiness and hunger in her body. This feeling lasted for a long, long time, almost to the point where she was about to break. Finally, there was a cold sensation on her skin. It dribbled on her face, and melted into her lips.

It was like a deep kiss.

She felt like she couldn’t breath. Blood flowed into her throat like fire. It filled her from head to toe, driving the hunger and cold away.

She felt her stomach burning, and the scalding heat broke through her darkness.

“Come back.”

A low but warm voice whispered in her ear.

Author’s notes:

VIP triple update at 8 o’clock tomorrow! I want to prove that I can update for 6 days straight.

The dog prince is a bit twisted, in almost every way. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like it, because he isn’t meant to fall in love with the heroine, and the heroine isn’t meant to fall in love with him. He is just an important character for pushing along the story.

Key point: Throughout the entire story, the heroine loves and only loves the red dragon.

Translator’s notes:

This is the last “free” chapter on jjwxc, and the remainder are VIP (or “paid”). I will continue to translate further, but please consider supporting the author by buying the chapters if you enjoy this series.

The next chapter is three times longer than usual, so it will take a while to translate~ In the meantime, I might dump a bunch of teaser chapters from other series, so my translation pace will most likely slow down~