The Strongest Wizard Becomes a Countryside Guardsman After Taking an Arrow to the Knee

Chapter 76 – Baby Dragon Behavior

I didn’t know if a newly born dragon had an empty stomach.

But it probably was hungry.

And if it was hungry, then I should hurry and feed it as fast as I could.

As I left the house, Sighisoara clutched to my chest and made a small cry.

Femm and Moofy accompanied me.

「rya…」

「Are you cold?」

I asked, and squeezed Sighisoara to me.

Twenty or so wolves saw me spring out of my house and came out of the wolf house.

「Ruff?」「Wuff ruff?」

「Hey, sorry for waking you. I’ll introduce you properly tomorrow.」

「ryaaa」「Wuff」

I stooped and showed Sighisoara to the wolves. Sighisoara wasn’t scared, but fluffed its wings in the air.

They sniffed the air like their usual greeting as I ran and got in the storage shack.

「Do you have meat to eat?」

「…」

『Ruff. This is pretty good.』

Sighisoara looked around silently.

Femm wagged its tail and pointed to some of the earth dragon meat.

「Oh, this?」

『Yes.』

I cut off a little for the dragon, and put it near its beak.

It smelled it a bit, and then chomped it down.

「Is it good?」

「rya…」

The little dragon seemed pretty happy about it. I fed it until it was satisfied.

I got an armful of dragon meat and took it out of the shack.

I was going to place it inside my storage at home.

And with that done, we went back to sleep.

Morning. I awoke to the dragon calling with a 「ryaa ryaa」.

「Are you hungry again?」

「ryaaa」

It couldn’t use words, but I guessed that it was hungry.

I was bleary from sleep and walked over to the meat in the kitchen.

I moved the dragon to the dining room and fed it.

「I made your breakfast as well, Mister Al.」

「Thanks.」

Millet put out the food, now that she was basically living in my house.

I was thankful.

Collette petted Sighisoara and looked at the dragon attentively.

Luka was a bit slow to get up, but looked at Sighisoara with squinting eyes.

「Sighisoara is so cute.」

「Right?」

I was proud, in a way.

While I was giving Sighisoara meat, Collette petted it and said,

「Shiggy, eat a lot, okay?」

「ryaa」

「Shiggy is a cure name for it.」

「Sighisthoara isth too long stho it’sth a nickname!」

Shiggy is probably a good name to call it.

Just as Collette said, Sighisoara is a bit too long.

「Yeah, it might be better to call it Shiggy.」

「Right? Right? I think stho old man!」

「Yeah, what do you all think?」

「Good idea.」「Fine by me.」「It’s a good name!」

Vi-Vi, Yureena, and Cruz said together.

I asked Sighisoara, who was still eating the meat.

「Can we call you Shiggy?」

「ryaaa.」

Shiggy flapped its wings happily.

「Okay, then your nickname is Shiggy.」

「rya ryaaa」

As if flapped its wings, it finally emerged from the shell.

Until now it had been half inside the egg.

Except for the opened top half, most of the egg was well preserved.

「Shiggy, are you done with your egg?」

「ryaaa」

「I see.」

Seemed like it was done. It didn’t want to come out of the egg for more than half a day.

「Could I borrow your eggshell, Shiggy?」

「ryaaaa」

Shiggy happily responded to Luka’s request.

She could look at the egg too.

「Sounds like it’s fine.」

「Thanks.」

Luka was ecstatic. Being able to check over an ancient dragon egg is very exciting.

Especially for a monster researcher.

As soon as Shiggy stopped eating, it went to sleep. That made sense – it was a baby.

It would be a shame if I woke it up by walking it around.

I put Shiggy on my bed, asked Millet to take care of it, and walked out to my guard post.

It was one hour after I arrived at my guardpost.

「Ryaaaaaaa」

I was surprised by a cry from my house.

Femm jumped up in shock after lying beside me.

I ran to my house. Well, it wasn’t exactly running because of my knee, but it was as fast as I could muster.

When I entered my room, Millet was holding Shiggy and had a frown.

「I couldn’t stop Shiggy’s crying.」

「ryaaryaaryaaaaa」

Shiggy was crying loudly.

「Is it hungry?」

「It won’t eat any meat.」

I had left thinly cut earth dragon meat for it to eat.

Millet handed Shiggy over to me.

「ryyaaa…rya」

Shiggy’s cries got quieter as it buried its face in my chest.

「What is it? Is it hungry?」

「ryaa」

『Maybe it woke up and cried because it couldn’t find its parent.』

Femm said.

After I held it, the dragon began relaxing and crying softly.

「I have no idea about a dragon’s behavior. Shiggy, are you hungry?」

「ryaa」

I think that it sounded hungry.

I held up meat to its beak and it gobbled it down.

Millet turned to me with a sad face.

「I wanted to feed it but it wouldn’t eat…」

「Shiggy, no need to be rude to Millet.」

「rya!」

I could tell that it was disagreeing with me.

Somehow, I could tell it wouldn’t eat but from me.

So that day I carried Shiggy out to my guardpost.

That evening, I explained to Luka what had happened after she returned.

She seemed very interested, and said,

「Maybe since it has identified you as its parent, it won’t eat but from you.」

「No idea, but I was thinking it also might be my ring?」

「The ancient dragon ring? It’s possible.」

I followed Luka’s advice and we experimented.

First, we tested whether the dragon would eat from anyone else. It turned out that the dragon didn’t.

Second I gave the ring over to Cruz and Luka. Still it wouldn’t eat from them.

Then, I tried to feed it without the ring and Shiggy gobbled it down.

「Seems to have nothing to do with the ring.」

「Yup.」

「I guess we should think of it as the dragon not eating from anyone else because it sees you as the parent.」

This was going to make things tough. I would have to feed it throughout the day.

And, if I wasn’t there, it would start crying.

But…in a way, I guess I was happy.

Then Luka said while putting the ring on and off,

「The color looks a bit different when I wear it and you wear it, Al.」

「Huh? What do you mean?」

「Here, put it on.」

I put on the seal ring. The color did change a bit.

It used to be a white color with a little bit of blue, but it became a bit bluer.

「Like the color of polar glaciers.」

「Are glaciers blue?」

Cruz asked in a confused tone.

「I only went that far north once, but it was a very beautiful blue.」

It was before our party had banded together.

Once, she had gone to the far north to collect rare plants that grow there for a guild request.

It took months to get there. It made her a lot of money, but it was a rough journey.

Then Vi-Vi said while looking at my seal ring.

「Hm. If we examine the magic now that we’ve noticed the color change, we might be able to sense the change in magical flow that only Al can create.」

「Now that you mention it, you’re right.」

There might be a very small change in magic that I didn’t notice.

The sealed ring had magic in it from the beginning. And it wasn’t weak magic.

But I didn’t notice the minuscule change in it when I wore it.

「It might be useless unless you wear it.」

「It’s a very rare thing to find magical items that are only for specific individuals.」

Luka and Yureena said.

Curz and Collette were petting the dragon.

「And I really wanted to feed this dragon.」

「Me too guysth. Lucky old man.」

Femm and Moofy nuzzled Cruz and Collette instead.

They knew that they could get food instead of the dragon.

「We’ll give you treats instead, Moofy and Femm!」

「Ruff!」「Moo!」

They got their treats from Cruz and Collette and wagged their tails happily.

That night I slept with Moofy, Cruz, and Shiigy.

After about two hours, Shiggy would start crying, so I would feed it then.

Because I was an adventurer, I was used to waking up at any time.

It was way better than being woken up by some magical beast attack.

The second time I fed it that night, I noticed that Vi-Vi was in bed with me.

She was holding onto Moofy.

I thought it was really something that Shiggy’s cries didn’t wake up Vi-Vi.

The sun came up. The eastern sky began to get lighter as the morning began.

Then, suddenly, the wall of my house exploded.