A surprise?
Melita looked at the radiant smile on her friend's face. Though she was bursting with stories of what she had seen on the Loren Continent, she could not help feeling curious and expectant about the "surprise" Noreta mentioned. Carrying that anticipation, she returned with Noreta to their residence at the coastal camp.
The temporary house, built from salvaged materials and boulders from the shore, was still crude. It could not compare to the once resplendent palaces of Upper Tarlonnd, nor even to the homes of the human nations on the Loren Continent. Yet this shelter, painstakingly built brick by brick by her fellow people, still gave Melita a sense of security. Passing through the camp, which had grown considerably larger, she returned to the door of her "home" after half a month away. The moment she pushed it open, the feeling of coming home welled up in her heart, and she could not help smiling in relief as her mood relaxed.
Then she saw the dragon egg standing in the largest open space in the house, along with the Magic Runes set around it—they clearly served to maintain a constant temperature and store energy. The warmth and arcane currents they emitted flowed out slowly, nourishing the egg with its pale yellow shell and light purple speckles.
In the corner of the room stood an egg-shaped incubation pod that had already been opened. The dragon egg had clearly been kept inside that container before, but it had now ceased functioning. With its hatch open, it had been turned into a storage container for miscellaneous items, crammed full of Noreta's personal belongings.
Melita: "..."
"I adopted a dragon egg!" Noreta's voice suddenly came from behind her, jolting the dazed Melita awake. "It's a beautiful blue dragon, just like you—actually, I