Mayuna felt as though she had returned to the past, to the childhood when her parents were still alive. She saw the few memories she had of herself and her family: an outing before her parents left. Her laughing parents had taken her into a sea of flowers to admire the beautiful scenery, while she had run too fast and fallen. The worry on her mother's face was still vivid as she comforted the crying Mayuna while healing her scraped knee with healing magic. Her father had smiled and said she was as mischievous as a boy.
"Interesting, setting a trap for a Mage God like me."
Only after watching those fragments did Mayuna use magic to break the illusion before her. Just moments ago, she had been chatting idly with Ruben when she suddenly caught a refreshing fragrance. Then her consciousness had been dragged back into the past. One thing was certain: whoever had done this bore no ill intent. Thanks to them, Mayuna had even seen what her parents, whose faces she had long forgotten, looked like.
Mayuna's consciousness instantly returned to reality. She had already noticed that the other party had tampered with the air, so she immediately cast a support spell called [Air Bubble] on herself and Ruben. Magic formed an invisible sphere around her, purifying the impurities in the air before allowing it inside. It was a simple advanced purification spell.
"If you don't wake up soon, I'll have to go get an antidote."
Only after seeing Mayuna regain consciousness did Ruben relax. He was wearing a strange mask that covered his entire face. A protruding section extended beneath it; if he had to describe it, it looked rather unattractively like a pig's snout.
"What's that thing you're wearing?"
Mayuna asked instinctively. The first thing the mask reminded her of was a magical insect called the big-headed fly, one of the magical insects humans hated most.
"A gas mask."
"Dragon... a purple dragon?!"
Before Mayuna could even think about what a gas mask was, the colossal creature behind Ruben stunned her. It was several times larger than Mers, with the physique of a fully grown giant dragon. Of course, an adult dragon alone would not have frightened Mayuna. What shocked her was the dragon's purple skin.
Dragons were probably the creatures whose attributes were easiest to identify. Fire dragons were red, water dragons were blue, but that did not mean they could use only magic of their own element. They simply received considerable bonuses when using their native magic. Black dragons like Mers, on the other hand, had no particular magical specialty. Their bodies were simply much tougher than those of ordinary dragons. Put simply, they could take a beating.
What a dragon's color represented had long ceased to be a secret in human history, yet there had never been any record of a purple dragon. This species had suddenly appeared a thousand years ago. No one knew where she had come from, or why she possessed such an alluring color. Before long, however, this dragon became the perfect embodiment of her attribute.
A poison dragon—an existence even more terrifying than a black dragon. Black dragons were feared because they would tear apart half an empire at the slightest disagreement. Yet hundreds of years before Douglas became famous, the poison dragon had already made the wanted list. Even now, her bounty remained prominently displayed by the Mage Guild. Anyone who slew the poison dragon would not only receive every part of her body, but also a massive reward from the guild.
Naturally, all of this was caused by the poison dragon's long list of misdeeds. Compared to her, the robberies committed by other dragons were child's play. She loved destroying water sources. Although humans in this world could create drinking water themselves, they also understood how important natural lakes were. At the very least, if you wanted to eat fish, you had to catch them in a lake, right?
The poison dragon that had appeared out of nowhere targeted those clean water sources. The toxins secreted from her body could instantly turn a clear lake into hell on earth. Every source of water she soaked in gave off a nauseating stench, while the surrounding forests became polluted as poisonous trees and toxic grass sprang up everywhere. If she were left unchecked, the entire continent would be ravaged by her poison. Thus, brave mages stepped forward, forming teams to stake out water sources everywhere. Whenever they saw the poison dragon, they would relentlessly pursue and attack her. Under humanity's assault, the poison dragon had restrained herself somewhat. Her last appearance had already been decades ago.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Felosys, the poison dragon."
The poison dragon before them knew nothing of the countless thoughts flashing through Mayuna's mind and introduced herself in a soft, gentle voice.
"Nice to meet you, my ass! Give me your life!"
"Why are you suddenly shouting about fighting and killing?"
Ruben grabbed Mayuna's arm, stopping her from unleashing magic capable of destroying the world, and asked in confusion.
"Let go of me. She's the poison dragon. Killing her is every mage's duty."
"Calm down. I know this one is infamous, but things are a little different from what you know."
"Go on, then. Let's see what kind of story you can tell."
After thinking it over, Mayuna decided to hear Ruben's explanation. The strange bond that had somehow formed between them left no room for suspicion; they could trust each other completely.
Then, through Ruben's account, Mayuna learned something: not a single dragon was normal. The poison dragon Felosys had only one reason for constantly ruining water sources—she liked bathing.
Yes, it was a ridiculous reason. If they told the Mage Guild this reason and asked them to lift the bounty, they might anger the elderly guildmaster until his beard stood on end. He would probably beat Ruben senseless and throw him out. But reality was just that unreasonable.
In Felosys's words, she was desperate too. It was not as though she had wanted to be born a poison dragon. Her parents had not been poison dragons either, merely ordinary dragons. The mutation had happened only because her mother had accidentally eaten a deadly poisonous plant while carrying her dragon egg. There was no need to explain how terrifying a plant capable of poisoning giant dragons was. Yet her mother had tenaciously survived, only to give birth to a poison dragon unseen in the history of dragonkind.
It was as though the Dragon God had played a joke, granting Felosys poison potent enough to poison even her own kind, while giving her the personality of a girl who loved bathing. She could not stand having all sorts of filth stuck to her body. When she was young, she could ask water dragons to provide some water for a bath, but as she grew older, her bathwater became increasingly toxic. Cleaning up the mess after her baths alone took a great deal of effort. In the end, no dragon was willing to help her anymore. Left with no choice, she could only leave the dragon nest and plague humanity.
"You're a girl too. What would you do if you weren't allowed to bathe?"
A resentful look appeared in Felosys's eyes. Her voice had always been that of a mature woman, and Mayuna finally realized that the poison dragon who had troubled the continent for a thousand years was actually a female dragon.
"I'd probably go crazy..."
Mayuna answered honestly. The thing girls could tolerate least was being dirty. Besides, bathing was not merely about washing away filth. After a tiring day, the feeling of being wrapped in warmth was an indispensable pleasure in life. If one day she could no longer bathe, then she would probably, perhaps, maybe become the enemy of the world.
"No wonder you know so much about dragons. Mers wasn't the first dragon you'd met."
Only now did Mayuna understand why a human living deep in the mountains knew so much about dragon habits. At first, she had assumed Dragon had told him, but now she realized Ruben had some unspeakable secret with the poison dragon.
"Unlike mages, I can't produce water myself. That lake became my most important water source, and I absolutely couldn't let her destroy it. So, before she went in to bathe, I made a deal with her."
Ruben nodded. No one could understand the hardship he had endured back then. To survive, he had been forced to reason with one of the strongest creatures in the world. After finally persuading the poison dragon, he had nearly been poisoned to death by her smell.
"Wait. The terms of the deal couldn't have been..."
"Yeah. I'm responsible for bathing her."
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PS: You keep calling her a loli dragon. Don't think I don't know you're thinking of Kanna. There's no Kanna here, but there is a Lucoa.
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