Hosdena

The dragon Hosdena was very bored. In his own words: "I don't even know how long I've lived, or how much longer I'll have to live before I die. Life is just far too boring."

Hosdena was a dragon, unquestionably a true dragon in this world. His body was over 170 feet long—more than fifty meters—which was far larger than every dragon he had ever seen. More importantly, it seemed that he had possessed his own consciousness from the moment he was born.

Several centuries ago, he had emerged from his egg in this forest. To this day, he was still here and had never left. It was not that he did not want to leave, but that the dense magic within this forest had trapped him here. Ever since he was young, the only things he had faced were a group of creatures with no intelligence whatsoever and a giant eyeball.

He knew what that eyeball was. In his inherited memories, that Giant eyeball was a relic left behind by his father. As for who his father was, he knew, but he had never met him. Ever since he had crawled out of his egg, he had never seen him—only this enormous eyeball.

He was bored, incredibly bored, so bored that after reaching adulthood, he could only choose those lowly creatures to complete his coming-of-age ritual. Well, that was a little evil, but it was indeed true. Without question, he was a great being, because he had created a race all by himself! Though he did not know it himself.

His children were far from ideal. Other than looking like him, they seemed to share nothing else with him—not their control over their own abilities, nor their size, nor their lifespan. By now, only one of his children remained alive.

Still, several of his children seemed to be doing quite well. Though he himself could not leave this damned forest, his children could enter and leave freely. Hosdena seemed to have heard from them that his kind filled this entire region in their generation. As for farther places, even his children had not gone there.

But what depressed Hosdena even more was that his descendants seemed even worse. At first, they had been fine—at least they had possessed some intelligence—but for some reason, they became more and more idiotic with every generation.

Yes, Hosdena had learned that word from a race called humans. He thought it was the perfect description for his descendants. And they were getting smaller and smaller too, practically the same size as he had been in his youth.

"If I remember correctly, that human creature who came in was called Merlin?"

Hosdena would occasionally reminisce about events from centuries, perhaps even a thousand years ago. Though that time was hardly worth mentioning to him, he had at least found those brief days pleasant. That human had taught him many things, including some human language. But afterward, the man named Merlin had left and never appeared again.

"Maybe he's already dead?"

Hosdena sighed with emotion. He found humans quite interesting, but their lifespans seemed far too short. Even without deliberately sensing it, he could clearly tell that the marks time left upon humans were far harsher than those it left upon himself, even though that human's magical abilities had been quite impressive.

"Right now, I'm just lonely. Yes, that's the word. All I have left is a bunch of brainless idiots and a Giant eyeball!"

But today seemed to be somewhat different. Hosdena, who had been lying in his dragon nest asleep, suddenly sensed a powerful surge of magic. Yes, extremely powerful—far more powerful than that human called Merlin from who knew how many centuries ago.

That magical fluctuation jolted him awake. He was somewhat curious what sort of creature possessed such magic, so he rose and summoned one of his descendants—he did not know from which generation—to ask. Then, to his delight, he learned that there were actually four humans!

"How long has it been? Ever since those idiots ate several humans who came in as food, apparently decades ago, no humans have dared enter again. Now, at last, someone has come in!"

With a flap of his wings, Hosdena immediately soared into the sky. His roar warned his descendants—whoever dared attack those people would come serve as his food! But the response he received surprised him, because his descendants told him that these humans were terrifying.

He did not have to wait long—several hours were no different from several seconds to him—before he saw the four humans arrive beside his nest. Their gazes were fixed on the Giant eyeball his father had left behind, the father he had never even met. One of them, who looked as though he was about to die, even exclaimed, "Merlin's beard, what is this? Why are there so many Fire elements inside it?"

Merlin? He knew that man. It seemed they must be Merlin's friends, or perhaps his descendants? As for Fire elements, what were those? Hosdena was filled with questions, so after carefully recalling the human language, he flew down from the sky and asked:

"Fire elements? What are those?"

Josh looked up at the descending dragon and froze. Not only him—even the other three were stunned. Since when could dragons fucking talk? Josh did not remember any dragons being able to speak in the original story.

"You... why can you talk? I mean, why can you speak human language, and English at that?"

"Is that strange? Someone taught me before. He was the first human to come in—the Merlin that dying fellow mentioned."

With a loud boom, Hosdena flapped his wings and landed on the ground. Then he smiled slightly—he thought he was smiling, but to Josh and the others, he looked utterly ferocious—and said, "It's a pleasure to meet you, humans. My name is Hosdena. I haven't seen humans in several centuries."

"Good heavens! You met Merlin?" Dumbledore paid no attention to any of that and asked excitedly.

"Yes, I met him. Didn't I say so? I learned the human language from him. Oh, right, how is Merlin now? Several centuries have passed—did he die too?"

"..." Dumbledore was rendered speechless, but he quickly replied, "Yes. Master Merlin passed away a very, very long time ago."

"Is that so? Human lifespans really are short. They're not even as long as those idiotic descendants of mine." Hosdena seemed somewhat regretful.

Idiotic descendants... Josh truly did not know what to say. This guy was really something, calling his own descendants idiots outright. Josh wanted to laugh, but he immediately could not. Swallowing, he asked, "The descendants you mentioned... are they those creatures outside? Tree Peak Dragons?"

"Tree Peak Dragons? What are those?" Hosdena looked confused. "I have too many descendants. Some are across the sea, some stayed here, and some seem to have flown even farther away. But I can sense that they are still within this side of the sea. They haven't flown any farther."

This side of the sea... did that fucking mean his descendants were spread across all of Europe? At that moment, Josh gave this fellow the highest respect. A living legend! He was almost certain now: this guy was probably the ancestor of the European dragon race!

Josh was not the only one who guessed it. Dumbledore and Fular had guessed as well. They stared at Hosdena with disbelief. They had never imagined that those dragons were actually this guy's descendants. Fular even shuddered—he seemed to have eaten their meat when he came in, and his country even raised this creature's descendants!

Did this count as delivering himself to the doorstep to die?

"Why are your expressions so strange? They're just like Merlin's several centuries ago. I think he asked me something similar, and after I answered, he had the same expression." Hosdena was somewhat unable to make sense of the situation. He had no idea what these humans' expressions meant.

"Well, it seems there's been a bit of an accident between us. When we came in, we accidentally killed one, and because we couldn't catch any other creatures, we..." Josh said awkwardly. He did not think he could hide it, since there was still a piece of Dragon meat in his pocket!

"You ate it? It's fine. If they were too weak and got eaten, then they got eaten. There are so many of them anyway, so it doesn't matter. Oh, right, they attacked you humans decades ago too, so this isn't a big deal." Hosdena casually shook his head as though it were nothing, not caring in the slightest.

Phew. The four of them finally breathed a sigh of relief. Though Hosdena did not seem especially terrifying to Josh—he was close to the fourth tier but had not reached it, and the quality of magic in his body was not particularly high—Josh was not too afraid of him. His main concern was the legendary toughness of dragon skin. Josh was worried whether he could even hurt him.

"By the way, this Giant eyeball—cough, cough—what exactly is this eyeball?"

To ease the awkwardness, Josh swiftly changed the subject and asked about what interested him most. To be honest, Josh found this eyeball utterly unbelievable. Something like this should have decomposed long ago, but it still existed and was filled with magic. Josh was rather curious about who its owner had been.

"It's just an eyeball." Hosdena said indifferently.

"It's my father's eye. As for who my father was, I don't know. I have never seen him from the day I was born until now. In my memories, he was already dead, and the only thing he left behind was this eyeball. Oh, right, what are these Fire elements you mentioned? Although my memories mention them, I've never seen them."

They were mentioned in his memories, but he had never seen them? Josh rubbed his chin. Now that was interesting. Inherited memories—Josh could basically confirm that this dragon named Hosdena possessed inherited memories, but clearly, much of his inheritance seemed to be missing.

"Fire elements refer to magic elements with the fire attribute, and the things flowing inside that eye are Fire elements. Didn't your memories tell you that?"

"No." Hosdena shook his head directly. "For some reason, my memories seem fragmented. They only say that I am a dragon, then there's the dragon language, along with some dragon roars—oh, right, they supposedly produce different effects, but I tried them and they don't seem to work."

All right, Josh could now basically confirm that this was a dragon with damaged inherited memories.

"There's something else that puzzles me. The world in my memories does not seem to have looked like this. And I think there might be something wrong with my bloodline too, because that father of mine seemed much bigger than I am!"