Light Dragon Slayer Magic?

"I'm definitely raising this egg!"

The moment Aibo saw the "payment," he gave his word.

There was no mysterious person. This was a divine big brother delivering treasure straight to him!

If he'd known Big Brother would send such precious payment, forget helping raise one egg—even two would have been fine!

Why had Aibo spent so long painstakingly researching body-tempering magic? Because he couldn't learn Dragon Slayer Magic!

Yet just after he had finished his new magic, some kindhearted person from who-knew-where had sent him a Dragon Seed. Who could understand the joy of such a pie falling from the sky?!

Wait a second. Wasn't this a little too much of a coincidence?

Aibo forced himself to calm down. He had always believed that "every gift from fate comes with a hidden price tag." He really didn't dare accept this kind of "free lunch" so readily.

But no matter how hard he thought, he couldn't figure out what anyone could possibly want from an eight-year-old kid like him. Besides, he had barely left town since coming to this world. There was no way he knew any important people.

Could it be...

One of his novel fans?

Aibo was amused by his own thought. Since he couldn't reach an answer no matter how much he thought about it, he decided not to dwell on it for now. The benefits he had received were real enough. Rather than let his imagination run wild, he might as well study this "gift from fate" first.

Based on what Aibo had observed from Natsu, Dragon Slayers had two main traits: one, a dragonized body capable of unleashing dragon-element attacks; two, the ability to devour elements of a specific attribute.

To test whether he had truly "learned" Dragon Slayer Magic, all he needed to do was see whether he could devour an element.

Combined with the fragments of Dragon Slayer Magic knowledge he had gained when he spent Inspiration Points to upgrade it,

the kind of element one could devour was closely tied to the attribute of the Dragon Seed itself.

So what attribute did this Dragon Seed he had obtained by chance possess?

Aibo looked around, trying to find something that gave him the feeling that it was "edible."

Water? He wanted to eat it. Fire? He wanted to eat it. Wood? He wanted to eat it. Dirt? He wanted to eat it...

Something was wrong here, wasn't it?!

Aibo froze. Why did he feel like eating everything he saw?

"Grrrr..."

Virgo, who had been standing by nearby, tilted her head.

"Little Master, would you like Virgo to prepare lunch for you?"

"Uh, so I haven't eaten yet. Right, I ran off before I could eat the food Mira brought over. Then I'll leave it to you, Virgo."

Aibo awkwardly rubbed his stomach. The energy in his body was being rapidly depleted, so he really was hungry. No wonder everything looked edible...

No, no, no. That wasn't right...

Aibo sniffed the air. This had nothing to do with hunger. He could distinctly sense that there was something in this room he could eat...

Following his instincts, Aibo walked to the windowsill and opened the window. The sunlight outside was dazzling.

Light?

Aibo opened his mouth and took a sharp breath. He could clearly feel something being "swallowed" by him. Was it really light?

Aibo teleported to an open space outside, threw back his head, opened his mouth, and inhaled deeply. He swallowed something. He really had eaten something!

But it wasn't light.

Aibo teleported again, opened his mouth, teleported, opened his mouth, teleported, opened his mouth...

Aibo's eyes grew brighter and brighter.

"Not light. No, not just light—it's [space]. What I'm devouring is the spatial energy that spills out whenever I move through space!"

So that was it. This Dragon Seed was space-attributed, which meant the magic he could learn would be [Space Dragon Slayer Magic]?

Even its attribute matched him this perfectly?!

Wasn't this pie a little too delicious?

Aibo was shocked, delighted, and puzzled all at once. He grew increasingly curious about the mysterious person's identity.

The power of a space-attributed dragon might solve his weakness of lacking offensive space magic.

After all, Aibo's specialty was only teleportation. Things like Spatial Slash, Spatial Severance, Shattering Space, and similar abilities... he really wanted to create them, but he simply couldn't.

But Aibo had indeed sensed it just now. While swallowing "light," even though the amount had been tiny, he had definitely felt that he had eaten something.

It seemed he could eat light-attributed elements too.

Did space and light in this world... truly share some kind of connection?

Aibo fell into thought. If that was really the case, then relativity probably held true in this magical world as well. Time and space were not independent of one another, but could transform into each other as [time-space].

If that was true, did it mean he might also be able to wield the power of time?

That would also explain why he possessed similar talent in space magic and light magic. Perhaps his talent had always been just one thing: [time-space].

In other words, this Dragon Seed had not come from the Space Dragon, but from the Time-Space Dragon.

Time-Space Dragon Slayer Magic? Tch, didn't that feel a little like it had been ordained by fate?

With a name that grand, he felt like people would target him...

Since he could eat light anyway, he should call it Light Dragon Slayer Magic whenever he was out and about.

Aibo checked his status panel. Even after making that conjecture, [Space Magic LV3], [Light Magic LV3], and [Time Magic LV1] remained separate from one another, showing no signs of merging.

It seemed even the power of wishful thinking couldn't answer his doubts.

Aibo created a ball of space-attributed magic power in his hand and tried taking a bite out of it. Nothing happened.

Sure enough, it was useless for a Dragon Slayer to devour his own magic power. It even made him feel a little sick.

He needed to find a way to get someone else to make him some "space snacks" to sample.

After returning to his bedroom, Aibo finally had the presence of mind to look at the mysterious person's request—an egg.

The patterns on the egg were pink, which suited his hair color quite well, but what kind of egg was it?

Aibo knew the least about the creatures of this world. He genuinely couldn't tell what species the egg belonged to. Still, since he had already accepted such generous payment, he had decided that no matter what hatched from it, he would raise it.

Only then did Erza hurriedly arrive at Aibo's home.

Erza lowered her head in guilt and handed over a piece of "rag."

"Aibo, I'm very sorry. I ruined your clothes. And I'm also very sorry for accidentally hurting you just now."

"?"

Looking at the thoroughly ravaged scrap of fabric, Aibo broke into a cold sweat. He could practically guess what his clothes had been through.

"Ah, it's fine. It didn't hurt much. I just reflexively used teleportation, that's all. Don't worry about it."

"Little Master, lunch is ready."

"Aibo! I brought you food!"

The two voices sounded one after another. Outside the door, Virgo and Mira, who was holding a lunchbox, stared wide-eyed at each other. Virgo remained expressionless, while Mira's eyes hid persimmons.

Aibo fell silent for a moment, then calmly accepted Mira's lunchbox.

"Body-tempering magic consumes a lot of energy. I feel like my appetite will grow a lot from now on, so I should get used to it early. Why don't we all have something to eat?"

Mira smiled brightly.

"Sure, sure! We just had a fight, so I'm hungry too."

Erza folded her arms and said irritably,

"I suggest punishing Mira by not letting her eat."

"Fine! Erza, you vicious woman! Aibo, look at her!"

"You're the one who should stay away from Aibo! I'm genuinely afraid you'll lead him astray!"

Perhaps Aibo had long grown used to their noisy bickering. Sometimes, even when he did nothing at all, his Inspiration Points would rise dramatically—not much slower than when he learned Dragon Slayer Magic.

While they ate, Aibo told them about the egg that had suddenly appeared in his room. This piqued both girls' interest, and they began wildly speculating about the mysterious person's identity.

Afterward, they gathered around the pink egg and examined it for a while, but to no avail. None of them had any clue what kind of egg it was, so they returned to the guild together, intending to see whether the egg Natsu had found was the same kind.