The Black Dragon Lady Refuses to Be a Mount

Childhood Friend 016 Magic Outburst

Likaro's heart was filled with mixed emotions: sorrow at leaving her mother, the desire to survive, and the fear and lingering dread brought by the day's events. Carrying those complicated feelings, she slowly drifted into sleep.

"Mother!"

Likaro saw that all the soldiers escorting her and her mother had fallen to the ground. A vicious-looking man was holding a knife to Doris's neck, and blood was already flowing from the blade's edge.

Likaro could never tolerate such a thing. She charged at the man like a madwoman, only to miss and pass straight through his body.

She realized she was dreaming.

The scene before her began to break apart. Within seconds, nothing but pitch-black darkness remained around Likaro—cold, unknown, and utterly devoid of light.

Faced with that profound, boundless darkness, fear spread through Likaro's heart, but it quickly turned into grief, indignation, and unwillingness. Her emotions had reached a critical point, and that intense emotional upheaval forcibly halted the darkness.

A sudden flash of light brought Likaro into a paradise filled with birdsong and blooming flowers.

Flowers covered the mountains and fields here. Warm sunlight fell over Likaro's body, leaving her no longer cold. The clear blue sky was filled with white clouds and rainbows, while birdsong filled her ears, making her feel incomparably relaxed.

The comfortable surroundings drew Likaro into a trance. She lost herself in it, unable to pull away. Before long, a ball of light appeared before her. It circled around her several times, seemingly wanting to lead her somewhere.

So Likaro followed the ball of light forward. In the dream, her injuries had already healed. Even her clothes were completely intact, and she felt wonderfully healthy, as though her entire body was filled with strength.

The ball of light brought Likaro to the edge of a spring. It looked like an ordinary clear spring, yet Likaro felt a powerful connection to it.

Likaro could not explain what that feeling was, but she wanted to touch the spring's power. The spring was calling to her as well. She could no longer control her body, instinctively moving closer to the water.

She removed her clothes, shoes, and socks, revealing her fair, smooth body. Then she closed her eyes and leaped into the spring.

In her purest, most primal state, Likaro became one with the spring. Blinding white light bloomed from the water until it swept across the entire world.

The dream ended.

The forest shrouded in night suddenly erupted with dazzling light, as brilliant as the sun. The pitch-black night became as bright as day, and then the light swept across a vast area, bringing enormous changes.

The snow on the ground rapidly melted away. The land that had fallen silent during winter was revitalized, and countless flowers sprang from the soil. In the blink of an eye, the area for dozens of miles around became a sea of flowers.

Unlike the other places swept by cold winds and covered in snow, cold simply did not exist within the blooming flowers' range. The environment here felt like warm springtime, and a gentle breeze swept over the sea of flowers, sending ripples through it.

Likaro, curled up asleep inside a tree hollow, wore a comfortable expression. Her injuries had miraculously healed. If not for her tattered clothes, no one would have believed she had ever been hurt.

Only after daylight arrived did Likaro open her eyes. She felt wonderfully rested and refreshed after sleeping. Even the hunger in her stomach had vanished. Then she discovered that her injured body had somehow returned to perfect condition.

While she was still astonished by what had happened to her, Likaro looked outside the tree hollow and froze completely.

W-Where is this? Why are there so many flowers? Isn't it winter now?

Nothing in the scene before her suggested winter. Flowers bloomed everywhere, and the weather was warm and pleasant. If the surrounding trees had not still looked like they did in her memories from yesterday, Likaro would have thought she had awakened somewhere else.

What exactly happened? Did it turn into spring overnight?

Likaro was deeply confused. She recalled that she seemed to have dreamed last night, but no matter how hard she tried to remember, she could not recall what the dream had been about.

It seemed there had been lots of flowers in the dream too?

Likaro knelt on the ground and leaned close to a flower, taking a sniff. Its rich fragrance told her that these were real flowers.

But even in spring, there should not be such a dense sea of flowers, right? Likaro even began walking carefully, afraid that she might accidentally crush the flowers beneath her feet.

Yet after only a few steps, Likaro suddenly collapsed weakly onto the ground. This time, she felt as though her body had completely lost its strength. She could not even move a single finger.

Her stomach began to rumble. The refreshed feeling from when she had first woken up vanished, replaced by an abnormally intense exhaustion.

Likaro remained conscious, yet she had lost control over her body. Panic filled her heart, and she had no idea what was happening to her.

It felt as though her entire body had been drained empty...

She tried her best to get up from the ground, but aside from her brain, the rest of her body no longer seemed to obey her.

All around her, the countless blooming flowers began to wither at a visible speed, and the temperature turned cold and gloomy again.

Rustle, rustle~

Footsteps seemed to be approaching, but Likaro, lying prone on the ground, could not even lift her head. She could only listen as the footsteps drew closer, until a woman's voice sounded beside her ear. "Such a little child, huh? Tsk, tsk..."

The magical fluctuation last night had been incredibly intense. Even Vidian, who was in the Southern Wilderness, had sensed it. Based on her experience, a Magic Outburst of that intensity either came from detonating tens of thousands of Magic Crystals at once, or from someone with the Magic Spring Constitution releasing all the magic power in their body.

The former would generally cause devastating destruction, while the latter could vary. For example, this little girl's released magic power had actually altered the surrounding terrain.

Once the magic power in the air reached a certain concentration, it would begin to dissipate. This was the balance imposed by the laws of the world. Once most of the magic power had dispersed, the flowers withered as well.

The flowers withering was not the issue. The problem was the little girl lying on the ground. Last night's Magic Outburst should have drained all the magic power stored in her body, and that meant something very bad.

For people with this constitution, magic power was as important as life itself. Even when consuming magic power, they needed to leave at least a small amount inside their bodies.

If they overdraw too much magic power in a short period, or even exhaust it entirely, it could easily endanger their lives or leave severe aftereffects.

Vidian sensed the residual magic power in the air and found that its structure was highly unstable. It was likely that something had happened to the little girl, causing the magic power within her body to go out of control.

The little girl lay on the ground, unable to move, but she still seemed to show signs of life. Vidian walked over, turned her body over, and then looked somewhat surprised.

Wasn't this the little girl who had taken a picture with Ailolin in her Recording Crystal?

PS: I thought about it before posting. This shouldn't count as a cliffhanger, right...

Childhood Friend 017 Rescue

Likaro did not recognize the woman before her, but whether she was good or bad, Likaro wanted to beg her for help, because surviving was the only thing she needed to do now.

However, the words reached her lips but would not come out, turning into only faint whimpers.

She no longer even had the strength to speak.

"Looks like she's still alive."

Vidian met Likaro's gaze and could see the intense desire to live in her eyes.

Who knew what this little girl had gone through? Since she was Ailolin's friend, Vidian would meddle in one more piece of business for her sake.

Vidian crouched beside Likaro, gently stroked her forehead, and comforted her in Human language. "Don't worry. Big sister will take you somewhere safe."

Upon hearing those words, Likaro finally stopped forcing herself to hold on. Her consciousness slowly sank, and she soon fell completely asleep.

After picking Likaro up, Vidian sighed. How long had it been since she had seen another human?

She closed her eyes, and faint light wrapped around her and Likaro. They then transformed into a ball of light and flew into the sky, streaking toward the Southern Wilderness like a meteor.

Meanwhile, in the Southern Wilderness, Ailolin had finished hunting. After eating her fill, she secretly flew to the border of the Southern Wilderness and observed the Empire's border fortresses from a well-hidden location.

That portal had transported many magic beasts out of the wilderness. Vidian had said that this year's Magic Beast Tide might be delayed or disappear entirely, but according to information from Vidian's friend, the Magic Beast Tide had actually appeared in another form—and it was even more troublesome than before.

Thanks to her excellent eyesight, Ailolin could clearly see what the humans were doing without being noticed by the fortress. Many soldiers had gathered and were marching north, seemingly heading to reinforce the Empire's interior.

According to the knowledge she had learned from Vidian, a Teleportation Array had to be activated from both sides at once. Yet for some unknown reason, Teleportation Arrays had suddenly appeared out of nowhere in major cities throughout the Empire, with countless magic beasts pouring from them and causing destruction.

In Vidian's words, one-way Teleportation Arrays could only perform random teleportation. This was the first time such a situation had appeared. Perhaps Teleportation Magic Studies had made a new breakthrough, since magical research was still constantly advancing.

However, how the magic arrays had been created was no longer important. The mainstream view now agreed that the Five-Nation Alliance was behind it. Their military strength was insufficient to contend with the Empire, so they had used magic beasts to wear down the Empire's power.

Ailolin was very curious about just how capable Vidian's friend was. Somehow, they could swiftly send the latest news to the Southern Wilderness every time.

The Empire had suffered heavy losses in the magic beasts' attacks. Although many cities had basically eliminated the invading magic beasts after bitter fighting, some cities were still locked in battle, while some unfortunate cities had already been completely occupied by magic beasts.

The invading magic beasts came in all kinds of forms. Among them were even gigantic magic beasts that normally required every elite member of the Wilderness Legion to mobilize for a campaign. These magic beasts ravaged the Empire, causing immense losses.

Things had reached the point where part of the Wilderness Legion had to be redeployed, which showed just how dire the situation was across the Empire's provinces.

Only the Northern Frontier had not suffered attacks from magic beasts. The Northern Frontier Legion could still hold its cities for now, but after the Empire's interior fell into chaos, it could no longer guarantee supplies or manpower support for the Northern Frontier in the short term. Coupled with snow disasters caused by the harsh climate, the Northern Frontier Legion was under tremendous pressure.

Ailolin was deeply worried about Likaro, but there was truly nothing she could do. Even if she did not care about being discovered and forcibly flew to Aidefalong, she might not be able to find Likaro, because she had heard that residents of many cities had begun fleeing due to magic beast attacks. Likaro might have already fled Aidefalong as well.

However, Ailolin had forgotten something before: Witch Shia also lived in the forest. Thinking of how Xiya had placed a blessing on Likaro and set up a barrier to protect her safety, Ailolin felt that if Likaro truly encountered danger, Xiya should go help her, right?

Although Xiya had never explicitly explained her relationship with Likaro, she definitely cared about her.

By then, the Wilderness Legion's infantry had already marched far away. Moving more slowly behind them were large attack weapons pulled by many horses and mules. Ailolin did not know what they were, but they looked somewhat like Ballistae and other machines from Earth, so they were probably similar things.

Vidian had told her that even those small Ballistae could easily pierce Ailolin's body, because they used ammunition specially designed for armor penetration and even had armor-breaking enchantments.

Although Ailolin had never seen one of those Ballistae fire, she definitely had no desire to personally test their power...

There was nothing more to watch now. It was time to return to Vidian. Ailolin was currently learning Dragon Language Magic under Vidian's guidance. Every day, she had to sense the existence of magic power as much as possible until she could manifest it.

Vidian had said that Ailolin could only use magic after she could manifest magical elements until they were visible to the naked eye. Furthermore, because Dragon Language Magic had a special system, Ailolin also had to learn how to infuse magical power into the words she spoke.

That left Ailolin completely baffled. She had no idea how to manifest magic power, much less how to infuse it into language.

That was why Vidian told her to take it slowly. This would truly be a very long learning process.

Ailolin flapped her wings and flew toward Vidian's residence, which had also been her "home" for some time. However, due to her size, she had always slept in the open area outside the house.

At that moment, Vidian carried Likaro to the second floor. Likaro had not awakened yet. Vidian had just transferred some magic power into her body, so at least her life was no longer in danger. Her body would only be extremely weak, and she would need time to recover.

Bang!

Vidian felt the house tremble and immediately frowned. After taking off Likaro's shoes and placing her on the bed, Vidian went outside with a dark expression.

Seeing Vidian come out, Ailolin said, "I just went to the border fortress... Ugh!"

Vidian punched her on the head. The force Vidian could unleash with her fist was quite terrifying.

Ailolin felt terribly wronged. She had no idea what she had done wrong to deserve being hit on the head.

"How many times have I told you? Land more gently. I could feel it clearly even inside the house."

"Oh... Sorry."

Ailolin realized that she had indeed forgotten about that, but the problem was that her body was already heavy. How could she possibly land as gently as a feather?

That made Ailolin envy Vidian, who could take human form. Only after no longer being human did she understand the advantages of having a small body.

PS: I promised to give my friend a recommendation at 12, so the next chapter will update at 12 today, QAQ. You can wait until tomorrow morning to read it. (No one is still awake at 12, right?)

Childhood Friend 018 The Magic of Language

"There's something I need to tell you. I rescued a child and brought her back."

Vidian spoke in a calm tone, but her words left Ailolin utterly shocked.

"Huh? You would actually do something like that?"

In Ailolin's impression, Vidian was not exactly the warmhearted type.

In response to Ailolin's reaction, Vidian spread her hands. "I never meddle in other people's business, but I helped her for your sake."

"What do you mean?"

"Has this stupid dragon still not figured it out? The person I saved is someone you know."

"..."

Someone she knew, and a child at that...

"Could it be!?"

"Keep your voice down. She's no longer in danger, but it would be best not to disturb her rest."

Hearing Vidian say that, Ailolin immediately lowered her voice. "Can I see her?"

"Yes. She's in the north-side room on the second floor. Just look through the window."

So Ailolin went to the place Vidian had indicated. She raised her head and could see through the second-floor window. The blonde little girl lying on the bed inside really was Likaro.

After returning to Vidian, Ailolin wanted to know what had happened.

"We'll have to wait until she wakes up to know the details. My guess is that she was fleeing a magic beast attack and got separated from the people escorting her."

Nobles should all have guards. A child so young being alone in the forest must have encountered some sort of accident. That much could be seen from Likaro's tattered clothes.

Vidian then carefully explained the concepts of the Magic Spring and Magic Outburst. This time, she told Ailolin everything she knew.

Ailolin was very surprised. Vidian had previously said that people with the Magic Spring Constitution were rare, but she had never expected Likaro to be one of them.

After learning that the magic power in Likaro's body had erupted, Ailolin became very worried. Thanks to Vidian's help, Likaro was no longer in danger, but it would be troublesome if she were left with any aftereffects.

"Under what circumstances does a Magic Outburst usually occur?" Ailolin asked.

"The Magic Outburst that happened to the little girl was passive. It is generally caused by intense emotional fluctuations, such as pain or despair."

"..."

Just hearing Vidian explain it made Ailolin feel awful. When she had spent time with Likaro, she could tell that Likaro was a strong child. And for something to make Likaro feel pain or despair...