It Was All a Lie

Why did he always rob people after scaring them? He couldn't spend the valuables he took. All he could do was stare at them and admire how they glittered. The question called for serious consideration...

It was an appearance fee!

Every day, a bunch of reckless newcomers showed up to experience life as heroes slaying a dragon. Zheng Yichen even played along and taught them a lesson called "Reality." If he didn't charge an appearance fee, surely he deserved a little tuition?

Fine. The truth was, Zheng Yichen just felt uneasy letting them leave without taking something from them.

Maybe it was a dragon's nature?

If it was, shouldn't dragons be able to fly? His wings were already big enough to wrap around his entire body, with room to spare. So why couldn't he get off the ground?!

As for why he played cat and mouse with the people who came here looking for trouble, perhaps he was lonely and wanted some contact with others. They weren't from the world he had once lived in, but they were human, and seeing them still gave him a sense of familiarity. It also kept him from going mad with boredom. Spend long enough as a wild monster, and the wild might really start to take over.

He tapped a stone lightly with one claw and propped his chin on the other. The black-clad figures he had knocked around stared at him, wide-eyed. Those gestures were way too human. Dragons in this world were intelligent, sure, but that was supposed to start in adolescence.

A hatchling might be able to run and jump, but it was still a baby. How much could anyone expect from a baby's brain?

And was this supposed black dragon in front of them really a hatchling?!

"You..." Zheng Yichen stared at the black-clad figures, his thoughts drifting briefly into the past. Maybe because he had hatched from a stone, the moment he started thinking, he looked as though he were staring into space. People even mistook it for actual daydreaming!

He hooked a claw around a pebble and flicked it in an arc onto the head of a black-clad figure trying to slip away. People in this world were sturdy. A stone like that would have sent someone to the hospital back home, yet this one didn't even pass out. He only bled a little.

Right. About five months ago, a group dressed in black had skulked around watching him. They had even collected his droppings, which was downright disgusting. They took every last bit!

It had annoyed Zheng Yichen, but those people had been slippery. By the time he made a move, they were gone. Five months later, the same sort of people looked clumsy to him.

Maybe crossing over into a nonhuman body wasn't so bad?

No, no, it was awful. He couldn't even have sex with a body like this. Find another dragon? He had absolutely no interest. How could some ownerless dragon body that had popped out of a stone warp a human's sense of beauty? Sigh.

"You... Forget it. You wouldn't understand me anyway." Remembering that they didn't speak the same language, Zheng Yichen waved a claw, then deftly swept it over them and stripped them clean.

Under their despairing gazes, he tore their clothes into fingernail-sized scraps and strode away. A dashing exit, probably. It would have been even better if he could fly!

I really am considerate. I left that woman in black her underwear... Hearing angry curses and the crack of a whip behind him, Zheng Yichen remembered that he had left her a length of whip, too.

He wandered near his lair for a while. Once he was sure no one was around, he peeled back the camouflage over the entrance like a thief, slipped inside, and quickly concealed it again.

He looked at the substantial pile of treasure in the cave, scratching his chin with a claw that could easily pierce hard rock and slice through steel. Should I move?

Zheng Yichen was always especially careful when he returned to his lair. His dragon body was large and thickly scaled, but that didn't dull his senses. If he concentrated, he could even feel a mosquito land on one of his scales.

Now people were active near his lair. That was not a good sign. With a human soul and all the knowledge he had picked up online before crossing over, Zheng Yichen remained wary of this world's humans.

He was an outsider now. Even if he shouted that he had a human soul, wouldn't that just draw more curious people who wanted to study him?

For the umpteenth time, Zheng Yichen abandoned the idea of approaching humans to talk. They couldn't understand each other anyway. Forget it!

But... did he really have to leave? He looked around the little home he had lived in for so long, expanding it bit by bit. He hated to leave it now. He had finally adapted to the area and learned where the local creatures lived.

Most importantly, finding food wasn't so hard anymore!

"I'll wait a little longer." Muttering to himself, Zheng Yichen scratched another mark on the wall, nudged the pile of gold coins by his feet, and sprawled lazily on his bed of soft grass. Dragons stood at the top of the food chain, after all. Little bugs didn't dare bother him.

But that seemed to be no more than the intimidation any large predator could manage. Was Dragon Aura really that powerful? Zheng Yichen didn't even know whether it existed!

He had encountered rabbits, deer, and other small animals. Even when he glared at them with all his might, all he did was send them fleeing. Not one had died of fright. He had even roared to make the effect stronger, but that hadn't worked either. The sound had merely knocked them unconscious or killed them outright.

Zheng Yichen had also encountered a lion nearly three meters tall. He hadn't found it; it had attacked him. Maybe it was strong, but dispatching it had only taken him a little effort and left him with enough meat to eat well for a week.

Incidentally, there had been no magic core in its body, though those were supposedly found in magical beasts. Perhaps it was just a mutated wild animal rather than a magical beast. In any case, this so-called "Dragon Aura" might be a myth. Or maybe he simply didn't know how to use it. Perhaps people feared him only because of his size and species...

Zheng Yichen had clearly underestimated human greed. As more information about this "hatchling" came in, some people could no longer suppress their ambitions. They still had certain concerns, though, so they would not act immediately. First, they would slowly verify how reliable the information was.

Dragons were among the most powerful creatures in this world, and creatures at the top were rare. Every part of a dragon's body was valuable, even its droppings. A hatchling that appeared to have no mother guarding it was enough to tempt countless people into taking a risk!

In the end, the potential reward was simply too enticing!