Discovering a Dinosaur

"What an interesting device. Is this a weapon from your homeland, young man? It's my first time seeing a mechanism like this."

"Something like that. So, Uncle Baren, do you think you could make a decent weapon like it out of steel?"

Subaru stood in front of the village's only smithy, both hands braced on the wooden counter. Across from him stood Baren, a burly, middle-aged Oni whose muscular arms were sturdy enough to use an anvil as a pillow. He was also one of the village's few blacksmiths.

"I can give it a try. I'll do my best." Baren turned the intricate paper model over in his hands, studying it. "I never thought I'd get another chance in this lifetime to forge such an interesting weapon. Interesting, very interesting."

Baren's voice brimmed with barely contained excitement.

Subaru had been in this world for a month. That month had made a cruel fact clear to him: if he obediently practiced magic according to his talent, then after ten years, he might be able to fight a four-year-old Oni child to a draw. That was probably as far as he would ever get.

So Subaru chose another path: his brain, packed with knowledge from modern society.

After half a month of effort, Subaru had finally made a model gun out of paper.

That was right. Unlike medieval Europe, where people relied on parchment to keep records, this world had paper similar to A4 sheets. That alone had been an enormous help.

Making a handgun out of paper and rubber bands that could fire paper bullets was an obscure skill Subaru had learned from a video website out of sheer boredom during his days as a shut-in. He had only done it to pass the time. Who would have thought it would come in handy in another world someday?

The model was based on the Browning M1900. Its lines were clean and smooth, its body long and slender, with the sleek beauty unique to industrial design.

Baren pulled the trigger a few times and watched little paper balls shoot out with a swish, propelled by the rubber bands. A look of childlike wonder appeared on his face.

"If this thing were made of steel, it would pack quite a punch. You're really something, young man. Leave it to me. I'll have the finished weapon in your hands within three days."

"There's no need to rush that much. Still, aren't you a little too excited, Uncle?"

"Of course I am!"

Baren slammed his hand on the counter. "I'm a blacksmith who specializes in weapons, but all these young people do nowadays is blast each other with magic, over and over and over. They don't understand the thrill of strengthening your body with mana and charging in to hack away with a real weapon!"

"So all I can do is make farming tools to put food on the table. Hoes and sickles, hoes and sickles, day after day. How many years has it been?! Today I've finally got a proper weapon job, and I'll give it everything I've got, even if it kills me!"

Flames practically burned in the older man's eyes as he carried the paper handgun model into the depths of the smithy as though it were a sacred relic.

Whether Subaru could get a real handgun for self-defense now depended entirely on how reliable Baren was.

Then Subaru went back to work.

He had no choice. If he didn't work, he wouldn't have any money. Although Rem brought him meals every day, the villagers would gossip if he relied entirely on a girl several years younger than him to support him.

"Don't go too far. If you run into danger, shout, then run back inside the village barrier. Got that?"

Subaru took an axe from the Oni man in charge of assigning work. His job today was to cut trees at the edge of the village for lumber.

Rem wasn't with him today because Ram had finally had some free time for the first time in a while. As for Subaru and Ram's places on Rem's list of priorities, there was still no comparison between them.

"Just like before, I guess..."

Subaru carried the axe over his shoulder as he walked toward the edge of the village, humming an unfamiliar tune. Wood was wonderful stuff. It could be used for cooking fires, furniture, farming tools, and houses. No matter how much they cut, there was never enough.

This wasn't his first time doing the job. He found his work area with practiced ease, picked a few relatively slender trees, and swung his axe.

Though his progress with magic was painfully slow, Subaru was getting more and more skilled at manual labor.

A thin layer of calluses had already formed on his palms. If his mother saw his hands, her eyes would surely redden with heartache.

After chopping down a few small trees, Subaru straightened up and wiped away his sweat. He was about to continue when he suddenly stopped.

Something was making a sound deep in the woods.

"Rrr..."

It was very faint, like an animal's cry. The sound came in fits and starts, but he could still hear pain and weakness in it.

It sounded like a cry for help.

"Would a mabeast make a sound like that?"

Subaru tightened his grip on the axe. He hesitated. The safest thing to do was return to the village immediately and fetch an adult. But going back for help and returning would take some time at the very least.

If the creature making the sound really was at death's door, it might be too late by the time he brought help.

In the end, he gritted his teeth and settled on a compromise: he would only go a little farther to investigate. The sound wasn't far away, perhaps only a few dozen meters.

Besides, even if it was a mabeast, what mabeast would willingly approach an Oni village? Wouldn't that be delivering itself to their doorstep?

What was more, his month of training hadn't been for nothing. His magic was still embarrassingly bad, but at least he could make the big crocodile that had bitten him to death back then tumble over. He had at least that much confidence.

Clutching his axe, Subaru edged toward the sound one step at a time. His eyes missed no suspicious bush, and his ears were pricked up.

Fortunately, he had only gone about twenty meters when he found the source of the sound.

"...Huh? It's alive? There are dinosaurs in this world too?!"

Subaru's eyes went wide.

Before him was a juvenile creature, slightly larger than he was.

Its body was covered in pitch-black scales that gleamed wetly in the sunlight filtering through the leaves. Golden pupils stood vertically in its eyes, like amber.

Its hind legs were thick and sturdy, and its tail was long and powerful. By comparison, its two foreclaws looked rather short and small, hanging limply.

No matter how he looked at it, this was a black velociraptor, its entire body radiating an air of nobility.

"Rrr..."

The black young dragon let out a weak, low cry at Subaru, as if asking whether it could trust the human before it.

"Is your leg hurt?" Subaru crouched down and found a gruesome wound on the dragon's hind leg. The flesh around its edges had curled outward, and it had already begun to fester and rot.

"What hurt you...? Is this why you came near the village to ask for help?"

The dinosaur struggled to drag its injured hind leg, moving a couple of steps toward Subaru before lowering its head as if exhausted.

"I don't know what everyone in the village will think of you... They probably won't mistake you for a mabeast, right? But if you run into one, you'll be in serious trouble."

In the end, Subaru crouched down and carefully helped the young dragon up.

Its body was warmer than he had expected. Half-dragging and half-carrying it, Subaru moved it to a secluded patch of bushes at the edge of the village and laid it down on the soft fallen leaves. Then he turned and ran back to the village as fast as he could.

He rushed into the shop and, panting for breath, bought disinfectant and a roll of gauze, spending a day's wages.

"There, there. You'll be all right. It might itch a little, but you'll have to bear with it."

Subaru poured the disinfectant over the wound on the young dragon's leg. The moment it touched the festering flesh, he clearly felt the muscles in the leg tense sharply.

But the young dragon didn't struggle. It let out a low rumble from deep in its throat, lowered its head, and gently nuzzled Subaru's shoulder with its forehead, which was covered in fine scales.

After washing away the dirt, pus, and blood around the wound, Subaru tore open the gauze and carefully wrapped it around the leg, layer by layer. His work wasn't particularly professional, but he was careful enough.

"So this is where you were. Rem heard you bought medicine so sneakily and thought you were hurt. Was it because of this creature?"

A familiar, cool little-girl voice came from behind him. Subaru turned to see Rem standing in the shade of a tree not far away.

"Ah, um... Weren't you spending time with Ram, Rem-chan? Can I explain? It should be all right, shouldn't it? This little one doesn't look like a mabeast."

"The village chief called Sister away. She doesn't need Rem for the moment."

Rem took a few steps closer, her gaze passing over Subaru's shoulder to the young dragon. "Also, of course this isn't a mabeast. It's only a wild ground dragon."

"A ground dragon?"

"You dared treat its injuries without even knowing what it was?" Rem was long accustomed to Subaru's lack of knowledge.

"Merchants and travelers tame ground dragons and use them for transportation. Wild ground dragons are still dangerous, though. To humans, of course."

"Its breed... Is it a Diana Breed? And it's still young. How rare."

With the bandaging finished, the ground dragon tentatively lifted the hind leg wrapped snugly in gauze.

Then it pressed its forehead into Subaru's embrace again and nuzzled him repeatedly, rumbling contentedly deep in its throat. At last, it raised its head and fixed its golden vertical pupils directly on him.

Subaru gazed back at the ground dragon.

At first, his head filled with entirely practical thoughts. If he discovered a living dinosaur in his original world, he could surely win a Romer-Simpson Medal, or a Lasker Award, or a Linnean Medal...

But in this world, dinosaurs were as commonplace as horses.

Those thoughts soon faded, however.

The way the ground dragon looked at him kept him from looking away.

Not only was its form graceful, but its bearing also had an ineffable nobility. The more Subaru looked at it, the more he felt moved.

"Rem."

"Yes?"

"...Can I keep it?"

(The author saw a setting online saying that Patrasche was originally a wild ground dragon living in the Roswaal Border Forest. Later, she accidentally got caught in a hunter's trap and was rescued by 486, after the mansion arc and before the royal selection arc. Patrasche remembered Subaru after that.)

(Later, Crusch was preparing to subjugate the White Whale and began buying up weapons and ground dragons on a large scale. That was how the wild Patrasche was caught and requisitioned, until she later met 486.)