Nihility [ Isekai • Dragon Evolution ]

"Oh hi! I didn't know humans had white dragons as pets!" I heard the voice from the elf girl while she poked my head and muzzle as I woke up from the sudden poke.

Oh, she had arrived. I just stared at her for a few moments, my mind blank as I was still waking up from the best sleep I had since waking up in this world. Was the bed enchanted or something? It was so soft and was rigid enough to hold me in whatever position I slept in.

"Makes sense, just another future wyvern" She said before looking to the exit of the tent.

"Wait, what?" I said. I had got so sidetracked from how comfortable the bed has been I completely forgot I should answer. But still, what did she mean by "future wyvern?".

"What?" She said back before I could use [Knowledge Library] to look up wyverns. "You can talk?"

"Yes, I can. Why? Is it so weird? Can't dragons usually talk?" I asked.

"They do, but you're not a dragon. You're a white dragon, and the first I saw that could speak" She answered, which only made me confused even more.

"What do you mean I'm not a dragon? You literally said I'm a white drag-" I paused. At that moment I noticed that even though the meaning was the same, being "dragon", the word she used for "dragon" was different from the one she used for "white dragon". It was something I just noticed because I was putting emphasis on the dragon part of "white dragon" and it was something from their language.

"Exactly. You're a white dragon. The subspecies all dragons have as their offspring and try very hard to turn them into a dragon, even though a lot become wyverns. Poor things. Now I'll have to go to a wyvern territory and give them pitty pats" She explained as she looked in the distance, probably thinking about one of those wyvern territories.

I kept staring at her, but she seemed lost in her imagination for so long that eventually the butler entered the tent and started speaking.

"Sir dragon, Lord Henry has asked for your par…ti…cipation?" He looked at me and then at the elf girl in confusion. "Sir dragon, would you mind introducing your friend?"

That seemed to snap the elf girl back into reality. "Oh. What I was doing? Oh right!" She picked then made a pulling motion towards one of her blue rings that only now I could see, something from them felt familiar but I couldn't place a finger on it, and then the card she's usually asking around appeared in her hand, no, it seemed like it came from her ring stretching out of it and then just sitting on her hands. She looked at it and then turned around, looking at me and at the butler. "Do any of you know why or what the thirteen is?"

I noticed the number was different yet again, but I still didn't know why. The theory I had in my mind was that it changed based on the time of the day. It was counting down, after all. This soon in the loop is thirteen, a few minutes from now will be six, and then another number that I don't know because I didn't understand the language at the time she showed me the card.

Seeing both of us shaking our heads she sighed before walking towards the exit. "Why does she always speak in enigmas? I hate enigmas. Couldn't she just say things normally? You need to do X when you…" Her voice faded as she left the tent and then took off to the skies with a gust of wind that blew the flaps of the tent open.

"Is she an acquaintance of yours?" The butler asked me after a few moments to recompose himself, I just shook my head before replying.

"She just kinda of appeared. I was sleeping at the time" I said. The butler looked concerned for a moment, but he shook his head. It's not like he could do anything to a person who just casually flew and appeared like that, and knowing that on other loops she basically threw around the knights stationed here as easily as she took flight he was right to ignore her.

"As I was saying. Lord Henry has asked for your participation in our breakfast" He said.

"Ok" I said as I jumped off the bed onto the ground. It didn't escape my attention that the butler winced a little when he saw me just dropping from the bed like I didn't care about how much it cost, which I didn't to be honest.

The butler… I should probably learn his name, or did he already say it? I honestly couldn't remember, but it was getting annoying by calling him "the butler" every time as I would probably be interacting with the people in the camp in the next loop as well. I had a small suspicion I would need to use some kind of time magic to stop the loops, considering what happened when I tried last time. The pain was still throughout my body, and as long as I didn't try to use skills or magic it was manageable.

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I was sidetracking again. Shaking my head I refocused on the tent the butler had brought me in. I was expecting something like a communal space filled with chairs and tables, but the tent I was in was a small secluded one. Inside there was only one rectangular wooden table, big enough to sit at least 6 people around it. There were only two chairs currently on it, on opposite sides of the table. I didn't fail to notice that the chairs themselves were higher than one would think, and one look at the person sitting on one side of the table answered why.

Henry, the noble, was sitting on top of the high chair and was barely tall enough that the table was just below his chest. The other chair was the same height, but had two fancy looking pillows on top of it, to increase the height even more so that I could actually reach the table. Even though I wasn't that different in size from Henry, that was lengthwise. I wasn't humanoid any more, and so I couldn't sit upright like humans could, so even though I had the same length as Henry was tall, not counting the tail, I was actually smaller.

Pushing those thoughts aside, I quickly went to the other chair and climbed it and sat on the surprisingly comfortable pillow. Before I could put my hands on the table itself, I pulled [Magical Programming Language] up, just the coding aspect of the skill didn't hurt that much, and I spend a few moments creating a spell that would wrap water around my hands and arms to clean them from any dust and dirt I got on them as I walked here. I braced myself for the pain and casted the spell. I felt red hot drills grinding my insides as the water wrapped around my hand and arms, twisting and scrubbing away all the dirt. I tried to maintain a composed face, but I don't know if I managed to do so. If Henry and the butler noticed my pain they didn't show.

"Oh. That's convenient. Is that how dragons use magic?" Henry asked, somewhat confirming I did a great job of holding in my pain inside. Thankfully I just had to use magicules for the initial charge of the spell and was not a continuous drain, meaning the pain was already starting to fade back into what it was. But now there's the problem of how to answer his question. I don't know any other dragon to compare, but considering my spell casting is tied to my skill I think it's safe to assume it's just me.

"No, it's just me" I answered, but before Henry could comment anything else on it, the guy who first found me when I stole food from this camp arrived with a small cart filled with plates of food.

He started putting food in front of both of us in a mirrored way, and if I were to guess the "hidden meaning" is that they are saying me and Henry are both in equal footing, though, Maybe it's something completely different, I don't know, I don't have a telepathy skill.

It took him a few moments to finish putting the table. There was a lot of meat and just a few plants. They probably didn't know if I liked vegetables and whatnot and just made extra meat for me, not that I'm complaining, I always liked meat more than vegetables and fruits, though it's not like I hated them.

I picked up the fork and knife they had and almost frowned. They were golden and the handle had tiny gems. Really, who eats like this?

To answer my question, Henry picked a small portion of rice-like plant and placed a few slices of meat on his plate and then started to eat using said golden utensils. With a shrug I put some of the rice-like plant on my plate as well and placed more meat than Henry had placed on his plate and then started to eat.

The moment the meat entered my mouth was like an explosion of flavour went off inside my mouth. It was one of the best things I ever had to eat, and this was considering my last life on Earth as well. It was that good.

For the next few minutes we did nothing but eat. I saw Henry trying to get my attention a few times, but the food was so good I just ignored him and kept eating, but eventually the food on my side of the table run out, I had eaten everything on it and I was hit with drowsiness that I almost collapsed on the table, but managed to keep a straight posture.

I had forgotten that dragons grew when they eat a lot of food, just like I had just done. The only reason I was not knocked out was because whatever biological process is triggered by it, it flared the pain and it was keeping me awake. I didn't know if I should be thankful for it, or just scream in pain. It was not on an unbearable level yet, but it was growing, and I had a suspicion that it would probably get worse.

I was stupid to eat as much as I had and triggering this process, the food was that good, but not worth it in the slightest.

"So, sir dragon" Henry started speaking, but I had no capability to turn my attention to him. I had my hands full trying to stop myself from just screaming my lungs out in pain.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. I should have remembered this. But how would I know it would explode like this? I thought. Even though I had forgotten about this coma-like sleep, there was no indication it would cause more damage to my soul, or was it strain? I didn't know.

Everything started to turn black, and then I gasped and a flare of pain brought me back to consciousness. I had lost consciousness for a few seconds because I was holding my breath for too long, and when I breathed in I was brought back by the pain, so I couldn't fall asleep even if I wanted to. All I could do was endure this hellish torture for as long as I could and it was all going to end. The loop would end and I was going to go back to my body at the start of the loop.

The moment the System made the announcement was the moment the pain vanished and I was running in the forest. The suddenness of it all made me fall into the ground again, filling my mouth with dirt during the fall.