Ice Dragon (2)
Perhaps it was impulse, or perhaps it was the timing, or maybe it was whatever goodwill still remained somewhere in his heart.
Vergil wasn’t sure which it was, and he didn’t bother trying to decide.
But he carried the Ice Dragon woman back to his hut.
He laid her on the only bed inside the cabin and did what he could to treat her wounds.
Her injuries were severe, and he had no real medical expertise, yet he cleaned the cuts, wrapped the deeper wounds, and covered her with whatever blankets he had.
It wasn’t much, but it was better than leaving her to die alone in the snow.
Vergil headed outside to gather more firewood.
The cold had grown stronger, and the cabin needed more heat if she was going to survive the night.
Even if she was an Ice Dragon, her human form was clearly shuddering.
Surely, Ice Dragons would seek warmth as well, right?
He wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t willing to take the risk of letting her freeze.
After gathering enough logs to last until morning, he returned to the cabin and pushed the door open.
Vergil set the firewood down and fed more into the hearth.
The flames rose again as he glanced back at her.
He approached the bed and checked her pulse at her wrist.
“Strange.”
Creatures were never fully immune to their own elements.
Even an Ice Dragon showed signs of weakness when pushed past its limits.
Moments earlier, she had been shivering nonstop, but now the trembling was fading.
The warmth coming from her skin confirmed that, despite everything she had endured, she was still alive.
Vergil let out a sigh, relieved in a way he didn’t quite understand, and kept his hand there for a moment longer, pulling back and settling on a chair beside her bed.
What separated Dragons from Dragonoids came down to a clear difference in abilities.
Dragonoids were locked into their humanoid forms, with their strength falling on the lower end of the spectrum despite their draconic lineage.
Dragons, on the other hand, could freely interchange between their human appearance and the form of a massive winged lizard, retaining overwhelming power in either shape.
Telling the two apart was not difficult.
Even if their features were similar at a glance, the distinction was clear once you knew what to look for.
Dragonoids possessed no horns in their human form, while Dragons did.
With the Ice Dragon reduced to a single horn, Vergil had no trouble understanding what had happened.
Losing even one horn was enough to cripple her strength.
With her power cut in half, it was no wonder the Dragonoids had overwhelmed her through sheer numbers.
With nothing else to do, Vergil reached for a book and began reading, glancing at her every so often to check her breathing, until his eyes eventually closed and he drifted off to sleep in the chair.
By the time morning light spilled through the window, Vergil woke up. He blinked his eyes a few times before standing up.
The next moment, he froze.
“……”
The bed was empty.
The Ice Dragon woman was gone.
He looked to the left, then to the right. There was no sign of her.
Realizing she was nowhere in sight, Vergil hurried to the door and rushed outside.
Outside, the cold morning air hit him immediately.
Vergil searched around for any sign of footprints or movement. Nothing seemed disturbed at first glance.
Then he noticed the trail in the snow leading away from the cabin.
Vergil followed them.
They led toward the tree line that disappeared deeper into the forest, where the shade swallowed the morning light.
He moved quickly, listening for anything out of place.
After several minutes, he spotted a figure leaning against a tree.
“......”
The woman with snow white hair was there. Her breathing was light as she pressed her hands against the bark for support.
She was clearly struggling, and with her chipped horn caught against the sunlight, Vergil couldn’t help but notice it even further.
She turned her head, and their gazes locked.
“......”
“......”
No words were exchanged, and in the next moment, her eyes narrowed, glaring at him with clear distrust.
Vergil lifted one hand in an open gesture of surrender.
“I’m not here to hurt you.”
Once again, she did not speak. Vergil took a slow step toward her to test her reaction, and she immediately stepped back, as if he were a threat closing in.
Even though she was clearly exhausted, the fear and hostility in her eyes didn’t fade.
Vergil stopped.
“Easy. You can barely stand. If you try to run off now, you’ll fall again.”
“You say such things… yet you destroyed what mattered most to me.”
“......”
Vergil furrowed his brows.
“What do you mean?”
“Do not feign ignorance. You humans, along with those wretched Dragonoids, hunt us, tear us apart, and sell every piece of our bodies. Our horns… the most precious symbol of our identity…”
The meaning hit him immediately.
“Your horn? It wasn’t me.”
“Of course it wasn’t. But that makes no difference to me. Humans always take, and sooner or later, you will come for the last one I have.”
Vergil lowered his hand.
“I’m not taking anything from you. If I wanted your horn, I wouldn’t have brought you here or treated your injuries.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I expect you to use your head. You were dying. I helped. That’s all there is to it.”
“......”
Slowly, but surely, Vergil saw her slowly lower her guard. Just enough to show she was listening.
And quite frankly, if she had truly wanted to kill him, she would have done it already.
She could have taken his life while he slept in the chair beside her bed.
But she hadn’t touched him. Instead, she had fled as soon as she could walk.
That alone told him everything he needed to know.
“There are no second chances. You go out there, they’ll hunt you again. And if that happens, I’m not helping you a second time.”
“You? A human going against a Dragonoid? Has the sun risen from the west? In what reality does a human believe he can best a Dragonoid?”
“In the reality where I already did. You were there.”
“......”
There were merits to his words.
When she first collapsed in the snow, she had been unable to move, let alone defend herself.
Yet by the time she woke up in his cabin, every sign of danger around her had already disappeared.
The Dragonoids had hunted her meticulously.
They would not have left her alone or have allowed a human to carry her away without resistance.
Swoosh——!
Before she even registered the movement, Vergil vanished from where he stood and reappeared right in front of her.
In a blink, a single finger pressed against her throat.
“If I were a Dragonoid, you would already be dead.”
“......”
* * *
“Human.”
“It’s Vergil.”
“......”
When they returned to the cabin, she sat on a stool near the fire while Vergil moved around the small kitchen space, preparing breakfast with whatever ingredients he had left.
Vergil hesitated for a moment with a spoon in hand, realizing something he hadn’t thought through at all.
What did Dragons even eat?
He tried to recall the novel through memories of scenes and descriptions, but nothing came to mind.
Not a single chapter had shown dragons eating anything. It hadn’t mattered in the story, but it mattered now.
He glanced briefly at the woman sitting behind him.
Hopefully… her tastes didn’t lean toward humans.
“What is this?”
“My specialty."
It was potato stew.
She stared at the bowl as if he had just placed an unfamiliar artifact in front of her.
Vergil pulled out his own chair and sat across from her.
“It’s not poisoned.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“You speak as if that would reassure me.”
“It should. I didn’t go through the trouble of saving you just to poison you.”
Her eyes alternated from the bowl to him and back again.
Slowly, she lifted the spoon and brought the smallest amount to her lips, tasting it as if she were expecting an explosion.
Vergil raised a brow.
“Well?”
She looked down at the bowl again.
“…It is edible.”
“You’re welcome.”
Vergil began eating as well, not paying her much attention at first.
She took her time with the stew slowly, as if still expecting some hidden trick.
But as the taste finally registered, her pace quickened.
What started as cautious bites became steady mouthfuls.
Then, somewhere halfway through, she abandoned pride altogether.
By the end of it, she slurped down the last of the broth with surprising enthusiasm, leaving the bowl completely clean with not a single drop left.
She looked up at him.
“What is this? I must know.”
“It’s Dragon Soup.”
“......”
Her entire body went rigid as her eyes widened in a shock she couldn’t contain.
Vergil watched her freeze in place. The fear crept into her expression, far more obvious than she probably intended.
“I… ate… Dragon…?”
Vergil shrugged.
“Maybe. Depends on how you look at it.”
Her face drained of color instantly.
“I… I consumed my own kind…?”
“Well, I mean… if Dragons taste good, someone had to find out eventually.”
“You…! You fed me the flesh of a Dragon?!”
Vergil raised a hand.
“Kidding.”
“……”
“It’s potatoes.”
“You insolent hum—”
“It’s Vergil. Call me Vergil.”
Vergil didn’t like the way she kept referring to him as human.
In a world filled with species that prided themselves according to their race, being labeled as human left a bitter taste in his mouth.
The Empire, which represented the human race, had abandoned him long ago.
She looked at him with those two ice-blue pupils, then muttered, as if testing the word.
“...Virgin?"
“......”
