Reincarnated as a Dragon Hatchling Vol. 1

by Necoco

  Now, what’s next… Whoa, there’s a huge mushroom with a purple cap. I pulled it out of the ground and used View Status.

  Monster Shroom: Value D. Once grown, it becomes a monster that can ambulate and attack people. It tastes like meat and is regarded as a delicacy.

  Cool, cool. I’ll take this home with me. Sounds like it’ll make good broth.

  I held onto the monster shroom and continued my foraging.

  Oh, here’s an odd mushroom. Small and white and very cute, it looked like something out of a fairytale.

  Moro Trogia: Value A. So valuable that successful cultivation could bring a country back from the brink of financial ruin. Bears a striking resemblance to the poisonous mushroom “Al Trogia,” which, unbeknownst to many, is much more common. Ingestion causes hallucinogenic effects, inducing intense feelings of euphoria.

  Five hundred years ago, it was often crushed, mixed with stimulants, and sold as a narcotic. In more recent times, however, the official practice is to burn them on sight. There are still fanatics and rogue soldiers who privately cultivate them, using them for many purposes, including torture.

  Just one mushroom can be used to make a large quantity of the narcotic, so they can be sold at extremely high prices to those who desire them. However, beware of double-crosses or theft.

  I stomped down hard and finished up with Baby’s Breath, until the dangerous mushroom turned to ash and crumbled.

  Title Skill: “Itty-bitty Hero” Lv 1 has become Lv 2.

  Well, I’m glad that finally leveled up. But how is something this dangerous allowed to exist?

  If I just left it, or got greedy and picked it, I could unleash a huge catastrophe that could wipe out an entire village. I probably deserved more than just one level. I might have just thwarted a complete disaster!

  I was lucky I could view the stats of objects now, or I would have eaten something really terrible. This was way beyond the level of “Oh, hey—maybe I’ll develop a resistance to it!” That was the sort of mushroom that could single-handedly turn me into a bad dragon.

  Well, I think that’s plenty of mushrooms. But if I remember correctly… Ah, there they are. The little red seed thingies I used as pepper. They’re really versatile and delicious, so I’ll pick a bunch of them. Might as well check them out while I’m here, too.

  Piperis: Value B+. One of the most widely used spices, which emits an appetite-stirring aroma.

  However, due to the difficulty of its cultivation and widespread old wives’ tales that the roots can be made into a panacea, it is rarely found outside the Borderlands. It is at risk of extinction due to over-gathering.

  It is highly sought after by nobles with gourmet taste and said to be worth its weight in gold.

  Whoa, I had a feeling these were valuable! Doesn’t look like the villagers ever come to pick them, though. Is that because there are too many monsters around here? Or maybe they don’t even know they’re here. Well, whatever, more for me—I’ll pick a lot in case someone else comes along.

  I also picked up some kind of sweet, magical-looking tree branches, a variety of nice-smelling leaves, a delicious mushroom packed with super shiny spores, and some lettuce-like vegetable with greenish-white leaves.

  I got in a brief scuffle with a pack of graywolves on the way home, and with my hands so full I had to fight entirely with my legs. They still didn’t give me much trouble—I’d gotten pretty strong. I went back to my cave to deposit the fruits of my foraging, then went back for the graywolf meat.

  In the end, my haul consisted of the cracked tortoiseshell pot, a selection of potortoise meats, a glowing light shroom, a paralysis-inducing lightning shroom, the roots of the carnivorous flower, the monster shroom, a bunch of piperis, magictree branches, aroma leaves, a green ball plant, and the meat and pelts of five graywolves.

  I’ll eat the potortoises today, but then what should I do with all these graywolf steaks? Maybe I could dry them out. I wouldn’t say no to some jerky.

  PART 7

  THE LIGHT SHROOM brightened the interior of my cave quite a bit, and I’d be able to use it as a lamp when the sun set. I was really glad I’d picked that mushroom, since proper lighting was a vital part of interior decorating. Or, well, at least I could see my food while I was eating it. When I went to sleep I could just drape one of the graywolf pelts over the mushroom to turn it off.

  I dug a shallow hole near the entrance of the cave and stacked it with dry kindling. I used Baby’s Breath to start the flame and set the potortoise shell on top as a cooking pot.

  The shell was pretty banged up, but none of the river water leaked out—the damage looked worse than it was, I supposed. I added the whitish-green leaves of the green ball vegetable to my makeshift pot along with some mushrooms, the potortoise meat, and a root from the carnivorous flower for salt.

  Yeah, this is looking like real soup! It makes me so nostalgic I might cry.

  I fashioned some chopsticks out of branches, slicing them up with my claws. I had Dragon Scales, which meant I could withstand a bit of heat. It was fine if the chopsticks weren’t perfect. If all else failed, well, I’d eaten the graywolf meat with my bare hands before, so really this was all just for the aesthetic. My claws were long and my fingers cumbersome, but I wanted to try using my new chopsticks anyway.

  I let the soup simmer for a while, then took a bite of the potortoise meat.

  Whoa, this is really good! It was sort of like extremely tender chicken. I’d never eaten anything like it, not even in my previous life.

  Jeez, if they’re all this delicious, I’m gonna have to go hunt more potortoises. Heck, I’ll hunt them to extinction. Good thing I’d gotten ten today.

  Think how much meat I’d have if I could have kept that Giant Potortoise’s body. Although…its flesh was pretty tough. I bet once the potortoises grow up, they get dried out and less tasty. The same went for chickens, I’d heard.

  Maybe I should try that yellow-and-black-striped mushroom. What was it called? Lightning Shroom? Its status said it caused paralysis, but that it tasted good. Hmm…it makes my tongue tingle a bit, but it’s got a nice texture. Real crunchy. And it soaks up the potortoise broth really well.

  The tip of my tongue went numb and I couldn’t feel my hands, but that passed relatively quickly. Dragons were amazing. I mean, I knew that, but it was cool to be reminded.

  Gained “Paralysis Resistance” Lv 1.

  Excellent, all according to plan.

  I decided to taste a bit of everything, adding more ingredients to my soup. I put in more of the green ball leaves and added more water, before getting so frustrated with the chopsticks that I bit them to pieces. I drank directly from the pot after that.

  Man! That was delicious! Talk about a feast. There’s no way I could go back to being a human after that.

  I patted my full belly, basking in the taste of the potortoise. Good thing they had shells, otherwise they’d probably be hunted to extinction by now.

  So…the potortoise experiment was a success, but now I had to do something with my mountain of graywolf meat. I couldn’t let it spoil, so I decided to go with my earlier plan and try to turn it into jerky.

  I cleaned and gutted the graywolves, separating out the bones, organs, and brains, then the meat and fur. I cut the meat into bite-sized pieces, trimming off fat and sinew. I blew a Baby’s Breath on a carnivorous flower root to make salt, then massaged that into the meat. The salt would kill bacteria and draw out the moisture, preserving the flesh. There was so much graywolf that I nearly ran out of salt before I was done.

  When I was finished, I picked it all up and took it outside. I used Baby’s Breath on a tree beside the cave entrance, stripping away the leaves and potential germs from a branch. Then I pierced the meat through the naked branch like a skewer.

  This should work, and if it doesn’t, I’ll try something else next time. I’d be pretty disappointed if all this meat went to waste, though.

  Title Skill “Mr. Chef” Lv 1 ha
s become Lv 2.

  Oh, great! Now, the fur…

  If I just left the pelts in a heap like that, they’d probably rot. But honestly I had no idea how to preserve animal skins. My best guess was to cut off the fat, cover the hide in salt, and hope that removed enough bacteria and moisture to stop putrefaction.

  After that, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want a maggot infestation, so I considered just throwing them out. I really wanted a carpet, though. And I definitely didn’t want to show up to the village totally nude when I finally got Human Transformation.

  Well, for the time being I’d use the rest of my salt on the pelts, let the piperis dry outside, and get some rest. Tomorrow I could go on a search for more carnivorous flower roots and spices.

  Interlude:

  The Girl’s Adventure

  I WALKED THROUGH the woods alone.

  The forest near the village crawled with monsters. I often ventured a short way into the trees to gather mushrooms or medicinal herbs, but I’d never gone this deep before on my own. Marielle would be furious if she knew. No matter—I had no choice but to go.

  I probably should have brought backup, but Doz was missing and poor Grantz had just been killed. Rumors about a dragon sighting were circulating—a big one, seen flying deep into the forest. It looked injured, but no one wanted to risk an encounter.

  I knew it was dangerous, so I didn’t pester them. Besides, if I asked around too much, word would get back to Marielle and she’d put a stop to my adventure before it began.

  So, alone it was.

  A long time ago, it was forbidden to venture deep into the forest. People thought it would anger the gods who protected the village, but by the time I was born that was considered more of a superstition by most people, though some of the elders still believed it. Marielle was one of the believers, so she didn’t look kindly on forest explorers. She was old enough that she took the village’s customs very seriously, despite how little and cute she was. Ha, she’d make such a grumpy face if she heard me say that.

  I kept my ears open, listening closely to my surroundings as I made my careful way through the forest. It would be okay. After all, I could use magic. I could fight off weak monsters by myself.

  From behind me came a rustling in the brush. I whipped around to find an enormous caterpillar—a darkwyrm. It was almost as large as I was, and its black squirming body wriggled across the ground towards me.

  I was startled, but at the same time I felt relieved. Even I could beat a darkwyrm.

  “Fireball!”

  Flames shot from my staff, blazing toward the darkwyrm. It turned tail and ran.

  “Phew…”

  I let out a sigh of relief as it disappeared from view. Marielle said darkwyrms were F Rank monsters and therefore weren’t very dangerous; even regular people could deal with them. I was more than capable of defeating a monster like that.

  The most I could do to an E Rank monster was incapacitate it. Doz could take one on his own, though. But the danger level really jumped with D Rank monsters. Everything below that had about as much power as the average adventurer. But D Rank and higher were as strong as at least three humans.

  Four skilled adventurers could defeat a C Rank monster, but only if they planned very carefully beforehand. Our village sometimes had to go to the bigger city and ask for help defeating tougher monsters.

  If I came across anything higher than a D Rank, I had to take care not to provoke it and run away. If it chased me, my only recourse was to use fire magic and hope that scared it off. But even coming across one was putting my life in danger, and in the forest the odds weren’t exactly low.

  So why come to the forest in the first place?

  Because when Bälz returned from a fishing trip, he said he’d seen Doz. Doz, who was still missing. Bälz was out by the lake, which was right between the town and the forest, when he felt someone watching him from the woods. He looked up and saw Doz looking out at him from among the trees.

  Doz was acting strangely, mumbling to himself. Bälz called out to him and Doz smiled, but then he ran off into the trees like he’d seen something scary. One of his legs dragged behind him. His clothes were in tatters, his face gaunt. The edges of his mouth were tinged blue. He looked very unwell.

  Unsurprising, considering how dangerous the forest was for a lone adventurer. And it was very strange to hear that he’d reached the edge of the forest only to turn back.

  The rest of the village dismissed Bälz’s story as the ramblings of a drunk. They said he probably had one too many while he was out fishing. Bälz did like his liquor. Other than that, all his story accomplished so far was adding to the rumors that there were ghosts in the forest. It was easy to explain his story away as a tipsy fisherman who probably just saw a ghost.

  Bälz swore he had nothing to drink that day, but no one believed him. A few people even said they’d seen him going into the forest with a bottle. One person said, “He’s probably just too embarrassed to admit it was because of his bad habits.”

  Under normal circumstances, if Doz was known to be alive and wandering the forest, all the young men in the village would form a search party. The people chosen for the search would know they were risking their lives, but our village’s motto was “no one left behind.” Abandoning someone like this was expressly forbidden.

  I’d heard people talk about past search parties many times, the stories repeated like old heroic tales. But now, because of all the rumors floating around, everyone was too afraid to venture into the forest. Doz wasn’t popular to begin with either, hence why no one had come forward to suggest forming a search party.

  The eyewitness who claimed he’d seen Doz acting strangely, added to the sightings of the giant dragon, meant that no one really knew what was going on in the forest, or what unknown risks they’d be facing. That was the excuse. But I think deep down it left a bitter taste in the villager’s mouths to dismiss the whole ordeal.

  Honestly, I wasn’t sure I believed the people who said they’d seen Bälz leave with alcohol anyway.

  I thought he might be telling the truth.

  I wasn’t sure what had happened to Doz, but Bälz might be right. So that was why I’d decided to go deep into the forest, because if I had just been able to stop Doz that day, none of this would have happened. If I had talked to Marielle, or tried to convince Grantz not to go, I could’ve prevented the reckless provocation of the Rock Dragon. I was the only one who had a chance to stop it.

  I wanted to believe that Doz wasn’t that deep in the forest. He’d been seen close to the village after all, if only briefly. I’d go just a short way in. There weren’t any monsters around here too strong for me to handle. Or at least…there shouldn’t be.

  Chapter 5:

  Claybear

  PART 1

  THREE DAYS HAD PASSED since my battle to the death with the potortoises. I spent most of my time quite peacefully, drying piperis, seasoning the jerky, and torching carnivorous flowers for salt.

  The jerky was coming along well, but yesterday a group of orangurangs—monsters that looked like red monkeys—came along and stole the entire batch. I woke up early in the morning to a commotion. Stepping outside, I found the evil monkey gang laughing and chittering as they devoured my jerky. I hadn’t felt such rage in a long time.

  I chased after them, but they were ridiculously fast and I lost them in seconds. After I’d calmed down and was able to think clearly, I realized that a big group like that could definitely kill me. Orangurangs’ stats were pretty high. I could take them one-on-one, but fighting that many at once would be suicide.

  So I let them have the jerky, and hunted a bunch of graywolves to make another batch. It wasn’t so much that I was dying for jerky, more just stubbornness on my part. Still, I was nervous that those darn orangurangs would come back and steal it again. And if they came while I was asleep, there was nothing I could do.

  So I got some poisonous plants, boiled them in my tortoiseshell pot, and brewed
up a nice, strong poison. Then I dipped each piece of jerky in the concoction. Just imagining those red monkeys writhing in pain filled me with satisfaction. This was the best way to make sure they never came back.

  The pelts were done disinfecting and drying out, so I took them down to the lake to wash the salt off. I used Baby’s Breath on a tree to burn off the little branches and leaves, making myself a laundry pole. I slung the pelts over it and let them dry. Now I had a perfect rug for my cave house.

  I wasn’t sure I’d preserved it properly, but it would do for now. I lay down on top of the soft, comfortable pelt. I was working on building up a solid supply of salt and other spices while hunting low-level monsters like graywolves and horned rabbits, which provided me with food for the day. Lately I only challenged E Rank monsters.

  There was no harm in taking it easy, but it meant I hadn’t gained a single level in three whole days. My only skill that had improved was Mr. Chef, to Lv 3. Maybe I’d venture out farther than usual today. I wanted a few more pots to store my ingredients—one for meat, one for salt, and one for spices. I needed a new cooking pot as well. I had been so consumed with my desire to avenge my lost jerky that I didn’t think things through before using my one and only pot to cook up a batch of poison.

  If only getting new pots was simple. I found it was nearly impossible to defeat a potortoise without breaking its shell. Out of the ten I’d killed, only one of the shells had been usable, and even that one was pretty beat up.

  I used Roll to explore a part of the forest I’d never been to before, searching for new food sources and anything else I could use as a pot. I ran into a horned rabbit on the way there, but after a little game of tag I managed to take it down.

  That bought me a bit of experience. It would be too much of a pain to carry it with me, so I left it and planned to pick it up on my way home.

  Is it just me, or was that horned rabbit really fast? True, I hadn’t seen much action lately, so my senses were probably a little dulled. I really needed to get my edge back with more challenging battles, something with a little tension—nothing too far above my own rank, though. After the Little Rock Dragon and the Giant Potortoise, I’d had enough of C Rank monsters. Even nine lives wouldn’t be enough to keep fighting those guys.