I Raised A Black Dragon

“Number 2. What’s your relationship with Adrian Rossinell?”

“Uh, um. Two years ago, I visited Baroness Asil’s home, a-a-and she was unconscious… At that time, I caught a glimpse of Adrian.”

This was roughly what Lenia’s tearful statement was. Eleonora was one of the clients of Valtalere Farm, and Lenia was the only one who happened to have witnessed her death while visiting Eleonora’s mansion to renew her contract. She had not only witnessed Eleonora lying unconsciously, but she had also witnessed the sight of Adrian, with her. Everything that transpired afterwards was obvious. Adrian had then dragged Lenia, who had said that she’d do anything if he let her live, back to his research lab in Harrell.

“At first, I was put into an experiment. That was when I handed over biometric information about the second stage of the replica project. My father had put out a missing person’s report… but seeing that no one came looking for me, I think that was when he planted the replica in Tezeba.”

Of those trapped in the laboratory, half had already been there before Lenia was captured, and the other half had been newly deployed after Lenia. Very few of those who’d been there beforehand had survived. Some had become slobbering, babbling animals with their eyes rolled to the back of their heads, hallucinating out of their minds, or already dead for days. 

Fortunately or unfortunately, the circumstances of Lenia and the others who had been captured after her have not been so brutal. Those who were deemed impossible to revive if more experiments were conducted had been sent to the second floor, where the failed experiments were kept. Among them, Lenia was especially lucky.

It just so happened that one of Harrell’s researchers had had acquaintances, and with his help, her turn could be postponed without being put through several rounds of biological experiments. But then the number of subjects had decreased, and things had become different after Adrian started obsessing over the research.

Eventually, when Lenia hadn’t been able to avoid her turn, she had risked her life to escape. Escaping the process and coming out of the research lab, the discovery of the dragon’s egg was simply a coincidence.

She justified in a stammering voice, “I overheard the researchers whispering among each other while I was trapped. I heard there’s a sign when the dragon starts to hatch; I think Adrian is greedy for the egg… This is just what I heard, by the way, but if Adrian even imprints a dragon, it really seems that everyone in this process will die. I didn’t know it would start imprinting if I-I-I touched it.”

Lenia thought there was only one person who deserved to be the dragon’s master. Eleonora, the witch who had hid in Sorrent for two years since she collapsed in her home two years ago. Unless someone was a genius magical engineer, who was qualified to face the best wizard in Laurent?

Of course, the chase had followed two days after she stole the dragon and went down to Sorrent. Pretending to go up to the capital, hiding briefly in Cezanne, where her father’s farm was located, she had boarded a ferry intending to ask for help from the capital’s Protection Bureau, in an attempt to at least stifle Adrian’s movement. However, when she’d been caught by Adrian, she had been replaced by a replica.

Muell, listening up until there, nodded his head. “Hmm, so that sucker came to catch you and found Noah with me in Lunazel.”

That blond-haired man had been chasing Noah from the beginning. So he wasn’t just trying to be a nuisance by chasing her, he had had bad intentions this whole time, he thought, imprinting the information in his head. His red eyes darkened. 

Lenia, unable to recognize his reaction, looked around. “By the way… where is Baroness Asil? At that time, I definitely saw her on the Angelic imprinting you, Mr. Dragon.”

“Noah is upstairs. And I never told you to ask any questions. I am the one who is questioning.”

The chilly tone of the three-year-old was cute, but no matter how young he was, he contained power that humans could not resist. He gripped his pen again. There was still one last piece of information Kyle had told him to find out.

“Question number 3. Tell me what you know about the replica project. What are stage 1 and stage 2? Is there also a stage 4?”

“No… The replica project has three stages at the most. Stage 1 is the design and production of an automaton, which moves with a built-in battery and an inputted manual. Stage 2 is a more sophisticated implementation of the automaton… so it’s a project to overlay the body size and external characteristics on the surface of the automaton from head to toe. When I came here, it was after stage 2 had ended with a success.”

“Stage…. 2…. has succeeded…” Muell looked carefully at his records somewhere between the drawing and his writing. There were lots of letters he didn’t know, but he could understand the gist of it. He extended both hands in the air again, opening the subspace. He then buried his upper body inside and began to rummage around.