Reincarnated as a Dragon and Raised by a Demon

I told Solche that I needed to stop by the dormitory for a moment.

“It seems dangerous, doesn’t it?”

“We can get there quickly from here.”

Since it was just for a moment, I barely managed to persuade Solche.

We moved towards the academy’s dormitory while trying to keep ourselves hidden.

Upon arriving at the dorm room, I gathered the emergency supplies and money I had hidden away.

“Is that what you came here to collect?”

“Yeah. This is all our property.”

The amount in my thin pockets was not large, but it was hard-earned money.

After that, we used the dormitory rooftop to escape the academy.

Going out the front door might attract attention.

I never thought we would need to flee so soon.

Even after exiting the academy, my gaze remained fixed on Jema.

“Wait.”

When I called out, Solche and Alium stopped in their tracks.

“When is that support coming, by the way?”

“The earliest would be a week. At the latest, about two weeks. Why?”

“Will the Headmaster wait until then?”

“Ah!”

The handcuffs had been removed, but a bomb still remained inside Jema’s body.

While we couldn’t detonate it remotely, there was still a risk factor present.

“Isn’t there some sort of location tracking on the bomb?”

“Well, do you have a good idea?”

No good ideas came to mind.

Right now, I had to rely on Solche and Alium’s help.

“Let’s move for now. We’ll get out of this city by today.”

I wouldn’t even get to say goodbye to the people at the mana recharge factory.

“I never thought we’d have to escape like this.”

“Indeed.”

“You two drink this in advance.”

Solche handed us two potions.

“Isn’t it meaningless for us to drink this?”

“Just drink it. It’ll help.”

As I opened the cap and gulped down the potion, a sticky warmth flowed down my throat, making me acutely aware of my esophagus and stomach.

About ten seconds later, my tail and wings gradually shrank until they disappeared.

With the horns gone, my head felt much lighter, but I felt a slight headache.

“Ugh. I think my head’s about to split.”

Jema stood next to me, clutching her head.

“Wait, Jema has grown this much?”

“Ririan, why did you shrink so much?”

“Solche, is this potion the human transformation potion?”

“It’s labeled, so check it carefully….”

Solche stared blankly at us after we drank the potion.

“You two swapped the potions, didn’t you?”

Jema was now twice as tall as I was after shrinking.

“My voice sounds weird too.”

“I feel like I’m not in my own body either.”

“Actually, this works out. It’ll be easier to get past the checkpoint.”

We draped blue capes over ourselves for disguise.

The hood of the cape had a small crescent-shaped ornament attached.

Alium explained it was a symbol worn by small but fairly well-known religious organizations.

The capes reached around the chest for the three of them, but mine extended past my knees.

Moreover, I found it extremely difficult to keep up with their strides since I had shrunk.

“I can’t do this, Ririan, come here.”

“Huh?”

Jema picked me up in her arms.

“Being like this brings back old memories, doesn’t it?”

“That….”

Back then, I was a lizard.

Even though I was moving at quite a fast pace, Jema didn’t seem tired at all.

“Aren’t you tired?”

“Not at all. Ririan is really light.”

I wondered how much I weighed now.

“We’re at the checkpoint. You guys should try not to speak as much as possible.”

“Yes.”

Solche and Alium looked suspicious in their masks.

I pressed my hood down tightly to hide my face.

The checkpoint staff controlled our passage.

“Which denomination are you from?”

“Blue Moon.”

“What about the child behind you?”

“A practitioner and their child.”

The checkpoint staff scrutinized Jema and me before reaching out to remove my hood.

“Practitioners are forbidden from removing their hoods outdoors. That’s a teaching of the denomination.”

“Oh, is that so? I almost made a mistake.”

I thought that was a really convenient teaching.

The people of this denomination seemed to be able to enter anywhere without any suspicion.

“Pass through.”

Clink.

As we passed the checkpoint, I saw Alium toss a few silver coins to the staff.

That makes sense.

If that staff member realized that the person they let pass was us, they would face serious repercussions.

We exited the checkpoint but were still in the city.

“I’ve never been here before.”

“Well, we’ll be here, so be careful, Alium.”

“Make it quick.”

Alium disappeared into the crowd at a brisk pace.

“Where did he go?”

“He went to get a carriage.”

It seemed that they still used carriages here.

Didn’t they say they’d been interacting across the gate for the past 300 years?

After a while, Alium returned.

What he brought wasn’t a carriage I knew.

There were no horses, and it looked similar to a modern car.

“Alright, everyone get in.”

“Uh, is this a carriage?”

“Yeah.”

“Where are the horses?”

“What are you talking about?”

Alium was driving the carriage, but I didn’t see anything that resembled a steering wheel.

“There’s no steering wheel.”

“Ririan, you sure do say strange things.”

“They haven’t used horse-drawn vehicles since 200 years ago. And this is a car powered by mana.”

Because it’s a mana-powered vehicle, they call it a carriage.

The noiseless, swiftly moving carriage quickly left the city center.

They said the Kingdom of Tholis was a small country, but it had a larger territory than I expected.

“Now that we’ve come this far, we can take it slow.”

“Right.”

Alium stretched and closed his eyes for a moment.

“What about steering while you’re sleeping?”

“I cast a spell to make it drive automatically.”

What a convenient spell.

The carriage stopped in front of a large castle wall, waking Alium, who had been asleep.

He spoke with some guards at the castle wall and the heavily locked castle gate opened.

“Where is outside the castle wall?”

“This is the border area of the Kingdom of Tholis. If you keep going, you’ll reach the Kingdom of Adren.”

The name I read when I had free classes with Jema.

A country located to the west, with the Kingdom of Tholis in the middle.

Books didn’t provide much detail; it was only mentioned that such a country exists.

“What’s our destination?”

“A small town called Simon in the Kingdom of Adren.”

“Is that where we agreed to meet?”

At Solche’s question, Alium nodded and cast a spell on the carriage.

As we rode along in the carriage, I thought about things carefully.

We’d easily crossed the Kingdom of Tholis, but why did we need support?

Just as I was about to ask that question, Jema spoke first.

“Why do we need support, though?”

“The Latnia Empire is vast. We can’t avoid armed conflict while trying to escape.”

“Can’t you two handle it by yourselves?”

“We’re not combat personnel. If we were to face someone like Den, victory isn’t guaranteed.”

In my view, the two of them were strong enough.

Hearing that those two wouldn’t be assured of victory against Den made me feel a bit frightened.

“Do you think you can easily follow us over such a long distance?”

The carriage’s speed was pretty fast.

And we had already been traveling for several hours.

Even if we used the same carriage, it wouldn’t seem easy to track us if the distance increased that much.

“If our location gets pinpointed, they’ll use teleportation magic and come after us.”

“Can’t we also teleport?”

At my question, all three of them looked at me simultaneously.

“That’s impossible. First, there are designated locations where teleportation magic can be used. Second, those areas are restricted zones designated by each country. Third, of course, there’s no connection from the Latnia territory to the Roran territory.”

That meant we had to cross into the Roran area by car or on foot instead of using teleportation.

“How long will it take to exit Latnia’s territory?”

“At this speed, about a week?”

Solche said it was of utmost importance to cross into the Adren territory as quickly as possible.

We needed to avoid encountering Den as much as possible before meeting the reinforcements.

Fortunately, Alium mentioned that we would cross the border of the Kingdom of Tholis by morning.

I dozed off for a bit.

When I woke up, the carriage had stopped by the roadside.

“Is something wrong?”

“We’re taking a short break. It moves with mana, but fatigue accumulates.”

Alium replied in a voice that sounded rather tired.

“Oh, by the way, you don’t have a proper weapon, do you?”

“We don’t.”

Solche opened the storage compartment at the back of the carriage and pulled out a single sword and a dagger.

“Keep it. Only draw it when necessary.”

“It’s a dagger, huh?”

“Jema, you’ve learned quite a bit of swordsmanship, but Ririan, you haven’t even gotten started yet.”

I lightly infused mana into the dagger.

The blade vibrated gently, even from outside the scabbard.

It was a sensation I hadn’t felt with the wooden practice sword.

“Shall we start moving slowly?”

“Yeah, or I’ll get mad.”

As we crossed over the border of the Kingdom of Tholis, a fairly wide plain appeared before us.

“From here on, would you like to try driving, Jema?”

“Can I?”

“Of course.”

Alium moved to the passenger seat, while Solche took the seat beside me.

Jema, sitting in the driver’s seat, drove the carriage according to Alium’s instructions.

“Don’t worry about the speed.”

“Okay. Is this speed alright?”

“This is your first time, and you’re doing well.”

“Isn’t it just a matter of pushing mana in?”

“Exactly. Let me know if you get tired. I can switch seats at any time.”

Sitting beside Solche, I silently stared out the window.

“By the way, Ririan. Is it true that you were a lizard back then?”

“Yeah.”

“You must have hatched from an egg, right?”

“That might be the case?”

In fact, I had been a lizard since I gained consciousness, so I wasn’t aware of where I had been born.

“It was an egg. I’m sure because I picked it up.”

Jema answered while driving.

“Not many magical creatures are born from eggs.”

“Aren’t all magical creatures hatched from eggs?”

“No, usually they’re the same as humans.”

Solche asked Jema what the egg had looked like.

Jema slowly described its characteristics as she searched her memory.

“It was glowing and fairly large. So I expected a big creature to hatch, but it was smaller than I thought.”

“I’m, like, pretty big, right?”

“You were really tiny.”

It felt like I was hearing the secret of my birth.

“A glowing egg….”

Solche seemed to be lost in thought as she stroked her chin.

We were racing along, fully basking in the rising morning sunlight.

“The light in front is making it hard to drive further. Can you switch with me?”

“Oh, should I?”

Jema didn’t particularly like sunlight.

Because of that, the curtains in her dorm room were made of thick fabric.

At the end of the plain, a tall chain-link fence stretched endlessly.

The checkpoint of the Kingdom of Adren was small and cramped.

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