The Baby Isn’t Yours

The sound of something approaching, pushing through the grass and trees, was heard.

Crackling and breaking footsteps, and a low, spreading cry.

‘I screwed up.’

Hemmie closed her eyes tightly, still holding the trembling children.

The threatening footsteps drew closer.

It seemed that the monsters in the cave were not the only ones.

Finally, a giant shadow loomed over Hemmie’s head.

Hemmie, with fearful eyes, looked up at the approaching monster.

The monster, dripping with saliva like the others in the cave, was full of wounds on its chest.

Inverted pupils and drooling saliva.

The monster was half-mad.

-Krrrr. Krar!

The drooling monster opened its mouth and lunged.

In an instant, the monster’s teeth were right next to Hemmie’s throat.

At that moment, a flash of light and a thump from the giant egg the children were holding emitted a pulsating wave.

Hemmie, who was also holding the egg, felt her heart being squeezed by the waves.

And at the same time, the monster was pushed back as if it had been kicked or touched by something.

“What…?”

The monster that had fallen backward seemed surprised, and Hemmie, who was holding the children and the egg, was equally amazed.

The rising monster, as if in anger, shouted loudly.

-Kraaaagh!

A cold blade pierced through the monster’s heart in an instant.

Pap!

The familiar voice that greeted the gushing blood of the monster, which had collapsed at the blow from Kalia, reached Hemmie’s ears.

“Hemmie, are you okay?”

Behind the fallen monster, the familiar face appeared, sweeping aside the tangled hair.

The person who Hemmie was desperately calling to before she fell was there.

“Miss… Miss Kalia!”

At Kalia’s blow, the monster’s body collapsed weakly.

Kalia, without worrying about the collapsing monster, approached Hemmie.

Fortunately, it seemed that Hemmie wasn’t injured anywhere.

Within the twenty minutes of suffering, dark circles had appeared under her eyes, which had not been visible just a while ago.

“I’m fine, but these kids are badly hurt. What should I do?”

“Oh dear…”

With tear-stained cheeks, Hemmie looked at Kalia with a look of desperation.

Even in her fear, Hemmie, who was holding the two children with trembling hands, looked both dignified and pitiful.

Kalia comforted Hemmie by patting her head lightly and carefully examined the children’s injuries.

The injuries didn’t appear to be deep, but the monster’s magic had seeped in.

The children had bled quite a bit, and their faces had turned pale.

‘Did I bring an antidote?’

Kalia pursed her lips thoughtfully.

Who would have guessed that there would be monsters in the fairy forest?

She had brought a simple hemostatic and wound treatment drug just in case, but extracting the monster’s venom was more urgent.

Behind Kalia, who was gnawing on her lips, a low sigh was heard.

“Oh dear…”

Suddenly, the Fairy King, who had apparently followed Kalia, came forward. He took out a fairy stone from the body of the fallen monster and purified it.

“The magic in the wound is deep.”

With the king’s whispered magic, the cloudiness of the fairy stone disappeared, and the purified fairy stone turned into dust and scattered into the air.

“Are those the kids you came to pick up?”

After the purification, the king asked Kalia.

The figure of the king standing against the red and purple sky was large and majestic. Bottomless dark green eyes looked down at Kalia and the children.

Kalia nodded lightly, and replied.

 “They are children who accidentally wandered into the forest.”

“…At the edge of the forest, there are fairies who show dreams. Especially they like to enchant children.”

His gaze turned to the child’s wound, which had turned black, with his eyes turning red.

“A mishap caused by excessive pranks by the children of the forest. It seems that the human child has been wounded without the need.”

With his muttered fairy language, a spirit of a small bird sprayed a familiar light into the child’s wound.

The dark poison was soon removed, and the bleeding from the child’s wound stopped.

The wound healed astonishingly quickly.

It was a power different from magic, a power that healed wounds by summoning the energy of nature.

Among the fairies, only those who had the blood of the king could manifest this powerful natural power.

The child’s breathing, which seemed to be struggling to even breathe properly, gradually stabilized.

“Thank you, Fairy King.”

Kalia thanked the king, who looked down at her without saying a word.

Soon, his gaze fell on the round egg that the child was holding.

“But you’ve found something more troublesome than a monster.”

Following the king’s thin gaze, Kalia also noticed the round egg that the child was holding.

‘What is that?’

She watched with a puzzled look for a long time. The egg seemed to respond to the eyes of the king and Kalia, as if it had sensed something.

A faint wave emanated from the egg, as if it were conscious of the king and Kalia’s gaze.

It’s as if the gazes of the two people are making the atmosphere quite uncomfortable.

As if sensing the wave, the sleeping baby in the egg began to stir.

Thanks to this, the egg’s appearance became even more noticeable.

Kalia’s eyes widened slowly, and she murmured a single word like a sigh.

“A dragon egg…”

‘Why is that here?’

Kalia pressed her lower lip as if trying to hold back her desire to scream, and touched her forehead.

Her head hurt terribly.

How… How could a live dragon egg be here, for heaven’s sake!

* * *

Dragons were secretive and rare creatures, but they could be encountered more frequently than one might think.

Frequently, in a sense, they would appear once every ten or twenty years, or polymorph and appear before humans.

Although rare, they showed a definite presence.

Similarly, ‘dragon eggs’ also appeared on the auction from time to time.

They were auctioned off, and they were even found accidentally in caves like this.

But most of the eggs were either on the brink of death or had very weak vitality.

The reason for their appearance among humans was a rather absurd story.

Dragons were powerful higher life forms.

They could think, have emotions, and sometimes even perish due to true love.

The only differences from humans were that their lifespans were almost eternal, they were far more arrogant than humans, and their numbers are very small.

So dragons didn’t have a set mating season like humans.

They shared love if they desired and discarded it if they didn’t.

The frequency at which they shared love was annoying, as they were such troublesome beings.

There was no such thing as reproduction among dragons.

If they had an egg, they laid it quickly.

The problem was that if there was a weak egg among the newly laid eggs, it was mercilessly discarded.

Most likely, this egg had been discarded.

Dragons laid two to three eggs at a time, but there was only one egg left in their lair.

Even the eggs they left behind were killed as soon as they hatched if they appeared weaker than expected.

You could call it cruel, but that was also their way of long-term survival.

Weak dragons were easily manipulated by dark forces, and the misery of manipulated dragons was immeasurable.

The proud race couldn’t stand to be used by anyone, even the slightest bit.

That was the most shameful thing for them.

Weak eggs would die within three days if they didn’t receive magic from their mother.

But what was strange was that this egg was by no means a weak one.

“To discard an egg with this level of vitality is strange, but… if there is no mother, it is inevitable for the egg to die.”

The Fairy King looked down at the dragon egg and his eyes were cold.

Intermediate beings between monsters and spirits.

Children of fallen gods born from the cracks in space-time. That was a dragon.

They were beings subtly in opposition to the pure forces of nature that the fairies inherited.

You could say they were beings who shared the same lineage, but they were enemies to each other.

They shared the same natural lineage, but were as different as fathers.

They didn’t bite and attack each other, but the fairies and dragons tried not to be connected to each other as much as possible.

But the fact that this dragon was found in the fairy forest was far from strange.

When the Fairy King looked at the egg with his cold gaze, the egg, which hadn’t budged when he beckoned, came out of the child’s arms.

Holding the egg, which floated up into the air, the king clenched his fist with great force.

At that moment, the hatchling, crouched inside the semi-transparent egg, wriggled and squirmed as if it felt an imminent danger.

Shivering thin wings, a twisted neck, and small hands and feet writhing restlessly.

The hatchling inside the egg was struggling as if it was feeling an arrow aimed at itself, without a moment’s rest.

“That egg protected us. I can’t…”

While trembling at the tremendous energy emitted by the Fairy King, Hemmie also tried to move her scared buttocks.

It was when Kalia moved in front of the egg, blocking it.

“Who told you to interfere?”

“…We will take this egg with us.”

He stared at her with a look he had never seen before, even in his eyes.

Kalia didn’t step back.

Her stomach vibrated again.

Seeing that Sasha was struggling, trying to move, she had no choice but to block the egg even more.

Dragons were not like humans.

Still, Kalia found herself in the abandoned egg.

Did this egg want to be thrown away?

Is it wanted to be born here as a dragon egg?

The hatchling didn’t choose anything.

Kalia was the same. She didn’t choose to be born as an abandoned child.

Still, she was born, and she was struggling like that to survive.

To fulfill the responsibility of holding the gift of life in her hands.

‘Whoa.’

Although she couldn’t choose what to be born as, when she had the chance, right at this moment, she could choose to make sure that the hatchling didn’t die.

She didn’t want it to die.

She wanted it to be born safely and securely.