2 02. Dragon

Five months had passed since Noah was reborn in that world.

It was spring, or at least it seemed so for what he could see of the environment.

The mansion he lived in resembled a countryside villa from his previous life, yet it had the size of a castle and was mostly made of wood, with a wall of rocks on the perimeter.

At that moment, he was in the arms of his new mother, peeking around while she was walking through the mansion talking to him.

Little did she know that Noah managed to understand most of what she said.

'The language of this world is not so hard, also because it has a lot of similarities with the English of my previous world. Well, it's also thanks to Lily never leaving my side and constantly speaking to me.'

He spent most of the last five months in his mother's embrace, walking around the Balvan mansion, with Lily explaining the most random things to him.

Thanks to that, he had a general idea of his position in the family and how the mansion was structured.

It was divided into two rings, outer and inner.

The inner ring was composed of a four-story building, and it was the place where the main family lived; the outer ring had two two-story buildings and a three-story one, and guards, servants, and guests respectively inhabited them.

At the moment, they were on the first floor of the guests' building, which was reserved to them since he had the blood of the main family in him, and since Lily was the beloved concubine of Rhys.

Noah's father, Rhys, was the third and youngest son of the old patriarch of the Balvan family, Thomas.

As such, even though they did not get access to the inner ring, they could still live a comfortable life in the outer one.

"You must grow strong, little dear, the people in the inner ring will see you as a bastard and will spare no effort to abuse and bully you, especially the legitimate grandsons and granddaughters of the patriarch."

Noah's mood became heavier after hearing that.

'I lived a life without meaning in a world full of compromises and now that I'm reborn I'm asked to become a tool for the main family to use at their will and endure some bullying too. It seems that I will live another life void of meaning.'

Lily kept talking, but Noah's mind was away, trying to figure out the best course of action for that new life.

'If I stay here, I will probably have a lot of benefits, after all, the Balvan family seems quite wealthy. I just don't know enough of this place and its surroundings, so I can't be sure of the possibilities the outside world has to offer.'

Noah was already considering running away from the family.

He appreciated the affection and the efforts of this new mother, but these feelings were far from the love he should've had for a parent.

'I've already had a family, and it didn't go so well. This time I don't have to go through various experiences to form and acknowledge myself so I can always choose wisely what suits me the most. If life in the inner circle is too hard for the sole reason of being a bastard, I won't mind abandoning the mansion. Plus, I have twenty-five years of experience gathered in a more advanced world, my possibilities should be plenty.'

From the clothing of the people, the structure of the buildings, and the state of the furniture, he could guess that it was a world without electricity, so way behind in terms of technology compared to his previous one.

'Yet, this might also be a disadvantage; my habits come from an industrialized society and my thoughts are those of a man from the twenty-first century, I don't know how the people here might react to some ideas. I must be careful.'

Sometimes thinking about his future, sometimes listening to his mother, the day passed and the night approached.

Lily walked to a balcony to watch the stars appear in the dark sky, and Noah used this chance to study the environment outside the mansion.

Over the defense wall, there were sheep grazing the fields, and a large stone road that started from the main gate of the mansion and stretched in the distance, cutting the green fields into two halves.

A crop of what seemed corn was on his right side, and a forest was barely visible on his left in the distance.

It was beautiful scenery Noah wasn't used to seeing, and now that was his new world.

Then he shifted his gaze to the sky, and he seemed to see the darkness enveloping the red clouds of the sunset.

At first, it was like a small dot in the distance, becoming bigger and bigger as it was going in their direction.

Only then he realized that something was wrong.

The darkness wasn't caused by the nightfall but by the silhouette of something darting through the clouds.

It was fast, and it was getting closer.

At some point, a loud roar echoed through the peaceful countryside.

It was coming from the figure in the sky.

A dark creature dove from the clouds diagonally, speeding toward the flock of sheep outside the mansion wall.

It was eight meters long and had big black wings, with scales all over its body.

It was diving at such a high speed that Noah found it impossible to trace its movements from the clouds' edge to its imminent approach to the ground where the flock was.

Suddenly, the wall was filled with a purple halo, and runes appeared on its surface.

The wall emitted a steady but loud hum, and the purple color of the wall spread toward the countryside in the direction of the flock.

The beast seemed disturbed in its descent and tried to halt itself mid-air spreading its wings.

Yet its speed was too high, and it inevitably fell on the ground where the purple halo was going, creating a large pit.

The moment it touched the dragon, smoke rose from the pit and another roar, this time of pain, sounded in the dusk.

The dragon rose to the sky again as fast as possible and stared with venomous eyes at the mansion.

Smoke kept flowing out of his belly like an open wound.

Apparently, the purple halo had injured the dragon.

The dragon was filled with hatred as it inhaled and then spat out a tongue of red flames that took the form of a lance as it kept nearing the outer ring.

Lily was frozen in fear seeing the lance of fire coming in her direction while Noah was still too stupefied by what he was witnessing to even recognize the danger he was in.

Before the flames could reach the outer wall though, a figure appeared mid-air in between them.

He raised his right hand and mumbled something, then the lance of flames hit something like a barrier of air.

The clash between the fire and the shield lasted for some seconds before the flames were extinguished, and the floating figure was visible again.

He was an old man, with a straight combed long white beard reaching his waist and unbound long hair flowing in the wind.

He was wearing a robe with large sleeves, yet the right one was now burned, showing his slim but sturdy arm.

He looked at the dragon right in its eyes, and the dragon did the same.

That standoff lasted for about ten seconds before the dragon roared once again and turned to leave at high speed through the sky, in the direction of the forest.

The old man waited a bit more in the air over the wall looking in the direction where the dragon went.

After being entirely sure that the beast was gone, he sighed and disappeared.

Lily was still frozen by fear and did not notice that she was holding the frail body of Noah too tightly.

This pain was what made him return to reality as he released a small groan to wake his petrified mother from her astonishment.

Lily returned to reality too, softening the grip on Noah, and she was about to say something before being interrupted by an aged and deep voice.

"So, this is my latest grandson, am I right?"

****

Edited by: Alessandro Sica