Ever since Ume was little, she always knew she wanted to be a good dragon.

There were "good" (纯) dragons and "evil" (邪) dragons, just like there was vanilla and chocolate ice cream. They were simply different flavors of dragon, and both were equally valid and respected in Ume's hometown within the constellation of Shibien (紫微垣). "Evil" dragons were not necessarily bad and "good" dragons were not necessarily kind... at least according to the Ryūjin's (竜人) flexible moral standards.

It was purely a matter of personal preference, and most dragons tended to align with one polarity or the other.

The decision was entirely frivolous and casual.

In fact, it was often as trivial as choosing favorite teams in a sports game. Toying with 'good' and 'evil' sides was sort of a popular hobby that many dragons enjoyed, and some dragons got especially self-absorbed with their roleplaying games (RPGs). In fact, lots of dragons took 100,000-year "vacations" in various isekai worlds, pretending to serve the cruelest demon lords or act as holy protectors of human kingdoms.

It was just a sport though — so "good" and "evil" dragons coexisted perfectly fine in the celestial realm.

In fact, even though Ume's parents were both "good" dragons, they always told her that it would be better if she chose the "dark" side. In recent millennia, being "evil" was especially trendy and fashionable, and the most popular young dragons in the Shibien constellation were all irredeemably "evil". It was the latest fad in the celestial realm, and her parents insisted that Ume would regret missing out on the free cookies if she stubbornly refused to leave her her side of the playground.

This was part of the reason why Ume had been so upset when her parents had introduced her fiancé. They were blatantly nudging her towards the dark side even though she clearly said she didn't want it. Zetsubou (絶望) was a dashing young dragon who recently made a name for himself as the most despicable, malevolent, and terrifying dragon of their generation (note: 500 years is still considered "young"). He was immensely popular among all of the young dragons, and there were many thirsty young dragon ladies who wanted to lay eggs for him...

Obviously, her fiancé was no good!

Ume just couldn't accept it...... 

+ + +

Watching the human adventurers slaughter hundreds of slimes left a very unpleasant taste in her mouth. It reminded her of the evil dragons at home who took pleasure in setting kittens on fire. Exploding Kittens was a popular card game that was all the rage these days, and but Ume could only feel sorry for the poor sacrificial kittens.

What did the kittens ever do to deserve this?!

Ume was pretty sure that these slimes hadn't done anything wrong.

They had simply been munching on rock like peaceful vegetarians(?) grazing on grass.

Ume watched the adventurers slicing, chopping, and bashing slimes for around fifteen minutes. One of the humans had a big warhammer, and he used it like a club, bludgeoning slimes like they were sacks of potatoes. It reminded her a lot of the practice of seal clubbing, which was an annual event in a certain human country called Canada where people whack baby seals to death with wooden clubs.

The 53-year-old dragon's main impression was that it was much more grotesque in person than they way she imagined it in the books. For instance, slimes were mostly fluid, so smacking hundreds of them in a pit inevitably meant that slime juice was flying everywhere. The ground was an ankle-deep slurry of slime guts, a bit like someone had thrown a hundred multi-colored slimes into a blender, diced them up into pieces, and vomited the icky brown concoction back out.

If Ume had been human, perhaps she might have grown nauseous watching this scene, but dragons don't really get upset stomaches. A most, she felt like she wanted to hiccup, but that was probably just the flames in her belly tickling the back of her throat. It would be bad if she accidentally sneezed and spat out a large plume of fire.

She hugged her best friend tightly to her chest and hesitantly floated closer. Ume drew near the anchored airship, but it seemed like the adventurers weren't paying attention to their vessel. All of their energy was focused on murdering slimes.

She hovered in the air timidly.

To be honest...

...A bad thought did appear inside of her head.

Ume was really tempted to do something bad to the adventurers.

However, the young dragon was conflicted. 

Was it bad to do bad things to bad people?

That was like a triple negative, so 3 x Bad = still Bad, right?

Damn.

How unfortunate.

Ume wanted to be a "good" dragon, so that meant bad things weren't allowed. It was actually slightly annoying. Ume was starting to see why her parents had said it was much more convenient to be evil. However, Ume was a stubborn young dragon, and she still wanted to prove that she was right more than anything else. It had only been three chapters ever since she ran away from home, so it was way too early to succumb to the allure of the dark side.

Ume resolved herself to persevere on her own path.

Ume was a "good" dragon!

She peeked underneath the floating airship, which was approximately the size of a medieval galleon. The airship seemed to be unoccupied, and most of its crew members were hunting slimes on the rock. The vessel was tethered to the island with a large heavy anchor and shielded with a weak magical barrier. Otherwise, the airship seemed to drift freely in the wind. 

Her attention went straight to the anchor.

...

.......

...Welp.

With a small puff of fire, the chain linking the airship to its anchor snapped.

The flying vessel slowly started drifting away from the island.

Ume quietly hid herself on the far side of airship, completely out of sight from the humans on the island. The innocent expression on her face was totally guiltless, as if she had nothing to do with this act of vandalism at all. Within minutes, she could hear some faint shouts coming from shore. The adventurers sounded frantic.

"Our airship! It's floating away!" Panicked voices arose from the slime pit. "Hurry! We have to catch our ride!"

∎