“Gruoooh!”

“Graaah!”

Seeing those two furred things shout before running at me with their tree branches raised, I couldn’t help but start screaming, “Krrrrrriiiiiiah!” before fleeing in the opposite direction.

No, no, no, no, no! I need to get the fuck out of here!

I didn’t care where I was running to but anywhere was better than to stay here, waiting for those things to catch me. However, even as my fear shouted at me to run as fast as I could, my legs couldn’t match my commands.

I’m used to sprinting on two legs, not four, and with all the relatively large leaves and branches in the way, I also had to bypass a parkour course. I wanted to run faster but any more and my legs will just tangle into each other and cause me to trip.

My chest began to hurt from all this erratic breathing. My legs ached from being forced to move. I couldn't keep this up for too long. There had to be something I could do to delay them and I needed to find it out quickly!

My eyes darted around, looking for any kinda solution, but all I could see were bushes and trees. But then an idea appeared — couldn’t I hide inside one of those bushes. I was tiny enough to do so. Hiding inside these bushes wouldn’t be a problem and I had the black scales to camouflage within its shadows.

With a plan set, I checked on how far those fur children were, however, the moment I did so, a stone crashed right next to me, leaving a small dent on the ground. It missed me but it flustered me enough to realize plans won’t work if I get crushed by a pebble. New plan — run even harder for your dear life!

As my breathing became more strained, my anxiety to not get caught suddenly invoked that “feeling” inside my chest again. Was it adrenaline, I wondered, but I had little interest in spending that “feeling” with thinking when I could make my legs run faster.

I didn’t feel myself going faster at all, but then again, my vision was fusing all the green and brown of this park into a singular color. Fear and trepidation completely overwhelmed my mind, so much that my body just moved single-mindly for survival.

After what felt like an eternity, my body finally gave in.

<[Exhaustion (Minor)] inflicted on [Dragon Hatchling *]>

“Kra!”

My numb legs tripped over a branch, causing me to tumble on the ground and crash. I could feel aches all around my body, especially my arms and legs. Well, actually, it’s four legs, right? Regardless, when I opened my eyes again, I saw a large bush right in front of me.

My flight-or-fight instincts kicked in again, drawing out the last remaining amount of my power so I could drag my body under it. The moment I felt shadows around me, my body just lost all strength. My breathing was out of control and I could feel my chest constantly pounding the ground.

“Kreh. Kreh. Kreh. Kreh. Kreh! Kreh!” I was dead, I just had no will to do anything anymore.

Uuuieagh, this is too much to expect. I just woke up! This is far to harsh fo—

“Gruh…” I heard a low growl

“…”

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I’ll be a good girl and stop complaining, so please, don’t find me! Please, don’t find me!

I closed my mouth, holding my breath in as much as possible until those things went away. Sadly, as you could expect, my body had no interest in doing that when I was running out of oxygen. My muscles needed it so badly, but I forced myself to reject taking in deep breaths.

Breathe in… breathe out…

I couldn’t stop myself from taking in air, but if I needed oxygen, I had to take them in slowly. I was a singer and dancer, knowing how to breathe was part of that foundation, and once I reminded myself of that, I even managed to slow down my rapid heart.

Breathe in… breathe out… breathe in… breathe out. Take small ones. Sync it up with the blowing wind…

I felt like a ninja. This anxiousness to not get caught was so similar to how I felt inside a stealth game, where it was game over if you couldn’t hide or sneak well enough. That was exactly how I had to treat this moment right now. If I fuck up, I lose. I lose, I die…

<Acquisition requirement fulfilled. [Stealth Lv. 1] acquired>

… That startled me. Was that just a voice talking in my head? Wait, have I heard it somewhere before? Nevertheless, imagination or not, there was a time and place for everything, and I certainly do not need to think about that right now.

All of this can be pondered on later. For now, I need to stay quiet…

---

Some time went by. The tenacity those fur kids showed forced me to stay in stealth mode until the sky began to turn orange. In this time, curiosity replaced some of my fear, prompting me to sneak a look at my pursuers. Aside from the fur around their bodies and their primitive clothing, what I also learned was that they had dog-like heads. Fortunately for me, they didn’t have a dog’s sense of smell.

After they left, I finally had the chance to relax. My four legs became cramped after staying in the same pose for who knows how long after running so much. Warning, after you warm yourself up, don’t just sit or lie down without doing anything. It huuuuurts.

Still, since I was scared of moving out of this bush right now and had full interest in taking a rest after that marathon, now was the time to organize my thoughts. So, to start off—

<Proficiency requirement fulfilled. [Stealth Lv. 1] evolved into [Stealth Lv. 2]>

Yeah, that voice appeared again while I was in stealth mode, but this time, I made a mental note of what it said. Now, the question was, how the hell do I make sense of this?

Like, it appeared when I was hiding in the bush and mentioned something about a fulfilled requirement, right? That weird, robotic voice echoed inside my mind as that sentence appeared inside my mind like an image.

And then, I received this second message. [Stealth]? Why was it in brackets? Why did it have “Lv. 1” and “Lv. 2” behind it? Those messages almost sounded like an admin or system announcement to inform players inside an MMO — a Massively Multiplayer Online game. In that case, is this [Stealth] a skill or perk?

If so, then I guess the monotonous voice announcing this “skill” acquisition should be a so-called System Voice? I mean, I don’t know how it’s actually called but giving out names to unknown things would make it more convenient to address.

Coincidentally, that made this whole reincarnation idea more plausible, or maybe I was stuck inside a VR world. Who knows? Regardless, if I continued going with this thought, then there should be a way to observe my collective information, right? Like my skills or even status? The question is, how do I open it?

Making a sound isn’t smart. I don’t know what’s outside this bush.

With that option thrown out, the only way forward was doing it inside my head. Hmm, let’s begin with some simple commands first.

Status window, open. Nope.

Character window, open. Nah.

How about just — Status! Nein.

Open the windows to my character information, please? Rejected.

Window? Denied.

Welp, I could continue doing this as often as possible. Haaaaaa, profile, maybe?

_________________________________

Name: *    Level: 0   Race: Dragon Hatchling

Age: 0 Month

Status:    Health: 26/30    Mana: 47/80

Strength: 10    Intelligence: 6

Vitality: 4    Wisdom: 5

Agility: 16    Stamina: 0/12

Effects: [Exhaustion (Minor)]

Skill Points: 0

Skill:  Magic skills and related:

[Mana Control Lv. 1] [Holy Magic Lv. 1] [Primal Magics]

Senses and movement skills:

[Stealth Lv. 2]

Spell List: Holy spells:

[Minor Heal]

Other spells:

[Shine]

Titles:  [The Light] [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] [Otherworldly Reincarnator]

_________________________________

O-Oh shit, it worked! W-Woah.

A large blue image appeared inside my head. They weren't in front of my eyes, as I managed to prove by pushing my head closer to the ground. This blue screen of information was all in my mind.

As my gamer sense began to take over, I began looking through all the information inside this “profile,” noticing something about race there. Under the section “Race,” it stated that I was a [Dragon Hatchling]? A dragon hatchling?

I turned around to look at my body, noticing my bony legs, my smooth scales, and a twig of a tail. There was nothing draconic about me. I was a lizard, no, the lizards I saw on those docus looked intimidating with their sharp scales or spikes. I was a gecko! A pitiful-looking thing that wishes to be a dragon!

But do you know what was more outrageous than this? The fact that I was accepting this. The fact that my eyes were also drawn towards [Otherworldly Reincarnator]. The fact that I might actually have died and been reincarnated in a fantasy world with geckos as dragon whelps! I could laugh right now!

Like hell! Wake up!

“Kuighhh…!” I held onto my denial. I wanted it to be a dream so badly that I bit my right arm… right front leg.

<Acquisition requirement fulfilled. [Pain Resistance Lv. 1] acquired>

<[Bleeding (Minor)] inflicted on [Dragon Hatchling *]>

Profile!

_________________________________

Name: *    Level: 0   Race: Dragon Hatchling

Age: 0 Month

Status:    Health: 18/30    Mana: 48/80

Strength: 10    Intelligence: 6

Vitality: 4    Wisdom: 5

Agility: 14    Stamina: 0/12

Effects: [Exhaustion (Minor)] [Bleeding (Minor)]

Skill Points: 0

Skill:  Magic skills and related:

[Mana Control Lv. 1] [Holy Magic Lv. 1] [Primal Magics]

Senses and movement skills:

[Stealth Lv. 2]

Resistances:

[Pain Resistance Lv. 1]

Spell List: Holy spells:

[Minor Heal]

Other spells:

[Shine]

Titles:  [The Light] [Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] [Otherworldly Reincarnator]

_________________________________

That bite is enough to make me bleed through those scales?! How sharp are my teeth?!

No, wait, calm down! This is all a dream. This has to be a dream! I don’t care if my Health drops down to zero ‘cause this is all just a dream!

<Health: 9/30>

… On the off-chance this wasn’t a dream, wouldn’t I be kicking the bucket again?

“…”

… [Minor Heal]. [Minor Heal]. Minor heaaaal. Oh scheiße, how do you use magic?!

The bleeding wouldn’t stop and I couldn’t heal myself with this “spell.” At this point, I was just too scared at what would happen if I let my Health drop down to zero. The unknown was scaring me. I must stop this bleeding.

Trying to remember what I learned during those first-aid lessons, I first applied pressure on my arm to staunch the bleeding before I grabbed a leaf from the bush using my mouth. Forcing down my tears, I wrapped this substitute bandage around the wound. With no thumbs, I had to rely on my tail and surprisingly flexible hind legs to help me out.

After I was done with the leaf bandage, I checked my profile once again, letting out a sigh of relief when the [Bleeding (Minor)] effect was gone. It was a bit inconvenient that the System wouldn’t announce when a status ailment disappeared, but, whatever. Crisis averted.

… I’m sorry, Mama and Papa. I’m so sorry… I-I don’t remember how I died, but it’s a fact I can’t deny anymore. I left before you guys. I always, always made you two worry about me and now this happened? I’m just the worst daughter ever…

To think that hurting myself was the way for me to finally accept the truth. Once I admitted to fearing my Health reaching zero, that was when I stopped denying this world and calmed down.

Of course, I didn’t want to accept this life. I didn’t want to accept this world? I wanted to go back to my parents and my comfortable silver spoon life. This was a terrible reality for me. I was ready to accept wetting my bed or whatever, but if I could send myself back to my previous life with my loving parents, I would do… anything.

It’s useless. Nobody can hear me. Argh, why? You two always have kept encouraging me whenever I failed an audition, and, holy shit did I fail a lot. Now, I even failed at living. I died as… a nobody.

…What am I doing? Shouldn’t my priority be fixing up a [Minor Heal], so I don’t die again? Yeah, let’s do this…

… From those initial tries, calling out the spell name wasn’t enough to activate it. Unfortunately, I tried calling up a manual or “Help” but the number of attempts got to the point where I gave up. Even calling the words inside the Profile didn’t give me any details. The amount of information I was given was pathetic. I wished I had something to appraise these skills and spells.

… Nothing? System Voice, this is the moment you throw me a bone and grant me something useful, you hear? Please? You have to give others manuals or instructions, otherwise, everybody would become as confused as I am.

It didn’t work, so I had to rely on brute forcing it at this point. If magicians have taught me anything, chanting was just part of the process.

Okay, here goes — I beg of you to heal these wounds. Minor Heal.

Next one — I am the source of the winds of magic. Hear me, and grant me your blessing. Minor Heal.

Expecting this to work using random words might have been too optimistic, but you can’t fault a depressed girl to try, right?

If that was the case, then let’s think about this properly. Some thinking time might actually be better for me than to continue feeling sorry for myself, and this might seem like the best way. Escapism in its fullest. Just this time, I was escaping into my Profile and a skill called [Mana Control].

I had this skill the moment I opened my status window but how did I gain it? Was I born with it? If so, how do I control mana then? I used up almost half of my total mana pool, but I also noticed that my current amount increased from 47 to 48. Did I regenerate some of it naturally? When did I use it in the first place

I had so many questions. This whole mana thing was turning into chocolate for me, and by chocolate, I meant make-me-feel-better drugs. So, let’s dig in.

---

Minor Heal! Oooooh, OOOOOH! Yes, yes, yes, yes, look at that light! Healing!

A mysterious white magic circle appeared above my hand and basked  my wound in soothing, dazzling light. As I took off my bandage, I noticed my wound closing up in real time, leaving no evidence of there ever being a bite mark. Not even a scar!

Looking at my profile, my Health filled up to 30. I was a cleric with this spell! No need to praise me here; I mean, I just learned how to use magic after just being born with it. I guess this was the benefit of being a dragon, huh? Even if I didn’t look the part.

So, to summarize for myself on how I made sense of this magic system. First things first, mana. What and how did I use it? From the look of it, that “feeling” I felt surging from my chest was exactly that. When I was trying everything out, I thought of summoning that feeling, only to learn that I was using up my Mana pool as I kept this feeling lingering around.

It was only then that I finally made any progress in my spell casting attempts. While having this feeling around, I wished for my wound to heal, at which point I felt my mana automatically moving towards my head.

Surprised, I stopped before anything happened. With renewed confidence, I tried this method again, only this time, I personally moved my mana towards my wound and that is where imagined [Minor Heal] healing my wound. When I did so, mana began leaving my body, and this weird white circle filled with symbols and stuff materialized.

And then, everything from them happened without any problems. I healed myself and I was so pumped I had to continue testing it. I began moving my mana around my body, from my head to my tail, learning that I could only conjure [Minor Heal] on a body part, since that was where I could guide my mana to.

A couple more pointers I received from these tests was that I didn’t need to cast the spell even if the magic circle was up. I could stop it and it would refund my mana. I also didn’t have to move the mana myself, it automatically did it when I imagined it. As if a System was controlling it, eh?

But, I stopped the moment I felt a headache. It seemed like overuse of mana wasn’t good for my body. It made me slightly light-headed, but nothing else.

In any case, it was surprisingly beneficial. Imagine, let mana form that magic circle, and then let it cast once it was full with mana and ready. If I follow these bullet points, I shouldn’t have any trouble in the future.

It sounded easy, but figuring that out without instructions was kinda annoying. It took me some time to figure out that good feeling I had inside that egg was actually my mana. Who could have possibly deduced that on the first day of their life? Well, me, but I’m a dragon.

Still, it was a bit strange that I could do it so easily without an instructor. Was it due to me owning [Mana Control]? Do others have to learn it to first use magic? Well, not my problem, I’m a mage now.

Welp, that was a lot of fun. I even feel better now… If I stop thinking of my past life and my parents. Arck! Stop thinking! I’m hungry! Brain food. The hatchling demands food!

But nobody answered.

Now that I thought about it, I hatched out from that egg, right? So, that fluid thing was actually the yolk, the main source of nutrients for a growing lizard. The egg was strangely pretty large in comparison to me, so was I an early birth? Is the reason why I’m so small ‘cause of that?

Well, at this point, going back to it was impossible. I had no idea where I was and the sun was setting. I did drink some of that yolk before leaving my egg, but I had to find a different food source now, and that was when I saw berries in a nearby bush.

I was scared of leaving my safety bush, but I had to do something about this hunger. Babies shouldn’t go hungry. I could just make the berry bush my next safety bush.

Poking my head outside, I turned my head to every direction; left, right, up, down, up-left, down-right, and so on. Every angle that my head could turn to I checked. Better safe than sorry.

My body felt numb and exhausted from all that running and sitting around hungry didn’t help my muscles adjust. I couldn’t afford to flee, again. So, channeling my mana into my legs, I quickly crawled over to the bush like a gecko, checked if anybody was inside it, and jumped right into it when the coast was clear.

I need to build up my stamina, again. Dancing would be impossible if I can’t breathe after two minutes.

Making myself at home here, I looked up at the berry — on closer inspection, these berries were huge in comparison to me. I probably should get used to that.

I climbed up along a branch to the berry using my flexible gecko body, only noticing when I stood right in front of it that it was a gigantic strawberry. It was large than the rock those dog-head kids threw at me.

Being tiny suckssss…

I grabbed the strawberry, having made up my mind to feast. I immediately dug my tiny teeth into the berry’s skin, easily piercing it. I slowly began sucking out the sweet oozing juices to quench my dry throat, before tearing a chunk of its flesh off.

Chewing the soft interior, my reptilian tongue waved around happily as it enjoyed every single crunch. Gulping it down, I felt a warm sensation inside my stomach, praising me for a job well down. I knew my stomach wanted to continue eating but I couldn’t help but let out a sigh in relief.

… Delicious.

---

Author Notes: That is all for the first day. Thank you guys for your interest! I'll be posting more chapters on the next day, but if you cannot wait, over 300 chapters can be read over on Royal Road. Still, I will be slowly posting more and more, until Dragon Idol on Scribble Hub catches up to Royal Road. Hope you guys will follow our little dragon!