I'm Not an Earthworm, I'm an Earth Dragon

“God’s blessing? What are you talking about? All I see is mold and ruins. That can’t be a blessing.”

It wasn’t the first time Akash had said something strange, but this one was so blasphemous that it wouldn’t be surprising if he were struck by lightning.

“Myungho is right. Where are the blessed believers here? It’s all just mold. You can’t just guess like that when you don’t know.”

Yuna also chimed in, denying Akash’s claim as if it were absurd.

“That’s why the uneducated… The believers are what you’re stepping on right now. The floor, the walls, and the things covering that lizard’s fountain.”

“…The mold? No, seriously, don’t joke. No god in the world would turn their believers into mold. That’s blasphemy. I won’t be responsible if you get struck by lightning.”

I didn’t want Akash to suddenly die from divine punishment, so I gave him serious advice. However, he laughed it off, saying that would never happen.

“You don’t get punished for that. At least not unless you directly insult them by mentioning their real names.”

“…Why do you know so much…?”

Akash brushed that part aside and told me to think carefully with my small brain.

“Even if you don’t have the same brain as me, you have the same eyes. Try to remember what you saw with those eyes. Have you seen anything broken here besides the castle walls? Even one thing. Everything was working fine, right? Why is everything fine when no one is managing it?”

That… was certainly strange. Even though no one was managing it, the fountain was fine. The furniture in the house where the mold was trying to attack Altera was fine.

It would make sense if it were a blessing, but the mold was incomprehensible.

“Why don’t you just tell me? I don’t know, so I’d like you to tell me what the connection is between this place being fine and the mold.”

“Yes, I expected too much from you. To put it simply, the fools in this country preserved themselves like these buildings and fountains.”

What Akash said was hard to believe. He said this place originally worshipped the god of preservation, and when he visited before, the king asked Akash what he thought about asking the god to bless them with the same blessing he had given to the buildings.

Akash advised him to reconsider, but it seemed he didn’t listen.

The problem was that the blessing of preservation only applied to inanimate objects, and the result of forcibly applying it to living things was this mold.

“How could that fainthearted woman refuse such a proposal? When they begged so earnestly, she must have granted it. What a fool. At her level, the best she could have done was to preserve their souls. To do that, she had to dismantle the bodies that bound their souls. Well, that’s the whole story of the mass disappearance.”

So, what we’re stepping on was once people’s bodies…? I looked at the campfire Altera had made. She definitely put some mold in there.

I felt sick.

“What, did burning humans as fuel make you sick? Good, that means you still have enough humanity left to lose. By the way, forget about helping these things. There are too many of them, and we don’t have time. Above all, they should pay the price for their greed.”

Akash laid down his sleeping bag, saying he had seen something unnecessary because of the worm, and Yuna also looked around uncomfortably, but she sat down by the campfire, saying it was a relief that we found Altera.

Altera had also finished washing and was sitting by the fire, wringing out her hair and drying herself.

Come to think of it, I’ve never seen her without that fur pelt. It was as if it were a part of her body, never once removed, which made me curious.

Was it really a part of her body, or was she just wrapping it for some reason?

I carefully pushed the mold aside with my feet to make a path and approached Altera. She only noticed me when I got close.

She must be really weakened. It wasn’t strange since I saw firsthand that she couldn’t even deal with that mold monster properly.

She took off her cloak and wiped herself as if it were a towel, looking at me with a dubious expression. As if she were about to ask what I was doing here.

“I’m not trying to disturb you. I just have a question. That… Altera. Is the fur pelt around your neck… your body?”

It was just a question to divert my attention from the truth that the mold was once human, but the more I thought about it, the more curious I became.

What was her true identity? It didn’t seem like it was her body since she didn’t have scales when she went berserk. But it could be like hair.

Questions beget questions. As I stared at the fur pelt with endless curiosity, Altera hesitated as if she were troubled, then came closer and whispered in my ear.

“…I can’t tell you here. Come here.”

Before I could even recover from the sudden whisper, she told me to follow her and headed to a building far from the campfire.

I knew why she was doing this. She probably didn’t trust the others yet, so she was only telling me. That was all.

But wasn’t she being too unaware?

I shook my head to clear my strange thoughts and followed her. The moonlight softly reflected off the egg, illuminating her brown skin.

“Did anyone follow us?”

I nodded at her anxious question. Akash was lying down and sleeping, and Yuna was checking the condition of her arm.

She looked relieved, carefully put down the egg, pulled the fur pelt, fiddled with it as if operating something, and then took it off more carefully than ever before.

“First of all, this isn’t my body. I wear it to hide my weakness. So… this.”

She turned slightly, swept her hair aside, and showed me the back of her neck. I almost turned away from the unbearable stimulus, but seeing what was on the back of her neck made my strange thoughts disappear.

“…Scales? That’s your weakness…?”

Unlike the other scales, there was an inverted scale. It reminded me of an inverted dragon scale.

“…Yes. If I’m attacked here, I’ll just collapse no matter what. Only you can know this, okay? I’m telling you because I trust you.”

That makes it more burdensome. I just asked because I was curious about the fur pelt, but now I suddenly knew her most important secret.

“Ah, I understand. Then… get some rest today. You must be tired like everyone else. Yuna and I will take turns keeping watch.”

Altera put the fur pelt back on, said okay, picked up the egg, and left the building.

I knew she only trusted me. But this inevitably made me have strange thoughts.

I shook my head to dispel the vain fantasies and headed back to the fountain.

Akash was already snoring away. This egg… he should be the one to cook it, right?

I told Yuna that I would take the first watch. She asked me to wake her up around the middle and went into her sleeping bag.

It was a bit early to sleep, but everyone was tired, and there were no animals here, so they were probably trying to sleep while they could.

Altera also curled up and was fast asleep, breathing softly.

I had always thought of her as strong and aloof. But that wasn’t the case. Even she had weaknesses and wounds.

She wasn’t just a beautiful and fierce savior who made my life easier in this world, but a wounded girl who had nothing but her strength to rely on.

Tomorrow, she would return to her usual self. An all-powerful problem solver who could solve anything with a flick of her wrist without batting an eye, leaving no room for me to intervene.

Hmm.

I knew it was an absurdly arrogant thought, but I couldn’t help it after seeing her cry.

I wanted to bring happiness to that face.

Maybe it was because I was alone at night, but I kept having these silly thoughts. I thought I had stopped having these thoughts in high school.

I pushed some firewood into the campfire, and the night grew deeper.

– – – –

My eyes shot open without anyone telling me to.

Normally, my body wouldn’t feel this uncomfortable even if I slept on a stone floor, but maybe it was the aftermath of laying the egg, but my whole body felt stiff. As I twisted and stretched, Yuna greeted me good morning.

“Did you sleep well?”

I could understand her even if she didn’t speak so slowly. Once I learned something, I rarely forgot it.

“I shlept well.”

I greeted her good morning as I had learned. Yuna smiled wryly, said “shlept,” shook her head, and then said “slept.”

No, I said slept.

Perhaps the sound woke him up, Myungho rubbed his eyes and got up. And as soon as he did, he corrected my pronunciation.

“You need to roll your tongue a little less there… Yawn…”

Still half-asleep, he washed his face with water from the fountain, yawned loudly, and then sluggishly shook Akash awake.

Unlike Myungho, the mage immediately came to his senses as soon as he woke up, tearing off a bunch of mold and throwing it into the fire, taking out cooking utensils from his bag.

“Come to think of it, you said the lizard laid an egg. Good, let’s eat that for breakfast. I wonder what a half-dragon’s egg tastes like. Hey, translator hero. Tell her to give me some eggs. By the way, is it an egg? Hmm. It’s too early to conclude with only one example, but… I’ve gained knowledge.”

Judging by what Akash said while looking at my egg, he must be asking for it.

I sat in place and held the egg firmly with both my hands and feet. Then, I used the blade on my tail to forcefully strike the shell.

“Ah, Altera?! Is that right?!”

Myungho was startled, and Yuna also watched me crack the egg with wide eyes. Only Akash looked on with an interested expression.

“This is right.”

“I was wondering if I should crack the shell with magic, but is that how you do it?”

The mage was heating oil in a pan over the fire. As I continued to strike with the blade, it started to crack little by little.

My tail hurt, but it tasted good, so I could endure this much. I patiently continued to strike the shell, making a round hole.

Then, I carefully lifted it over the pan, flipped it over, and poked the membrane with the tip of my tail.

The contents poured onto the already heated pan, making a delicious sound.