I'll Stop Regressing and Raise a Baby Dragon - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 1
“It’s gone! Where did it go?”
I pressed myself into the crevice of a large boulder, straining to hear the voices.
“Should we report it to the Magic Tower?”
“Are you out of your mind? Then we can’t keep it for ourselves! Stop thinking and go search over there.”
The man snapped in irritation at the woman’s words.
I hugged the egg in my arms tighter, drawing it deeper into my chest.
This was what those fools were after.
A Dragon Egg.
This black egg, the only one in the entire Empire, was encircled with an ornate golden rim.
Even to the untrained eye, it looked extraordinarily valuable.
I’d shown it off casually as I passed through the Alley, and true to form, the scent of money had drawn them in pursuit.
“You know, Kai, this time we might actually escape.”
I whispered softly to the egg in my arms.
Kai and I had been test subjects at a Secret Research Facility.
Through days filled with agony, we made a pact to escape together.
But escaping in a single attempt was impossible.
In the process, I lost my life.
Miraculously, I returned, and repeated escape and death countless times.
‘I know it’s a false hope.’
Yet what made this moment more desperate than any before
was that in five hundred cycles of this life, I had never orchestrated an escape quite this clean.
So I could never give up.
I had to use every card available to me and break free, no matter what.
In the end, I spoke the words I always said to Kai.
“Let’s escape for sure, and be happy. Both of us.”
As if answering my whisper, a tap-tap sound came from inside the egg, and cracks began to spider across its surface.
“……Gasp.”
‘It’s starting to hatch already?’
Startled, I carefully nestled the egg back into my clothes.
I’d expected hatching around this time, but the timing was terrible.
A Dragon Egg was something that would barely hatch even with optimal conditions and intensive care.
To hatch in such a wretched place as this was dangerous indeed.
There was nothing I could do about the panic.
I was on the run.
I checked my surroundings for any sign of pursuers.
Though they seemed distant, if two adults pursued me, they’d catch me at a distance right on the edge.
That was exactly right.
I slipped the egg into my clothes, squeezed out from the boulder’s crevice, and pushed rapidly through the forest.
How long had I run?
When my breath came rushing back to the tip of my chin,
“Stop right there!”
I heard the woman’s voice from behind me—the same one I’d heard before.
Bleh.
I smiled mockingly as I looked back at them, then spun around and ran again.
“Hey—you brat! Just wait till we catch you!”
Angry shouts came from behind—frustrated voices growing louder.
‘That’s right, scream louder. Let those farther away hear it too.’
The plan was flawless.
Full sprint in this direction for thirty seconds.
‘One misstep, one stumble, and it’s all over.’
It had happened in a previous life; I remembered it vividly.
Shiver.
Recalling that hollow death from back then, a lattice of goosebumps erupted across my entire body.
Never again would I make the same mistake.
In three seconds—two—one—now!
“Help me!”
The moment I spotted a narrow passage barely wide enough for two people to squeeze through, I hurled myself into it and screamed with all my strength.
And as I’d anticipated, the people I’d been looking for were waiting there.
Was this my three-hundred-and-fiftieth Regression?
I’d known that they would pass through here at precisely this hour.
“Ugh—argh! What the—you! Identify yourself at once… wait, you’re just a child?”
A man in a Mage Robe was startled by my sudden appearance and raised his Staff defensively.
But he quickly lowered it again, looking embarrassed.
There were three knights accompanying the mage in total.
All of them wore the Insignia of the Magic Tower on their left chests.
Just as I’d expected.
I trembled as much as I could, arranging my face into fear, and pleaded with them.
“P-please spare me. I beg you….”
The knight at the front knelt down to speak to me when—
“Hey, you there, stop! Right now—huh.”
The two people who’d been chasing me emerged from behind, but the moment they spotted the Magic Tower’s scouts, they froze.
They immediately bolted back into the forest.
The knight who’d been meeting my gaze exhaled lightly and spoke.
“Bring them back.”
***
“Commander, we’ve got them.”
“Good. You all investigate those two. I’ll handle the child myself.”
A female knight called the Commander walked toward me.
She knelt down as before and met my eyes.
I swallowed hard, taking her in.
‘Liliana Joren—Commander of the 2nd Knight Order of the Magic Tower.’
She was essential to my plan, and I needed to make a good impression.
“Child, where did you get that?”
Liliana pointed at Kai, which I’d hidden inside my clothes, and asked.
“It’s mine.”
“Those people said you stole it from them.”
I clutched the egg in my breast tighter, my voice wavering.
“I didn’t steal it. They’re mistaken.”
I hugged the egg with one hand and pointed at my pursuers with the other.
The two bound figures cried out at me in alarm.
“There’s no way someone like you is carrying something that expensive!”
I let my body shake as if terrified and shouted back at them.
“You didn’t even give me a chance to speak before you made scary faces and started chasing me!”
“What—so what! Do you have any proof you didn’t steal it?”
“Do you have any proof I did?”
“Tsk, come here, you brat. A kid with such a sharp tongue?”
The man snorted and advanced toward me menacingly.
Liliana stopped him, speaking firmly.
“I don’t know what you’re doing to a child. The threats I heard in the forest just now were considerable.”
“Th-that was because the kid was mocking us first….”
“How small must one’s heart be to be intolerant even toward a child?”
“This child isn’t just a child, Commander! She’s a thief!”
“I’ve no time for this. Take them away.”
The Magic Tower knights dragged the man and woman off.
Their indignant cries faded into the distance.
I swallowed my contempt for them and observed Liliana.
Just as my investigation had revealed, it was clear she had a particular weakness for children.
‘She lost a young daughter years ago, they say.’
It was likely because of that loss that she, once a knight of an ordinary count’s house, had transferred to the Magic Tower, which handled public safety and criminal investigations.
“If you tell me honestly, I won’t scold you.”
“….”
“Besides, the fact that you’re hiding it at all makes it clear something isn’t right, doesn’t it? You seem like a clever child.”
You understand what I mean.
At Liliana’s words, I let my gaze slip away slightly.
I turned my head this way and that as if reading her reaction, fidgeting with my fingers.
I made myself seem as pitiful and unfortunate as possible.
“I… I really, really won’t get in trouble, right?”
Liliana’s pupils trembled sharply.
She was visibly emotionally shaken—anyone passing by could have seen it.
‘The daughter I’d lost is said to be my age.’
Was I thinking of that child?
“Yes.”
At Liliana’s words, I carefully withdrew the egg I’d hidden inside my clothes and showed it to her.
Her eyes widened exactly as I’d anticipated, and shock painted her face pale.
“You… how do you have a Dragon Egg?”
Impossible.
At the commander’s murmur, I forced my expression into a contortion of distress.
I’d practiced the look of someone about to cry many times before; it ought to seem convincing enough.
“I just… this egg doesn’t have a mother or father either, and it seemed so pitiful… I wanted to help it, that’s all…”
“……”
“I don’t have a mother or father either, so… I felt like I understood how it must feel.”
“Wait, child.”
Liliana called to me but said nothing more.
She only pressed her head and exhaled deeply.
‘Right. You’d have a headache. Dragon eggs don’t just appear like this.’
Dragons lived on another continent entirely, after all, and weren’t easy to encounter.
“Child. Even if this isn’t your fault… I can’t help you with this.”
After a long moment of deliberation, Liliana spoke in a strained voice, lightly stroking my head.
“I have to take you to the Magic Tower Master. This isn’t something I can resolve on my own.”
“The Magic Tower Master?”
“A very, very important person. Even though they may seem cold, they’re a kind one, so don’t be too frightened when you meet them.”
Not that I didn’t know who the Magic Tower Master was.
But there was no particular reason to clarify, so I simply nodded.
Everything was going according to plan.
But the Magic Tower Master wouldn’t be easy to handle.
The real beginning would start from the moment I met them.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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