I'll Stop Regressing and Raise a Baby Dragon - Chapter 3

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

Chapter 3
Luke’s peculiar attitude had caught me off guard.
But once my mind began to turn, it worked faster than ever before.
‘Could it really mean… I might become family?’
If that happened, I’d have not just safety, but a guaranteed future.
I finished my thoughts quickly and pressed him with my answer.
“I know more about dragons than anyone.”
“How much more?”
“I’m confident I know more than anyone in the entire Empire.”
“And?”
“I’m quick to catch on, and I do what I’m told without complaint.”
……Strangely, I seemed to be emphasizing my role as a subordinate rather than as family.
“I see.”
But Luke appeared quite satisfied with my answer.
After gazing at a painting on the wall for a moment with a faint smile, he asked me a question.
“What’s your name?”
“It’s Eria.”
“Right, Eria. I am Luke Croiman.”
I already knew that.
But why was he suddenly asking these things?
“How old are you?”
“……I’m nine years old.”
“Can you read?”
“Yes, I can.”
“And writing?”
“I can do that too.”
“Well then, first… I apologize for playing such a cruel trick on you.”
A trick?
As I tilted my head, Luke said something laden with meaning.
“Seeing you reminded me of someone.”
There was longing written plainly in his eyes as he spoke.
“I was reminded of that person and acted toward you in ways I shouldn’t have. I apologize.”
……It was the first time in my life.
The first time anyone had ever apologized to me.
‘It didn’t feel bad, honestly.’
Not knowing what reaction to give, I simply sat in silence.
Then Luke gestured toward the door.
A gentle breeze stirred, and a bell chimed softly.
Before long, a man dressed in neat black clothing entered and bowed his head.
“You called for me?”
The Tower Master spoke to him with a composed expression.
“Ren, bring me the adoption papers.”
What?
……Could it really happen this easily?
The very proposal I’d thought was absurd, impossible?!
***
“Are you truly certain about this, sir?”
Ren, secretary to the Croiman Family, asked with a worried expression.
Luke replied as he handed over the documents.
“It’s hard to call it safe when we still haven’t found the cause of the Ambient Mana backflow.”
“Duke, of course that’s certainly an important matter to address, but what I meant to ask was…….”
“Ah, you mean about the girl.”
Luke, understanding his intention too late, emptied a second teacup before asking his question.
“What part concerns you?”
“A child of unknown origins who possesses a Dragon Egg—taking her into the manor as an adopted daughter. What if it’s a trap?”
At the secretary’s concern, Luke spoke without hesitation.
“If someone wanted to set a trap for me using a dragon, they’d need both vast wealth and considerable power.”
……
“There’s no chance that just anyone could do something even the Emperor cannot.”
“But it could be someone truly dangerous, not just ‘anyone,’ couldn’t it?”
“Not an uncontrollable dragon—a Dragon Egg. There’s no trap here to speak of.”
“But—”
“Even if it were a genuine trap, I wouldn’t fall for it so easily. Not now that I have the dragon.”
“……That much is true, I suppose.”
Ren, who had been wrestling with doubt, finally yielded to Luke’s logic.
It was common knowledge that a Dragon Egg, upon hatching, swore eternal obedience to the first being it encountered.
That phenomenon was called Imprinting.
No matter how wealthy a magnate or how mighty an emperor, they would never entrust a Dragon Egg to a Grand Mage like Luke merely to spring a trap.
It was no trap at all—it was a gift more precious than any jewel the world could offer.
“Still, was it truly necessary to adopt the child?”
If the goal was merely to obtain the egg, one could coax it or coerce it into one’s possession. Adoption seemed unnecessary.
From the brief conversation during the adoption proceedings, the girl had seemed quite sharp for her age, but she was still just a child.
“Even an innocent child may harbor unknowable depths.”
“The girl did strike me as unusually complex.”
“Precisely! So why did you adopt her into the household without hesitation?”
Luke answered Ren’s question slowly.
“Separate from the egg itself, she was a remarkable child. There was something about her—an unfamiliar quality.”
“Unfamiliar?”
“Something I can’t quite place. Whatever it is, it’s deeply twisted.”
Ren couldn’t make sense of it, but he nodded along anyway.
“It’s certainly not Ambient Mana, so then……”
‘There he goes, lost in thought again.’
Ren decided he needed to interrupt this internal deliberation and posed another question.
“Then wouldn’t it suffice to simply keep her nearby? Adoption hardly seems necessary.”
“That was……difficult to refuse, seeing her face.”
“……What on earth do you mean by that?”
As he listened, Ren found himself speaking with genuine bewilderment, unable to contain it.
Difficult to refuse? That made no sense.
This was a man who wouldn’t budge even for an emperor’s proposal, and simply turned him away.
From Ren’s perspective, it was incomprehensible.
“The more I looked at her, the more she occupied my thoughts.”
“Occupied your thoughts? About what?”
……
Luke fell silent.
But seeing his somber expression, Ren found himself thinking of one person.
Serena Croiman, the Duchess, who had lost her life in an accident years ago.
There was no one else who could stir Luke’s emotions and draw out his recollections like she could.
‘They don’t look alike at all, though? ……Wait, surely not.’
He quickly averted his gaze to the calendar.
‘Is it that the Duchess’s memorial day is approaching, leaving him with an empty heart?’
That thought, at least, gave Ren some measure of understanding.
It had been years since the Duchess had passed.
Yet that tragedy still pierced Luke’s heart like a blade.
Ren ultimately abandoned his line of questioning.
Whether the child took to the arrangement or not, once Luke had made his decision, Ren had no choice but to follow his judgment entirely.
Luke, lost in contemplation, gazed at his empty teacup before his eyes drifted to a portrait hanging on the wall.
Looking upon the radiant face of the smiling woman, Luke offered a gentle smile.
It had been the same when he first met her.
She too had possessed a confidence unfitting for her tender years.
An almost unnatural certainty in her every action.
And somehow, inexplicably, it had charmed him.
“The memory grows dim.”
Ren heard the murmur, but he did not press further.
The atmosphere had grown heavy in an instant.
The two of them turned their attention wordlessly to the documents before them.
Just as the awkward silence began to fade into something almost bearable—
“Oh, a terrible thing has happened!”
A maid from the Croiman household burst through the door.
Before Ren could even reprimand her for the breach in decorum, shocking words tumbled from her lips.
“The egg—the dragon is hatching right now! The young lady is asking for your help!”
Luke hurled the documents he’d been reading across his desk and bolted from the office.
***
“The egg, the egg—the egg is hatching, Duke!”
The moment Ren gasped, a sharp crack sounded, and the largest fissure in the shell gave way.
“Peep… peep-!”
A tiny black dragon chirped softly.
I exhaled deeply as I heard that precious cry.
It was a good sign—no sign of illness or weakness.
When I glanced sideways at Luke, he stood gaping, mesmerized by the sight of Kai.
Clearly, the moment was too extraordinary for him to process.
“Duke! This is no time to stand idle!”
Just as I thought one crisis had passed, Ren suddenly panicked and began shoving Luke toward Kai.
“Come now, come now—show yourself to the dragon! Before anyone else sees it, hurry!”
…What?
Don’t tell me she means Imprinting—the thing I know about?
“Wait, hold on—”
Before I could stop her, Luke hastily cleared the onlookers and stood squarely before Kai.
I found myself seeing him in a new light.
I’d thought him the type who’d stay calm even with a blade at his throat.
“Um, Duke. Please wipe Kai with this cloth. Then his eyes will open better.”
I handed him a clean cloth.
He took it and carefully wiped the damp-covered Kai.
After that, Luke persistently tried to meet Kai’s gaze.
For the Croiman Family, this would be an event worthy of history books.
Every time Kai turned his head this way and that, Luke followed to the end—and honestly, it was rather amusing.
The truth was, dragons don’t actually have anything like Imprinting.
“Is this enough?”
Once Luke’s gaze finally met Kai’s, he asked me.
I casually averted my eyes.
In all my previous lives, when I’d attempted Imprinting with Kai, had I looked like that?
‘Seeing it from someone else’s perspective is rather embarrassing.’
In the early stages of my Regression, I’d attempted Imprinting consistently.
But after I directly experienced Kai refusing to obey me unconditionally,
I’d learned with absolute certainty that Imprinting didn’t exist.
Still, I saw no reason to explain that to them, so I simply nodded.
Letting them believe it served my interests far better.
“Yes. Now Kai belongs to you, Duke. Though I do hope you’ll entrust Kai to me for the time being.”
“That won’t do!”
Before Luke could even respond, Ren cried out in alarm.

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