Dragon Chapter 5: The Hunger Games (Patreon)

“A civilization built by higher life-forms does not necessarily possess higher morality.”

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At the very least, that “Council” which stood above all dragonkind had clearly never issued anything like a Hatchling Rights Protection Act or a Labor Protection Ordinance for Underage Dragons.

Noah knew that the only reason hatchlings like them were still allowed to exist was because they would become valuable assets.

The value they could create right now was still extremely limited, but once they grew up, they would become perfectly acceptable laborers and cannon fodder.

A good bargain, wasn’t it?

Noah forced himself to calm down, then watched as several neat openings slid open in the ceiling above the room, and huge funnel-like devices slowly descended.

A moment later, a large quantity of mixed material poured out.

This was what passed for feeding time.

There was no lively prey or carefully cut chunks of meat as one might imagine, only large amounts of dull gray, sharply edged blocks mixed with some dark-red gelatinous matter whose original form was impossible to make out.

More pathetic still, even this synthetic food was limited.

Only the strongest could arrogantly enjoy the best portions; those a tier below would divide the leftovers, and what remained at the end were merely scraps torn to bits.

After all, dragons were hardy creatures. They could survive even by gnawing on dirt.

Noah heard his sister, along with the other hatchlings around him, begin to growl.

The Dragon Kings of the Council were raising them in a survival-of-the-fittest pit.

They needed Shudras that were stronger, swifter, and more vicious.

They did not even need to do anything special for it. All they had to do was gather dragon eggs from all over the world.

The instincts in their blood and the ferocity in their bones would drive these hatchlings to tear at one another with milk teeth, and to fight for every inch of advantage with their tender little claws.

They pawed, they bit, they shoved, they growled, and they even broke out into small, chaotic bloodbaths over larger chunks of “mineral” or extra portions of “meat jelly.”

A slightly more robust blue dragon rudely slammed a green dragon aside and gulped down the spoils whole. A black dragon, silent as ever, slyly swept an approaching white dragon off balance with its tail and used the chance to snatch the food from under the other’s claws.

Elsewhere, two red dragons bared their teeth at each other over a larger lump of meat jelly, claw-tips scraping against the other’s scales.

This kind of all-out melee ignited the chaos buried in the bones of the chromatic dragons.

Especially for red dragons.

The most “chaotic” creatures in the world.

Noah bit the tip of his tongue, and the sharp sting cooled his boiling blood a little.

He forced himself to resist the urge to rush straight into the center and plunder wildly.

That area was already almost entirely occupied by other red dragons. They were threatening one another, carving out territory, and beyond them were the blue dragons, who were already beginning to cluster together and cover one another. At a time like this, only they were fit to compete with red dragons for food.

A little farther out were green dragons, black dragons, shadow dragons, yellow dragons, and the like, all wary of one another yet unable to stop themselves from competing.

At the very edge were the white dragons, whose bodies were the smallest, whose movements were a little clumsy, and whose hisses sounded a bit lacking in confidence.

Noah badly wanted to eat the better food, but after a moment’s hesitation, he gave up.

People always said red dragons had magma in their heads and were absurdly thick-headed, but that view was obviously one-sided. Cunning was just as much one of our natural gifts.

Just as chaos was not stupidity, but rather a soul-deep contempt for order, rules, and restraint, along with the unreserved pursuit of one’s own desires.

Many red dragons, before they went charging in headfirst, would first assess the situation and their opponent’s strength like the shrewdest merchants alive.

When the gap in strength was too great, there was no shame in withdrawing for the time being, so long as one could claim it all back later with interest.

That was exactly what Noah was weighing now, trying to find a place where he could strike.

Strictly speaking, even a red dragon that had only just hatched was absolutely not some fragile “child.”

You could never call them weak, certainly not in comparison to the countless ordinary creatures of the world.

Even white dragons, regarded as the weakest and most savage among the five chromatic dragons, were only “weak” in relation to other dragons.

But Noah was different. His starting point was simply too poor. He and Quen were, in essence, two severely malnourished red dragons born with congenital defects.

Noah estimated that his fighting ability right now was probably only around the level of a dire bear or an ogre. Stronger than ordinary beasts and goblins, certainly, but he would struggle badly against a well-trained warrior or even a somewhat threatening spellcaster.

Which also meant that even against a white dragon, the odds would only be fifty-fifty.

But that was already the absolute lower limit.

He could not possibly go eat actual dirt.

Noah lowered his body, the fin-like membrane at his neck spreading slightly, his limbs gathering strength like a drawn bow.

His “dear sister” had obviously arrived at a conclusion similar to his.

She was more slender than Noah, and faster too, her movements carrying a kind of desperate ferocity.

The three white dragons nearby also noticed the new intruders. They temporarily stopped fighting among themselves, hissing threateningly and breathing out cold mist.

Noah had no interest in any sort of draconic “negotiation.” He simply slammed straight into the white dragon nearest him.

Amid a dull thud of impact and the rasp of scales scraping against each other, that white dragon staggered backward.

Quen seized the chance to bite down on the claw another white dragon had extended, forcing it back at the same time that her tail lashed out like a whip.

“Get lost! This is mine!”

Quen hissed thickly around the corner of the meat jelly held in her mouth.

“Dream on!”

Noah’s claws closed over that same piece of food. While preventing his sister from getting her way, he also kicked fiercely with his hind legs, driving the white dragon he had rammed even farther back.

The three white dragons were stunned by the sudden coordinated assault. In that brief moment of confusion, Noah and Quen each tore away an uneven portion of the food and retreated at once.

But the white dragons quickly recovered. Hunger and anger overwhelmed their slight instinctive fear of red dragons. Hissing, they closed in again, cold mist spilling from between their teeth.

Noah and Quen instantly pressed back to back, even though the posture filled both of them with discomfort and instinctive rejection.

But there was no other choice.

Knowing how to cooperate within limits was their only weak advantage for now.

Blue dragons revered strict social order and hierarchy. Green dragons excelled at schemes, calculations, and temporary alliances. Black dragons were solitary, and red dragons believed in the supremacy of strength and the self above all else. But at the very least, all of them understood some rudimentary form of “association,” “exchange,” and even “loyalty.”

Only white dragons had no understanding at all of what a companion even was. They were the loneliest of the chromatic dragons.

In their eyes, “goodwill” was something rare and difficult to comprehend. Other than themselves, everything else was either something to plunder or something to guard against.

The siblings held the food they had seized in their mouths and faced the three enemies, their slit pupils narrowing to the utmost, low warning growls rolling in their throats.

Noah suddenly stepped forward and spread his wings. Though a hatchling’s wings were still immature, they were enough to create intimidation and widen his defensive reach.

That made the white dragons hesitate for a brief instant.

Quen seized that instant. Her slender tail, like the hooked stinger of a venomous scorpion, lashed viciously across the snout of one white dragon from an oblique angle, striking where the scales were relatively thin.

The three white dragons pursued them for a few steps, but when they saw the united hostility radiating from the red dragon siblings, and then looked at the other chaotic battles around them and the dwindling food supply, they hesitated. In the end, they gave up the chase, turned away, and lunged toward weaker targets instead—or began fighting among themselves again.

The siblings quickly swallowed down the food they had managed to steal.

Noah extended his slender forked tongue and licked the scraps from the corner of his mouth.

“…It was only temporary cooperation.”

Quen did not answer immediately. She carefully licked the meat-jelly residue from her foreclaws, then slanted him a look with her golden slit pupils.

“…Mm.”

In the end, she merely let out a vague sound through her nose, which counted as acknowledging it.

That was right. Temporary cooperation.

Nothing more.