A while ago.
"Hah... I can't."
Kael sighed and stood up.
He, who could finally hear people talk, and talk to them, couldn't stop himself from hearing their talks.
He wanted to hear what they were talking about. He was too curious to not follow them back to where they came from.
After all, now, he was certain that there were more than dumb beasts in this world.
Of course, the condition of not wanting to look desperate was still on, so he decided to move quietly.
But then he noticed something—his weight.
No matter how much of his mana he reeled in, his weight was still the same. Just walking normally would make a sound, so how could he go to them silently?
'Could I perhaps reduce my weight?' He wondered, trying to make himself light.
He imagined himself like a feather, light and quiet, and the next second, his mana swirled again.
Woosh!
The mana flow made the wind blow, leaves of the crooked tree falling into the lake, and by the time it settled, Kael found his body light enough to hop around without making a sound.
No, his weight didn't lessen—it vanished.
As he stared at the crater formed beside the tree due to his weight, he sighed, wondering why he never thought about this before.
Now, when he looked at his status window, he saw another skill added to his skill set.
It was called Weightless Grace, going after the image he had imagined when the skill was made.
With a single step, he reached the location where humans were without a sound.
They remained oblivious to his presence as his mana was always concealed, and now, even his movements were silent.
It seemed like an impossible thing, but it was happening.
But soon, he heard their talk.
'...What?'
Kael's expression froze.
As they went on, he just stared at them.
He wasn't close to them—far from it. He had only talked to them once. So, the feeling of betrayal never came.
But there was anger.
He was angry with himself.
He was a fool to believe that anyone who talked to him was a friend. He shouldn't have behaved chummy with them.
Maybe that made him look weak.
Now, they were planning to kill him.
Of course, they weren't nearly strong enough to do that, but thoughts matter.
The moment they had thought about harming him, they had turned from friends to food.
They were no longer useful to him alive.
It took him less than a second to calm down, not seeing the humans as living beings anymore.
In his eyes, they had already been digested.
'Now that I think about it, I never ate a bipedal species.'
It was then that the leader spoke.
"Let's go kill that dumb chimera now—"
And Kael, hearing those words, feeling annoyed at being underestimated, cut him off with a growl.
"Kill who?"
The air shifted as his words fell.
He stopped using Weightless Grace, and even with his mana concealment still on, the air around him inadvertently turned heavy.
To the humans, who saw Kael as a harmless dragon, now, he looked like a monster draped in shadows.
His scales gleamed with a dark light, swallowing the light of the surroundings and the surroundings dim.
Unlike before, when he was afraid that standing up might scare the humans away, he now stood straight, the trees looking small in front of him.
Even his wings, which he always kept folded, were spread slightly—not for flight, but to stretch—as if casting off an old disguise.
The golden eyes that had once glimmered with patience now gleamed with an ancient coldness.
They weren't beings to converse with anymore. They were food, and humans, looking into his eyes, could tell what he was thinking.
Soon, his long neck curved down, bringing his huge, horned head lower and his mouth parting just enough to reveal rows of cruel, saw-like fangs, ready to bite them off.
A low growl thundered from deep within his chest, rattling branches and shaking birds from the sky.
The temperature plummeted. Even the bugs stopped their ceaseless chirping.
Unlike the humans, they knew the terror of this black dragon.
They knew how strong he was.
The soldiers, on the other hand, stood paralyzed, their hearts pounding loud enough to be heard from the outside.
Then—
"Kill who?" Kael repeated, voice rumbling with barely restrained contempt.
The leader's jaw clattered as he tried to laugh. "H-hah! There he is! Just like I told you guys, huh? He was listening the whole time! I told you he would reveal himself if we acted like we were planning to kill him!"
He turned to the other humans mechanically, his eyes glaring at them, trying to make them understand the act, but the only thing those guys could hear were their heartbeats.
Seeing this, the leader's voice cracked as he turned back to Kael. "W-We were just acting, b-big boy. We pretended to leave, then jump out and—ha—ha—"
Kael, however, didn't blink. His expression didn't shift.
"Do you take me for a fool?" He asked.
The weight behind that voice almost made their knees buckle.
Now that he had stopped trying to be gentle, even his voice contained mana, attacking their mental defenses.
The leader swallowed. "No—no, of course not. You're—uh—you're too wise for that, of course. Just, uh, having some fun with the boys, you know? Morale and all..."
Kael's front foot stepped forward.
Boom!
The earth trembled under a single step, making the humans lose their footing and fall to the ground.
"I may lack memory," Kael said, his voice deeper now—raw, thunderous. "But common sense, I have."
In truth, even without common sense, he wouldn't have believed him when his instincts were literally telling him everything.
[The human's words are judged as a lie.]
It kept repeating the same line as if scared he would believe the guy.
The leader's false smile, however, crumbled. Panic writhed behind his eyes as he looked toward his men.
"W-What are you all waiting for?! Get him!"
He wanted to let them be his meat shield. Using whatever time he could get to run away from here.
After all, now that he had sensed a wisp of Kael's aura, he could tell he was no ordinary being.
But no one moved. They couldn't move.
Their fear made it impossible for them to move.
Every part of their brain screamed death the moment they thought about moving.
Right now, even breathing felt like a rebellion against instinct as sweat poured down their faces and fingers twitched near their sword hilts but refused to draw.
They all thought the same thing:
'Like heck that's an A-rank monster.'
This monster wasn't something they could even dream of defeating.
They shouldn't have gotten greedy.
"Y-You cowards!" The leader roared, taking a shaky step backward. "W-Why are you all so useless?!"
But just when he was thinking of another way, a shadow overtook him.
A claw, wide enough to flatten a small house, descended in a blur.
'Fuck—'
Crunch.
He couldn't even complete his thought as he died.
There was no scream or sound; just a wet explosion. Armor, bones, flesh—all pulverized in an instant.
A red smear marked where he once stood. The sword clattered aside, now twisted and unrecognizable.
The earth groaned under Kael's limb as he retracted his claw, shaking off the remnants like dust.
The silence that followed was suffocating.
One soldier's mouth trembled open, but no words came. Just the same thought repeated in his skull like a bell toll.
'Fuck... why did we mistake him as an A-rank?'
Then, Kael's eyes turned to them, hunger flashing past them.
"Shit..." One of them muttered as he looked at Kael's scaled maw, wide open, filled with fangs as big as their swords, moving toward them.
................................
Meanwhile...
Lyra, who was hidden in the brushwoods by the humans, bound to a tree trunk, stared at everything with wide, horrified eyes.
The humans were gone. Devoured.
Their bodies had been torn through like papers, limbs tossed and swallowed, blood soaked into the roots, and bones crunched like brittle sticks.
Kael didn't eat them like a starving beast—there was no frenzy in his actions.
He ate them as if they were nothing more than snacks.
The humans who were giving her a tough time, making it hard for her even to run, were now dead.
They died without resistance.
Her breath stopped as her legs refused to respond, frozen solid in horror.
This was the dragon her friend had told her about.
She could still remember her voice, hushed and trembling under the pale moonlight weeks ago.
"There's a dragon in that forest. You'll know it when you see him—black scales, eyes like burning suns. He can help you... if he wants to. But listen to me, Lyra—don't speak casually to him. Don't assume anything. He's not a pet. Don't anger him. Don't—"
Back then, Lyra had nodded, even scoffed a little in her heart.
How could she not? Dragons were either dead or myths.
Not this... godlike creature that consumed men whole.
Yet earlier, she had seen the soldiers speak to him.
Laugh with him.
Treat him like some naïve beast-child.
It had made her wonder, made her hope—perhaps her friend was mistaken. Maybe the dragon had changed.
Now, as she watched the red smear that once was a human melt into the earth, she realized just how right her friend had been.
Kael's wings twitched once, the motion stirring the trees, sending a wind that reached even her.
Lyra flinched, but it was already too late.
His head turned.
Those golden, slitted eyes cut through the forest, staring right at her despite her being hidden behind bushes.
Her breath hitched, her heart momentarily pausing.
Every inch of her screamed to run, but her body remained rooted.
Then she saw it.
A shadow moved—his claw.
It wasn't fast.
It seemed intentional.
Looking at the nearing claw, her lips parted, not to scream, but to beg, and still no sound came out.
There was no air left.
Only despair.