Poor Noble Nord’s Adventure

Prologue

Nord was in the darkness.

A heavy atmosphere dominated the space, making it hard to breathe.

Where is this place?

He couldn’t see anything through the darkness.

Feeling a vague sense of unease, Nord walked forward in the dark.

However, no matter how far he went, his anxiety didn’t lessen; instead, his fear of the dark only grew deeper.

He felt something creeping up behind him.

Something unseen seemed about to crawl out from the darkness, and Nord broke into a run.

──Hah, hah, hah.

Sweat poured from Nord as he dashed through the dark,

yet it wasn’t just from the running.

What… what is this place?

No matter how far he ran, he couldn’t get anywhere.

Nord’s anxiety about the darkness had already morphed into terror.

He was too scared to look back.

Wasn’t there some terrifying monster, mouth agape, right behind him? That feeling seized his mind.

Now, he felt something like warm breath grazing his spine.

No, no, no!

Driven by fear, Nord pushed his legs to move faster.

His heart pounded, threatening to burst.

Still, he kept running.

──If I can just make it this far!

How long had he been running?

Nord suddenly stopped and turned back sharply.

Only the endless darkness stretched before him.

“Heh…”

There was nothing there after all.

Wiping his sweat-soaked chin with his arm, Nord felt the fear from moments ago vanish as if it had never existed.

What was he even running from?

Feeling relieved, he felt his legs grow weak.

“Woah…”

As he tried to regain his balance to avoid collapsing, he staggered back a few steps.

At that moment,

Thud!

Something struck his body.

What was it?

Turning around to see, there it was—

the terrifying head of a green-scaled dragon.

“…Ah… Huh?… Ru-Run…!”

Thick, rocky scales, golden eyes. Its narrow, slit pupils fixed on Nord.

This sudden encounter stopped Nord’s thoughts.

Paralyzed like a frog before a snake, his body froze. Yet, whether from instinct or his experience as an adventurer, he soon began to move to flee. But,

“GYAOOOOO!!!!!”

The dragon opened its jaws, full of savage teeth that looked ready to crush him in an instant, and let out a brutal roar.

The thunderous sound struck him at such close range that his body stiffened, unable to move.

The dragon’s gaping mouth, filled with sword-like fangs, drooled. The red depths of its mouth seemed to lead into darkness.

──Death.

That’s what Nord imagined.

The fear he’d thought gone now swelled many times over, and then…

“GUAAAAAA!!!!”

As the dragon’s jaws loomed toward his face, Nord couldn’t help but scream.

“Uwaaahhhhhh!!!!”

§

“──Aaaahhhhh! … Huh?”

Before he realized it, a scream had slipped from his mouth.

Where was he? Before the question fully surfaced in his mind, the answer appeared.

In Nord’s view was the familiar sight he always saw.

The ceiling of his own room at the Ferris house, its wood grain patterns deeply ingrained in his memory.

“…A dream, huh…”

Muttering softly, Nord felt a weight on his chest.

He lowered his gaze from the ceiling to the wallpaper, then to his chest.

There, he saw a small mound-like shape.

“… … …”

Silently, Nord pulled back the blanket.

There, resting on his chest, was a young dragon, snoring softly.

So that nightmare was its doing.

Nord glared at the young dragon, blaming it for the dream he was already starting to forget.

No wonder he’d had a nightmare; the little dragon, making itself at home on his chest as if it were a bed, was already as large as Nord’s torso.

Covered in scales, it was a flying dragon, so besides its flight ability, it had scales, armor, and the muscle to support all of that, making it heavy.

The sleeping young dragon weighed about the same as the armor Nord used.

With such a weight on his chest, no wonder he’d had a nightmare.

Nord took a deep breath, as if preparing for a dragon’s roar.

“──Newt!!!”

Nord’s shout echoed throughout the room.

Startled by the loud voice from its favorite sleeping spot—Nord’s chest—the young dragon, called Newt, shivered awake.

Half-opening its sleepy eyes, under green scales, it saw Nord’s angry face.

Overjoyed to see its favorite person, it remembered where it was.

It goes without saying that from Nord’s mouth came a scolding.

The morning sunlight streaming in through the window gleamed as it reflected off Newt’s deep green scales.

§