Ellis spent the remainder of the day interacting and taking care of the newborn.

At first, he was concerned. Ena did not have a mother, so there was no-one to feed her or provide her with milk. What could she eat? Was feeding her monster meat okay?

For a short while, this agonized him. Fortunately, he learned fairly quickly that dragon’s blood worked quite well as a substitute. The blood pool within the crater kept her satiated. In fact, Ena acted as if she could not get enough of the stuff.

Ellis felt immensely thankful to the idiot dragon that had attacked him.

Like that, fifteen days passed.

In that time, he noticed a few things.

The constant monster attacks that once plagued his daily life had abruptly stopped. Rather, not a single one of those bastards showed up after Ena’s birth. Concurrently, the uncomfortable throbbing from before also ceased.

Without a doubt, both of those things were related, if only indirectly so. More importantly, they were connected to the much larger mystery involving Ena’s miraculous gestation.

Ellis had a few theories of his own, but theories were just theories. Now that everything had come to pass, there was really no point in worrying about it any longer. Thus, Ellis decided to bury the mystery in his heart and look forward towards the bright future.

Throughout the following weeks, he played with Ena and familiarized himself with her presence.

Ena was a rather unique existence. Rather than a newborn animal fresh from the womb, she acted more like a five-year-old human child, intelligence and all. In fact, in some respects, she was a lot smarter than most children.

Was such a thing normal for Lull, or was Ena truly so amazing? To Ellis, who lacked the proper common sense of this world, this became another ‘mystery’ that he subsequently ignored.

In any case, taking care of Ena was a lot easier than he originally expected. At first, he was seriously afraid. After all, he had never taken care of another living thing before, much less a baby. Luckily for him, Ena was an obedient and sensible child.

Sometimes, rather than Ellis taking care of her, it felt as if she was taking care of him.

****

Today was another peaceful day.

Ellis sat on a large rock by the lagoon. A contented sigh leaked out from his slightly parted lips.

His eyes stared out into the distance. Ena was playing near the surroundings. Right now, she was chasing after something that resembled a butterfly, except this thing had three sets of wings instead of the normal two. Occasionally, she would let out soft cries of excitement, or barks of agitation, the latter of which only happened whenever the butterfly flew too high for her to catch.

A slight smile formed on his face. For a moment, he wondered whether this was how parents with obedient children felt.

In the midst of his reverie, Ena let out another cry. “Kyu!”

He looked up just in time to see the little fox trotting towards the crater. Without hesitation she dove head first into the hole, disappearing from view. A few minutes later, she jumped back out with a look of dissatisfaction.

Ellis noticed that the corners of her jaws were stained with red.

Ena walked up to him and nuzzled his leg. She let out a soft whine as she hopped into his arms.

“What’s wrong? Did it finally run out?” Ellis asked as he wiped her mouth with the palm of his hand.

She nodded. He could clearly see the sadness reflected in her eyes.

Ena was a rather voracious eater. Whenever the urge (hunger) struck, she’d jump straight into the pool and absorb some blood. She did this repeatedly throughout the day.

Unfortunately, her luck finally ran out. Today, the blood pool ran out of blood.

With a certain fox still within his arms, Elis walked over to the edge of the crater. Peering inside, he couldn’t help but sigh. “It really is all gone.”

The basin in the ground that was once filled to the brim with dragon blood was now no more. In its place were patches of cracked and barren earth.

To his surprise, even the dragon’s corpse looked as if it had been completely drained. Right now, only a withered husk of scales and bones remained.

“With this, it’s finally time for us to move on.” Ellis lightly stated.

In truth, this was something that he had postponed for quite some time now. His original plan was to take Ena with him and climb over the rock wall. The only reason why he persisted till now was because of Ena. She wanted to absorb all the blood before they left.

With all of it gone, there was nothing else stopping him from moving on.

As for the fox herself, she resembled a grieving mother. It was a pitiful sight that showcased the absolute gluttony of his little companion.

After whining for a few seconds, Ena suddenly jumped out of his arms and ran towards the dragon’s corpse. She yanked out a protruding scale from the ground and abruptly started eating. Loud crunching noises echoed through the forest.

“…”

This brat, she was boldly eating a dragon scale.

According to the basic knowledge of high-fantasy worlds that he picked up after reading tons of trashy web novels, dragon scales were supposed to be precious ingredients. They were the types of things that the Hero goes out and searches for in order to create the ultimate demon-king slaying superweapon.

Was a dragon scale really something so cheap that Ena would freely eat it like some sort of afternoon snack?

Ellis narrowed his eyes. The look of sadness was still written all over her face, but for some reason, she looked a tiny bit less sad now.

“You can even eat scales?” He asked in surprise, but Ena ignored him.

After a while, Ellis picked up a scale and rolled it around in his hands. It was deceptively heavy. The scale was about the same size as a notebook. It was symmetrical and possessed a shape similar to a lopsided rhombus.

Looking over at Ena, she looked as if she was eating a biscuit rather than something as hard and sturdy as this rock of an item.

“Is it really that good?” he asked again, and again, Ena ignored him.

“…s-should I?”

Curiosity got the better of him. Ellis gingerly placed the edge of the scale into his mouth.

At this point, Ena finally looked up. She stared at him with curiosity-laden eyes.

He hesitated for a long time, before he finally took the plunge and bit down. As expected, the scale was hard. It did not break at first. The problem was with his teeth. Human teeth were not designed to break through something as hard and sturdy as a dragon scale.

In the first place, humans were meant to eat things like meat and vegetables. Eating a scale was comparable to eating the plate that delivers the food.

He was about to stop when he suddenly noticed Ena’s expectant gaze.

“…”

“…”

The two stared at each other for a long time, before Ellis let out a silent sigh. He gathered his courage and bit down once more. This time, he applied as much force as he could possibly muster.

CRUNCH!

A satisfying crunch echoed through the forest. He successfully broke a piece off from the scale. He began chewing. Crunching noises continually rang out. It was a sound reminiscent of someone gargling rocks. Considering the situation, that sort of comparison wasn’t all that far off.

After a while, Ellis swallowed the contents in his mouth.

“…this sort of thing…it’s not as bad as it looks.” He muttered to himself.

A dragon scale, the consistency of it was comparable to rice crackers, except, just a little bit harder. As for the taste, well it was a difficult taste to describe. It was certainly unlike anything he had ever tasted before, but one thing was clear, it was definitely ‘not bad’.

While he was lost in thought, Ena suddenly ran up to him. She carried another scale in her mouth. The scale in question was different from the one he had just eaten. This one was smaller, and its color was somewhat yellowish. Ena nudged his leg.

“What? You want me to try that one too?”

She nodded.

“Is it tastier than the other one that I just ate?” This time around, Ellis was not so repulsed by the thought of eating dragon scales.

Ena nodded again.

Seemingly convinced, Ellis took the scale, broke a piece off with his otherworldly strength and popped it into his mouth like he was eating popcorn.

“Hmm… certainly, it has a different taste.” Again, it was a hard to describe flavor. If he had to say anything, then the yellow scale was somewhat milder than the first one (green scale). Still, it was difficult to properly gauge with only one piece.

“Then, one more…” He broke off another piece and popped it into his mouth.

A peculiar taste spread through his tongue. When he eventually swallowed, he let out a satisfied smile.

“…Still not enough, just one more should be good…” Again, he ate another piece.

Before he even realized it, Ellis had eaten the entire scale.

He let out a loud burb and rubbed his stomach in satisfaction. “To think that the first thing I’d eat in this new world that doesn’t make me feel like shit would be a dragon scale… the universe works in mysterious ways.”

It was still definitely a weird experience, but then again, he was a homunculus hanging out with a nine-tailed fox. His whole situation was weird.

“Well, should we take these scales with us?” He turned to Ena and asked. She nodded eagerly.

“Alright then, let’s get to work.”

Ellis then proceeded towards the corpse and began peeling off all the scales. The end result was a completely naked husk of a dragon and two distinct piles of ‘loot’. The first pile was of a green color. From a distance, it looked like a stack of jades. The pile was almost as tall as he was and several times wider. In comparison, the second pile was more of a pale yellow. It was a third of the size as the first, but nonetheless just as valuable.

Two piles, two different types of scales. The former were the scales that covered the majority of its flesh while the latter were the scales that made up its underbelly.

He looked at the piles with a frown on his face.

“I didn’t think about this sooner, but just how the hell are we supposed to carry this?” Ellis felt troubled. Ena also felt troubled. Naturally, it was impossible to carry all this with just his arms. Even if Ena helped, it was still impossible. After all, this was a matter that could not be dictated through sheer strength alone.

Should I peel the dragon’s hide and use it to make a pouch? The only problem with that idea is that I have no clue how to do that.

“Argh, just thinking about it gives me a headache. In the end, it looks like we’ll have to give up on this idea.” Ellis shook his head in disappointment.

“Kyu!” Ena noticed the severity of the situation and suddenly beckoned him towards her.

Ellis knelt down in front of her and, “Oh?”

The little fox suddenly patted his shoulder with her paw. She struck out her chest and confidently made a pose as if to say, “Leave it to me!”

Just before he could ask, Ena abruptly ran towards the lagoon and jumped into the water.