Reincarnated as the Strongest Dragon

Chapter 1: Awakening I

“There are two more coming from behind! We can’t take on four of them!”

Uhn… What?

“Just shoot them down!”

Wait, is someone talking to me?

“We struggle with two and you want us to take on four? Let’s retreat!”

Hmm… No, it sounds like someone is fighting.

“Wh… What the hell are you doing?!”

Why is it pitch black?

“Retreating as you wanted. Cover our retreat.”

Wait, what is this feeling? Am I buried under rocks? Did my damn cave collapse on me? And I didn’t even wake up?

“You bastard! You won’t get away with this!”

Let’s try and get up for now, it doesn’t feel like I’m buried that deep. Yeah this is fine, just have to shake off all this dirt.

“A D-Dr-Dragon?!”

Okay, let's take stock of the situation. A woman is on the ground protecting herself with an [Ice Barrier], four wyverns in the air looking at me cautiously and a whole bunch of dirt in my mouth. I guess I will start with the wyverns.

I cast [Lightning Spear] to conjure a dozen spears of lightning in an arc above my head that rapidly accelerated, piercing the wyverns in the blink of an eye. All four wyverns crashed into the ground some distance away from the woman.

“Hey,” I said, lowering my head to be about two meters away from where the woman was.

“...”

Huh, nothing? Can she not understand me? I swear I heard them speak the same language.

“Can you understand me?” 

She stared at me with a confused expression for a moment before regaining the ability to speak. “Uh, uhm, yes. Yes I can.”

“Oh Good. I see that you can use water magic. Could you conjure some water in my mouth? It appears a part of my cave collapsed while I was sleeping and now my mouth is full of dirt.”

“...”

“Hellooo?”

“Ah, yes, of course.”

I lowered my head to the ground and opened my mouth in front of the woman. It is probably a frightening sight considering I could swallow her whole so I must commend her for not panicking. I noticed the woman wince when she started pouring a stream of water into my mouth.

“Is this enough?” She asked while lowering her hands. 

I closed my mouth and shook my head back and forth before turning away and letting the water pour out. I felt around my mouth with my tongue a little before turning back.

“Ah yes that is much better thank you uhm… I didn’t get your name?”

“My name is Lizette but everyone calls me Liz.”

“A pleasure to meet you Lizette.”

“So, uhm, are you a dragon?”

“Isn’t that rather obvious?” I flexed my wings a bit. No matter how you looked at it I was a dragon, with a body covered in scales and a wingspan of roughly twenty meters. My scales were white like most of my body apart from some crimson red, mostly on my claws, tail and wings.

“Well, uhm, how do I say this? You don’t act like a dragon?”

“Have you met a lot of dragons?”

Lizette looked like she was about to say something but stopped and looked a little embarrassed. I saw the wound on her leg.

“You appear wounded, can you not use healing magic?”

“No, but I have some potions with me,” She said and started rummaging through her magic bag. 

I cast [Shift] which made my massive body shrink down to the size of a human, revealing a beautiful young woman with long white hair and eyes the same crimson red as my dragon eyes.

“Eeeh… W-what?” Liz looked at me with wide eyes.

I stood next to her and used [Greater Heal] to heal the wound on her leg and [Restore] to regain any lost blood. 

I should probably have done that earlier instead of making small talk. 

“...”

“Hellooo, is anybody home?” I put my head down in front of hers and looked into her eyes. 

Yep, ‘the lights are on but nobody's home’ as the saying goes. I hope I didn’t break her. Now that I look closer she is pretty cute. Red hair and green eyes have always been my weakness.

“Hellooo, It’s time to wake up,” I squatted down next to her and poked her cheek. Finally after a few pokes I got a reaction.

“Ah, uh, Right. I didn’t know dragons could do that.”

“Understandable, It's my own original spell.”

“You made your own spell? That's amazing!”

“I know right! I have actually made several, feel free to gasp in amazement,” I said and put my hands on my hips and puffed out my chest, striking the most confident look I could.

“Pffft, hahah- Oh I’m sorry I didn’t mean that!” She said, trying hard to stifle her laugh.

“It would be more convincing if you didn't try so hard to hide your laugh.” 

“I’m sorry, I was just not expecting you to do that.”

“Well, it’s alright. Are you feeling better now?” I asked and glanced down at her leg.

 She looked down at her leg. “Huh? when did you-?”

“After I shifted. I think you had trouble processing what was happening during that time.”

“Oh, well thank you so much for healing me.” She quickly recovered from her initial embarrassed look from realising she had blanked out. “Oh! And thank you for saving my life! Those wyverns were about to kill me.” She gave me a deep bow.

“Oh yeah, those vermin. I forgot about them.”

“Vermin?” 

“Yeah sometimes they build their nests in my lair, which in turn, attracts people that want them dead.”

“Ah, yeah, sorry about that.”

“Don’t worry, I'm not blaming you. If you didn’t come here, someone else would have eventually.”

An almost uncomfortable silence spread through the cave.

“Are you okay? Your face is a bit flushed.”

“I’m alright… I just… I don’t know where to look.” Her eyes were swapping between looking into my eyes and darting all over the cave.

“Look?”

“Well you are, you know, naked.” 

I snapped my fingers and in a flash was dressed in a white and red dress with accompanying boots and knee-high socks. “Is this better?”

“How did you do that?” 

For some reason the sparkles in her eyes are bigger than when I shifted into my human form, not sure how to feel about that.

“I enchanted my clothes with spatial magic, one to store them in my [Inventory] and another to return them to my body.”

“That sounds amazing…” she trailed off in thought, "But why do you need something like that?” 

 I looked at her while I put my index finger on my chin and tilted my head. “It’s handy when I need to undress or get dressed quickly.”

“Does… Does that situation happen often?”

“What do you think would happen to my clothes if I shifted into dragon form?”

“Oh yeah, that makes sense,” She said sheepishly.

“Why, what were you thinking about?” I asked with a smirk.

“Huh? Uh, nothing in particular,” She said, looking flustered.

This one might be fun to tease. Maybe I should go outside and stretch my legs now that I have woken up. It’s probably been some time so I might as well. 

“Oh, by the way, what date is it?”

“It's the fifth of July, 1944”

“...Huh? 1944?”

“Yes, 1944.”

Well that doesn’t make any sense. I don’t remember exactly but it was somewhere around the year 2200 when I was awake the last time. Unless…

“The year 1944 of which calendar?”

“The Gregorian calendar.”

“The Gregorian calendar… Do you know what calendar was used before that?”

“No sorry, I don’t.”

“I see,” I put my hand on my chin while staring up at the ceiling of the cave, "I can assume I have been asleep for at least 2000 years then considering there is a new calendar that's at 1944.”

“2000 years?!” Liz blurted out, “How old are you?”

“Hard to say, maybe 8000 years old?”

“8000 years?” Liz said with wide eyes.

“Dragons live a long time but we can talk about that later. I have a few more questions.”

“Oh, okay. What do you want to know?”

 “What is this country called?”

“Lasduma.”

“Hmm so the empire fell…” I looked at Liz for a moment before putting my hand into what seemed to be a black hole, pulling out a few coins. “Do you still use this currency here?”

“No, I have never seen any coins like this before. Also where did those come from?” 

Once again she looked at me with sparkling eyes. It feels like this one is just as big of a magic nerd as I am.

“It’s a spatial and chrono magic compound spell called [Inventory]. It works somewhat like a magic bag but time is frozen inside. Would you like a 2000 year old meat skewer?” I asked and pulled out two skewers of sizzling meat.

Lizette put one hand on her stomach, "I guess it would be an experience.”

I gave her the skewer and took one out for myself, "Yep, it still tastes like it just came off the grill.”

“Is this really 2000 years old?”

“Do you doubt me?” 

“No, it’s just hard to believe I guess.”

“Sounds like you humans haven’t figured out how to recreate that spell then.”

“I have never heard about it at least.”

“I see. Anyway, back on topic,” I said and looked at the coins in my hand, "So my coins are no good. Guess I will have to start from zero again. At Least the language is the same, otherwise it would be far worse.”

I didn't really mind it to be honest. I had to do it every time after all. 

“Start from zero?”

“Yeah, I usually wake up every now and then and wander about for a while. It’s interesting to see what you humans manage to achieve. Civilizations sometimes crumble and your progress resets between my naps though.”

“Does that mean you will leave your lair now?”

“I think so. It would be a waste not to go on a trip now after you woke me up, especially since I have apparently been cozying up in bed for a long time. What about you, Lizette?”

“Call me Liz. And what about me?”

“What will you do? I was kind of hoping you could guide me to a nearby town and maybe help me out a little, you know, as thanks for the whole ‘saving your life’ thing,” I said and batted my eyelashes.

“Oh, yeah I can do that. The closest town is only a few hours away on horseback.”

Horseback eh… how fast is a horse again? If it’s a few hours that is like what, fifteen minutes if I fly?