novelraw Chapter 6: The Girls
Chapter 6: The Girls
The black stallions let out a low neigh by the riverside, then dipped their heads to drink deeply from the cool stream. Beside the carriage, a skinless wild wolf was being roasted to a crispy golden brown. Unfortunately, Fischer hadn’t brought any spices, so the meat was a little bland—he barely ate any.
The same couldn’t be said for the dragonkin girls, especially the tiny blue one, Larr, who was now munching away with grease smeared all over her face. She alone had eaten more than half the wolf.
Leaning against the carriage, Fischer double-checked that his earlier scuffle with Raphaëlle hadn’t damaged the magic array embedded in the carriage.
If the spatial magic collapsed, he wasn’t sure what would happen to the creatures inside—maybe they’d be crushed by everything compressed into a single point.
Mir, the yellow-scaled adult dragonkin, had eaten very little like him. She sat off to the side near the carriage, watching the younger girls enjoy their food.
“How old are you?”
Fischer noticed the smooth scales on her body slowly becoming sharper, forming subtle armor-like ridges along her skin. He grew curious and asked.
Mir’s pointed ears perked up in surprise. She turned toward him, only to immediately avert her gaze the moment their eyes met.
“T-Twenty-two...”
“I see... And how long does it take for dragonkin to mature?” “M-Mature!?”
Mir’s mouth opened slightly. Whatever thought had crossed her mind clearly embarrassed her—she looked down, her voice getting even softer.
“U-Usually... around my age, we can have children…”
“...”
Fischer’s face went blank—deadpan like a fish. He was speechless.
Was she stupid?
The language bonus from the Demi-Human Girl Completion Handbook had been pumped directly into his brain—a strange experience. In an instant, his head had been flooded with unique grammar and sentence structures, but he wasn’t fully fluent yet. Sometimes, he accidentally said things that sounded... questionable.
“I meant: when do you reach adulthood.”
He rubbed his temples and adjusted his phrasing, searching through his mental library for the right Draconian word.
“Ah... ah! That... that…”
Mir’s scales flared slightly as her embarrassment deepened. Her tail swished nervously behind her, giving away her fluster. But when she finally spoke again, her voice was still barely audible.
“T-Twenty… years…”
“Got it.”
So Raphaëlle was probably around twenty too.
“Um… What’s your name?”
Mir glanced at him hesitantly but asked anyway. For some reason, this human felt different from the others. She couldn’t quite explain it. If it were any other human, she’d be too terrified to speak.
After all, her mother had always said she was the timidest of all the yellow-scaled dragonkin.
And she hadn’t been home in so long… Who knew if Burr had married someone else?
At that thought, a trace of sorrow crossed her face.
“...Fischer. Fischer Benavides.”
“Ah… Fischer… Fischer…”
Pulled from her thoughts, Mir repeated his name softly, then gave the tall human a quick peek—only to snap her head away again, falling silent.
Fischer didn’t respond. He turned his gaze toward the fire, where Larr was still eating with surprising ferocity. She had outpaced even the white dragonkin twins, Cachil and Fassil, proving she had serious “combat potential” when it came to food.
Raphaëlle sat nearby, holding a wolf leg, keeping her eyes on Fischer the entire time, her posture tense—afraid he’d do something shady again.
Fischer smiled faintly, pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and stepped a little away from the carriage. He needed to call the horses back and start casting defensive wards—just in case more uninvited guests showed up during the night.
“Whistle~”“Hyah hyah…”
With a sharp whistle, the two horses trotted back eagerly and stopped beside the carriage.
“I command you—curse the attacker’s luck, and shield us.”
Fischer knocked on the carriage wall. As he murmured a low incantation, one part of the intricate magic circuit lit up with deep violet light. Looking closely, you could see layer upon layer of circular runes etched with magic text—proof of a powerful magic user.
He hadn’t cast this spell himself. He wasn’t at that level.
Staring at the shimmering violet glow, Fischer suddenly thought of a certain witch and chuckled to himself.
Once the violet light fully spread and cloaked the surrounding area like an aurora, Fischer finally relaxed.
The dragonkin girls stared, awe-struck. Even if they didn’t understand the magic structure, the ominous color and intensity alone were enough to shake them. Only Raphaëlle recognized just how terrifying the enchantment’s construction really was.
“You finished eating?”
Fischer stubbed out his cigarette and turned back—only to see the bones scattered around the fire. Larr was lying on the ground, patting her stomach with a toothpick in her mouth. Cachil and Fassil weren’t far behind.
No answer needed.
“You can walk around for now. Raphaëlle, come with me.”
“...”
Raphaëlle pressed her lips together. She already knew what he wanted: “research.” She didn’t know what that meant in human terms, but in her heart, she’d already lumped it in with everything else he did—bad things.
Everything Fischer did was bad, as far as she was concerned.
She looked back at her companions and instructed:
“Don’t stay out too long. Don’t leave the violet circle. Watch over Larr…”
After getting their nods, she leapt up onto the carriage and disappeared inside.
Outside, Mir watched her go, worried. Then she turned to the others.
“Why does Fischer always call Raphaëlle? Is it because he knows she’s the chieftain’s daughter? Or is there some other reason?”
Larr gasped and pointed at her, shocked:
“Fischer? Fischer? That’s the human’s name?! Mir, how do you know it? How?!”
Fassil and Cachil turned to look too, which made Mir panic and wave her hands.
“H-He told me! I just… I was worried about Raphaëlle…”
Her nervous tail whipped back and forth behind her.
Fassil thought for a moment.
“Mir, where do you think he’s taking us?”
“Maybe… to sell us…”
“Back to their homeland?” Cachil added. “I’ve heard other dragonkin say humans come from somewhere really far away…”
“No way! There are humans here too! And goblins!” Larr shouted.
“Larr, stop interrupting,” Fassil snapped. “I mean the ones in fancy clothes, carrying…”
“Guns!” Larr supplied.
“Yes, guns. And magic. Those humans—maybe they came from across the sea or flew here… who knows. But what if he plans to take us back the same way…”
That thought silenced everyone.
After a long pause, Larr timidly raised her hand.
“I… I can’t swim. If it’s over the sea, Mir will have to carry me.”
“Shut up, Larr!”
The fire flickered.
Around it, the dragonkin girls tried to puzzle out Fischer’s plans—like students guessing answers on a final exam they hadn’t studied for. There was no way to know.
Still, they’d gotten at least something from tonight:
A belly full of roasted wolf… and the human’s name—Fischer.