Reincarnated as an Orphaned Dragon!

Chapter 23 - "Preluding Destiny"

A few years had gone by in an instant.
By now I think I'm probably more like a teen dragon, I should hope I'm not still a baby or something, it's going to get hard to comfortably interact with everyone if I get too much bigger than this.

Could it be selfish of me to hate transformation so much?
The other kids seem to like me better this way anyway, since I'm always letting them slide down my wings.

I also haven't let this slip to anyone, but at some point I realized it actually felt good when they tried to pet me. They just never stop reaching for my vulnerable spots.
My dignity wasn't strong enough to fight it off.

Raine visited regularly but I wasn't really learning much anymore, so I wondered why she kept coming back.
Then I finally decided to ask.

Before she left this time, I asked why she was still coming here.

"You're a great source of side income." She answered.

"What? Income? What income?" I mumbled in a confused daze.

"It's not easy to get detailed drawings of a dragon, and you have a bunch of kids around you that love drawing you, just look at these!" Raine responds while holding up a couple pieces of paper with me drawn onto them. "All I have to do is give them the tools and they draw up money in the form of paper!"
So that's where they were getting all that paper from...

"Is that a flower on my head?! Why are they drawing me with flowers on my head!" I complain.

"You can keep these ones, I don't think the pictures with flowers will sell as well..." She muses. "You look like you're starting to get bored here, why don't you come with me tomorrow to try out a dungeon? None of the monsters there should be a threat for you."

Do I really want to get into a fight of my own will? It is true I'm getting bored here, but am I that bored?
Who am I kidding? I'm extremely bored! People back home would never want to be isekai'd if they knew how boring it got when nothing was happening.

"Absolutely!" I agreed with what was probably too much eagerness than I should have.

"Alright, meet me outside the adventurer's guild tomorrow." She said before leaving.

I started wondering what a dungeon even was, since there was no common trope of levels or skills here, I had no idea how a dungeon would work or why they exist.
Hopefully I can get answers later, but I'm probably just curious, it doesn't actually matter to me how or why they exist.

--- Ria

After years of training these young mages, Raze was finally confident they could handle themselves alone.
All of them were probably the best she's had to teach up until now, except Rulio, who was pretty much just the average noble with a lot of Mana and too much arrogance.

Litz was said to have little Mana, but that wasn't very true according to what she witnessed, and he very much had the ideal mentality of any mage.

Ria didn't think much when using spells, but Raze gave up trying to get her to think too hard since she was just going to spam overpowered flame attacks anyway. You would think she was trying to impress a dragon!

Raze didn't like the idea of training kids to grow up knowing how to fight, but it wasn't her place to complain even if the country was probably going to use them to fight wars and not just defending the world.
Because of how magic worked, intellect and experience were what mattered most, and kids that haven't fully developed their thought patterns were the easiest way to cultivate strong mages.

It would be difficult to try and get an adult to develop a new magic affinity compared to children that can be guided to hold deeper lasting interest in something.
As for Ria, Raze couldn't even imagine what she could possibly be so enthralled with to have such an insane affinity with fire.
'Was she saved from a monster by a wildfire? Is she just a pyromaniac?' Raze thought.