Translator: Salkryn Translation Checker/Editor: Arocks141
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If you are reading from a pirate or aggregator site, please read from the translator’s site: yado-inn (dot) com I have to put the link like this or else the bots will remove it, sorry 🙁
Abandoned Dragon Chapter 3
What did Gonsuke look like after molting several more times?
He was as big as a large dog.
In terms of appearance, the protrusions on his head had grown into horns and the lumps on his back now resembled uneven ridges. If you showed a picture of him to me and said he was a dog-sized dragon, I would have believed you.
His once-spindly legs are now stout and solid, like a turtle’s.
I couldn’t keep him in the aquarium I’d used until this point, so he had been set free to roam in the house like Pon.
By the way, my father witnessed him using Pon’s litter box.
He somehow learned it before I could teach him.
Perhaps Pon taught him.
On one of my days off, my mother said.
“Wouldn’t it be a good idea to take him for a walk?”
“That’s probably a good idea.”
I nodded at her suggestion.
Gonsuke had been entertaining himself playing in the house, but as he was growing larger, it would be better to take him outside where he could move about more freely.
“Hey, I bought you a collar and leash for it. It’s meant for dogs, though.”
<i>As expected from my home’s Demon Lord1. With that, we’re good to go.</i>
My mother put the collar and leash on Gonsuke, who headed to the door dragging the leash behind him.
He stood at the front door, waiting for me.
He’s really smart.
We left the house together.
I rode my bike to the convenience store, a twenty-minute trip each way.
First, I rode to the nearest bus stop.
Then, through the small cluster of buildings which formed the village.
Save for these few buildings, there was nothing but a vast, rural landscape spreading out to the horizon.
A completely unexceptional countryside you could find anywhere.
It was still early in the morning.
It was spring, so the weather was quite comfortable.
I passed by an old man, an ogre, who was walking his dog down the farm road from another village.
I decided to ask him if it was unusual to see someone walking a lizard.
“What a huge turtle!”
Turtle? Have you ever seen a turtle without a shell, old man?
“He’s a lizard.”
“How much did he cost?”
“I didn’t buy him, I found him as a baby, but he grew to be this big.”
As he listened to me, the old man gazed intently at Gonsuke.
“Ah, there are many folks that throw away turtles they bought at festival stalls around here!”
“…Right.”
Certainly, there were lots of turtles wandering the rice paddies.
Even very large ones.
It’s not quite the same as being abandoned, but I’ve heard of pet turtles escaping occasionally.
Once free, they became wild.
Occasionally, people caught them and kept them in the rice fields.
I’d heard rumors that they were considered an invasive species, and due to stricter enforcement of regulations, their owners had abandoned them.
Gonsuke had taken an interest in the dog the old man was walking.
Does he want to eat it?
His expression made me nervous, but he hadn’t eaten Pon, so it was possible he wouldn’t try to eat anything that was still alive.
Oh, it was his first time seeing a dog.
The dog, for its part, seemed to be wary of Gonsuke.
The dog started to growl. It seemed like a good time to part ways and continue our walk.
I finished the conversation with the old man and resumed my walk with Gonsuke.
Gonsuke walked at his own pace.
My phone, which I mostly used to tell time, began to vibrate.
There was a notification from an app on my phone.
“…How very convenient.”
It wasn’t mandatory, but many adults and high schoolers like me had special implants embedded in their brains when they were born. Until a certain point, their status would be visible only to certain adventurers. The notification was telling me that my status was now visible.
I didn’t know why such a function existed in the first place, nor how long it had been around.
However, status visualization was extremely helpful for people with chronic illness.
For example, a doctor could treat a patient by looking at their status window without needing access to their insurance card or medical records.
For older generations, most people with chronic diseases used this option.
That said, people who weren’t afflicted with chronic illness were against having their status visible.
I’m not chronically ill, by the way.
While it wasn’t obligatory, the status visualization had another function.
You could share it on the internet, although that was entirely optional.
These functions came as a set due to certain adult circumstances.
For the time being, I wasn’t sick, and it was still too early for me to put that sort of thing on the internet2.
If you don’t, you will end up being isolated at school, though.3
The prevailing wisdom is that if you don’t keep up with the newest games and trends, you’ll be left out or be behind the times.
I wasn’t exactly a pariah, but since I lived out in the country and didn’t have access to all the newest stuff in elementary and junior high school, I wasn’t very popular, either.
In my mind, there were lots of times when it was a source of trouble for me.
On the other hand, it meant that the few friends I had made were genuine.
The upshot of all of this is that those who have the implant can voluntarily share their status information, while the stats of those without one are unknown.
What sort of abilities did they have?
Their name, physical strength, intelligence, etc.
Without an implant, it was impossible to precisely quantify.
Even if a person had the skill that some could acquire or purchase, [Appraisal], only very limited information such as race and gender can be discerned.
It wouldn’t display the target’s name or ability scores.
There was no real need to develop countermeasures against such a cursory examination.
I arrived at an intersection where the farm road met a public road.4
Not that there’s much to the road, a short loop for cars to make a U-turn.
Gonsuke stopped walking.
“Feeling tired?”
I turned to face him, and he promptly pressed his head against my belly, much like Pon would when she wanted attention.
The points of his horns pressed against my belly, it hurt.
“I can’t carry you.”
He was now as big as a large-breed dog, after all.
As I said so, he turned his big, round eyes towards me, pleading.
He looked ready to cry.
“If you were still small, I’d carry you.”
As I spoke, I saw a bike chariot5 headed towards us from another village.
“Hey, Tetsu.”
The bike came to a stop with a metallic squeal, perhaps because of how old it was.
The rider was a dark elf boy around the same age as me. We were born in the same hospital, and had been classmates through nursery school, elementary school, and even junior high school, but we ended up going to different high schools.
“Long time no see.”
I turned to greet him and away from Gonsuke, who was busy trying to burrow a hole through my stomach.
“Whoa, what an awesome dragon! Were you blessed by the mountain goddess?”
“He’s a lizard, not a dragon.”
“No, it’s a dragon. The status window clearly says ‘race: dragon’.”
The dark elf who was peeking at Gonsuke’s status was named Masa, by the way.
“A rare among rares, at that. A Super-Rare! Really, a 5-Star Rare.”
“…Really?”
I turned towards Gonsuke, picked him up, and looked at him intently.
For his part, Gonsuke looked at me with eager eyes as if to say “hooray, you finally picked me up!”
Masa continued talking, unfazed.
“Seriously, it’s also a female. What kind of name is ‘Gonsuke’? Did you name it thinking it was a male?”
If you are reading from a pirate or aggregator site, please read from the translator’s site: yado-inn (dot) com I have to put the link like this or else the bots will remove it, sorry 🙁
- Salkryn: Not sure why he refers to his mother as the Maou of the household. I mean, she is half-demon, but her personality thus far has been very mild and even-handed.
- Salkryn: Is he talking about…supernatural Tinder? “My Endurance is S-rank :P” “STATS or GTFO!”
- Salkryn: So is it popular or unpopular? Optional or mandatory? Only for disabled people and the elderly or popular with the younger generation? His explanation is both confusing and contradictory.
- Salkryn: Once again, the narrative shifts without a clutch. Segues, my dude, segues.
- Salkryn: A bike with a (usually detachable) trailer, frequently used to carry cargo, small children, or animals.
If I had to guess what that implant that he said is, I would say it’s kinda like an ID card which is not mandatory to have implanted on the brain, but recommended (usually to the parents since he said it’s implanted on newly born children), in which one of its functions is to help people with chronic illnesses, and since it’s something that basically everyone have so it makes it the norm, so not having makes the person feel alienated, and the share status I would say it’s kinda like you putting were you work and live on F*cebook or Twit*er, not necessary or recommended but can still do