79-Episode 72: Elucidate the Ecology of the Dragon, the Strongest Onmyoji





What do you mean, Mr. Seika?

 Yuki mutters, sounding confused.

 It was obvious what he meant.
 This dragon was in the middle of raising its young.

 Perhaps it had laid eggs during the last few days that it had been flying less frequently.
 It had been acting strangely for a year now, and it was preparing to lay eggs. The reason they were attacking the stray livestock was because they couldn't store their strength with the magic of the land alone.
 That explains everything.

 The question is.
 Why is this dragon raising a child....

''That thing is a male........? So, does that mean there is another individual that will be on the other side?
No, I don't think so.

 How could there be another dragon like that and no one would notice it?

'Then why...'

 I'm going to offer up a possibility.

...a s*x change.
What?
This dragon is a female.

 I'll explain it to Yuki, who may not understand.

Many fish change their s*x according to their environment. A male can become a female, and a female can become a male, too.

 In Rome, where having a fish tank in a mansion was once a status symbol and fish keeping was popular, an eminent naturalist kept detailed records.

One of the conditions for a s*x change was the absence of the opposite s*x in the vicinity. "One of the conditions for a s*x change was that there was no one else around. Maybe that's what caused the change a hundred years ago, when its territory became smaller and more mature,

 You don't hear of land beasts changing s*x, but there are some that change their s*x ratio depending on the temperature at the time of birth and other factors. The s*x of living things is quite fluid.

'So, but, Seika-sama,'

 Yuki bites down.

Even if she is a female, it doesn't change the fact that she has no one to watch over her, does it? How will you leave the pups?
It's actually not uncommon for a creature to breed only with females.

 I'll explain again.

I explain again: "There have been several cases of human snakes and lizards that have laid eggs and hatched, even though no one was on duty. There have even been creatures without males.
Oh, there is?
I used to let the crucians swim in the mansion's pond. That's the one. There was just one at first.

 It was an accidental discovery, but I was surprised when I found it too.

"You didn't do it to eat it?
That was the plan at first. So it's not surprising that the female breeds alone. There are many advantages to breeding as a second breeding partner, but there are times when this is not an option, depending on the environment.
Heh~....

 Yuki makes a distracted counterpoint.

'Seika-sama's hobby was useful, wasn't it?
It's a hobby but it's okay. Now what do I do?

 Now we know why he was acting so strange, but I'm not sure it's solved the problem.
 But I can't say the problem is solved.

 One could say that we should wait for the pups to leave the nest, but in the past, the spawning had been done in stages.
 How long would it take for all the pups to leave the nest?
 Furthermore, there is the problem of the pups leaving the nest.
 If not a hundred and fifty years ago when they were independent, would the Empire be willing to let the dangerous dragon pups leave the nest now that it was a vassal state?

 I think the prince's idea of slaying the dragon is the best, but that mercenary army is probably not going to do the job.
 But it's not something I'd want to deal with, either.

 Hmmm.....

 As I was looking at the eggs and wondering what to do with them.......I suddenly noticed a mark on the sand.
 It seems to be a mark of an egg that had rolled over.

 I come up with an idea.

Now I know why the prince said no one's ever hatched a dragon's egg before, but I know why.
Yes, what is it?
'It's a rolling egg. A dragon egg has to be rolled, you know.

 I explained again, "Chickens and birds are like that.

If you don't turn the eggs around sometimes, the pups will stick to the inside of the shell and die. On the other hand, you can't move lizard or turtle eggs... but in the case of the dragons that raise their young, their eggs seem to be more like birds than lizards. So it's like this...

 I roll a large egg slowly along the sand trail.

He must be rolling them regularly. The dragon eggs on the market must have been neglected because they didn't hatch. And by all accounts, they don't do this in transit.
....
'Queen Astiria's legend about hatching and raising dragons is now more believable. I just needed to know how to do it. However, it probably wouldn't have been possible to just roll them around at random, so there was probably a large element of coincidence...
Seika-sama you talk like a madman, don't you?
Shut up.

 Yuki mutters to me as if I'm dumbfounded, and I answer her with a straight face.
 It's fine. I don't care if you're crazy about it.

'.........Oh, yeah. And by the way....
The Flame of Fire Technique.

 Flames spewed out of a few starlings and began to heat the pile of rocks in which they were nesting.
 The parts exposed to the fire gradually grew red hot.

''Eeeee, Seika-sama, are you going to turn them into steamed eggs?
No, look at it. It's just heating up the rocks. The sand keeps the eggs from getting too hot. If we keep the rock pile heated like this, it will stay warm for a while after we leave the nest. This is what egg-laying is to a dragon.
What? How do you know that?
'Some of the stones were brittle and cracked. That's evidence of repeated red heat. I mean, it was still a little warm.

 And I had heard that on the far southern islands of Khmer (*Cambodia) and Champa (*Vietnam), there are birds that use the heat of the earth to warm their eggs.
 This is similar.

 I suddenly noticed that the dragon was much quieter.

 I looked over and saw the dragon staring at me with eyes behind its stern scales.
 There was no hostility there anymore.

 I let fly my Hitogata.

"Seika-sama! What do you mean....

 The human gadget with the art of breaking the curse, returning the asbestos web to the dust of information.
 The dragon that was unleashed trembled slightly, but there was no sign of a rampage or attack.

 It just stared at us.

''........Grrrr!
What?

 Suddenly the dragon roared, and then the dragon spread its wings wide.
 Then it used that air pressure magic again and flapped its wings into the sky.

 Both me and Yuki were stunned to see the dragon flying away.

........what was it?
Well, I don't know...

 Somehow.
 I felt like I was being told to watch the eggs properly.