Ignis opened his drowsy eyes.
He had only been asleep for a short while when the sound of footsteps nearby woke him. Although the owner of the footsteps was intentionally keeping their voice low, the keen hearing of the Dragon Race still caused him to startle awake.
Outside the window, it seemed the sun had not yet risen. The room was dim, and the fireplace held only a few scattered embers that refused to die out.
“Did I wake you?” Villanelle whispered, her tone laced with apology. “I’m sorry. I have to get to the academy early. I have quite a few classes this morning.”
To avoid waking the little Black Dragon by the fireplace, she had pointedly avoided putting on her shoes, stepping across the cold floor with bare feet.
A place as dilapidated as the Twilight Tower could not possibly have floor heating.
In the darkness, Ignis blinked his molten gold eyes to show his understanding.
‘So, it’s just morning classes. That’s not surprising at all.’ Going from 6:00 AM to 11:00 PM was perfectly normal in his eyes.
He propped his body up and used a flexible flick of his tail to push the shoes by the bed toward Villanelle.
“Thank you.”
Villanelle was momentarily stunned, but then a warm smile spread across her face. “Thank you.”
The smile made Ignis feel inexplicably cheerful.
‘His loli mom was right.’
Villanelle quickly finished packing. Heavy books, parchment rolls, quills, and ink were stuffed one by one into a cloth bag.
Donning her worn but clean and tidy academy uniform robe, she grabbed the bag of books and hurriedly left the room.
She turned back at the door, her silver hair shimmering with a soft luster in the dim light. “Don’t go running around, okay? Wait for me to come back tonight. If you get hungry, go find Butler Heinrich.”
‘Don’t you worry.’
Ignis nodded solemnly.
However, he seriously doubted whether he could stomach swallowing those things again.
Only then did Villanelle leave with peace of mind, the ancient wooden door clicking shut behind her. The sound of footsteps grew distant as she descended the stone stairs, eventually fading into the mountain wind outside the tower.
Ignis rolled over, preparing to go back to sleep.
However, he tossed and turned for a long time without success. He eventually sat up, staring blankly at the empty room.
The faint chime of the palace bells in the distance and the wail of the mountain wind through the cracks in the stone—background noises he usually ignored—now felt exceptionally clear.
With the person gone and the room empty, he felt the desolation of an empty-nest dragon.
In his previous life as a 996 corporate slave, Ignis had grown accustomed to a life filled with schedules. Now that he suddenly had a massive amount of free time, he found himself a bit unsettled.
‘I should find something to do. For example… testing these wings.’
Ignis crawled out of his nest, took a long stretch, and focused his attention on the wings connected to his forearms.
They felt much stronger than they had when he first hatched.
He gave his wings two soft flaps.
The air flowed as the membranes unfurled, causing several loose pages of notes on the desk to flutter. A strange sensation of lightness radiated from the base of his wings, as if those limbs were meant to move that way all along.
‘If I take off inside the room… I shouldn’t break anything, right?’
Ignis gradually increased the strength of his wingbeats.
The stagnant air in the room surged with the beating of his wings, causing the stacks of Frost Paper on a nearby bookshelf to *rustle* loudly.
‘No, the space here is still too small. It’s like trying to learn how to swim in a bathtub.’
He folded his wings, wobbled to the door, pulled it open, and climbed the stone stairs leading to the roof.
Minutes later, Ignis laboriously reached the top floor platform.
It was still the early hours of the morning, but a sliver of light was appearing on the horizon as the sky faded from deep blue to a dark, misty gray.
Below him, the lights of the Golden Rose District, which stayed lit throughout the night, formed a hazy sea of radiance that looked particularly ethereal under the brightening sky.
Ignis dragged a few wooden crates over to use as a stepping stool and climbed onto the railing, his rear claws gripping the edge tightly.
The whistling mountain wind rushed toward him, accompanied by the vast view beyond the tower’s guardrails.
Ignis took a glance downward.
It was high.
So high that the tall buildings and grand mansions below looked like tiny grains of rice.
By all logic, he should have been terrified of heights by now, but strangely, he didn’t feel the slightest bit of cowardice. Instead, he felt only a restless urge to soar through the sky.
‘Very well, let’s give it a try.’
Wings were for flying. If he didn’t try to fly, he would never be a true dragon; at best, he would just be a grounded chicken.
Ignis took a deep breath of the cold mountain air and then leapt.
He fell.
His heart lunged into his throat as the dark stone bricks of the tower zipped past him in a blur. Very soon, however, an instinct older than thought itself woke up in his blood.
Just as the fear of falling was about to seize him, his body reacted unconsciously.
His wings unfurled on their own.
The first flap was powerful but a bit frantic, showing the clumsiness of a beginner. The air suddenly caught his wings, and his falling speed plummeted as a gentle force pressed against his chest and belly.
Then came the second flap, the third, and the fourth… Ignis quickly found his rhythm.
At this moment, the wind was no longer an invisible medium; it had become a tangible wave. With every beat of his wings, he could clearly feel the airflow rushing beneath the wing bones, pushing him upward.
It was a wonderful feeling, as if he weren’t flying so much as swimming in the sea.
‘So, this is flight.’
With every beat of his wings, the muscles connected to his forelimbs felt the pull, constantly telling Ignis that he was flying, and that he was doing so by his own strength.
The tip of the Twilight Tower sank below him, and the lights of the Golden Rose District became even more ethereal. The Imperial City spread out rapidly in his vision, extending all the way to the horizon.
The rooftops, dominated by red tones, formed a vast ocean arranged in rows and columns. The grand avenues of the Imperial City were laid out like a spiderweb, and his dragon’s far-reaching vision even allowed him to see the carriages moving along the roads.
It felt strangely like playing MC in Creative Mode, except the sensation was far more real and did more to spike his adrenaline—if he still had any.
Ignis began to try turning, awkwardly tilting his body to one side.
The world immediately began to spin in his eyes.
Ignis quickly flapped his other wing with force to maintain his balance, his body tracing a sharp curve in the high sky.
‘Thrilling. This is too thrilling!’
He noticed that as long as he slightly adjusted the angle of his wings or even gave a soft flick of his tail, his flight direction would change accordingly.
This synchronized control, which felt as natural as moving his own arms, made Ignis want to let out a long roar of joy. However, to avoid causing trouble, he kept his mouth shut and remained silent.
He flew higher and higher, as his initial nervousness was replaced by a near-dizzying sense of delight.
It had taken humans nearly two million years from the moment they fashioned their first stone tool until the Flyer 1 took to the sky in 1903.
Yet for a dragon, the sky was within reach from the moment they were born.
Gradually, Ignis felt a trace of fatigue, and his restless excitement began to settle.
‘Time to head back.’
His gaze swept over the palace complexes below, locking onto the tip of the Twilight Tower. His starting point looked both familiar and distant.
Ignis lowered his wings and slowly decreased his altitude. Like a fighter jet returning to an aircraft carrier in his memories, he circled the tower in widening loops, gradually drawing closer to the top railing.
Air resistance increased significantly, supporting him as he slowly descended.
Ignis stared intently at the narrow gap between the tower’s peak and the guardrail.
He suddenly understood why accidents were so common when fighter jets landed on carriers. Trying to land on a specific spot while constantly shifting positions was indeed no easy task.
The tower drew closer and closer. Ignis lined himself up and extended his back legs, preparing for landing.
The landing was heavier than he had expected. His rear claws failed to hook onto the railing, and his entire body landed with a *thud* on the stone floor.
Ignis scrambled up, grimacing. Fortunately, his scales were sturdy, so the fall didn’t actually hurt.
The surroundings fell silent. The whistling wind and the wavy air had all vanished, and he was back on solid ground once more.
The morning bells of the distant Imperial City began to chime.
He looked down at his wings. In the morning light, the pitch-black membranes revealed dark red patterns.
His brain was still immersed in the sense of freedom that came from breaking the shackles of gravity.
For him, the shock of this first flight was every bit as monumental as his very first flight.
He could fly. This was a good start.