Frozen Wolf, Fire Dragon

Chapter 1

Prologue

Blue moonlight fell upon the winter forest.

Standing in the middle of the snowy trees, I pulled my hat down further, knowing my light silver hair would be clearly visible even under the darkness of night. After putting the herbs I’d gathered into my basket, I looked up at the sky. I could see a full moon peeking through the clouds.

I should really get going.

I quickly organized the different plants in my basket, knowing I needed to hurry home and prepare the herbs to be sold tomorrow.

Especially now that there’s one more person I need to take care of.

Deep in the middle of this dark forest, there is a small, shabby house, so old that it wouldn’t be a surprise if it crumbled down at any moment. I shaped my hand into a fist as I approached the house and rapped softly on the door. It opened immediately, as if they’d been waiting for me.

“Sis!” Sion welcomed me with a bright smile on his face.

“Were you okay here by yourself?” I asked anxiously. “You weren’t visited by any strangers, were you?”

“Of course not! Everything was fine.”

“I’m glad,” I said as I ruffled his hair. Sion closed his eyes and giggled. I loved the deep dimples in his childish cheeks.

Stepping away, I took off my hat after locking the door securely and then went to the table.

“Did you sell lots of herbs today?” Sion ran over to me and asked excitedly.

“I did, which is why I can make your favorite meat stew!” I said as I stroked his hair.

“Really?” His eyes widened and his cheeks flushed with excitement.

“By the way, is she still asleep?” I asked, nodding to the child sleeping silently on the bed.

Sion nodded his head. “Yeah. She’s slept so much already, but I guess she’s still sleepy. It’s been three whole days!”

“You’re right. The herb I used is supposed to help with that, but it seems like it’s had no effect on her whatsoever.”

I was at a loss. Even though I’d been feeding her rare and strong medicinal herbs, the child wouldn’t wake up. I sighed as I approached her.

The girl was sleeping soundly on the bed, her long, straight, black hair spread out around her. I had found her by chance three days ago in the middle of the forest. For our safety, it was one of my rules to not let anyone suspicious near me—I wouldn’t even allow eye contact—but I couldn’t ignore a small, sick child who was all by herself in the woods. She was just around Sion’s age, too.

“Good things come to those who do good deeds.” My late mother’s words echoed in my ears.

As if I was possessed by something, I’d ignored all my instincts and brought the child into my house. It was the first time I’d let a stranger into my home.

Maybe I shouldn’t have brought her here, I thought, frowning a little. But I couldn’t just leave her collapsed in the middle of that freezing snowstorm, she would have died long before anyone else might have come to rescue her. But I also couldn’t take her to a hospital. For those of us who live in hiding, that was a luxury beyond our means.

Feeling sorry for her, I reached out to hold her hand. Her body temperature felt lower than before, but she still had a high fever. I hoped to cool her a bit by holding her hand. Maybe my cold hands could bring her fever down.

I doubt it’ll help much though. I had done everything I could but to no avail. Maybe I should take her to the doctor... But that would be such a big risk...

I was pondering what else I could do when the girl unexpectedly moaned in pain.

Surprised, I drew closer to her. “Are you okay? Can you hear me?”

The child slowly opened her eyes, her long eyelashes fluttering. I knew she had a pretty face, but now I saw that she had pretty eyes as well. Vivid, red eyes, just like a ruby...

Wait a minute.

Red eyes? Only one race in this world had red eyes.

I shrunk back from her as I felt terror slowly crawl over me. If my memory served me right, then this child... She must be...

The girl blinked slowly, her big, crimson eyes reflecting the image of my shocked face.

“Well sh—!” I almost cursed, but bit my tongue just in time.

This child was “The Crimson Cloak!” She was the protagonist in this story that was destined to kill me and devour my little brother!

* * *

To give a better explanation of what was happening to me, I’ll have to go back to when I was born.

Eve. That was the name given to me by my late mother and father. I thought that was what everyone would call me, but most people called me something else instead.

Mongrel. Dirty blood.

The first time I was called those names had started like any other day.

“How dare you filthy lowlifes come here!”

Wolf hybreeds seemed especially incensed to target my family. Although I would ask my parents repeatedly why the wolf hybreeds did this, they would not tell me. I found it all very strange. We were also wolves, so why would they torment us?

That day had left me with the same confusion. A gang of wolf hybreeds came to our house and smashed all our windows. I still remember feeling a sharp pain as a fragment of glass penetrated my skin.

Father had stepped up to them, pleading with them to stop tormenting us. He said it was irrational.

“You know we live our life here quietly, not bothering anyone. We make it easy for you to just pretend we aren’t even here! Why are you doing this?”

“You really don’t know? You gave birth to a baby that tarnishes the name of our pure blood!” the wolves had sneered as they pointed at me.

Father had stood up squarely then, asking how they could say that in front of a mere child, but he could not win against the wolves.

Oh, so that’s what it’s all about. The realization hit me as I watched my father get beat up. A half-blooded child born from a wolf hybreed mother and a poor ice wizard. In their words, a mongrel—neither a hybreed nor a human. We were a stain in the north, which was full of pure-bloods. The orthodox, pure-blooded wolf hybreeds who had control of the north looked down on us for having “dirty” blood. Their violent abuse forced us to hide deeper and deeper into the forest.

I sometimes blamed my parents but I could never be angry at them for too long, they were too precious to me. We were poor but happy, and I could always count on them—that’s what family meant to me. But what’s precious can easily leave your side, and when Mother was pregnant with Sion, Father suddenly passed away in an accident. It was a day when we’d had an especially bad snowstorm, and Mother, who had just been left all alone, couldn’t even cry properly. She just held me and reassured me that everything was going to be okay. Seeing Mother go through that, I’d made a promise to myself to protect my family.

However, soon after that, my objective had to shift slightly. There was a day when my life’s direction took a dramatic turn—the day I came to realize everything. That day, I had been fetching some herbs for Mother, and I’d remembered Father describing some specific plants that were good for pregnant women, so I piled up all the herbs I could find into my basket. I smiled proudly. If I took all this to Mother, I knew I’d get at least a faint smile from her.

However, my quiet hope did not last long because, yet again, they had come. The fanatic wolf hybreeds.

After Father had passed away, their regular torment got even worse, always shouting at us to leave the north.

“Look—there’s the mongrel!”

“Disgusting!”

“How can she call herself a wolf when she can’t even hide her ears?”

“Ugh, look at the color of her tail.”

I’d crouched down in fright. Still young and inexperienced, I couldn’t hide my ears and tail very well.

“All dirty-bloods should die!”

The head of the pack threw a large rock at me and, after a soft thud, I felt a warm liquid start trickling down my head. Red droplets started to fall on top of the white snow—it was the first time they’d directly hurt me.

I dropped my basket to the ground and gasped in shock. They seemed to enjoy seeing the fear in my eyes. They approached me while chuckling to themselves, intentionally crushing the herbs for Mother as they walked closer.

“See this—maybe mongrels are vegetarian.”

“Well, we are on a different level.”

I bit my lip looking at the ruined plants. What more do they need? What did we ever do to deserve this?

My trembling hand formed into a fist and I sprang to my feet, wiping my tear-stained eyes.

“Go away!”

It was the first time I’d fought back. I had been planning to just wave my fist around, but a piece of ice shot from my fingers as I did so. I clasped my hands in surprise—it was the first time I’d used magic.

“What did you just do?” Huffing angrily, the wolves approached me.

“D-don’t come near me! If you do, I-I-I’ll use my ice!” I put my hands out threateningly, but they didn’t react. Ice magic is a common skill in the north. How could a child who’d just realized she could use magic win against big wolves?

In the end, I was beaten relentlessly.

“How dare a mongrel like you threaten us?”

Someone shoved my shoulders hard, and I flew back helplessly, smacking my head against the tree behind me.

That was when it happened. Old memories suddenly flooded my mind.

Am I seeing... me?

I couldn’t believe it.

The images showed a completely different, human “me,” who was not a wolf hybreed nor a mongrel. My name wasn’t even Eve. It didn’t take me long to realize that these were images of my past life and that I had been brought into an entirely new world. I had been reincarnated into a place that I had somehow already known about. I realized it all now... I was in a fairy tale story that had been written for adults. It was an R-rated novel titled The Crimson Cloak.

The novel had been a story that was adapted for the taste of adults by twisting the fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood—a famous story from my past life’s world. It was a novel about a wolf hybreed—the male protagonist—who gets “eaten up” (if you know what I mean) by the female protagonist. Remembering it well from my past life, I knew it was an arousing, rather over-the-top femdom novel.

I could now recall the name of the male protagonist of this provocative novel—one that was so provocative it could sometimes cause a reactionary nosebleed in the more uptight crowds. If my memory serves me right, it was “Sion.”

The moment I realized this, I sprang to my feet. There was no time to delay.

I pushed through the wolf hybreeds as forcefully as I could and sprinted away, running to get home.

“Hey! Catch that mongrel!”

The angry shouting from behind me became more and more distant as I kept running. Soon I was out of breath. Even the north’s cold winds couldn’t dry the sweat on my forehead. My body started trembling, but I still couldn’t stop running. My mind was as clear as glass. The conversation I’d had with Mother a few days ago kept replaying in my head.

“Mother, what’s my little brother’s name going to be?”

I closed my eyes as I remembered her response.

“It will be Sion. Your father gave him that name.”

The male protagonist of The Crimson Cloak was my unborn brother.