Slacker Second Gen C53

Chapter 53: Dragon Dad 23

After some commotion, the towering dragon’s residence was once again left with just the father and daughter.

Lacia sat on a colorful patterned cushion and first looked through the paintings Qian had accumulated over the past few days.

He examined them carefully, praised her as always, and promised that in two days, they would go hang them up in the gallery together.

Then, he watched as the child brought over various new things to show him one by one.

Finally, he listened to the child tell stories about him.

Most of these were completely fabricated melodramatic tales. If someone else dared to tell him such stories to his face, he would probably smash their head in.

But this was his little dragon, his adorable child. When she told stories, her expressions were vivid and animated—how could he get angry with her? He could only treat it as if he were listening to stories about a stranger.

And after listening, he even had to praise her, saying, “What a great storyteller you are!”

Children are like this: praise them a little, and they get proud; once they are proud, they want to show off even more and perform well.

Lacia listened to several of her stories. Some she likely couldn’t remember clearly herself, so she just made them up on the spot. As she spoke, she would sometimes get stuck, sneaking glances at his expression to see if he noticed anything off.

Lacia put on a gentle, attentive smile, pretending not to notice. Sure enough, when she managed to muddle through, she covered her mouth and giggled, her laughter spilling out through her fingers.

Seeing her like this, Lacia felt as if the exhaustion and pain from the past few days away had been soothed.

He held his lively child, rested his head on her small shoulder, and relaxed into sleep.

“Daddy! Daddy! I haven’t finished my story yet!” Qian shook his hand vigorously.

But the dragon had already fallen asleep—and in an instant, he reverted to his full dragon form. With a startled cry, Qian was directly squashed into the nest.

Fortunately, she was a tough-skinned, thick-scaled young dragon. If she had been a human child, getting crushed like this would have been a tragedy.

Qian struggled for a long time before managing to crawl out of the nest.

She couldn’t wake her humanoid father when he was sleeping, and now that he had turned into a dragon, waking him up was even more impossible. He was so massive that even if she jumped on him like a trampoline two hundred times, he still wouldn’t wake up.

Having not seen her father for days, Qian wanted him to play with her. But faced with a mountain-sized sleeping dragon, she had no choice but to entertain herself.

She walked around the dragon, and when she reached his tail, she noticed something odd.

A section of the dragon’s tail had turned a deep gray, and the color was spreading downward, darkening as it went.

The tip of his tail curled inward, pressed under his body. Qian grabbed it and pulled with all her might, finally managing to reveal its full form.

The tail, which should have been a shimmering silver-white, now had a completely blackened tip.

If Fizke or Headmaster Ude, who understood what was happening, saw this, they would surely show worried expressions.

But Qian didn’t understand. She only noticed that her father had changed color. Holding his discolored tail, she examined it from all angles before lying on the edge of the nest to look closer.

First, she tried rubbing it hard, attempting to wipe away the gray-black color. Then she found a rough, shiny crystal and used it to scrape the tail, producing a loud creaking sound.

After scraping for a long time, she checked again. The black color hadn’t faded at all, which she found very strange.

She ran to her stash of magical potions, pulled out a colorful starry elixir, and poured it onto the dragon’s tail.

As soon as the potion touched the tail, it sizzled like meat on a grill. But the black color remained stubbornly intact.

Qian had found herself a “toy” and became completely absorbed in playing with it.

Lacia was not fully asleep—he felt that this nap was strange. He kept feeling random bouts of itching and pain, not strong but persistent enough to disturb his rest.

When he woke up, he immediately found the culprit.

His little dragon was playing with his tail, dunking it into a bucket and scrubbing it relentlessly with a brush.

No wonder his tail had felt warm and damp, and his ears had been filled with the constant sound of scrubbing.

Although Qian was just playing, in the eyes of this doting father, it was practically the same as his child washing his feet for him—how obedient and filial!

“You won’t be able to scrub that color off,” Lacia told Qian.

“Why not?”

Lacia lied to her, “Because I’m getting old. When dragons age, our scales slowly turn black.”

Qian laughed. “Liar! Old people turn white! You think I don’t know that?”

Lacia replied, “That’s for humans. We dragons are different.”

Qian had never seen another dragon before.

“Really?” She was half-convinced, half-doubtful, but in the end, Lacia’s firm tone made her believe him.

It was unclear how she interpreted the word “old,” but after a moment of serious thought, she suddenly dragged out a sleek, pitch-black staff from her collection.

She had found this in the space of the wood elf Lexuer and had liked it so much that she exchanged for it.

It was actually a piece of magical material—an azurewood branch—that could be used to craft a magic wand.

Stuffing the long, straight staff into her father’s hand, Qian instructed, “This is a cane. You need to use it when you walk.”

Lacia: “…”

He wasn’t quite at that stage yet.

But he still accepted the cane that his daughter had “filially” gifted him. And then, Qian moved to his other side, holding his hand—apparently acting as his second walking cane.

“Daddy, I’ll help you walk.” The child looked up at him with wide, round eyes, filled with innocent sincerity.

Not only did she help him walk, but she also poured him water, and at night, she even piled up a pillow made of jewels for him.

She sat on his back, giving him a massage, thumping away with little fists. After a long while, she ended up thumping herself to sleep, flopping onto his back and drooling all over him.

After being pampered by his daughter, Lacia’s mood improved immensely.

Even when bad news kept arriving, forcing him to leave again, he always felt at peace whenever he returned and saw his little dragon.

This time, he returned rather quickly, but he looked even more exhausted than before, his steps heavy as he walked toward his gemstone nest.

Colorful tapestries hung around the nest, decorations he had specially brought back from several western tribes after noticing that Qian was interested in the student cloaks from the Western Magic Academy.

These tapestries featured motifs inspired by the region’s rich flora and fauna, with an abundance of insect and flower patterns.

In addition to the vibrant tapestries, there were also hanging magical wind chimes and flying wooden birds. These decorations had gradually been added after Qian arrived, filling the tower with a sense of childlike wonder.

Qian ran over and watched as her father transformed back into his dragon form in the nest.

“Daddy, your feet are dirty,” she said, looking at Lacia’s soot-black claws.

Lacia lazily smiled and teased her, “That’s not dirt. Like my tail, my feet turning black means I’m getting old. Try wiping it off if you don’t believe me.”

Qian grabbed his claw and scrubbed it with all her might, but the blackness remained.

She looked at the dragon’s pitch-black tail and claws with a deeply worried expression.

The giant dragon lowered its head and rubbed against her.

“Don’t be afraid. It’ll still be a long time before I completely turn into a ‘black’ dragon.”

Qian said anxiously, “Daddy doesn’t look good anymore. His color is all dirty.”

Lacia: “!!!”

Not good-looking?!

That innocent, yet devastating remark from his daughter almost sent him into a spiral.

At the High Tower of Dragons, Headmaster Ude pushed open the door and was nearly blinded by the icy dragon sprawled on the carpet.

The once pure and pristine silver-white dragon was now covered in various colors—his tail and claws painted all over. Qian held a special brush, lying on the spot where his tail met his back, drawing flowers. She had already drawn birds and cats, snakes and squirrels, as well as clouds, the sun, stars, and the moon.

Headmaster Ude: “…Professor Lacia, are you asleep?”

Lacia opened his tightly shut eyes.

He hadn’t been sleeping—he just couldn’t bear to look at the designs covering his body.

But to comfort his child, there was no other choice.

When Qian finally finished painting and saw how the beautiful colors had covered the unsightly black, she finally smiled again.

Once the child ran off to wash her hands, Headmaster Ude sat near the dragon. His gaze swept over the black creeping through the gaps of the colorful paint, his eyes filled with sorrow.

“Professor, you’re too close to the Abyss. The demonic energy is corroding you… If it gets too deep, you’ll turn into an irrational demonic dragon.”

Lacia closed his eyes again, his tone elegant and calm.

“Don’t worry. Before that happens, I will stay on Dragon Island.”

“Professor, you were never obligated to take responsibility for humanity—”

“Ude, you’d better not start crying in front of me.”

Lacia shot the old man a warning glare.

“I never had much time to begin with. Now, it’s just happening a little sooner.”

“The surge of this impure demonic energy is stronger than expected. I can’t allow it to wreak havoc on this world. I can’t leave Qian with a barren, devastated land. So everything I do is not just for humanity, but also for the future of my child.”

Lacia did not wipe off the drawings on his body. He flew through the darkening sky, weaving between the cracks and abysses seeping with black mist.

Yet each time he returned, the black had spread further.

Qian would patch it up with new designs and ask, “Daddy, are you going out to work?”

“Can you take me with you when you go to work?”

Lately, Qian had been troubled. Her father always left for days at a time and never took her along.

On top of that, there were fewer students at school, and fewer teachers, too.

She went to find the wood elf to play, only to hear a farewell.

“I’m going back to my homeland. It might be a while before I return. You have my spatial key—if you want to pick fruits, you can come anytime. The rainbow unicorn can stay here, too. Given the current state of things, it might be better for it to live here.”

“Qian, goodbye. I hope we can meet again.”

Qian clung to her, looking at her expectantly. “You’re going home? What for? How long will it be before you come back?”

Cracks had also appeared in the elves’ homeland, affecting the flora and fauna of the forest.

As protectors of the forest, the elves were doing everything they could to safeguard it. Although Lesuer had been away for a long time due to certain circumstances, now, she had no choice but to return.

She briefly explained to Qian, who only half-understood. Then, she said goodbye once more.

Feeling downcast, Qian lay on the carpet, playing with a puzzle.

She slowly took apart the nearly completed puzzle and tossed the pieces aside.

The people she knew were disappearing one by one, like those missing puzzle pieces, and she had no idea where they had gone.

After Lacia once again flew away from the tower, Qian, sitting by the window, could no longer hold back.

Even though the adults around her tried to shield her from the world’s cruelty, an unsettling atmosphere still loomed over her.

She transformed into a small azure dragon and took off, following the traces of the giant dragon’s aura into the sky.

She was a very lazy little dragon, preferring to ride on the big dragon’s back rather than flying herself. Every time she flew for a bit, she would get lazy and refuse to move. But this time, she flew for a long time.

Below her, people were migrating, houses lay in ruins, and cracks scarred the land.

The little azure dragon could not catch up to her father, who was too fast. But she caught a familiar scent and hesitated before descending below the clouds to observe the people below.

They were a group of refugees from a cracked region, temporarily residing here.

From a makeshift tent came the sound of someone groaning in pain. Most of the people were covered in dust, and many carried containers to fetch water from afar.

There had been a river nearby, but it had suddenly run dry, likely due to a crack upstream blocking the flow. Worse still, the heatwave had not abated, and a drought had set in.

The land was a withered yellow.

“The river in the distance is almost dry too. If this continues, we may have to move again,” said a young mage at the temporary settlement.

His companion looked up at the sky. “Move where? We might as well pray for rain to buy us some time.”

Suddenly, his eyes widened, and he exclaimed urgently, “Wait, look up there!”

“Is that… Qian?”

“It’s Qian! How did she end up here? And she seems to be alone?”

They were students from the Central Magic Academy.

Both of them stared at the sky, soon falling into a daze.

Above them, dark clouds gathered as the familiar little azure dragon exhaled mist, weaving through the clouds.

The rolling clouds occasionally swallowed her, revealing only glimpses of her scales and claws.

“Rain! It’s raining!”

“Finally, rain!”

Joyful shouts erupted from the distance, spreading across the entire settlement, snapping the two young mages out of their trance.

“Is… is Qian making it rain?” they murmured.

The rain poured for quite a while. When the clouds finally dispersed and the rain ceased, the little azure dragon was nowhere to be seen, as if everything had been just an illusion.