-New Dragon POV-

A nuisance in my head like an alarm but with no sound registering started making my senses return to my body and my consciousness emerge from the darkness. I tried turning over to mute the alarm and head to work, but the action proved futile since my body wouldn't budge then slowly opened my heavy eyes while adjusting to the dim light perceived. Blurry vertical lines became thinner as my vision lazily adapted to the dusky light and finally viewed the walls of the enclosure that made me recall where I was.

"GHU!?" I raised my neck and tilted my head making a surprised sound to have woken up in this place.

Am I alive? But how? And why does it smell appetizing in here? I turned my neck around to follow the enticing scent and find a person stiff, standing right behind me....Why is a guy near my ass of all places? Imagining what a human would be doing there made my back turn cold, put strength on my legs and immediately pulled away to the left side of the room while covering my parts with my tail.

"HRISSS!" Then my hissing petrified the standing harasser in the middle of the room.

You sex offender! Why are you the one getting scared? I'm a minor, you know? Or rather...more like a four-month-old baby. Oh, I just noticed, this lack of colors means the sun is already set out there, so he probably can't see me well in this dusk and it won't be long before everything is pitch black in here. The panicking Fiend next to me yelled something to the people outside while the smell of fear oozes from his stiff body on the verge of leaking.

I turn my gaze to the sturdy bars that didn't bend with my bashing and watch the twilight outside, where the pink-haired woman from this afternoon talks with four other agitated people in shiny plate armor holding swords, then one of the warriors rushed out of sight to my right. The others showed no further movement but stayed in readiness, and then I turned to stare at the opening on the left side of the bars where the human that could fit through has become a statue standing on the bloodied floor next to me.

Ufufu, a horror movie from the point of view of the monster that can see in the dark looks like a ton of fun~ since he can't see me and I would like to enjoy teasing him a little more if it weren't for the fact that it fucking hurts everywhere!

Oww, I shouldn't have moved abruptly, but every time a human gets close to me, nothing good follows...was he checking my gender or something? M-my dignity...ok, don't kill anything yet, those Tin-cans outside look dangerous, unlike the ones from the subjugation by the river who wore leather and had creepy smiles on their faces. Can't underestimate humans again, if one was able to knock the daylights out of me with just a punch then chopping off my neck would have been easier and now that this situation is not unbearable like before, I should determine if its a good idea to keep my head.

Calming down a few seconds after waking up caused the pain signals from all over my damaged body to register in my brain, and I contorted in pain shaking my head sideways while my legs trembled as if they would give out any moment.

My head still hurts but why am I even alive? I had a lot of fun bashing my body around in madness, and now everything except the tail hurts, but my head feels a little too good for all the beatings it took...what's going on? Well, everyone needs to give into madness from time to time, and dragons bodies sure are sturdy since this is the second time I survived a torture-coaster besides the one at the mountain, but does this priest-looking guy had something to do with my survival?

The other creepy guy who was making the collar unbearable isn't around...was he fired for pet abuse or am I supposed to be fully tamed by now? They must have called a priest to revive the dragon since he looks too gaudy to be here unless he has weird hobbies. No, it's actually embarrasing, but I seem to have fainted before dying, and he probably only healed my head since the rest of my body still bleeds, but he sure did a pretty good job when I woken up in the same afternoon.

"GHAaa..." I slowly lay down on my belly, then sprawl my limbs to comfortable positions and stare at up at the startled priest.

Reclining the left side of my body on the left wall of the room, I slam the tail around the priest in the dark to amuse myself with his reactions while pondering how to proceed from here. Sighs, failing to kill yourself sucks because the aftermath is hellish, but maybe I should reconsider since all my current problems have solutions as long as they don't make the collar do that again or it's going to be round two for the crazy dragon act. Here I thought that breaking a leg or cutting off a finger in my previous life was painful...It really has been a torture ride since I was born...even that intolerable headache felt like thousands of needles poking at my head, and it was actually relieving when I started smashing the collar with my head.

Though right now is just as annoying as standing in front of a fan, but they can't increase it, or this sex offender gets eaten alive, and that woman would make a better hostage since she appears to be a leader of sorts. However, how do I grab her? The front gate seems to slide to the right, but I doubt she would stay still for me to catch her and even using my tail through the bars with the lack of control will prove futile. Those warriors won't stay still either since they must be there for her protection, but the solution for everybody present is that I behave and look all tamed, maybe even wag my tail a little when they bring that raw meat I'm smelling being sliced.

"GRULuRUrul..." My stomach growled signaling the body's response to start healing the injuries sustained while increasingly demanding food and the healer almost jumped on the spot.

I'm Starving... I instinctually stare at the human on the side who's tempting smell is making me drool. I would feel bad to make a treat out of a priest who's not a threat, and I'm restraining myself from pouncing, but if they don't bring that food soon then I will enjoy the crunching feeling of his bones... Because of my body's current state, the beast nature seems to have emerged vigorously and right now, the human side is keeping the person alive while the animal wants to devour to satiate the growing hungry feeling, that might compete with the actual pain from injuries.

How wrong would I find this as a former human? Won't feel too guilty if he dies quickly since I always hated needless cruelty, but as a beast, that will be hard to keep up in the future...who knows what I'll end up doing. Although I prepared myself for the eventuality of becoming a monster, there is no way to predict what will influence me or the paths taken in this unknown world, but I'm gonna try to not become mindless since my empathy and laziness to do unnecessary things are what define the current me.

That being said, I must also compromise somehow with these instincts even if it dampens my morality because this is what I wanted before reincarnation and different personalities will not be allowed...already tried that as a human to blame my bad decisions until I got bored and accepted everything like an adult. However, this confusion was bound to happen since I haven't had time to acclimate to the new memories, and they do indeed feel new, being eerily crystal clear right now, but that's probably because of all those connections forcefully made in an instant like a newly printed book.

Abruptly receiving memories like this gives me an idea about what will happen with the personalities from the other soul pieces, and I'm gonna need to grow mentally stronger for the integrations since the old ones may have the advantage. In any case, I want their knowledge without the personalities, but since that will prove tough, especially absorbing hundreds of years worth of memories where I just lived a few decades, I'm going to have to get creative and maybe isolate them in my head before reading their information slowly like a book. I confirmed plans for the far future while hoping none of the soul pieces had the same idea as me.

Just as my patience was running out, the fourth guard that left earlier is carrying a recently cut leg of an animal bigger than a pig and throws it from the opening of the gate in front of me. I caught it in the air and slurped the flowing blood before chewing on it making pleasant crunching sounds to my ears while the Priest slowly made his way to the front. Done enjoying the snack that went into my stomach rather fast, I lick myself clean of any residue and stare at the people outside with puppy eyes...which seem to have worked, despite being dark because the same guard returned with another full leg. While he threw it to my already-opened jaws, the gaudy person who was already at the front, slipped outside through the gap between the gate and I proceeded to indulge myself slowly munching as they slide-close the gate.

Soon after, two guards came with big buckets of water to throw them at me and around the cell to wash away the blood that drains from a hole I didn't notice before on the back of the room. I rejoiced at the precious refreshing liquid falling on my body and even managed to drink some in quantities not found in the wild before because even the rain has eluded this place since my messed up birth.

Wonder if I caused a good impression for them to reward me with delicious food and water, though it's just missing a bathtub with back scrubs, that's too much to ask from a carrot and stick treatment, but I shouldn't complain when the 'me' of the past ate everything without restraints. Maybe tomorrow I'll wag my tail to beg some more of that animal meat which is new to my palate, and live the dull but comfortable life of a pet in captivity, like the people on Earth who go to jail for the free lodging.

The fancy black collar on my neck seems to be for Taming, and I've either become a pet for rich people who even have guards, they will fatten to eat me like a pig or sell me later when I don't look so famished. I inspected the walls carefully with the little light of the bright night sky shining into the room and noticed the scratches adorning them, made with claw marks or horns from what should be different animals.

This place appears to be prepared for other beasts, but that woman who commanded the guards didn't see me as her pet, and I doubt they would put these collars on dragons they're just going to eat...which means, my fate is to be sold, and I better be expensive, or I'm gonna to get pissed. Although it will be quite tedious until they sell me without going on walks or hunting, I could use this free time to ponder about Magic since that priest didn't use medicines to heal me, but I'm not sure where to start or what to look for, and it's gonna be extra hard to deeply concentrate with these headaches besides the collar affecting me.

My next step would be betting on a decent owner to get as much knowledge from Magic as possible or anything else that could help me survive, and hope they are not one of those trash types that will betray you at the first sign of pain like that healer from before or that creepy guy who I will have to find in the future. Since Dragons are not fluffy pets, accidents will happen if I find my new owner unworthy, then it's a matter of getting sold again until the right one appears, but if that doesn't work...I'll just disappear back into the wild when the opportunity arises and take my chances with stronger predators. Admitting to being weaker than how dragons are supposed to be and lacking Magic that could make me strong like Big Red, I ponder on the best course of action that will ensure a desirable future growth.

Analyzing my situation from a less negative point of view doesn't look so bad when all my memories were unlocked at such an early stage of my development since I'm a fucking baby compared to Big Red who is four times bigger than me and there are probably bigger dragons out there too. Even if my brain proved to be too small to contain all my human knowledge or its plasticity insufficient and produced these migraines, the solution is simply growing up which shouldn't be difficult considering the maturity rate of dragons, but any kind of memory deterioration over time worries me. Brain plasticity makes sure any new memory added has the possibility of altering your pre-existing ones, and this is exceptionally grave during brain development stages where connections are always arranged for more efficiency, like a computer modifying the format of a file, making it look different afterward.

Not many memories survive the development process from infancy, and at that time memories felt crude with so few connections that linking one thing to another or arranging their order took effort, quickly forgetting anything that went out of sight for a few short moments. We are always changing our perspective with new information which is like the formats that we use to look at our very own memories, and I wonder if that's the reason why AI can't become truly self-aware...because they just make connections, but never change their own operating system.

The brain doesn't have a drive defragmentation function or a large ram capacity, but I guess those early memories are used for the base of our future perspective, like coding a more complex format in an old computer for a new one, and I hope not to lose too many memories beyond this point if my body still thinks that stage is still needed. Comfortable with my new accommodations, I did my best to relax and eventually fell asleep.

...

-22 Days later. Mid-morning. Ragefire state. Lester's POV-

"Brother, you promised!" Puffing the cheeks with determination in her eyes, little sister Shaila protests about my decision to buy a new small fluffy pet.

Looking down at her red face in the verge of tears, I recall our deal to get another pet if she came out of her room, and the plan was to buy a small animal that won't cost too much, but everything changed when she heard about the baby dragon being auctioned today. Three days ago the last quarter of Autumn started, salaries were handed over to people, and with money circulating in town, the guild began arranging an auction event with several items for today. I thought it was a wyvern they were going to auction for advertisement, but when Liana confirmed to be the dragon that gave her a scare back then, Shaila immediately became infatuated with the idea of having a dragon companion. Although our family keeps a portion of the taxes, buying a dragon is costly as well as maintaining it which is why people with dragon mounts work in the capital where they earn enough, but at least they make better companions than wyverns who are dumber and get sick easily.

"Shaila..." I sighed shaking my head. "Dragons are not just expensive to buy and maintain, but they also can't be delicate when dealing with fragile humans...you could get hurt badly, and I don't want to see you like that ever again." I reason with the white-haired little girl to buy a safer pet that will give me a piece of mind and hurt our funds less.

"Dragon...I don't want anything that dies with a hug anymore and sister approved too." She firmly states crossing her arms with a defiance posture.

Do you call tackling a bird at the speed of an arrow, a hug? The poor thing had its neck broken and was dead in your arms for a while, but at least it tasted good, and if you love animals so much, then don't kill them and cry about it after! The last pet lasted a couple of days, and there isn't a large variety of animals around this town, but she doesn't want one of the Beast people slave because they look too human... I'm going to have to get her that dragon, huh? Well, at least there aren't any prominent family in town anymore that can compete with mine in that auction since I kind of ruined them all back then...so it shouldn't go too high unless a merchant wants to resell it at the capital. However, if the beast hurts her, even by accident, then we got a lot of meat to feed the soldiers with....if its edible anyway because some are highly toxic. I proudly recall being the reason why our town improved in public order when the other shady families left, but also the cause of the declining prosperity while being glad to have received a light punishment from the Royals.

"If I get you that Dragon, will you go back to school__" I stopped trying to strike a new deal when her face starts to turn gloomy as if losing the reason to live. "Nevermind! I'll leave right away to get the Dragon!" Panicking, I quickly conceded to her wishes while hoping to be the only one who can pay a hefty sum for the dragon at that auction. I left the state without guards in a hurry and headed for where the auction is supposed to take place while recalling how crowded areas are taboo for her.