Otaku Witch

"Roar..."

The young dragon let out a plaintive, disheartened whine, until a pair of gentle hands lifted her up.

"There, there, don't feel bad. Your cat sister is only so great because she was born before you. Fafnir, you're a Great Dragon, cats can't beat dragons. When you grow up, she won't be able to beat you," she said.

Dorothy cradled the hefty young dragon, who was as heavy as a solid iron ball, and softly soothed the little one.

Special familiars like those from the Spirit race or Armored Beasts often have their shape and character influenced by their master. Fafnir, as the child of Sophia's Angel Armored Beast, Angela, hatched not as an angel but as a Great Dragon due to Dorothy's identity as the Dragon Witch.

To better match her master, Fafnir instinctively chose Great Dragon from the gene pool inherited from the Mother of All Beasts.

As a newly formed consciousness, the two little ones' personalities were also unconsciously shaped by the Familiar Contract with Dorothy.

The kitten Buster more fully inherited Dorothy's hidden audacity from her days as the Witch of the Forest, but Fafnir...

Alas, the young dragon seemed to have inherited more of Dorothy's day-to-day languor and indolence.

Although she was supposed to be naturally combative and domineering, her temperament was unexpectedly docile. She rarely left Dorothy's side and was exceptionally clingy, much like Dorothy's unwillingness to leave home.

This perfectly vivacious Great Dragon had been turned into a docile homebody dragon by her own upbringing, leaving Dorothy with mixed feelings as her master.

Nevertheless, she could hardly dislike her own child; after all, as a civil engineering witch likely to focus on infrastructure in the future and not combat, it didn't matter if her familiar could fight. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad for Fafnir to grow up and become a dragon-shaped crane carrying building materials. The child seemed well-suited for hauling bricks.

Meanwhile, Fafnir, blissfully unaware that her lackluster master had already pegged her future as a brick-carrying dragon, naively took her master's comfort to heart and perked up again. She stretched out her body and then shook her wings, which were more like thick steel claws than Dragon's Wings.

Then, the bulky steel claws split open at the tips. From the exposed hollow tube structure within, crimson Dragon Breath burst forth.

Using the reverse thrust of this Dragon Breath, the surprisingly heavy steel young dragon whooshed straight up into flight ("Was into 'Sky Comet Dragon' mode—it's ok to imagine Fafnir's appearance as a red and black Gundam-like Sky Comet Dragon, but with a heavier mechanical steel feel.")

Unfortunately, the little one was still too young. Such an unusual flight method was destined to be hard to master; barely having taken off, her still underdeveloped respiratory system couldn't keep up with the consumption of Dragon Breath. This caused the crimson Dragon Breath from the wing propellers to gradually weaken, eventually extinguishing.

Thus, the whole dragon could only frustratingly continue hurtling forward due to her initial momentum.

"Roar..."

Seeing that she was about to crash into a wall, the panicked steel young dragon curled into a ball, bracing herself for the impact.

However, Fafnir waited in vain. The anticipated impact didn't happen; instead, a gentle magic power intercepted her, and she ended up back in that familiar, warm embrace.

"I told you not to rush. When you grow up, you can fly all you want. For now, all you need is to eat and sleep well," Dorothy said.

Dorothy looked somewhat helplessly at the impulsive young dragon.

The little one's appearance had been specifically adjusted by her, and this unique dragon form was also inspired by an ancient dragon from a hunting game she loved in her previous life, making Fafnir truly one-of-a-kind in this world.

It's just that, cool as it truly was, her modifications had ruined the dragon's natural flying instincts. The ancient flying memories embedded in the Great Dragon's bloodline clearly couldn't mesh with these new-age jet propulsion methods.

A mismatch between software and hardware meant that Fafnir would likely have to learn to fly step by step on her own.

But no worries, as the saying goes, true dragons emerge from hardship. Dorothy believed that when Fafnir grew up, she would definitely appreciate her master's good intentions.

Dorothy dug out a large chunk of specially made metal from her pocket, thinking this to herself.

When the innocent young dragon saw the metal, its eyes lit up, and it joyfully hugged it and started chewing.

Well, after all it was an Armored Beast. To transform into even stronger armor, it had to consume various rare Spiritual Metals, which were precious materials typically used for forging Alchemical Tools. Now, they could only be used as dragon feed.

So, I need high-quality food, Buster needs Soul Shards, and Fafnir wants to nibble on Spiritual Metal. None of this is cheap. Just thinking about it, Dorothy could already see her future self worrying daily about food expenses.

Compared to these pressures, tomorrow's assessment now seemed utterly trivial.

But there was no helping it, since she had chosen this path herself. Freeloading was out of the question, as she had been eating and drinking for free for days. She needed to figure out a way to make some money first.

......

So, when Sophia finished washing the dishes and came out of the kitchen, she immediately saw a sinister gleam in the mistress's eyes, one that not even her black-rimmed glasses could hide.

This triggered the standing hair on the Angel Witch's head to twitch; her angelic talent for detecting evil was activated.

The pure white girl shuddered violently, smelling trouble in the air.

This made Sophia instantly wary. She intended to ask what was going on, but because of an argument they had just before dinner, she hesitated to speak.

Until now, neither had spoken a word, and Sophia wasn't eager to be the one to break the silence.

For the proud Angel Witch, it seemed as though she was admitting defeat first,

but...

"I'm sorry, Miss. I apologize for my earlier behavior. Perhaps I really was in the wrong."

Sophia eventually spoke up, quickly finishing her sentence before turning directly back to her room.

She hated the feeling of bowing down to someone, but, more than the bitterness of conceding, she feared making one mistake after another due to her stubbornness.

Right is right, wrong is wrong. Simple as that; nothing was unacceptable.

"Oh, my naive mistress. Not everyone has loving family members like you, a powerful mother as your support. Even if you fail, you can still inherit everything from your teacher, but I can only rely on myself.

Perhaps I truly lack the heart of a conqueror, but that's alright. Because I am all the more aware that I can't afford the consequences of failure, so I must treat every matter with doubled caution and care."

As she walked into her room, and while closing the door, out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed the perplexed look on the mistress's face due to her apology. The pure white girl thought to herself, her eyes shimmering with envy, even jealousy, but eventually, everything settled back to calm.

Then the room door shut tightly...

Dorothy: "..."

..... little witch in shock and confusion.....