The summer rain came quickly and receded just as fast. After a torrential downpour that resembled a waterfall, the rain gradually lightened within an hour. While still cold and brisk, it had turned into a gentle drizzle, causing ripples on the deep lake’s surface.

In response to the small black dragon’s sincere request, Yvette said nothing but simply nodded slightly in agreement. She then pulled out the “Regeneration Pump,” a spell she hadn’t used in a long time, and began healing Dugrabi’s wounds.

With the powerful restorative magic at work, Dugrabi’s injuries from the Mountain Whales’ strange attacks quickly healed, and his energy and spirit noticeably improved.

He hesitated for a moment before speaking in a respectful yet tentative tone, “So, does this mean I have to call you ‘Master’ from now on?”

“Call me ‘Teacher,’” Yvette replied.

“Alright.” Dugrabi nodded, a hint of happiness breaking through, though it was quickly followed by a cloud of gloom. “But can I go back?”

“Hmm?”

“I didn’t protect Jasmine well enough… Can I really go back? Will the villagers be angry?”

“Let’s investigate a bit first; perhaps there are other discoveries to be made?”

“What discoveries could there be…” Dugrabi said, somewhat resistant. While he hadn’t witnessed Jasmine’s death firsthand, he had glimpsed a shattered alchemical doll’s remains when he emerged from the underground, along with a telling floral crown.

To the black dragon, who struggled with recognizing the appearances of different dolls, the sight of that crown seemed to say it all.

Now, going back would only inevitably lead him to face the “corpse” more clearly.

But seeing as the teacher had given an order, Dugrabi had no choice but to comply. With a heavy heart filled with shame and the reluctance to face others, he lowered his head and allowed Yvette to leap onto his back. With a flap of his wings, he soared into the rainy night, heading towards the flickering torchlight in the military base ruins.

“Hey! Kind-hearted lady, you found it!” Ice Rain waved cheerfully upon seeing Yvette casting the illumination spell from Dugrabi’s back.

After landing, Dugrabi felt awkward turning his head as Ice Rain, Roller, Soap, and the others approached from the darkness, preparing for the scolding he expected to receive.

However, unexpectedly, a voice from nearby caught him off guard.

“Mr. Dragon? You’re alright? That’s wonderful!”

Dugrabi stiffened as if struck by lightning. He turned in shock and indeed spotted another small doll stepping out from the beam of a flashlight, adorned with a dirty but familiar floral crown atop her head.

“You… are you a ghost?! How are you unharmed?!” Dugrabi let out a terrified roar.

“Whoa! You spoke!” Ice Rain, Roller, and Soap were all taken aback. They had always seen the black dragon huff and puff but had never heard it speak — although the accent was somewhat odd, it was definitely in the Black Tide language.

So this dragon could talk?!

Jasmine looked puzzled as she replied, “I’m fine… I just fell and fainted… what’s wrong, Mr. Dragon?”

“No, no… this isn’t right…” Dugrabi was bewildered and suddenly remembered something. It dashed toward the wreckage, clearing away some debris to find a torn mechanical doll lying underneath.

However, unlike Jasmine, this doll, though rusty, displayed slight differences in style and intricate details. This content belongs to novel-fire.net

“You… you…” Dugrabi felt like it was about to faint; it couldn’t comprehend the situation.

“Little Jasmine was found right here beside us.” Ice Rain came over and pointed to a small pit on the ground. “For some reason, there was exactly a hole here, and she fell into it and fainted, becoming trapped under a slab of stone. We found her floral crown nearby while searching and quickly located her.”

“…?”

Dugrabi was petrified; happiness had struck too suddenly for it to process.

So Jasmine hadn’t died. It had simply misinterpreted the combination of the crown and the remains due to its inability to recognize differences among dolls?

Could it be that in the heat of the moment, it had ignited its little universe and scared off four Mountain Whales, only to be utterly devastated afterward and lonelier beside the lakeside until deep into the night?

“By the way, it was the kind-hearted lady who discovered her first. She found Jasmine and then found you,” Ice Rain added as a follow-up.

Dugrabi’s expression changed even more. It glanced at Jasmine, then the other dolls, and finally at Yvette. Swallowing hard, it asked somewhat awkwardly and embarrassingly, “Teacher… did you… already know?”

No wonder the teacher had been so calm earlier; she hadn’t mourned for Jasmine at all.

It had assumed this Silver Witch, being a deity, was naturally heartless and not as emotionally attached as dragons were… Ah, turns out it had been the only one kept in the dark!

Yvette nodded.

“Why didn’t you say anything sooner?” Dugrabi felt humiliated as it recalled its earlier reactions. It felt it had lost all face as a dragon.

—What a despicable witch! She must have done this on purpose to embarrass him!

It felt deeply resentful!

“I hope you remember this experience more clearly,” Yvette said, her beautiful face reflecting seriousness. “Today was fortuitous, but can you expect to be so lucky every time? Do you want to keep facing this kind of loss in the future?”

Dugrabi was left speechless.

It suddenly understood why earlier, at the lakeside, Yvette had started asking probing questions, guiding it toward self-reflection… Turns out she had been teaching it all along.

Although it wasn’t the kind of lesson that would make it invincible, it felt that such a lesson, compared to a conventional combat course, truly conveyed the teacher’s genuine concern.

Alright, it decided to retract its momentary disrespectful thoughts.

—The witch teacher was still quite gentle, and when it came to teaching ethics, she far excelled its father.

…

As the night rain ceased, the dark clouds dispersed, allowing the bright moonlight and stars to emerge, creating a breathtakingly expansive view that stirred the heart.

Standing on the back of the black dragon and feeling the evening breeze blow against her, Yvette mentally reviewed the events of today to ensure she hadn’t missed any details.

Though it all felt sudden, she had actually been planning this investigation for over a year.

She had pondered various locations along the paths of the Mountain Whales’ movements and identified areas that were high-risk for encounters. She had also set up several hidden cameras—pieces salvaged from abandoned dolls, paired with energy storage boards, elemental chips, and recycled functional modules to create rudimentary surveillance devices.

When the Mountain Whales approached the abandoned military base where Dugrabi and the children were, she was the first to arrive, though she intentionally refrained from revealing herself. Instead, she stayed hidden in the shadows, discreetly coordinating wind, earth, and lightning magic to quietly perform a series of actions: “remove Jasmine’s crown,” “create a pit to trip her,” “shock her with a weak current,” “cover and obscure her with a cement slab,” and “scatter doll remains,” effectively fabricating a misleading situation that implied Jasmine had died, delivering a significant psychological shock to Dugrabi—after all, given its inability to recognize the differences in doll design, it likely wouldn’t spot any details.

Originally, her plan was to wait a little longer, to enter like a hero when the time was right, especially since four Mountain Whales were formidable opponents and she needed to be present for the final educational step to reveal Jasmine’s survival.

However, to her surprise, Dugrabi, as a dragon prince, turned out to possess considerable potential; in a furious state, it managed to chase away the four Mountain Whales and then, after doing so, didn’t return to the site, but instead fled to a lakeside, retreating into its own shell until nighttime.

Yvette had waited a long time, and seeing that it showed no signs of movement, she returned to the doll kingdom, regrouped with everyone, and completed the final step of her investigation plan.

One could say that for an investigation, she had meticulously plotted for an entire year; it would be hard to find another teacher as dedicated as her in this world.

…

Before long, they safely returned the black dragon and the children’s exploration team, and life in the Cookes family swiftly settled back to normal.

Due to the many interesting facets concealed within this story—such as the ferocious dragon revealing such kindness at its core, or that the dragon could speak yet had acted as if it couldn’t, or that the dragon actually possessed such power… Overall, Dugrabi’s contrasting behaviors became favorite topics for the residents of the doll kingdom for quite some time.

As for Dugrabi, its feelings were not as pleasant, given that its dragon facade had crumbled. What difference does that make from social death?

Fortunately, it had learned to behave and began closely following the teacher to study those obscure and difficult foundational rune concepts. This provided an excellent excuse for it to seclude itself in the large warehouse where the trailer was parked.

However, progress continued to be somewhat slow, and it often grew dizzy from studying. Whenever it opened its eyes, those terrifying and complicated runes would swirl before it, almost turning into a nightmare.