The atmosphere inside the nest eased again along with Logan's lazy low growl, and Mother Chameleos also timely put away that little expression, returning to her original look.
Fear, terror?
A little, but not much!
Swaying her rolled-up big tail, she toddled in on her short, thick four limbs into the nest, with that couldn't-care-less look that showed not the slightest trace of the earlier tension.
Seeing this, Logan knew this fellow had indeed been putting on an act. He looked at her speechlessly as she moved as if entering her own home, skillfully found a suitable spot to sprawl, and then, who knew from where, fished out a few Mega Potions and crunched away chewing them.
"Gwa, gwa!"
With a lazy posture just like Logan's, she called softly there and stated the purpose of her trip.
When he heard Chameleos say she intended to live here for a while and improve her meals, Logan thought at first that the Research Commission had started to skimp on this fellow's food.
But then he turned the thought around—impossible. Although Chameleos was a bit unprincipled, she was now deeply bound to the Research Commission. By the Research Commission's way of doing things, no matter how hard things got, they would not short this fellow a bite or two; they would even, at the cost of transferring resources from the Old World, raise this fellow to be plump and white.
After listening to Chameleos's muttering, Logan finally understood everything. This fellow was purely being greedy; it had nothing to do with the Research Commission.
However, hearing Chameleos bring up Ahtal-Ka from time to time between the lines, with that displeasure toward Ahtal-Ka in her words, Logan seemed to understand something.
His eyes narrowed slightly. Counting the time carefully, it seemed about time for Ahtal-Ka to come over.
All these days, he had at last barely adapted to that strange gaze of Ahtal-Ka's. As if by tacit agreement, every time he returned from patrol, Ahtal-Ka would spare a bit of time to run down from the construction site at the top of the Ancient Tree and, with great restraint, observe him for a short while outside the nest.
He had already grown somewhat used to it.
And so Logan just kept his eyes slightly narrowed, listening continuously to Chameleos's rambling.
Soon, a golden figure appeared at the entrance of the nest.
Mother Chameleos's voice came to an abrupt halt. Being able to achieve perfect invisibility meant that Chameleos's information-gathering organs had been developed to an extreme state.
That big curled tail that functioned like a cochlea allowed Her to collect sufficient information resources within a certain range; with Ahtal-Ka making such a racket coming down, how could it possibly not be noticed.
She didn't even need to turn around; Chameleos immediately perceived that it was that annoying big fellow.
With an unhappy little croak, she shot Logan a resentful look with her big eyes, and in the next second vanished into the air; only Logan, by sensing life energy, could tell that Chameleos was still in her original spot.
It quite had the awkward feeling of being caught speaking ill of someone behind their back face-to-face.
At this time, Ahtal-Ka at the entrance scratched its own head in puzzlement—such a large dragon had actually disappeared just like that; even with its compound eyes that could capture countless pieces of information, it could not find the slightest trace of Mother Chameleos
Moreover, by a creature's keen perception of emotion, Ahtal-Ka also clearly felt the fleeting malice that Chameleos had just directed at it.
If Chameleos hadn't run fast, it would already have swung out its walking fortress components and smashed them over viciously.
"Interesting!"
Logan watched Ahtal-Ka still constantly trying to find Chameleos's traces in the nest, and also sensed Chameleos who, because the space was not open and the range of movement was not large, did not dare to move about at will and could only keep invisibility.
Logan seemed to have found some interesting things.
...
Deep in the Ancient Forest, inside the gigantic central-control Ancient Tree, when the figure of the Wyverian girl appeared in this dwelling place of the ancient wyverians, a group of wyverians busy with their own affairs rubbed their eyes one after another and looked at the Wyverian girl in disbelief.
There had been no word for more than a year; by their experience, they had thought the Wyverian girl had already died in some monster's jaws.
Unexpectedly, she was standing alive right in front of them, and judging by the Wyverian girl's complexion she even seemed to have put on a bit of weight.
It seemed that although there had been no news of her for more than a year, she had lived not badly; the armor on her body appeared to have received some good maintenance as well—who knew what she had experienced.
"Phew~"
From the throat of the Ancient Wyverian Prophet came a low growl like a dragon's roar. Supporting himself with his staff, he slowly walked up to the Wyverian girl.
Small in stature, he lifted his head and carefully examined the scales on the Wyverian girl's forehead.
In a calm and steady tone, he spoke.
"You've worked hard. Take a rest first. Tonight, we can have a proper talk about what you've experienced this past year. You must have a lot you want to tell us."
The Ancient Wyverian Prophet was as wise as ever; merely from the expression on the Wyverian girl's face, he could already analyze that she had something she was eager to tell.
But since it had already been so long, waiting a little longer wouldn't be a problem.
What was more, since a tribeswoman had been away for over a year, whether she had fared well or poorly, she should at least be allowed sufficient rest to ease her fatigue.
Even though the Wyverian girl's current appearance seemed as if she didn't need it.
The Wyverian girl opened her mouth, but before the words came out, she swallowed them back and obediently nodded.
Although life atop the Ancient Tree had been good, now that she had returned to the tribe and saw these clansmen who had remained unchanged for decades, her heart felt much calmer.
At night, the starry sky was dense, and a bonfire burned within the hollow of the great tree.
The ancient wyverians brought out the food they had stored during this time, arranging it everywhere like a grand evening banquet.
Although they didn't know what the Wyverian girl had gone out to do in the past year, and she had even taken away the tribe's last remaining strongest armor set, seeing her chatting happily at the table with several elderly wyverians made it clear that this journey had certainly not been simple—and that she seemed to have gained some unexpected benefits.
"So that's how it is—a mysterious gemstone, is it? An unknown Elder Dragon that can manipulate the air temperature like Teostra."
"And even more friendly, having developed its own species and civilization."
"Who would have thought that after thousands of years of unchanging New World, in just these few decades it would undergo such great changes—even people from another continent have already come over."
"I wonder whether that is good or bad."
The Wyverian girl was somewhat puzzled. From what she had observed over the past year, whether it was Logan or the Research Commission, what they had done should all be positive changes for the New Path. Why then did this elderly Wyverian Prophet show such an expression?
As for the Wyverian girl's puzzlement, the ancient Wyverian prophet did not say much either, having not lived through that era, the Wyverian girl would not understand.
Of course, although the ancient Wyverian prophet's age was also very great, his historical experience was incomparably rich; to call him a living fossil of the New World would be no exaggeration.
But he had not experienced that most glorious period either.
However, as someone who had already read all the historical documents passed down within the group, and even often went out to do archaeology and read all kinds of materials preserved beneath those ruins, for hundreds of years, the knowledge he had mastered, as well as much hidden information, was enough to let him sketch out that once most resplendent age of the civilization.
But the ancient Wyverian prophet, like the great elder of the Old World who had once witnessed civilization destroyed, still understood that path of ancient civilization that opposed nature, subjugated Elder Dragons, developed technology, and destroyed ecosystems solely for its own survival.
It was absolutely a road of no return, and moreover a dead end.
And the starting point of all that destruction began when the civilizations of the Old World and the New World became interconnected.
Therefore, when he learned that the people coming from the other continent this time had the Elder Dragon Crossing as their goal and wanted to explore the secrets of the Elder Dragons, the ancient Wyverian prophet could not help being somewhat worried, fearing this would be another cycle of history.
After all, between the New World and the Old World, exchanges of civilization had been cut off for far too many years; even after the New World's civilization became extinct, this place had long since become a paradise for monsters, with the breath of civilization almost entirely buried beneath all kinds of ruins, and even though the ancient Wyverian prophet was erudite, it was hard to judge whether the civilization of the Old World had changed.
Perhaps only after making contact would they know.
---
I will post some extra Chapters in Patreon, you can check it out. >> patreon.com/TitoVillar
---