### Chapter 14: War of the Dragons (2)
The kids, who were trying to gauge my furious expression by rolling their eyes all over the place, slowly opened their mouths.
“T-That’s…”
“It’s just that the kids got a bit rowdy…”
“We couldn’t stop the kids from going wild after the hatchling died. Sorry, Mom.”
“Ah! Erebus! That’s so unfair!!!”
“Sagar and I were neutral, but we didn’t completely stop the kids from jumping into the fight on their own.”
“Yeah, just like Yggdrasil.”
“But didn’t everyone experience the black dragons invading their territory at least once? I think Erebus is largely to blame here.”
Is the issue the territory invasion, or is it the fact that they killed the hatchling?
Well, both are pretty major problems. But that doesn’t mean it’s okay to just start a war where they kill each other!
I sighed heavily, and with that sigh, flames erupted in front of where the kids stood.
“So, who’s taking responsibility for this?”
“Umm, well…”
I could almost hear their eyeballs rolling in their heads.
Do they even realize they did something wrong? Or are they just trying to dodge my wrath?
Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that I’ve gotta scold these kids.
“Invading the black dragon kids’ territory is wrong, but that’s something we can forgive and fix. However, harming the hatchling? That’s an irreversible mistake.”
Erebus spoke calmly. Sure, he’s right, but why does it feel like he’s trying to wriggle out of his own mistakes?
Is he trying to hide a little mistake behind a bigger one to escape this mess?
But the other kids had no solid excuses to counter Erebus’s words.
“Do you all think the same?”
“Well, that is…”
“Certainly, that could be the case…”
At the point where they couldn’t even make a proper rebuttal, the answer was basically set in stone.
So, yeah.
“How tragic…”
The dragons who started the war, the seven kids who couldn’t control them, and me, who had been hibernating and blissfully unaware of all this chaos.
Everything just felt sad and pitiable.
“So when exactly did the hatchling die?”
“About… a month ago.”
Erebus hesitated before answering.
A month… Not that long, really.
I pulled out my pocket watch that’s supposed to rewind time.
“If we could just erase all this, would the war vanish?”
“What? Erase it like it never happened?”
“Mom…? I have a bad feeling about this…”
I pressed the button on the pocket watch and quickly rewound the hands.
One complete turn for 12 hours. Two turns for a day. After a good bit of winding, the pocket watch displayed a time about a month ago.
“Let’s go back to before this mistake was made. That should work, right?”
“Mother?!”
I let out a small sigh and closed the lid of the pocket watch.
[Seeking agreement from the past point…
The past point has agreed.
Would you like to rewind time? Y / N]
Unlike when I tested it on my own, now I’m rewinding a world filled with kids and dragons…
But honestly, isn’t it better than letting this ridiculous war go on?
Thus, the world began to rewind.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
I forced my body, sore and stiff from the lengthy hibernation, to move.
My entire body felt like a statue, not just sore but rigid, yet I couldn’t just sit around.
Why else would I rewind time if not to stop the mistakes before they happened?
“Huuu…”
I summoned the kids while loosening my stiff frame.
[Erebus. Shamash. Ifrit. Thetis. Sylphid. Sagarmatha. Yggdrasil. Come forth before me.]
Suddenly, the kids appeared in the cave where I’d been sleeping.
A sudden summoning. Since they had never gone through something like this, they all looked bewildered.
“Mother?!”
“Mom?! Weren’t you asleep?”
“Honestly, it’s like sleeping comfortably is a fantasy now.”
I replied, forcing myself to shake off the stiffness in my body.
I needed to prevent a war, so I couldn’t use my stiffness as an excuse!
“I want to establish a rule for all of you.”
“Huh? A rule out of nowhere?”
“Calling us out of the blue and then dropping a rule? Mother, you seem a little off today… like, in a strange way.”
“There’s a reason for it. A serious reason.”
I can’t just tell them I saw the future and rewound time, right?
And you know, from their expressions… it seems like their memories from before the rewind are gone.
Well, does it even matter at this point?
“Originally, we should’ve set rules long ago, but before it’s too late and a big problem arises, I think I need to tell you.”
“A big problem? What kind of problem?”
“It’s a rule about hatchlings.”
The kids all tilted their heads in confusion at my words.
“Hatchlings?”
“Why are we suddenly talking about hatchlings, Mom?”
These kids don’t know what’s coming in the future, so I guess their reactions make sense.
So, I’m gonna have to establish a rule, even if it feels a bit forced.
Isn’t that better than letting a war break out?
“Since my magic changed the dragons, the number of eggs laid and the hatchlings raised has dropped drastically, right?”
The kids nodded. They could probably feel the sharp decline in birthrate.
“So here’s the plan. We’re making it a rule that harming these hatchlings is absolutely forbidden. If someone injures or kills a hatchling, regardless of their scale color, all dragons must unite to eliminate the culprit.”
I had to lay down the law strongly like that if I wanted to prevent future hatchling harm or killing.
“Who would even harm a hatchling?”
“If they had any sanity left, they wouldn’t.”
Well, let’s see about that.
If they were sane, would they have killed a hatchling and started a war before time rewound?
How deep had the rift between the dragons become to make them act so irrationally?
It was tough for me to wrap my head around.
“Regardless, spread the word to other kids. Anyone who harms a hatchling—dragon or otherwise—will not be forgiven.”
Not even if it’s another dragon.
There will be no excuse left for war.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
And just like that, I thought I had solved all the problems…
Or at least that’s what I thought…
“Why on earth did you start this fight…”
A small-scale brawl between black and red dragons. The result? Two black dragons and one red dragon lost their lives, while a bunch more got injured.
I grabbed the culprits involved in the fight and asked them why they did it.
“Those black ones were just infuriating!”
“How can we avoid it when the red ones throw the first punch? Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, right?”
The red and black dragons just yelled at each other, each thinking they were in the right. Just shouting and whining—oh boy, it was like a pressure cooker about to explode in my brain!
“And you go and start a fight like this…”
I rubbed my painful head and sighed.
When they killed a hatchling, I could squash them with rules and such, but stopping all these big and small disputes? That’s a whole different monster.
No, for those kids, the hatchling was simply an excuse for a war.
Even if they didn’t kill a hatchling, dragons found all sorts of reasons to pull up and fight.
Regardless of how much I tried to play the deterrent, dragons skillfully skirted around my warnings, snarling and escalating conflicts among themselves.
No matter how hard I try to stop them, these wily dragons set off flames where I can’t see.
Sigh… I just wanna start over! Maybe drop a meteor and wipe them all out, dragons included.
But alas, I can’t do that. At least, with the duty of spreading life on this land, I can’t be that reckless.
So, should I just try to subdue all the dragons and keep them in check under a ton of restrictions?
[The future point wants to rewind time.
Would you like to synchronize with the future point? Y / N]
What now?
Is this what pops up when I rewind time from the future to the past?
Wait a second, more time rewinding? Right here??
Carefully, I pressed
Y
with my finger.
[What is this Creator Dragon nonsense! Is it not just a dragon that brings doom to the world instead?]
[No way… Even when all dragons unite, they can’t win…?]
[Mother…]
[So sad. So very sad…]
Memories from the future flooded into my mind.
At the end of my pathetic attempts to control the arrogant, prideful dragons, all that was left was a wasteland with no life.
The seven kids also had their scales stripped away, reduced to mere natural elements, while all the dragons that tried to resist ended their own miserable lives in despair.
Dinosaurs, lizardmen, tiny mammals—all gone, and here I was, deciding on oppression, crying in a barren wasteland.
So maybe that’s exactly why I turned back time.
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