Chapter 27 – part 2

I will end translating this novel into English with this :3 for the reason, please read this post if you still haven’t. I’m still pondering whether I’ll continue translating only this series into Spanish, or to make several teasers of many series in spanish, in order to promote the translation of  light and web novels into other languages… anyway!, about the chapter!:

T/N: I managed to find a cute pic of Maribel/Maribelle~ there you have it.

a, and, i-i… I wasn’t expecting that flag!!! I’m not seeing things, right?! It is that, right?! Also, I’m sowwy, buth me failsh at onomatopoeiash ;n; 

 Warning: two walls ahead. One is real, the other is dense.

Chapter 27 – part 2

Now that I think of it the Captain was here as well. It seems he was considerably surprised at Miss Maribel’s attitude; I wonder if because of that he didn’t grasp the timing to cut into the talk.

The Captain gently stroked my reddened cheek. Although it reddened it is not that painful. I wonder if he’s worried about me.

“Are you all right?”

“I am fine. But, I’m worried about her.”

When I said that, I heard a rare small sigh coming from him.

“Vito, you blame yourself too much.”

“… What does that mean?”

“Anything and everything, you take it into you own thinking and suffer because of it. You shoulder responsibilities you shouldn’t shoulder. And the worst is, that you think too much. There’s always a wrinkle forming here.”

He presses down on the middle of my forehead with his index finger, in between my eyebrows.

“…I didn’t notice. Do you mean, I always do it?”

“Whenever you are thinking. So I can tell immediately if you are troubled over something.”

That’s embarrassing. Could it be, it was also discovered that every morning I thought ‘he looks so delicious, riiight?’ while staring at him? I didn’t know that I had such a habit.

“Yes but. Miss Maribel’s misunderstanding was caused by actions I took myself.”

“Yeah. But try thinking of it, she used violence against you, who are the Holy Beast of the country. It wouldn’t be strange for her to receive a suitable punishment for this.”

I really didn’t think that such words would ever come out from the Captain’s mouth; something cold run down my spine.

The fact of hurting the country’s Holy Beast, I wonder if there’s a need to apply a punishment to such an extent. What’s with such an ‘animal protection law’. (T/N: see note at the end). Too scary. I don’t think the people who have hurt me have committed any sin, nor have I thought of punishing them. I am myself.

Besides, why did the captain say such a thing? So far the Captain hadn’t said such things not even once, in the end, it seems my expectations of the Captain were too high —

As I showed for a single moment some wariness towards him, I heard a voice filled with a bitter laugh.

“It’s a joke. We won’t do that.”

— What’s with that. As in being unable to see the forest for the trees, while I was pondering on what to do if he was on the Prince’s side, I ended up thinking a lot of things in only a few seconds. I think I certainly turned pale as I broke into a cold sweat with an earth shattering force. I got into a really startled mood.

Please quit being mischievous. We have enough with Lord Cleric already. My life span will reduce.

“But, please keep in mind that for this country, you have that much worth. Because not everyone’s thinking is like mine.”

He looks like he is not thinking at all, but he’s thinking more than others. As if he isn’t even staring at the other person, he’s looking at them properly. He’s even good at backing you up. When giving advice, he is clever and compelling. It’s quite late at this time, but I can agree with him being the Fourth Knight Corps Captain.

“So cherish yourself more.”

—Wait a minute. I can’t give in here.

“That’s what I want to say. How do you plan on living while facing danger countless times, and of those times how often did you think I saved you? And you, Captain, please don’t say something like ‘it’s fine to eat me’ so lightly, …please cherish yourself.”

Yeah. He even he got hurt by shielding the Prince, it’s you whom should cherish yourself!

He directed a big happy smile at me when I said that.

And, that smile crumbled in an instant.

“Also, I won’t forgive you for saying you will leave.”

“Yes?

Though it could be said a warm and fuzzy mood was drifting around, I let out a messy voice as his facial expression changed in an instant.

When the Captain lifts up his bangs, his black eyes which hidden underneath appear. It’s the second time he exposes those eyes himself. At that time had said that they are not really liked by others, but I wonder if he doesn’t feel resistance to exposing them himself anymore.

“C-Captain …?”

I feel happy by staring at my beloved black.*  I’d like to stare at it forever. But, I feel like strangely his pupils are really still, staring fixedly at me**. Puzzled at Captain’s unusual atmosphere, involuntarily I stepped back one, two steps. Yet, to match that, he approached one, two steps. (T/N: two long notes at the end)

— What, what’s with that! What are you trying to do! Why are you coming closer! Are you coming closer because I’m escaping!? Rightwellthen I’ll stop, but he didn’t stop walking. As he approached slowly, eventually I was left with no path for escaping as I retreated until I reached a wall. I ended up with my back against the wall. Unlike my back, the back of my head bumped severely into it so I was moaning in pain in my mind, yet at some point he has imperceptibly contracted the distance; soon the Captain’s face has approached to such an extent, that he was able to whisper in a low voice next to my ear.

“I said, ‘I want you.’”

With a ‘shann,’ something ran all over my body. It wasn’t something cold, but neither something warm. It’s a strange feeling like my feet are not attached to the floor. My heart reverberates as if it could explode.

Such a thing, it did happen. Certainly it was at the time that I ate his left arm. But immediately after that I completely forgot about it. I began to remember now. Don’t star remembering now!

I had my head down, and he uses his palm to caress my single red cheek from the slap, but then lowers his hand to grab my chin, and with an undetectable strength he makes me face upwards. It hurt my neck a little.

His eyes are really still. Like a doll’s, they’re scary.

What’s wrong, me. The other person is the Captain! He should have no components to be scared of!

Yet, somehow, something’s different from usual, and I feel really uncomfortable.

“Wh, what does that mean?”

“···don’t know.”

So you don’t know?

All right, let’s turn this into an opportunity. By being pushed around like this my reputation as a Dragon becomes obsolete!

“It, it’s because the Captain is brimming with curiosity. You like the unrivaled Dragons, right? Surely, it’s only because me being the Earth Dragon is unusual. It’s only that. So that’s why–”

“The one to decide that is me. Not you.”

Being told that so flatly and clearly I shut my mouth.

— Well then what is it? For the Captain, what kind of existence am I?

…I believe that he feels that I’m something like a Mr. Goggle-eyed Goby. That’s why he also became excited for skinship. Because I’m not human but an animal. Even myself, if there was a lovely rabbit I’d cuddle it. (t/n: it says ‘I’d do mofumofu’… where mofumofu means fluffy xD so i’m guessing~). If there was a delicate wolf then I’d hug it and pat it with abandon. It’s because I like animals. But I can’t do that if the other party is human.

Only to pets.

Ugh, I get depressed the more I think about it. I’m glad that I’m being loved, but I’m an animal after all. Different from human beings.

Somehow the surroundings have become noisy, huh. That the castle is bustling with noise, the thing with Miss Maribel, the thing with Captain, …and the matter with Ariade. I even think that, if by me being here, the gears have ended up getting of place, wouldn’t have been better if I hadn’t come here so eagerly?

Little by little, something is getting out of place.

It is probably my fault.

Well I’m sure, it’s my fault.

…to be thinking such things, I wonder if the Captain would say that it is useless.

“It’s useless.”

Eh, so it’s useless after all.

“Huh?”

“That’s why, it is useless to worry so much.”

Was I speaking out loud? The Captain’s angry appearance is peeking into my pupils as I frown.  Close enough to make one sigh. My full field of vision is permeated by black, and the strength of my stiff shoulders disperses like the raging waves within my heart becoming calm. I wonder, when did I become so dependent on the color black? Black that could be said to be alive is so fascinating that it makes my heart at ease.

— Oh, now that I think of it, I wonder if Rau was more fascinating because his body was pitch-black?

“Just now, who were you thinking of?”

As I was remembering about Lau, I was surprised because suddenly the Captain’s face came even closer. Wait, this is dangerous. This is dangerous for the cardiac muscle. (T/N: she says the organ of the heart…) Somehow the Captain is odd today. He’s always odd, but the pressure is much stronger today.

“Wh, what are you talking about?”

“I’m right here, but you thought of someone else.”

“Eh, it is that so?”

I was thinking of one large crow. It will admit it. But how does he know that!?

“Who?”

“…Thought just briefly of a friend.”

“Someone important?”

“Yes, it’s important. Yet we can’t meet, because he is on a journey to the south now.”

“I see.”

What is this. Isn’t this a conversation such as the husband interrogating his wife who was discovered of having an affair! But I’m not having an affair and in the first place I’m not married and am a girl who has not experienced romance. I don’t understand the reason for being confronted like this.

With that the Captain fell silent, he’s simply staring at me from above with an unreadable expression.

I’m at my limit already. I can’t stand his stare.

Someone, save me please.

***

After that I wrapped up things by saying something, and saw off the Captain as if we were coming out of a conference.  For him to return from that attitude to his usual manner, just how much did he trouble me! (t/n: just a wild guess~あの姿勢から普通の立ち姿勢に戻るまでどんなに苦労したことか！)

While I was lost in thought someone knocked on the door, so I said ‘Come in,’ but was surprised because the one to come in was Maribel, who had excited the room earlier.

“…I wonder, do you have some time now?”

Did she cry? The area around her eyes is red and a little swollen. When she walks till in front of me, her mouth opens and closes like she really wants to say something, while her pupils swim left and right.

And when she made her decision, she opened her mouth to capture me who was suitably in front of her. (t/n: not sure either~ xD 真正面似私を捕えると口を開いた)

“About before, …uhm, …I’m sorry.”

I blink my eyes. Honestly it’s anticlimactic because I had taken a defensive stance as I thought she would complain again.

“It’s me the one who is sorry for causing you trouble.”

“F, father told me to come apologize so that’s why I came here! D, don’t be mistaken!”

A tsundere, was it?

It’s the first time I see such a pure tsundere type. I’m impressed. Yet, it’s not the timing to be thinking such things.

She finally came to meet me, it is rude not to listen properly to what she wants to say.

“…I was told to do so by father. You may eat humans, but when thinking about it, you saved father and the rest twice. If it were not for you, they surely…”

They’d surely be dead. But that’s something I’ve said many times to be something I sowed myself.

“There is no need to mention that. The cause of the subjugation affair was originally because I used to dwell on that mountain, and the messenger’s affair, if there were no rumors about the contract and the like, the need to send out even the Vice-Captain would not have existed.”

“Th, that’s right but”

“… That’s why I don’t feel the need for you to express your gratitude.”

When I said that, Miss Maribel glares at me while clenching both hands into fists and a trembling body. I was preparing myself while wondering what sort of complain she’ll issue now, but I was wrong.

“Why are you so humble!? The cause of things or whatever, you saved my most important person! Is that not enough!? That’s why I want to thank you!!”

Surprised by her sudden outburst I was left unable to say anything, simply staring at her. Different from her threatening attitude from earlier, her desperation comes through in her own style.

“Even the scent bag, thanks to that it became easier to work! I also give you my thanks for that!! My head was too confused before, I’m also reflecting on it!! Since I’m saying all this, accept it properly!!”

“Eh, uhm… ok?”

I nodded as I lost to her momentum. Miss Maribel’s face is bright red and she was left out of breath.

And when I came back to my senses and noticed what I had just said, she fires in rapid succession, ‘Don’t, don’t get the wrong idea!’ with her red-apple-like face becoming even redder.

— Somehow, how cuuute.

“Hey, what are you laughing at!”

She’s frantically fanning her burning cheeks with her hand in order to cool them down. That behavior is also lovely and makes one smile.

“No, it’s nothing.”

In the end Miss Maribel is a good girl at heart.  She just dislikes to convey her true feelings, and thus she takes on a very domineering attitude, doesn’t she? Taking that into consideration somehow I get the feeling we could get along well.

“Hey, about Sir Lance… was that true?”

As I answer with a ‘I’m telling you there’s nothing’, she makes a relieved faces as she heaves a sigh.

“…Then it’s alright.”

“I also apologize for causing that misunderstanding.”

From now on I’ll be careful when receiving things from a man. A woman’s jealousy is scary. Unable to let off the ones said to be their rivals, girls in love can become this desperate, huh. For Chiffon, I’m envious of her male counterpart. Especially for Lance, who is liked by Miss Maribel, I feel too envious. In fact, those two don’t suit each other, right? (t/n: what’s with this… xD wild guesses again. シフォンしかり、相手の男の人が羨ましい。特にマリベルさんに好かれているランスさんが羨ましすぎる。２人って実はお似合いなんじゃないだろうか。)

“… Please stop it, speaking so politely.” (t/n: not calling her miss/-san and stop speaking in keigo, polite speech you use with people you may be somewhat distant with or your superiors or blahblahblah.)

“What? Oh, …okay?”

‘That’s fine,’she says.  And nods in a satisfied-like manner.

“And, it was determined that you will be staying in my room for a while.”

“Eeh?”

“No way,  you were thinking of returning to your previous room? Do you know what kinds of rumors are being told of you?”

Gyaa. I forgot.

“By all means, please. I ask for you to let me stay at your place.” (t/n: I fail at polite speech in english)

“That’s why, quit it with the polite speech!”

“Sorry, sorry”

“That’s why, why are you laughing!!”

Maribel’s room is in the castle, close by to the Dorms, and was lovely enough to make you say, ‘she’s a young girl, huuh.’ It has a canopy bed, the curtains have plenty of frills, and likewise the closet and dresser are cutely decorated.

And it seems we’ll sleep together in the bed that has enough room to fit four people. I had said that I’m fine with sleeping on the floor, but while she said something along the lines of ‘that bad for one’s beauty!’ I ended up being dragged to the bed.

Somehow I’m nervous. Since I haven’t slept in the same bed with someone else before, I can’t sleep as if this was totally a night during a field trip.

By the way since my sleep-wear was left in my previous room, I’m borrowing some. Maribel unties her peach-colored hair, are changes into a pretty pink negligee. Are you the princess from some place! She’s so cute it troubles me. If I were a man I might have signed up for a relationship aiming for an instant marriage. And a pink negligee is also what I’m wearing myself. Is has less frills compared to Maribel’s and is simpler than hers, but I hadn’t thought that the day would come where I’d wear pink clothes. It doesn’t suit me at all, but she went through the trouble of preparing it for me so I wore it.  But I was feeling insecure so it was decided that I’d borrow and wear a nightgown of a more somber shade.

“Hey, have you really not entered a contract with anyone?”

“I haven’t. Why?”

Maribel had slipped into bed, and her big eyes are shining brilliantly. Is this the launching of a girl’s talk that young girls like so much?

“Because isn’t it romantic? An interspecies relationship between a human and a Dragon. The former contractors also remained married for life, and what’s more it’s said that their descendants exist somewhere in this continent.” (t/n: I told you an interspecies romance is a must in a fantasy setting a few chapters back, Vito!)

It was the first time I heard there being descendants. Ohh, so a human and a Dragon can have children. Didn’t know. (t/n: she says初耳, but that’s redundant in English here.)

At any rate, it’s very girly to think that such a thing is romantic, right? But what’s happening to me is, rather than actual romantic things, always belongs into the splatter-grotesque classification. But if I said that to Maribel it’d knock her down so I didn’t say it. In the first place I wonder if she remembers the fact that I am a flesh-eating Dragon. Somehow she has been relating with me normally since then, and in a sense I’m happy about it but I wonder what is going on inside her.

“Well then, are there any humans you want to contract with?”

Why did it come to this? Hey, you are asking this in the same outline as if fellow girls were asking each other about the people they like. I’m no good at getting into love talks like these. I had plenty of bad experiences with Madeleine and the girls. Since following her lead like this caused the conversation to turn into something bothersome, I decided to change the topic. I thought about swinging the conversation into talking about Lance, but I suddenly became worried about what the Vice-Captain had said so I decided to ask about it.

“Come to think of it I heard from the Vice-Captain about Reina …”

With a ‘shun,’ Maribel’s face becomes dim.

“…I love Reina even now. But a girl that goes and meets with Dragons, is not normal, is she? I thought that if I work at this Dorm, I may be able to meet Reina. … But I haven’t met her yet, actually.”

What. Then the talk will be brief.

“Then, let’s go. Because I will come with you.”

“Huh?”

“It’s okay. I can enter freely because they know me, but would it be weird if I, as a Dragon, go visit the Dragons’ Building?” (t/n: 顔パス, kao PASU, a ‘face pass,’ means free admission for being well known xD)

Maribel was staring at me in puzzlement, but then she laughs and says, ‘That’s true.’

“But you, you are not like a Dragon at all, hmph.”

I see. I am not Dragon-like? If that’s so then she can speak normally to her and she nods.

“I’ll take it as a compliment.”

Even so, usually there aren’t girls that will go meet a Dragon. I guess that I was drifting away from reality before.  (t/n: to float/浮く= can mean to ‘drift away from reality’. Weblio, meaning 9.)

Well that’s why Stefanos was so surprised at me.

__________________

Translators’s Lair:

…no cliff here! And Maribel did a real 180° turn in this chapter, lol. The tsun is strong in this one. And…

…Captain… that was a yandere flag, right? The captain looked like an herbivore, with his braids and his green hair and that spacey air about him, but he was a carnivore all along, wasn’t he?! And he went and became jealous at a crow!! So sharp!! He can probably read Vito like a book by now xD no, like a neon sign. By the way, he speaks with the minimum amount of words required to be understood, always. I often had to make what he says more wordy in order for it to make sense in English, otherwise he’d come across to you like a green haired tarzan. Now, the real Translator’s notes xD :  

‘The law to show consideration for the living beings’ –wikipedia: part of the many proclamations made during the Genroku part of the Edo period. ‘To show consideration for the living beings’ was the general term by which as many as 135 proclamations forbidding killing were known. The reason 135 proclamations had to be made was because they weren’t being carried out. (Hah, forbidding killing in Middle Ages’ Japan… yeah.) During 24 years only 69 punishments were enacted. As it encompassed dogs, cats, birds, fishes, shellfishes, and bugs and insects (it wasn’t restricted only to dogs, but encompassed all living beings, aiming for the compassion in people’s hearts as a matter of vital importance), it was known as ‘The Ruling Power’s Bad Law.’ And I’m not gonna translate further xD I made it into: animal protection law to maintain the flow of the story somewhat… and sort of to keep it into a slight joke xD Wikipedia, why oh why u haven’t tl’ed this to English, temee!! Even though so many useless pages have been tl’ed already ;n;

恋焦がれる黒 – Koigareru kuro: the koigareru again… except, this time the context made it easy to understand what she’s referring to! So I’ll go and update the previous translation, too. Basically, while koigareru iro or koigareru kuro (kuro = black) might be translated literally by ‘lovestruck color’, she actually meant ‘the color I’m lovestruck with.’ …to think this gave me so many headaches and it was just so simple… “>.> I can’t even.

瞳が据わって – hitomi ga suwaru: ‘the pupils sit.’ What’s with that.  anyway, Goo dictionary says: ‘When angry or drunk, to stare fixedly at one spot.’   …am I the only one imagining a drunk Captain staring at Vito at close range, fixedly, while she panics like hell? Ufufufufufufu…

On another note, the Japanese also say, when someone is moving their eyes back and forth, that their pupils are swimming… in case you see this around somewhere else (remembered this because Maribel was doing that with her eyes.) I learned this when reading a manga, where a character’s pupils were a mini version of herself literally swimming left and right as a joke xD who was it who said u don’t learn anything when reading manga? Who was it?

And this is all from me for a while :3 I’ll go read some other novels ohohohohoh. Who needs beauty sleep anyway? xD have a nice night!

~Ninish.