CHAPTER 6
A Tale of Monsters and Misguided Humans
One day, roughly four hundred years ago, the history of this corner of the world changed in a major way.
As if out of nowhere, a humongous dragon appeared and began attacking people.
With its enormous body, covered in bluish-white scales that glinted like ice in the moonlight, it trampled houses and fields underfoot. With its sharp, pointed fangs and claws, it decimated livestock. Worst of all, a single beat of its massive wings was enough to send bodies spiraling through the air like rag dolls.
No one knew what it wanted. It seemed to be attacking in a fit of violent rage.
The dragon rampaged from country to country, leaving devastation in its wake at every turn, until finally disappearing into the sky as if satisfied with itself before inevitably landing in another country and repeating the bloody process.
Countless countries were driven to ruin by the dragon’s sudden appearance. Entire nations, and their histories, were wiped out of existence.
Everyone living during that era believed that, eventually, the dragon was going to destroy everything.
And so, the remaining nations all agreed to stop quarreling with one other, setting aside all their conflicts and grudges, and banded together. They stopped isolating themselves and began sharing information. Even so, the dragon continued its rampage.
One country built weapons with which to fight the dragon and then gathered soldiers. One country doused their crops with poison meant to fell the dragon. One country fortified their houses, gates, and ramparts in the hopes that they would withstand the dragon’s might.
But not one of them stood a ghost of a chance, and sure enough, nations continued to fall. Time and time again, they stood against the dragon, and time and time again, the dragon emerged victorious.
Eventually, the people realized that they had no hope of bringing the dragon down, even when working together. They understood that they were confronting a force that was far beyond them.
They decided they had no choice but to ask for help.
The people living in that region had one individual in mind, probably the only person who could stand up to the dragon.
She was a witch who lived all alone, deep in the small, remote forest that bordered the countries.
This witch possessed incredible power, but it was because she was so powerful that she didn’t like to meddle in the affairs of the people and had chosen a life of isolation. However, the people realized that they had no way of defeating the dragon without her assistance, so they went to beg her for help.
Officials from every nation approached her in great numbers, smiling amiably, with not an unpleasant face among them.
“I understand the situation,” the witch said, rising to her feet. “I shall do something.”
Soon, she found herself standing before the rampaging dragon.
“Mighty dragon! For what purpose do you trample these human lives?”
“AAAAAAAAAAAHHH!”
“Ah, you’re the type of dragon that can’t understand human language. Okay…”
If conversation were a viable option, they wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of dragging a witch out from the wilderness, I suppose, the witch thought calmly to herself.
After that, the witch blasted the dragon with all sorts of offensive spells.
Even a dragon was at a loss for what to do when confronted with the overwhelming power of a witch. Just as the dragon could easily destroy people and their countries, the witch could easily defeat the dragon.
“By the way, regarding the reward… Once I’ve dealt with this matter,” the witch had said to the delegation that came to recruit her, “I expect to be paid an extraordinary sum, enough to live the rest of my life in comfort.”
“Oh, um…that’s…quite a large sum indeed.” The officials had balked.
“Hmm? Surely it’s a small price to pay when the salvation of your homes is at stake!” The witch had gotten angry.
She had a bit of a dark side when it came to money.
In the end, the witch bested the dragon. Over and over again. But no matter how many times she defeated it, it never died. Though she was very powerful, she wasn’t able to kill it. That was simply a testament to its indomitable life force.
“If it refuses to die no matter what…then I suppose I have no choice.”
Tired from fighting for such a long time, the witch cast a certain spell on the dragon.
A sealing spell.
She imprisoned the dragon inside a boulder.
In doing so, the witch had finally dealt with the dragon that had been terrorizing the region.
“Four hundred years.”
Rubbing the boulder where the dragon slept, the witch said, “My seal will not last forever. After four hundred years, it will likely come undone. When that day comes, we must once again join hands and confront the dragon. And so, for the next four hundred years, you must do whatever you can to prepare yourselves!”
With this, she moved the boulder that held the dragon deep into the forest.
It’s said that when the witch had completed her task, she vanished into thin air, right before the people’s eyes.
Apparently even now, the boulder with the dragon sealed inside sits quietly beside the house where the witch once lived.
That seemed to be the legend of the dragon in this region, as I had heard the same story in every country I had visited over the past few days.
It had been embellished in different ways depending on the country, but that was roughly how the story went. In short, the questionable rumors concerning a dragon imprisoned in a big boulder deep in the forest had all originated with this fable.
Of course, that wasn’t all. Perhaps because of the popularity of the legend, whenever someone scolded a child in this region, they would often include an oversized threat like “If you don’t behave, the dragon will return!” Of course, the children usually responded to the threat with oversized confidence: “I don’t care. If the dragon comes back, then I’ll defeat it!”
At any rate, that’s how the legend of the dragon had so deeply ingrained itself into the people’s lives.
But the actual boulder where the dragon had been sealed had, contrary to the rumors, been lost to time and forgotten.
I figured that no one was interested in the real truth behind the legend. A boulder just sitting there, covered in moss, deep in the forest, for the last four hundred years. By now, no trace of the old witch’s house remained. It had probably been demolished long ago.
Whether or not there really was a dragon was inconsequential. The boulder could just be an ordinary boulder around which a legend had sprung up. That’s how it appeared to the people who lived around there.
Even if today was the appointed day…the day the dragon was to return.
“……”
Things like legends and fables tend to wither away over time, because only the people who were alive at the time know the truth of the tale.
So to be honest, I didn’t put much stock in the legend myself, until I saw it with my own eyes.
Until I met her.
“Mwa-ha-ha-ha! It’s been a while, humans! Today, I am released from my cramped prison!”
Just then, the boulder cracked open like an egg, and, smashing it apart from the inside, a single girl appeared.
“The dragon Luciella is reboooooorn!”
The girl was obviously referring to herself. She looked to be about eighteen years old, but she called herself “the dragon.”
Her hair was light green, and her eyes were crimson. Otherwise, she seemed like an ordinary girl. But apparently, she was a dragon. Oh, and one detail I neglected to mention was that she was stark naked at the moment.
“…Kyah!”
Thinking to myself that I would like her to put on some clothes right away, I covered my eyes and let out a shriek.
At the risk of repetition, allow me to once again explain the situation in which I found myself.
After four hundred years, the seal on the boulder had broken, and deep in the forest, the dragon had been resurrected. But she was a girl.
This development was altogether unexpected, so I was greatly perplexed. Let’s take another look at the girl before my eyes.
She had no wings and no tail. From the outside, she really did look like an ordinary human. Really, the only things that gave her away were the two small horns growing from her head. Oh, and I suppose her teeth might have been a bit sharper than most people’s.
“Huh? Who the heck’re you? I knew I felt a weird pair of eyes starin’ at me. You tryna pick a fight? You wanna go? Huh?”
Also, her personality might have been a little extra sharp, too. Anyway, she really had the form of an ordinary human girl. And, maybe because she had been sleeping for such a long time, she didn’t seem very clever. Miss Dragon didn’t seem to have noticed that her form had changed. Or that she was naked.
She brought her face close to me, the only human standing before her, and glared at me, her eyes glinting gold in the shifting light, then blew a puff of air in my face. “Oh? Ya scared? You thought I was gonna blow fire at you just now, right?” She was playing with me.
With an “aaah,” she opened her mouth wide, then laughed triumphantly. “Mwa-ha-ha! Betcha thought you were about to get eaten by me, huh? Mwa-ha-ha! Just kidding! A young girl like you doesn’t have much meat on ’er, and you don’t even look tasty.” She was clearly trying to provoke me, though I couldn’t imagine why. “Yer a quiet one. What’s your deal? This your first time seeing a dragon? Or are you just enchanted by how cool I look? Hmm?” This whole thing was starting to give me a headache, so right then, I turned my hand mirror around to face her. “I suppose true admiration knows no bounds, especially when I’m so coo—AAAAAAAAAHHH!”
“You’re so loud.” I winced.
“Th-th-this…is? It’s me? This is me?” Luciella, the dragon, was trembling. “Seriously? This is what I look like? Huh? What happened to my wings? My tail? My scales?”
I silently shook my head.
Quoting a passage from one of legends told in this region, I said, “According to the witch who sealed you away, a curse was incorporated into the seal so that when the dragon one day awakened, she would be reborn in human form and would not bring any more destruction.”
“What’d you saaay?!” Miss Dragon was angry. “Grrr…you! Take me to her at once! Right away! Where is she?! This way?!”
And then she left me behind and stalked off down the forest road. She had only just awoken, but Miss Dragon had such a…lively personality, you’d never think she had been asleep. It didn’t really bother me, but I wondered what sort of person would tell someone to take her somewhere and then set off on her own.
Or maybe she hadn’t realized that four hundred years had passed.
“Um—”
I extended a hand toward her.
“What the heck are you doing?! What direction do I go…?” Suddenly, like a broken doll, Luciella the dragon stopped in her tracks and dropped to the ground, unable to move. “……So hungry…,” she murmured weakly.
Several hundred years’ worth of hunger must have caught up with her all at once.
“……” After a moment’s hesitation, I said, “First things first, would you like to eat something?”
“……” She slowly sat up. “Take me to a delicious restaurant right away!” She was crying.
“Before we go, would you put on some clothes?”
“…Okay.” Luciella wiped her tears away with a sniffle.
This was all happening awfully fast, but if I understood the situation, this girl was, apparently, the dragon that had once terrorized this region—or at least that’s what she claimed. But now she was trapped in the form of a young lady, lying stark naked on the ground, and there was no way I could just leave her there. So I decided to first dress her in some clothes, then head for a nearby city.
“Where do you want to go? I’ve been to all the countries in this area once already, so I know my way around.”
“Are you for real?”
I was still working to come to terms with this all-too-sudden development as I cheerfully motioned for her to get on the broom, and she enthusiastically took a seat behind me.
And that was how the curtain rose on our journey that was to last several days.
Luciella claimed to be the dragon that had been sealed away.
“So you really are a dragon, huh?”
“Yep.”
“Sounds pretty far-fetched, but…”
“I mean, it’s no wonder you can’t believe it. I never thought I would be in a puny little body like this when I woke up. I guess I can’t say anything except that you gotta believe me.”
Be that as it may, she did emerge from a boulder, so she definitely had to be the dragon. For the time being, I decided the only thing to do was play along.
But if she was the dragon…
“……”
If she was, and I sucked up to her, then I might get to hear the legends told throughout this region from the dragon’s own point of view.
Basically, I would be able to set the record straight and shed new light on an old legend.
…I could already smell the money.
“What’s going on with you? You’re makin’ an evil face.”
“This is my regular face.”
“Oh…gross…”
“Rude.”
On the day the dragon broke free, I steered us in the direction of the closest civilization. I had asked if there was anything she wanted to eat, and the girl dressed in my clothes had responded, “Something tasty!” So without putting much thought into it, we walked over to a nice-looking restaurant.
And when we got there…
“You! I said I wanted to eat something delicious, didn’t I?! What do you mean by choosing a restaurant so casually?! Do you take me for a fool?!”
When we got to our seats and I placed my order, the self-proclaimed dragon started banging on the table and shouting loudly. I couldn’t do anything but shrug in exasperation at her actions.
“Most of the food in this country is tasty, you know.”
“Huh? What the heck are you talking about? And what’s with that smug look on your face?”
“……”
“……”
Before long, the food arrived.
Without much thought, I lined up the dishes that I had requested on the table, then offered explanations for each one, as if I was a frequent customer. Wearing a very self-satisfied look, of course.
“This is this country’s specialty pizza. It’s made with a spicy sauce.”
“I see. Is that why the whole thing’s red?”
“That’s this country’s specialty bread. It’s made with a spicy sauce.”
“I see. It’s bright red.”
“And this is this country’s specialty soup. It’s made with a spicy sauce.”
“Does this country only offer spicy food?”
“If you ask for dishes representative of this country, this is what you get.” I didn’t fail to look self-satisfied while presenting my snippets of knowledge about the cuisine. “By the way, if you are the dragon of legend, do you remember that long, long ago, there was a country that laced the food they offered to you with poison?”
“Hmm? I sort of remember that…vaguely.”
“This is that country.”
“What?”
“The red sauce present in all this food was refined from the poison originally concocted to kill you.”
As it turned out, the legend of the dragon had taken on a unique twist in this area. “The dragon was a true gourmet,” the legend went, “so she sought out foods in various countries. Among them, only the food from our country had a flavor that made the dragon blow flame from her mouth.” The local pandering was pretty obvious.
“So what’s going on here? The fools of this country all willingly ate poison? Are they stupid?”
“Well, they were probably desperate for food at that time.” Then I stared hard at the girl sitting across the table from me and tilted my head quizzically. “If you’re really the dragon, surely you can eat food this spicy, right?”
“Mwa-ha-ha-ha! How ridiculous!” Apparently, this had provoked her. “If it’s a poison that I ate once before, then my taste buds have long since overcome it!” And then she enthusiastically set to work on the food.
She ate it.
…And then she cried.
“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!” Large tears flowed from Luciella’s eyes. “A-are…are you a demon…?! There’s no way I can eat food like this…!”
That’s not something I expected to hear from a dragon that used to torment people…
If I had to guess, it seemed as if somehow, when she gained a human form, she had lost most of her draconic qualities. Now only a shadow of her former powers remained.
“……”
I wasn’t particularly hungry, so sitting across from Luciella as she heartily ate her meal with tears streaming down her crimson cheeks, I ate some totally normal bread and cheese. Personally, I did not particularly care for the spicy food so unique to this country.
As for Luciella, she kept chomping and chewing away, wiping sweat from her brow. And she didn’t stop at spicy dishes but put in several more orders for all sorts of things, leaving only a pile of empty plates and food scraps.
Finally, after she had finished eating, she was fanning herself with her hand when she said, “Man, these clothes are tight. Especially in the chest—” Wham! A fist slammed down onto the table. “Eep! …What’s with you? You’re scary…”
Whose fist could it have been?
That’s right, it was mine.
“Ha-ha…it’s nothing, nothing at all.”
Well, since we had eaten, the next item of business was to buy her some clothes.
At this point, I was starting to feel like I was on some kind of weird blind date or something. I tried to put that idea out of my mind as I went to pay our restaurant tab.
“……”
Awaiting me was a price so steep it caused all the blood to immediately drain from my face, which was slightly flushed from the moderate amount of spicy food I had eaten.
“Hmm…how ’bout this? I look cute, right?”
We went to a boutique.
The dressing room curtain swished open, and appearing from behind it was an unmistakably beautiful girl. She had changed into a fairly simple getup of an off-shoulder shirt and a skirt, with a black beret to hide her horns. The remains of my clothing had been discarded nearby. Her chest no longer looked confined, as she puffed it out proudly. I wanted to knock her out right there.
“My! That suits you quite well!” The clerk was generous with her compliments.
“Eee-hee-hee!” Luciella seemed particularly susceptible to flattery and grinned shamelessly. “Yoo-hoo, I’ll take this one!”
“Yeah, yeah.”
I paid for it. There was no hiding the fact that her ample body had stretched my clothes beyond their limits, so it was an unavoidable expense.
After that, we went around to several more boutiques and secured a few changes of clothes and some underwear for her.
“All right, why don’t we find somewhere to stay?”
I walked off with Luciella in tow. As the veteran traveler, I didn’t forget my self-satisfied look this time, either. “This country is known as the Land of Hospitality because its cuisine, fashion, and lodgings are all cutting-edge. Anyone would agree, it’s perfect for travelers.”
“Uh-huh…”
Shopping bags in each hand, Luciella took a long, sweeping look around town. “…I feel like I’ve been here before, too, but I have no memory of it.”
“…I’m not really surprised. You were trapped in that rock for a pretty long time.”
Not to mention, four hundred years ago, you completely leveled this place, so…
It was obviously a very different country than it had been back then. In fact, nearly every trace of the era during which Luciella lived as a dragon had vanished from this place.
“…Just how long was I asleep?” she mumbled, gazing out at a city that she could not remember, looking a little sad.
I could tell that her mistrust of the now-unfamiliar city was slowly giving way to a smoldering anxiety over being left behind by time.
“…I imagine that the reason you don’t have any memories of this place is probably because quite a lot of time passed while you were sleeping.”
I averted my eyes from her and looked up at the town. “However, I think that’s simply because the scenery is very different.”
Long ago, she had looked down on all of these cities as a dragon, right? But she had never actually visited any of them. And that had really limited her perspective. The realization that she was actually in one of the cities she’d seen from afar must have been sinking in.
However…
“In your current form, you are much better suited to actually experience city life.”
It didn’t hurt that she could actually walk around town for a change.
That day, when we arrived at our lodgings, Luciella said, “I want to try taking one of those shower thingies!” And as soon as we were in the room, she stripped off her clothes and leaped into the shower room. Right afterward, terrible shouts could be heard from inside. “Aaaaaahhh! This feels so gooooood!” As I waited for her to emerge, worrying about getting complaints from our neighbors the whole time, I read more of the legends that were passed down in this region.
“……”
Depending on the country, and depending on the author, and because all sorts of embellishments had been made—maybe to suit various influential people—the way the story progressed in each local legend was slightly different from all the others.
For example, in one version, the dragon died in the end, while in another version, the dragon and the witch killed each other. The basic plot of the dragon appearing and harassing the humans and the witch defeating it seemed to stay constant, but through the changes over the years and changes made by individuals, a variety of stories had been born.
As a result, the truth had gotten muddled.
“Hey, you. I finished my shower.” Luciella came out of the shower room just as I was almost finished reading my book of legends.
Her long hair was heavy with water, and she had emerged soaking wet.
“……” She must have been unfamiliar with how to live like a human, since her essential nature was still that of a dragon.
“You have to dry your hair with a towel after you shower, you know,” I said, wrapping a towel around her hair.
Now, when did I become her servant…?
Indifferent to my unspoken question, Luciella narrowed her eyes as if she liked the way the towel felt, then said, “Mm, what is that fluffy cloth called?”
She was looking at the bed I had just been sitting on.
“This is a futon.”
“Off-tone?”
“No. A futon.”
“Often?”
“……”
I finished drying her hair.
“All right!” As soon as I was done, she took a running dive onto the bed. She wrapped herself up in the futon and cocooned herself like a caterpillar.
“Ahhhhhh…it feels so good…” Luciella’s expression slackened into a loose smile. We were staying in a cheap hotel, but the futons in the Land of Hospitality were enchanted with a comforting spell that made them hard to resist.
Luciella had curled into a ball atop the bed, and she let out a huge, sleepy yawn, but my books, which had been piled on top of the futon, slipped off with a rustle of pages and jolted her back to reality.
“Wh-wh-wh-what’s that?! An enemy attack?!”
Luciella escaped from the spell of the futon with extremely nimble movements.
“Oh, sorry… Those are my books,” I said, and I picked the fallen volumes up off the floor.
“…Huh.” Her hand stretched out in the same direction as mine. “That’s me, isn’t it?”
She had picked up one of the books of local fables I had purchased. The cover was decorated with an enormous dragon stomping on a building.
“……”
As I watched, she traced over the book cover with her fingertip, lingering on the terrifying image of the dragon.
“How nostalgic.”
She flipped through the book as if she was yearning for a bygone era, as if she was rereading a diary from her younger days, and muttered a few words: “In the past, I could never find a place to rest. Even if I did decide to try to settle down somewhere, I didn’t belong anywhere, and no matter where I went, I was a nuisance. Even in this book, I seem like a nuisance—” Without finishing it, she slammed the book shut partway through and handed it back to me.
“…Thanks.” I took the book from her hand and set it down on the bedside table.
“Say, girl. Exactly how long was I asleep?”
“……”
“You avoided the question this afternoon, but I won’t be shocked, no matter how much time has passed. You don’t need to hold back. Answer me.”
Well, if you put it that way—
“…Four hundred years.”
“…I see. So I was asleep for a really long time,” she muttered to herself. “That means there’s no one left alive who remembers the time I came to their city.”
Even so—
Even if that was the case, she must have been experiencing some complicated emotions in this current age when she hadn’t been forgotten but was constantly depicted as a terrible villain.
Her expression looked lonely.
“And is your past self somewhere in those documents?” I tilted my head.
“Are you studying me, too?” She tilted her head at the same time, in the same way as I had. “You treated me to lunch and took me around to all sorts of places, and I’m grateful for that, but…just what is your aim here?”
She was probably just having some doubts. Luciella narrowed her eyes at me suspiciously.
“……” I hesitated and then said, “The legends they tell around here are all taken as the honest truth, but depending on where you go, they can be very different. And with so many different versions of the story being told four hundred years after the fact, who can say what actually happened back then? I want to hear the original version of the story.”
And of course, if circumstances permitted, I figured I would be able to make good money off the truth. But I didn’t have to say that part out loud.
“To put it simply, I’m interested in you.”
There was nothing else to say.
At my words, Luciella’s expression softened just a bit.
“…You have the most honest character of any human I’ve ever met,” she said.
“Is that so? You haven’t met very many humans, have you?”
She snorted. “I know enough from the stories.”
Long ago.
Long, long ago.
When she was born, the people of her hometown laid eyes on her and found her to be ghastly.
“What is this child…?”
“She’s too weird…”
“…An abomination.”
In a town where everyone else looked more or less the same, she had been born with a different skin color, which instantly marked her as an outsider.
Everyone ostracized her.
Probably because they thought she was unlucky.
The girl’s unusual appearance was the result of the circumstances of her birth. Her mother had had an affair with someone from another tribe. But even though that was the extent of her wrongdoing, it was more than enough reason for her to be shunned by her people.
In her homeland, it was forbidden to fraternize with members of another tribe. To keep their race from dying out, they only permitted procreation between members of the same tribe.
Her mother was driven from her home for breaking the law.
She was never seen again.
But she left the girl behind.
Her mother ran away. She ran away from her responsibility to her newborn daughter, just as she ran away from her home.
The people would not just let a newborn baby die, so the child was passed from one family member to the next, raised by a series of begrudging relatives.
No one loved the girl.
Her appearance made her an easy target for abuse.
Nothing changed, even as she grew up.
“She’s a beast. No question.” The people called her a beast.
“Well…you have to wonder why she hasn’t left already.” There wasn’t a single person among them who had tried to befriend her.
“Don’t look at me, you monster!” She was threatened with violence.
“Ah, you’re so ugly! Such treatment suits a monster like you!” Sometimes, people tormented her just for fun.
If she ventured outside, they would gang up on her, punching and kicking, until she slunk back home, covered in injuries.
Not a single person in her hometown took her side.
Her life there was miserable.
“…Why?”
Why was she the only one who had to endure such treatment? Why did she have to put up with such pain? Every day, she suffered their abuse, and every day, she cried, alone.
Concealing her shame, she went to her relatives for help.
However…
“Sorry…if I’m seen with you, I’ll become an outcast as well.”
…they didn’t save her.
“You understand, right? You’re a nuisance. Don’t come to me again.”
They didn’t offer a helping hand.
“I don’t ever want to see your face again. If you understand me, hurry up and get out of here.”
All of them rejected her.
She lived every day alone, with no help from anyone, passing many years that way.
Then, when she could no longer endure her harsh reality, she set out from her homeland.
Searching for a place to belong.
“In the land of the red dragons, I was the only one with bluish-white scales, so I felt uneasy there.”
As we flew away from the Land of Hospitality on my broom, she sat behind me, telling me indifferently of the events of her past, as if she were recounting a fairy tale. “To the people of my homeland, I was nothing but an outsider. That’s why I left my hometown behind and set out on a journey. A very long time ago… That’s a story from before I even came to this area.”
One day, a dragon appeared.
That was how the legends began, but of course, the dragon herself had lived parts of her life that didn’t get recorded in the fables, and I had expected that there would be some reason for why she came here. It may be a little twisted, but I always wonder about the histories and motivations of the villains that appear in fairy tales.
Villains aren’t simply “bad people.” They’re bad from a certain perspective.
“Hey, you,” Luciella whispered, as if to herself, sitting atop my broom, staring off into the distance. “I want…you know… I want a place where I belong. Somewhere I can relax and live my life.”
I just stared in the direction we were heading as I answered, “You say that, but…can’t you be any more specific?”
“I’d like a place that’s peaceful, where the people are nice—the kind of place that will accept me.” She nodded to herself in understanding. “And most importantly, a place where I can sleep securely would be the best!”
“Well then, how about the Land of Hospitality, where we spent all of yesterday?”
I could hear her snort-laugh through her nose. “Nah, not there. A place like that would ruin me. Especially my tongue.”
“Spicy food really isn’t your thing, huh…?”
As I was speaking, I suddenly remembered something.
The night before, I had stayed up very late, but I had eventually surrendered to drowsiness and exhaustion and fallen asleep earlier than Luciella.
This morning, when I had awoken, she was already awake, so it was possible that Luciella hadn’t slept properly at all the night before.
“What’s the next place like?”
She tilted her head.
I shook mine.
“I think you probably won’t care for this one, either.”
Especially if your desire is for a peaceful, secure place where you can sleep.
Because the next place is known as…
…the Land of Magical Munitions.
The witch who had once squared off against the dragon was named Natasha, but in the Land of Magical Munitions, she was identified by the official moniker, Natasha the Great and Powerful, and if you knew what was good for you, you wouldn’t call her anything else. The people of that country worshipped the witch Natasha. She was more than a character in a fairy tale—she was a religious icon.
Consequently, there were statues and books and assorted goods related to Natasha the Great and Powerful, all over town.
The main avenue alone was lined with several dozen cafés that each claimed to be “a favorite spot of Natasha the Great and Powerful.” Similar catchphrases aimed at luring customers in could be seen on display in front of hotels and street stalls, as well as clothing boutiques, weapons vendors, magic shops, hardware stores, and many others. Too many shops to count had Natasha the Great and Powerful’s name plastered on them. It made me wonder just how many of the shops the witch Natasha had actually patronized and how she could have so many favorites. I mean, where was the brand loyalty? Not that anyone there would have voiced such criticism. Natasha the Great and Powerful was an untouchable figure here.
When she saw all this, the dragon Luciella was taken aback.
“Ugh…what’s with this country…? It’s awful…”
She recoiled.
There was a witch standing right beside her, ready to explain, wearing a self-satisfied look the whole time, unconcerned about her feelings.
Who could that have been?
That’s right, it was me.
“Long, long ago, in the distant past, when a dragon—that’s you—began its terrible rampage, there was one country that managed to mount a resistance faster than anyplace else. Day by day, they strengthened their weapons and magic spells and fought against the dragon. Don’t you remember any of that, Luciella?”
“Not one bit,” she replied as she walked along beside me. Luciella shook her head readily. “After all, before I met that witch, I didn’t come up against any foes worth remembering. Just a sour welcome’s all.”
In short, the people’s attacks hadn’t had the slightest effect.
“It’s probably a harrowing story, if we could hear it from the people who lived here at the time…”
“……” At this point, Luciella came to a sudden halt. “Well, the folks here don’t seem to remember me too well, either, so that goes for both of us.”
We were standing in front of a bookstore.
Lined up in its window were many legends of the witch Natasha.
…No question that’s what they are. But do they really need so many?
There were cute, illustrated tales of the witch Natasha and the dragon aimed at children, and all sorts of more dramatic comics were aimed at adults. The strangest thing was that none of the dragons depicted on the book covers looked the same. They had silvery-white scales, or red scales, or black scales, and the size and appearance of the beast varied wildly.
“And yet they remember her. Everyone in this country remembers that witch perfectly.” Luciella’s eyes narrowed as she lightly traced a finger over the cover of a book.
The appearance of the witch Natasha was always very consistent: black robe, black triangular hat, orange hair. Her look had become iconic.
“Well, hello there! Would you happen to be sightseers?” A clerk poked her face out from inside the shop, maybe because she had seen us standing at the storefront. “Oh-hoh-hoh. You’ve got a discerning eye to spot our humble little bookshop. I take it that the two of you are Natasha fans? That’s wonderful! You don’t have to tell me; it’s written all over your faces! I can tell just by looking at you! You ladies are practically overflowing with the naïveté of fresh fans!”
I mean, I don’t think anybody would want to visit this place if they weren’t already a fan…
“…Are there any books you’d recommend?”
“Oh-hoh-hoh. What a strange thing to ask. Why, I’d recommend every book in the store!”
“……” I was feeling fairly irritated by the clerk’s strangely high energy when Luciella spoke up.
“Hey, lady. I want to know about this woman. Got any books that’ll help with that?”
“Oh-hoh-hoh. In that case, I recommend this one. This is the best one if you really want to get to know Lady Natasha.”
As she was saying that, the clerk pulled out a book.
How to Go from Broke to Billionaire in One Second ~A Record of Natasha’s Struggles~
Luciella knocked the book to the ground.
“Do I look like I’m obsessed with money?!”
“Goodness, I’m sorry. I suppose this book is geared toward advanced students…”
“What the hell is an advanced student…?” Luciella muttered.
“I think you’ll find that it’s a special class of loser…,” I explained.
Both of us were grimacing.
The clerk, on the other hand, seemed entirely unconcerned.
“For beginners, I recommend this book.”
She coughed, clearing her throat in a forced way, then presented us with another book.
A Case of Dragon Murder ~There Is Always a Single Truth to Be Found~
Luciella knocked the book to the ground.
“When did that witch become a detective?!”
“Well, actually, no one ever heard from her again after she defeated the dragon, so…a rumor went around that she started solving mysteries…”
The clerk chuckled as she picked the book up.
According to the clerk, after Natasha disappeared into thin air, her most enthusiastic fans pushed wild theories to build on her legend, until the witch’s image had become incredibly overused.
“In this novel, Lady Natasha visits the present day, and the strongest magic of our time is no match for her. Present-day mages are quite inferior to mages of her time…as it turns out.”
“So in short, it’s a book where she’s a big, dumb, lazy fish in a small, stupid pond. I see.” Luciella nodded.
“In this work, it goes the other way, and the protagonists go through a time slip into Lady Natasha’s era, where they get her to eat their modern-day cooking and live in unparalleled luxury because of their modern knowledge and artistry.”
“Don’t people read anything that doesn’t revolve around her?”
“Books sell well if Lady Natasha’s in them, so…”
“So most of you lot in this country are head over heels for her…?”
“……” Suddenly, the unflappable store clerk got a faraway look in her eyes. “When you’re a legend like Natasha, your image is timeless…”
In other words, the famous Lady Natasha was an out-of-copyright character and could be used by writers however they liked.
There was such a thing as being too popular.
“What is going on…? I want to know what kind of person she was, but I still don’t have the slightest idea…” Luciella was at a loss. “I can’t understand it… Why do the people from this time turn everyone from the past into a plaything…?”
To Luciella, who had actually lived in the distant past and faced off against Natasha, the modern-day treatment of the witch certainly must have seemed bizarre. It probably made her uncomfortable to be surrounded by lies.
However…
“Most people living today don’t really care about the truth of events in the distant past,” I said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Only the events they witness with their own eyes are real to them.”
It didn’t matter what the real Natasha had been like. If the story was interesting, that was good enough. Historical accuracy clearly wasn’t a concern, so they were able to use her image as they liked.
“I wonder what kind of witch she was after all.” We had left the bookstore behind, and Luciella grumbled beside me as we turned our search toward lodging.
“How does Natasha seem to you right now?” I turned to face her.
After humming in thought for a moment, she said, “Like a time-slipping companion to future people who changed sexes and flew into a parallel universe to become a detective. A mythical figure who’s been the subject of all kinds of tall tales.”
“When you put it that way, I guess her fans have really embellished her lore, haven’t they…?”
“Sure have…” Luciella paused for a moment, then said, “But y’know, I get the same treatment in every story.” In a defeated tone of voice, or as if everything was clear to her, she said, “In every single one of them, I’m the villain.”
At that moment, her voice sounded impossibly lonely.
Luciella didn’t sleep properly that night, either.
No matter what I said, she just smiled and answered, “I’ll be fine after a quick nap,” and then spent the whole night reading books about the witch Natasha.
She was searching for somewhere she could rest safely, but this country was definitely not the place for her. Now she was in a fragile human body rather than her original dragon form. She was no match for simple drowsiness and frequently narrowed her eyes and let out a big yawn, but even so, she never got into her futon.
In the end, no matter how many times I told her to, she wouldn’t try lying down in bed, so eventually, I gave up.
“…I’m sure you’ll like the next country,” I muttered, mostly for my own peace of mind, as I slipped into bed.
“…That would be nice.”
Her voice sounded a bit like it belonged to someone finally surrendering to sleep.
The following day.
The country that we arrived at next was known as the Land of the Wall.
Long, long ago, before Luciella the dragon had ever appeared in this region, the people there had built a huge wall and suddenly cut off all contact with neighboring nations, so it had come to be called by that name, but there was no trace of that left now.
They had chipped away at the huge wall that had been used to intimidate and isolate, until it shrank down to about the same height as a normal gate. The gate, which had been shut tight before, now stood open always.
It was said that of all the countries in this region, this one had changed the most since the olden days.
Formerly, it had been under the control of a people known as the elves. It had been a fairly exclusionary and rather insular country. Since elves couldn’t use magic, they had only the wall to protect them from outside invaders.
But now that was all in the past.
Now lots of different kinds of people came and went down the avenues of this city. There were humans, and elves, and mages, and beastkin, and even demons to be seen. All types of people lived here now, and the barriers between species had ceased to exist.
Frankly speaking, it was a really fantastic place.
Even to me, arriving for the second time, it was fantastic enough that I had the same unrefined reaction as before.
“Welcome, travelers! Here, take these!” As we walked through the town, two small girls with golden hair and long ears—elves—approached us with freshly baked cookies. “We baked them at our shop! If you like them, come buy more from us, okay?!”
Then the elves disappeared like a passing storm.
“U-um…?” Bewildered by the cookie that had suddenly been pushed on her, Luciella looked at me. “Hey, this isn’t actually super spicy, is it…?”
“It’s a normal cookie.” I was already munching away on my cookie as I nudged her. “They walk around handing them out for advertising. Don’t worry about it.”
I was calm, but Luciella was still confused.
“Advertising…? But those girls were only about ten years old! Are you telling me they make little kids like that work in this country?”
“I met those same girls last time I was here, and they are fully grown adults.”
“Huh?”
“Elves mature slowly. They’re about fifty years old when they come of age. And it’s said that they can easily live for several hundred years after that. I’ve even heard that there are some long-lived elves who make it to one thousand.”
“……” Luciella’s eyes widened in surprise. “Well then, just how old were they? Those two girls?”
“Thirty, apparently.”
“Thirty-year-olds pretending to be ten, huh…? That’s a bit much…”
Luciella stared intently into the distance.
I didn’t think the elves would have appreciated being told off by a several-hundred-year-old dragon pretending to be an eighteen-year-old girl, but I didn’t feel like arguing with her right then.
“But there aren’t very many of that long-lived species, huh? Most of this country is made up of people from other places, isn’t it?”
As far as we could tell by looking around town, it was all beastkin with thick fur, normal humans (including mages), and demons openly sporting their wings and fangs. For a place that was originally a land of elves, the natives were fairly hard to spot.
But that was only to be expected.
“After the wall was torn down, most of the elves feared for their lives and fled the country. They can’t even use magic, so they had been living safely inside the wall, but after it was destroyed, they had no option but to flee. The elves who are in this country today are the brave souls who chose to stay behind, or probably their descendants.”
“…Is that so?”
“To make up for their population shrinking, this country welcomed all kinds of people. These days, the country is flourishing, as you can see, but apparently, there were many disputes of all kinds to get to where it is today.”
Though I’ve only heard bits and pieces, so I don’t really know that well.
“So you’re saying that there are lots of people who resent me in this country, too?” Luciella let out a single sigh, then said, “So ultimately, no matter where I go, it’s the same story. I was supposed to be wandering around searching for a place to belong, but the only thing I know after going from country to country is that I don’t belong anywhere.”
“……”
Her words sounded like an attack on me for so casually saying, “I’m sure you’ll like the next country.”
“The way I saw it, there was no place more dazzling than the human world.” Narrowing her eyes, Luciella watched the people going about their daily lives. “After I was driven from my homeland, I traveled alone for a long time. That was the reason why I came to visit the countries in this region.”
And then, in a wistful voice, she told me her story.
“I just wanted to become friends with the humans.”
Unloved by anyone in her homeland, Luciella had set out on a search for some place where she could belong.
However, cutting straight to the point, her wish never came true.
One reason was simply that there was no country tolerant enough to accept her. She could sense before she reached a place that she would not be welcomed.
She passed through all sorts of countries, searching for a place she belonged, but no matter where she went, no matter who she met, her species and form were too different, so there was no one who was willing to accept her.
Far from it, she was rejected everywhere she went.
“Get outta here, you monster!” Sometimes, people threw rocks at her and showered her with jeers.
“Never set foot in our country again!” Or they would point weapons at her and blast her with magic spells.
Still, she was alone, a solitary beast.
She was never welcome anywhere. There was no place for her. Ultimately, the outside world wasn’t at all different from her homeland.
She suffered for a long time as she searched for a place that would accept her as she was.
However, she was never able to find one.
After wandering on and on, it became clear that no matter how she struggled, she had no choice but to live a solitary life. In that era, the people living in that region would never be able to accept her.
No one loved her, and she had no one to love.
She was certain that she had been born before her time.
Eventually, she gave up on everything.
Then, as everyone already knew…
As the legends stated…
In the woods…
She could do nothing but stay there, all alone, forever.
“I tried so many times to make friends with the humans. But my words didn’t get through to them. Every attempt I made at being nice failed.”
She laughed dryly from beside me.
The only reason Luciella had returned to this region again and again was that she wanted to make friends with the humans. That was all. She kept visiting their cities, all in an effort to better understand them.
But she hadn’t been able to, and they hadn’t been able to understand her, either.
From the people’s perspective, she was nothing more than a monster.
From her perspective, the people were simple creatures possessed by fear, who came at her with weapons ready.
“Only she seemed to look at me with different eyes.”
The witch Natasha.
Only she could stand and face Luciella fair and square, without fear. In her eyes, Luciella probably saw a human who stood on equal footing with her.
“Ultimately, I never figured out what she was thinking. And even after going to that country yesterday, I still don’t understand anything about her.”
I think that’s just because all of the legends about her have gotten all twisted and wrong…
“What are you planning to do once you know about Natasha?”
“What were you planning to do once you knew about me?”
“Uh… Um, well, I wasn’t really planning to do anything. I was just interested in you.”
It’s not like I could tell her that it was because I smelled a moneymaking opportunity…
“Same for me, then. I was just interested in her.”
“……”
I looked back at her silently, and she smiled faintly at me.
“I had the tiniest bit of hope that she might be like me and want to become friends—”
But the ending that had awaited Luciella and Natasha turned out to be four hundred years of silence.
“Now I guess I’ll never know what she was thinking.”
I suppose she was feeling as if Natasha had somehow left her behind—like she had been abandoned.
No matter what the events of the distant past, her real motives had ultimately been nothing more than those of a lonely dragon who had wanted to make friends. No matter what she had looked like back then, now she was just a sad girl.
“You’ve taken good care of me,” she said. Then Luciella suddenly stopped. “Enough already. Apparently even now, after four hundred years have passed, the world seems to be telling me that it’s best for me to be alone. I’m grateful to you for traveling with me this far. But enough already.”
“……”
“I’m sure I’ve been a burden. I want to do something to thank you, but unfortunately, I don’t have anything. As you can see, I’m penniless. Well, please take the many old tales I’ve told you on our journey in place of souvenirs. Surely you can make a little money if you turn my experiences into a book or something?”
“I’m sure I could…,” I replied vaguely. “But considering the clothes and meals and lodgings I paid for, well…you see…?”
“Huh? What’s your deal? Are you trying to say that won’t be enough? Do you intend to steal even more from me when I have nothing?!”
“No, no. I don’t have any such intention! It’s just, if we part like this…you see? I just feel like something is missing…”
“Oh-hoh-hoh!”
I let out a laugh. Perhaps from Luciella’s perspective, I might have looked like I was wearing a fairly evil expression.
“Huh? So what is it? What do you want?” she asked me very, very aggressively.
“I don’t want anything from you,” I answered bluntly. “But instead, before we part ways, will you accompany me for one more shopping trip?”
Then I walked off, pulling her by the hand.
Because the middle of a crowded street was no place for a proper good-bye.
“…What the hell? You must really like books.”
I dragged Luciella somewhat forcefully by the hand, and the place we finally arrived at was a bookstore in a corner of town. It wasn’t so much a long-standing shop as it was simply old, and its shelves were lined with rows of books that had probably been new at some point.
It was an extremely plain building, the type of bookstore that, to be uncharitable, didn’t leave much of an impression.
You could say that this shop sat at the exact opposite end of the spectrum from the bookstore we had visited the day before.
“If we’re going to part ways, I thought that here would be appropriate,” I answered quietly.
“It’s got no charm…” Sounding disgusted, Luciella stepped into the shop. “It’s not like I’m going to learn anything about that witch in a place like this.”
Her objection was kind of lifeless, as if she had already given up on learning about the witch Natasha.
Or maybe she had given up on living in this country—or on humans entirely.
“……” I just kept silent and moved behind Luciella as we made our way through the narrow, cramped bookshelves that leaned in like they were trying to hug us.
Volume after volume of musty old reference books were lined up on the shelves. Unlike the shop we had visited the day before, there wasn’t a single novel of the sort that would be ideal for killing time. This bookstore was packed full of stiff, formal tomes.
One could say it was a faded little shop that no ordinary sightseer would ever enter.
But one could also say it was such a dull little shop that even the local people weren’t interested. It had been completely forgotten.
It’s not that it was an unpleasant place. But sure enough, it had no panache. It was the sort of shop that if a customer wandered in, they would just as soon wander back out.
“……”
Inside that unremarkable shop, Luciella, who had been walking in front of me, suddenly stopped dead.
She halted, her gaze captured by something deeper in the store—by the lone clerk who had come out from a back room.
“Goodness, hello there.”
The old woman put on a good-natured grin and spoke as if she had seen right through us. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
You can tell?
I didn’t have to ask. I knew immediately that she could tell.
She knew that I was someone who had come here from afar.
And she knew exactly who the girl standing in front of me was.
“…You are…”
And Luciella, too, in the same way, must have recognized the old woman before her eyes. She had pure white hair that had lost all of its color. Her face was covered in wrinkles and retained only the slightest hint of her former looks. Her clothes had lost any structure they might have once had.
Standing there was just an ordinary old woman, no more and no less.
But the moment Luciella laid eyes on her, she understood who it was. Ignoring any logical reasoning, she felt it intuitively.
“I’m sure I told you yesterday. ‘You’ll like the next country’ I said.”
Those words had not been a lie. I’d said them because I genuinely believed them.
Because living here in this country was the famous witch Natasha.
It had happened the first time I’d come to this country.
A mysterious old woman had appeared before me and told me an odd story.
It was a legend that had been handed down since ancient times about a dragon that rampaged around the region and the witch who eradicated it.
The woman was much better informed than any of the books I had read and told me the story as if she had been there at the time to see the events unfold. As she recounted the legend, her story was much more vivid than the ones written in the books.
“…Why do you know so much about this?”
I tilted my head questioningly, and the old woman smiled. “Because I’m Natasha, of course.”
She said that as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
After sealing the dragon away, the witch Natasha set off for a while on a journey of her own. She disappeared and spent some time alone. She saw the wider world and experienced all sorts of cultures.
And then, before too long, she came to live in the Land of the Wall.
She gave up the witch life and became an ordinary person. And so, she enjoyed a quiet life here in this country.
Although, after the intense battle against the dragon, most of the people had fled, leaving the country devastated, she had told me.
So with the dragon Luciella sealed away, she turned her efforts to rebuilding the country. She tore down the great wall and removed restrictions to make it a place where all species and different kinds of people could live together.
Apparently, Natasha had not actually intended to go into hiding, but she got lost in the mix when the country opened its borders. People everywhere must have assumed she had gone missing.
“You know, whenever I think back to those times, it pains my heart.”
In the middle of her reminiscent story, she told me, “Back then, there was nothing I could do except to confront the dragon and seal it away. After everything that had happened, the dragon never would have been forgiven, you see. So I had to do it, or the world would have been torn apart by strife.”
“However…,” she added, “I didn’t believe that the dragon was evil, truly. I wondered if it was actually trying to make friends with us humans. Maybe it just wanted to live with us.”
So for that reason, Natasha hadn’t killed the dragon. Instead, she had sealed it away. At the same time, she had placed a spell on the seal that would transform the dragon when it awoke so that it would no longer trample whole cities underfoot. Of course, magic powerful enough to transform a full-grown dragon would take a great deal of time to work, she said. About four hundred years, in fact.
“I don’t know whether the dragon wished for that to happen or not. It was nothing more than a hunch, but somehow, I got the feeling that the dragon did want to become human.”
They had never exchanged any words and had only ever met in battle.
However, somehow, their hearts must have communicated.
“Miss Traveling Witch, do you think I could get you to ask that dragon about her real intentions?”
It turned out that Natasha had drawn me deep into the shop with a promise to tell me a story from long ago just so that she could make this request of me. I’ve always been a sucker for indulging strangers.
“If you’re wondering about a reward, I can compensate you fairly. I’ve got enough savings that I can live securely without worrying about money until I die.”
Natasha tempted me with such sweet words.
“…Where is this dragon?”
And I easily gave in to temptation.
However, I did have one question on my mind.
“You’re really sticking by this dragon, but…why? As far as I can tell from hearing the legends, the creature was a real nuisance to humans. A true pain.”
“You’re right…”
Natasha answered my question frankly, like this:
“I suppose it’s because that dragon had the same look in its eyes as me.”
The story she had told me was one of a solitary beast being persecuted in its homeland, driven out, and then wandering through the world, searching for a new home.
It was the sad tale of someone who, in the end, had no choice but to live alone in the forest.
At the end of the day, from start to finish, every beat of their stories was the same.
The beast’s story, when all was said and done, was Natasha’s story, too.
And it was exactly what had happened to Luciella.
“I was originally born in this country, you know. Though I may be old now, and my hair has completely lost its color, once upon a time, it was a beautiful bright orange.”
Natasha brushed her hair away from her ears. They were long and delicate, characteristic of an elf. She had been born in an elven country, but born of a union between elf and human, and had been detested and feared by her own people.
Most importantly, with her unusual appearance, neither elf nor human, she wasn’t accepted in this country or any other.
And so, for the longest time, she had lived alone.
This was the woman whose forest home had been surrounded, four hundred years prior, by groveling emissaries from every surrounding nation, desperately pleading with her to exterminate the dragon.
At the time, Natasha had thought this could be her chance. She was sure that if she put them in her debt, she would finally be on good terms with the humans.
However…
“When I looked into your eyes, I knew.” Natasha put her hand on Luciella’s head. “I knew that you had also been suffering, just like me. I could see it in your eyes.” She continued, “You had the eyes of someone tortured by loneliness.”
So after Natasha had sealed the dragon away, she spent the next four hundred years remaking this country that was her homeland.
She had guided it into becoming a fantastic city that accepted people of all different species.
Even though Natasha’s physical existence had faded from the memories of the people here, even if the dragon had been forgotten, dismissed now as nothing more than a legend, Natasha alone never forgot, and she continued waiting for four hundred years.
“You really are the biggest fool…”
Luciella reached up to the top of her own head. She took Natasha’s wrinkle-covered hand and pressed it against her cheek.
As if to confirm the realness of it with her human skin.
“You went to all that trouble just for me? You waited for me, until you shriveled up like this? What a fool…,” she said.
In response, Natasha smiled and shook her head.
“I didn’t do it just for you,” she answered gently. “I did it all for my own sake.”
For herself, and for her mirror reflection, Luciella.
“Hmm, something’s a little…off…”
At a certain publishing house.
After he had finished reading the manuscript I had brought with me to submit that day, the editor made a sour face and hummed to himself for a while, then tossed the manuscript onto the table and gestured wildly with both hands as he said, “Okay, hear me out. Reviving the dragon into the world four hundred years later is an interesting plot point, all right? I think that’s great. But the thing is…why is she a beautiful girl? The dragon would be great as a guy, right? And you have the witch Natasha as an ordinary old woman, but that’s also a bit of a stretch. I mean, she’s long dead, right? And to have the protagonist be a young witch, I mean…”
“Uh-huh…”
“If our publishing house is gonna put this out, first of all, the dragon has to look like it used to in the past, not like a beautiful girl, and also you have to make Lady Natasha go through a time slip from the past to present day. And the protagonist can’t be a girl; make it a handsome guy. And arrange for there to be at least three girls who are the supporting heroines. And this goes without saying, but all of them should be totally head over heels for the protagonist.”
“Wait, but that’s totally unrealistic…”
“Hey now, the manuscript that you just had me read isn’t gonna cut it, y’know?”
“……”
“There have been so many novels handling the subject of the witch Natasha so far that the people are sick of them… Everything I just suggested is what the readers of today really want…”
“……”
They say that truth is stranger than fiction, but in reality, if the truth is too strange, it seems indistinguishable from crude fiction. I went around to several different publishers and let them read my account of recent events, which I had summarized into a novel, but there wasn’t a single person who appreciated the story.
It was a praiseworthy tale, but one which could only be shared between two people.
“Let’s see. Actually, let’s make the protagonist a reincarnation of the witch Natasha. Then she’ll have the power to defeat the dragon right from the start. How about that? That’s new, isn’t it?”
“No, actually, I think it’s about as used up as an old dustcloth.”
After giving a perfunctory thank-you, I collected my manuscript and left the publishing house behind.
Several days had passed since I parted from Luciella.
Time was passing busily as always in the Land of the Wall, a city where there were humans, and elves, and mages, and beastkin, and even demons to be seen, where there were no walls between species, where everything felt new and everything felt nostalgic.
“……”
As I was heading for the gate, and a return to my solo journey, I suddenly came to a halt.
I had caught sight of a small bookshop.
It was a snug little store that didn’t seem like the kind of place most tourists would take an interest in—the kind of small, drab shop that even the locals had forgotten about.
I stepped right in.
There was a nostalgic aroma hanging in the air.
In the back of the shop, an old woman wearing a gentle expression was seated politely with her legs tucked under her, waiting with a smile. “Oh, welcome!”
Before she could continue, I said, “Here, take this,” and pushed the sheaf of papers that was my manuscript toward her.
“……?” As she took it, the woman tilted her head curiously. “What’s this?”
“Your shop doesn’t seem like it’s aimed at pleasure readers, so I’ve decided to make a donation,” I answered frankly.
As a novel, it’s probably not very interesting, but I bet it’ll suit this store full of stuffy tomes pretty well.
The woman looked over the manuscript and immediately looked back up at me.
“…You’re selling this?”
“No. Please do whatever you like with it. You can throw it away or sell it; I don’t care. I’m leaving it up to you.”
I just don’t want you to forget.
Don’t forget that someone out there remembers that the two of you are living here, even if everyone else here forgets about you and the story gets handed down as a mere legend among the people of this region.
Don’t forget that even when one of you eventually reaches the end of your life, you mustn’t return to solitude.
…And so on.
Pushing such sentimental thoughts down into the depths of my chest, I said jokingly, “Well, the reward you gave me was a little much, so I wanted to give a little something back, that’s all.”
“…I see,” Natasha answered, holding the manuscript like it was something precious. “In that case, I’ll take good care of it.”
By the way…
“…Where did Luciella go?”
My eyes swept over the shop but didn’t catch sight of the other key character—the dragon, Luciella.
I had heard that after she had parted with me, Luciella had started working at Natasha’s bookstore, but…
I don’t see her.
“She’s right here.”
Natasha pointed at her own lap.
“……”
Sure enough, there was Luciella.
She had placed her head on Natasha’s lap, closed her eyes, and seemed to be sleeping peacefully.
“…She looks comfortable.”
So comfortable that I found myself whispering.
“…Yes.” Natasha nodded quietly as she stroked Luciella’s hair.
When she touched her hair, Luciella murmured softly and turned to face upward, but didn’t wake.
I’m sure she’s not going to wake up for a while.
Right now, she’s in a place where she can sleep securely.
Just like a child after getting a parent to read them a bedtime story, Luciella was sleeping soundly.
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