Chapter 32 [Harvest Festival](2)
We, who participated in the harvest festival, began to enjoy the festival in earnest, receiving considerable attention from the people around us from the moment we entered.
Before arriving in the Lesta Empire as promised, Aquila did not have to consider financial issues at all thanks to the bundle of money that Duduk had taken care of. This is the dragon’s heart…?
Thank you for your wallet! Oh no, Aquila!
Because he was Dante’s values of spending the money of others as much as he could while saving his own money like a miser, he opened his wallet wide all over the festival street without hesitation.
Well, originally, what you eat is what’s left over, so most of it was used at stalls selling snacks.
While eating freshly baked bread with peanut butter, tasting sweet and sour fruit shaved ice served with frozen desserts, and stuffing various fried foods such as freshly fried fish and shrimp into your mouth.
Among them, Yeon-hwa especially preferred food made with fried tofu.
Tofu sushi, tofu udon, etc…
Actually, I’ve heard rumors that foxes like tofu, but I don’t think it’s true.
I’ll have to do it more often when I go back to the Rafrican Empire.
Since it is a harvest festival, most of the streets are filled with stalls selling harvested produce, but they also sell a variety of other things, such as accessories made of flowers and fruits suitable for ornamental purposes, amulets to wish for abundance, and hair bands made of twisted wheat stalks. There were also many stalls lined up.
However, it was quite difficult to move as there were so many people.
It wasn’t so packed that I couldn’t move at all, but I had to be as careful as possible, as people often bumped shoulders or tripped, or groups of children running around appeared out of nowhere.
Of course, this story did not apply to Yeon-hwa, who was taller than most adult men.
She skillfully protected Dante from the crowd.
I held her hand tightly and put her body close to her side to protect her from large beastmen and adventurers, and also wrapped her tail around her waist to keep her centered so that she would not accidentally fall.
What kind of meticulous consideration. It was an attitude that was naturally comparable to someone with black hair.
So…
So these are not tears flowing from my eyes right now!
I’m not such a weak demon!
Seeing Yeonhwa-nim protect me, I feel a sense of entitlement alone because my complex is stimulated for no reason,
───Absolutely Not that!
Trumbling.
As a group of hulking beastmen passed by, Yeon-hwa pulled Dante closer to her once again.
The body of a commoner of the Demon Tribe being dragged helplessly by the slender wrists that could break if hit.
“…….It’s stingy!”
“?”
Dante swallowed her tears and quietly covered his mouth.
◇
At the same time, the Elos Mountains.
“…….”
Tak clap clap clap clap.
Tapping her desk quickly with the tips of her fingers, Olivia gritted her teeth.
It was a behavior close to a kind of habit that she shows whenever she feels uneasy about her feelings.
About an hour had passed since Dante descended to the Lesta Empire, and now Olivia was at the crossroads of her biggest choice in her life.
To go or not.
To go…Or not…That is the question.
“Keep it off…! f*ck you!!”
Boom!!!
Overburdened by severe choice disorder, she eventually hit her head on the desk.
The poor desk, unable to withstand the power of the black dragon’s head-butt, cracked and shattered in an instant, but Olivia was not such a weak-willed dragon that panicked to the extent that only one of her pieces of furniture was broken.
Even though it was a special desk made of ‘zarkon’, the hardest ore in the world, even if it had steel durability that even a dragon couldn’t easily break, she didn’t give a sh*t about it.
Olivia was the dragon of her old woman, whom she had hardly ever experienced in her life, a difficulty called ‘selection disorder’, which most intelligent creatures on earth face at least dozens of times a day.
As you wish, as you wish.
Just follow your instincts, faithfully.
Take what you want, get rid of what you don’t like.
Only for yourself.
With this motto, Olivia gave up all the thoughtfulness of ‘considering others’ and chose only the choice that brought her the greatest benefit and happiness to herself, so Olivia was able to deal with her worries. There was no need.
Or, choose both.
But only one thing in this world.
As far as ‘Dante’ goes, she couldn’t help but wrap her head around it.
Even though she was Olivia who never thought about other people’s feelings,
───Who likes to be hated by the person they love?
Besides, no one wants to see someone dear to them grieve.
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This is an emotion that applies universally to humans, dragons, and whatever.
Olivia, she hated Dante getting hurt.
To be precise, she hated Dante being hurt by anyone but herself.
Whether it was physical or mental.
Including even Dante himself ‘harming himself’.
Originally, it is said that slaves resemble their masters, and Dante also has a rather hot-tempered and unrepentant personality, so if she is serious, she will do it somehow,
Olivia knew all too well that she was the so-called perfection of tenacity.
The fact that he would bite off her tongue and die is not just a mistake to intimidate himself, but it means that there is a high possibility of it.
Of course, that much can be cured and prevented in advance, but that doesn’t mean that the fact that Dante was ‘injured’ itself will disappear.
No, even if you block it, how can you live in peace when you don’t know when Dante might harm himself?
In other words, a ticking time bomb.
Since such a Dante was her opponent, Olivia had no choice but to think carefully.
Does she risk being hated to some extent and pursues Dante to the Lesta Empire, or does she wait here sucking her finger until he returns.
“Oh, I don’t like either of them…”
Olivia’s red eyes quivered as she bit her thumb nail.
That was the moment.
“……No wait.”
A ray of light passed through her head.
‘If you chase me or follow me, I’ll bite you and die on the spot, so take good care of yourself.’
He clearly said this.
But… The purpose of my going to the Empire doesn’t have to be ‘chasing’ or ‘following’ Dante… Isn’t it?
“Eureka!”
I’m a f*cking genius. f*ck!
She clapped her hands and jumped out of her seat, as if she had come to a realization.
Crunchy! Dante’s favorite Zarcon chair was broken, but Olivia didn’t care.
She just laughed like crazy and jumped out of the lair.
It was time for the unfailing Dragon’s plausible logic to be activated.
Self-justification is so scary. Everyone.
◇
“Puhehehe!!”
“Darling, you’ve been sneezing since earlier. Are you okay?”
“Yes. It’s okay. Write it.”
As he wiped her nose with the tissue handed to him, Dante felt a strange feeling of uneasiness run down his back.
…..Ah, it must be because of my mood. Maybe I’m being too sensitive
Shaking his head to shake off the strange anxiety, he stuffed all the remaining chicken skewers into his mouth.
“…Ah.”
But maybe it was because I was too greedy, the sticky yakitori sauce on the wooden skewer dripped onto the back of my hand, and I couldn’t erase this sticky feeling with just tissue paper.
“Excuse me mister, where is the bathroom here?”
“If you go straight down that alley, it’s on your left.”
“Thank you.”
After hearing the location of the toilet from the owner of the stall selling skewers, Dante asked Yeon-hwa for her understanding and went out of the stall after destroying the old tent.
As the owner pointed out with his finger and walked all the way inside the narrow alleyway, there was a door to the bathroom on the left, just as he said, along with a dead end.
The moment Dante turned the doorknob while thinking nonsensical thoughts such as, “There was a bathroom in a place like this, it would be nice if it was clean.”
Jumping!!
“!?”
From his right, that is, from the dead-end street blocked by the wall, there was a strange rumbling sound.
Startled, Dante crept back and slowly turned his head to find a dirty trash can lying on the floor at the corner of a dead-end street.
What is it?
What the f*ck, it’s a horror genre all of a sudden.
No, why did it suddenly collapse!?
Golden eyes constricted round like a surprised rabbit.
I wanted to get out of this place as soon as possible, but this time curiosity outweighed fear.
Jumping!
“!”
Soon after, something quite large began crawling out of the trash can.
When the clouds covering the sunlight lifted and the sun finally began to shine on the dark alleyway, Dante was able to recognize at once the identity of the invisible figure hidden in the shadows.
“That’s…”
He opened his mouth wide.
A bright yellow fur covering the whole body.
Irregularly sparsely drawn black stripes
The tail of the triangular pattern.
Thick feet, cute protruding belly, even the white dots on his ears.
The one who limped out of the trash can with blinking emerald-colored eyes was a perfect ho───
?
I guess I just heard wrong…?
Ah, anyway, the true identity of the human being is a tiger without fail───
“Hey. Ong. Hey. Ong”
“…….Uh…”
What kind of clumsy cat cry is this.
Whether Dante’s expression was crumpled or not, the cat (?) Steadfastly roared as if he couldn’t lose.
“Hey Ong”
“……Hello, pretty tiger—“
“Kyaaagh!”
“──Cat?”
“Nyan.”
“Such crazy.”
He covered his face with both hands.
Mom, I must be crazy.
The tiger cub is meowing.
The cat (?) Stared at Dante’s golden eyes as he cried while looking for his parents, unable to face reality, and leisurely walked near his ankles and rubbed his head.
“Gureung…Gureureung…”
This time, a very natural cat cry.
Only then did Dante, who was free from confusion, finally solidify his thoughts.
Yes, this is a cat. A pretty black tabby cat in yellow.
“Oops.”
Sitting down on the floor, he carefully stroked the cat’s head.
Then the cat started to lick Dante’s hand, which was covered with sauce.
“Ahahahaha, it tickles me, cat~”
“Hey Ong”
While drawing a small smile on his lips, he noticed that the area around the cat’s hind legs was red and swollen, and took out a handkerchief from his pocket.
“Cat, wait?”
Then he tore off his handkerchief and carefully wrapped it around the cat’s hind leg like a bandage.
“Enough. Be careful from now on, Cat? I’m going?”
And since he could not delay any longer, Dante rushed out of the alleyway.
The cat, which had been staring blankly at Dante’s back, suddenly disappeared as soon as he turned the corner of the alley.
───As if it wasn’t there from the beginning.
◇
“…Me, Yeonhwa.”
“Come on. It’s Dante.”
“That, the tiger meowed…No, it’s nothing…”
“? What a bland guy.”
4 P.M.
A quiet park a little far from the city.
Dante and Yeonhwa were sitting side by side on a bench and taking a break.
It was because Dante’s stamina was worn out because he couldn’t contain his curiosity and walked around the wide city at random.
Unlike him, Yeon-hwa leisurely patted him on the back, not sweating even in this hot weather.
“My dear, if it’s hard, don’t overdo it and go home at this point…”
Dante shook his head with a wry smile.
“Thank you for your concern. But, there are still things I want to see.”
“Well, then there’s nothing you can do about it. I’ll go buy you something to drink, so wait here.”
“Yes, I’m sorry, but please…”
“Hmm.”
Yeon-hwa headed her steps toward the city again.
If there was a ‘specialty’ of the Lesta Empire Harvest Festival, it was the Dryong Race Held from 7pm on the first and last day of the festival.
The flying dragon race is literally a competition in which riders who use well-trained flying dragons as their familiars ride flying dragons to see who gets to the destination faster.
Drakes are a type of monster that resembles dragons, but they are highly intelligent and, if raised carefully from a young age, are smart species that follow their owners like puppies and follow orders.
So, it’s normal to run a dragon knight training academy. Although the rank of the academy differs depending on the size and reputation of the empire.
Of course, the Lesta Empire also has a Dragon Knight Academy.
The riders of the flying dragon race that will be held today are the students of that academy.
Huh? Why are you interested in flying dragons when you live next to real dragons?
Of course——
“….. Ugh.”
In an instant, Dante grimaced at the smell of cigarettes that stung her nostrils.
Ai-san, I’m about to die of dizziness, but some crazy bastard is in a public place with a no-smoking sign standing all over—
“—What is it, are you sick?”
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“I just got a little dizzy… Huh?”
Wait, wait.
Now, who did I answer…?
With a dazed sound, Dante looked at the tall black-haired woman standing in front of him.
His face was stained with contemplation.
No way.
It can’t be.
I can’t do that.
I can’t be here.
I shouldn’t have.
A dark-haired human woman smoking a cigarette, staring at Dante with vertical red eyes, no.
Olivia raised the corner of her mouth as she cut off Dante’s words.
“I’m sure–“
“Yeah~ This is such a ‘Coincidence’, Dante.”
She took out a pack of cigarettes with the Lesta Empire’s flag pattern on it from her bosom.
I didn’t follow you.
I just came here as a consumer to buy things.
There are coincidences like this in the world.
I never broke your requirements.
“I came to buy cigarettes and Accidentally Bumped into you in this vast empire!”
I’m so lucky!!
◇
+Bonus