Translator: Kurehashi Aiko
CHAPTER 15: Dragon-san and Their Everyday Life (Part 1)
After sending Nectar back to his country with plenty of souvenirs like herbs and ore that were to be processed and turned into magical materials, I moved into the wilderness at the edge of the continent, with literally nothing in the radius of 300 km.
This was going to be my hardest challenge to date, with very little functioning leylines.
During my work, I was sure to take breaks and go to meet with Nectar at least once a month.
Normally it would be faster for me to fly to Nectar"s location, but since right now the distance was far greater than normally, I had to exclusively resort to travelling via s.p.a.ce magic.
There were lots of things to consider when travelling via magical portals, such as the distance, the flow of the leylines, extreme magical circ.u.mstances and complexity of the coordinates one wanted to input. However, even the slightest miscalculation could cause you to go off track by a great deal or even end up inside of a wall (mind your surroundings!). And since it would be really troublesome if the whole city was to be covered in holes in various places, together with Kyle we agreed that if I were to use such methods of transportation, I would always appear inside of the forest that was in the capital"s vicinity. It"s better that way than having to pay for collateral damage.
It also seems that the numbers of guards silently watching from the walls kept on increasing, but it didn"t bothered me in the slightest as there was no way for them to be able to detect me.
Also, Nectar got moved from the Magic Academy"s branch research center to the royal castle"s research tower, with his former place of work becoming nothing more than a simple observatory, and currently he was staying in his private laboratory.
Since there was no way for us to know when someone might have come to his place, we were usually using Kyle"s place for our meetings, and only if we managed to arrange it beforehand with telepathic communication.
Usually I would come in the dead of the night and we would hang out around town, drinking and playing around the bars until the morning, but since today I arrived during the day, right now we were in quite a pickle.
So for today, we somehow managed to slip out of the castle unnoticed by anyone, and went right for the Kyle"s house.
And what do you know, Kyle got married to that girl that he confessed to while being p.i.s.s-drunk all that while ago.
It was also the very same girl that was asking me about my barrier that I erected in the forest when we met Kyle for the first time.
Because Kyle was constantly busy with his efforts to make the school that would teach the basics of magic, the very first in this country, it was usually this girl who would greet us when we were coming to visit, acting just like a perfect example of a lovely housewife.
For me, it was also kind of strange that Nectar would arrive riding his staff full of energy, but then avoid making eye contact with me.
「Long time no see, Lava.」
「h.e.l.lo. Nectar, thanks for all of your hard work.」
As soon as we exchanged our greeting and as I was about to relax into the sofa, Nectar held me up gently and smiled at me.
The "boom" sound just now seems to be because he was holding me up in my human form. Although it may be a convenient distance in which we can touch, it"s mysterious to try and play with me even though I am in the shape of a young man. I wonder what"s the fun in it if he"s lifting me in my young man form?
I think that I should be quite heavy, but I know that showing my child form to Nectar is prohibited.
After lots of heavy thinking I arrived at the conclusion that talking about children in front of Nectar would be a bad idea.
It looks like for mages it was extremely hard to have children, so after many twist and turns being blessed with one or two was a small miracle in its own right.
When he heard about his friend"s blessing, Nectar started to act funny, taking Kyle by the neck and going to another room with him, where they stayed for quite some time while I was just left there, sitting in the living room.
As expected when I first turned into a Loli Grandma with a body of a child, I even managed to play with Kyle"s children. But, it was also so that I could keep my eyes on them if someone would ever want to kidnap or harm them. That way I could ease Kyle"s and his wife"s worries, even if for a little bit.
Even though I was able to change my forms freely, and altered my body weight, I still needed to be careful around Nectar and the others during my transformation.
………… Sometimes we would even play soccer or tag together with the neighbors" kids.
Of course, each and every one of the kidnappers would end up being crushed mercilessly. Harming children is something that could never be allowed.
By the way, Kyle has two children with his wife.
It also seems that both of them possessed an outstanding magical capacity, so they would surely grow up to be called geniuses or prodigies just like Nectar.
It is a secret, but the truth is both Nectar and I blessed them with magic so that they would grow up strong, smart and healthy.
I mean, just look at them! Kids were just so cute that you wanted to hug them all day long, were so fluffy and fragile that you just can"t help it but to adore them and worry about them all the time!
However, I simply couldn"t deny that some part of me was worried about how Kyle would react to that if he found out……
M, maybe it wouldn"t be so bad. Maybe he wouldn"t beat us both to death for this peculiar display of worry and affection, and instead be grateful to us?
Anyway, I was still hesitant if it would be alright for me to hold a human child in my arms.
「What are you going to do today?」
「Let"s see, since I am outside for the first time in half a month, why don"t we go for a walk?」
「Just how seriously are you taking your job……? Oh well, doesn"t really matter. In that case, there is a certain place I would like to visit, if you don"t mind. After that let us go and drink some tea at the maid"s shop.」
It looks like Nectar was doing his best to spread the use of magical skills to everyday life, for which he was gaining much popularity.
In addition to promoting military magic into everyday life, he was also working towards incorporating magic into machinery, all the while doing research on leylines and dragons, so technically both he and Kyle should be extremely busy at the moment, but for some reason they would always find time to hang out with me.
On the other hand, you could clearly see that some of the people working at the laboratory were afraid of him, and that was because Kyle would immediately dispose of anyone who would try to hurt Nectar in any way. So they must have thought that being near Nectar was potentially hazardous to their lives.
「That"s because I only take a day off whenever I get to see you, Lava!」
Once he told me that, I had no other choice but to respond to him in earnest, eating cookies and going on a tour around the castle town without any kind of hesitation.
We would go and relax, sometimes we would venture into the wilderness, or sometimes we would just spent the day talking about small stuff and magical techniques while I was in my native dragon body.
You know, that sort of common things.
But still, Nectar was adamant on wanting to go meet me himself.
After confirming that travelling at high speed was impossible for him, he set his sights on learning the s.p.a.ce-travel magic that I was using.
I would very much like to tell him how to do this, but Nectar wanted to at the very least try and figure it out by himself. After all, humans do have their own sense of pride.
After deciding what we wanted to do, I went to town together with Nectar.
The streets were lively and vibrant, helping us relax for the first time in a while.
It seems likely that due to the increased population, more and more merchants keep on popping out here and there.
On both sides of the streets you could see building made out of bricks and stones, there was also a firm pavement made out of stone plates, and it was pleasant just to walk around, watching various displays and eating some snacks from time to time.
I walked around pretty nonchalantly, but truth to be told, the castle town after the coup was still a rather dangerous place.
Security around the town was still pretty bad, with robberies, muggings and frauds being common sight, and I do not know why, but for some reason there were pictures of my human form hanging on the walls all over town.
It said that whoever happened to see me was obligated to report that to the castle immediately, or to at least inform the appropriate officials.
There was this one time when I was walking around the town disguised as a gorgeous blonde with strands of black and red mixed in my hair, when suddenly I was surrounded by large police patrol. I somehow managed to escape by changing my appearance on the fly, but later Nectar had to deal with the aftermath of this whole situation.
I am really sorry about that! I later tried to make amends by making sure to abstain from visiting the city and work extra hard on my job fixing the leylines for a while!
Well, it may have happened only once, but after that I took the necessary precautions as to not get surrounded by police force ever again, additionally changing my age and s.e.x whenever I would go into town.
So far those methods proved themselves to be working splendidly, for there was not any incident like that happening again.
Rather, since Nectar was becoming well-known figure around the town, it was him that was drawing way more attention thanks to his unique hair.
「Oh, you are the Sage, are you not? The auto ignition device that you developed really made our lives easier!」
「You look somewhat thinner, are you making sure to eat properly? That"s right, thanks to you getting rid of those drunkards way back then it really saved my brother"s life! It also helped me quite a lot!」
「Oh my, oh my, if it isn"t the Great Sage. Thank you once again for finding my lost child! My son said that he was not afraid at all thanks to that lovely companion of yours. Please take it, this is our best produce. Come by our shop again and I"ll be sure to give you some more!」
Sometimes it is fun to see people offering delicious food to Nectar, especially that right after the coup there was a strong prejudice against the magicians, now completely forgotten and buried in the past.
The ritual that was supposed to improve the earth force was conveniently covered up by the government, but it couldn"t be denied that due to the excessive amounts of magical power of unknown origin it was warped into a breeding ground for the demons, and the operational formula for the ritual was developed by Nectar himself.
No one was eager to object to that. Because that"s where I came into action.
It is true that Nectar was responsible for developing it, but the one who ordered him to do so were the former king and the former chief of the magicians, and they have been ostracized from power. So no use crying over spilt milk.
However, Nectar was still feeling responsible even though he was technically already sentenced for that, and so he chose to confine himself inside of his laboratory. He thought that by working hard, it would repay a little bit of his past mistakes.
He would also walk around the town and listen to the voices of the people, so that he could later devote his talents towards the development of the things that were truly needed.
I also knew that Kyle was working towards finding the use for magicians on the civil field, rather than having them only serve military purpose.
Surely the changes that were undergoing in this country could be called the fruits of their labor.
「Everyone is so nice to you. Even if you are a magician, they are interacting with you as if you were just another ordinary person.」
「No, that"s not it. They are able to speak up only because you are here as well.」
「Eh, why? My facial features and s.e.x are different every time we hang out. Are you sure it"s not only some coincidence?」
Oh well, I prepare myself to fix some of the leylines while we walk, but as expected, understanding humans is really hard, as I can"t see any visible effects of my work.
「I"m sure they all know just how hard you"re working towards keeping the peace, and they wish you for the best. You have become quite popular, huh, Nectar.」
「 No, well rather than that…. Well, if Lava is happy with that then…」
I didn"t know exactly what he meant by those words, but even though he looked somewhat troubled, he also seemed to be strangely happy.