“This world needs someone like Magellan¹. Even someone like Columbus² would do.”——This different world was way larger than I had ever thought.
I didn’t understand whether Lia asked about how the pendant was or how she (as a succubus) was.
It was difficult to describe what I felt now into words, so all I could do was nod my head in response.
Lia made the gem stop glowing and placed it back on the table.
Plopping onto the sofa, she laid on her side and took out a cigarette holder which I couldn’t discern whether it was made from ivory or clay. She then attached a brown cigarette on it.
“Okay. Whose is this?”
The out-of-place tone of hers made me feel like the situation in the room was totally under a succubus’s control.
And then, my natural instincts flared up.
Taking out my lighter, I ran up to Lia’s side and bowed down to light her cigarette for her.
“I’m sorry, Miss Lia. This thing is mine.”
“Un……”
Shrouded amongst the smoke, the succubus only smiled without probing further. Based on what I learned from my ex-boss, an action like this on a negotiation table where the ‘initiator’ pa.s.ses the ‘initiative’ was a sign that the negotiation was coming to a success.
“How did you get this, Mr. Lou Woo?”
Wolflang grabbed the chance to enter the conversation.
To be frank, it would be a lie to say that honesty was a trait of mine.
Yet for a magic item such as this, I couldn’t make some excuse up. So, aided with my hand gestures, I explained to her the story of how I got this pendant.
Lia didn’t even bat an eye when I told her that Xifu and I had killed 5 humans, but she was more interested in how I lived together with Medusa.
As I said before, I wasn’t close to anyone here, not even Wolflang who helped me and my wife before. Thus, it felt uncomfortable to discuss about how my wife and I lived together.
“Mr. Lou Woo. As your wife said before, you seem to have come from a very far place……”
“Yes, it’s very far. And it’s highly probable that I can never return to it again.”
“Then, you must……not know much about here, right?”
“Yes, for example, the Kingdom that you people kept mentioning……and this Nightfall Town.”
“It’s fine. Hey, take the x.x.x.”
Wolflang gestured towards the owner of the bar to take out a scroll of paper from the bookshelf.
The paper which had yellow colored sides was then spread on top of a table with each sides weighed down with an ashtray, an inkpot and coins.
The curved lines and symbols on the paper gave me a familiar feeling——this was a map.
The map was rectangle in shape, and based on the contents, it wasn’t a map of the world.
The explanation process was done entirely by Wolflang, with Lia chipping in from time to time. The owner of the bar only prepared some drinks for us halfway.
The whole explanation took a very long time, mainly due to my very poor grasp of the language. But Brother Werewolf and Sister Succubus never showed an ounce of impatience, and even corrected my p.r.o.nunciations.
Thus, I got quite a lot of information about the area around here.
The information I got can be split into three parts:
First: The mountain Xifu and I are living in was called Mount Dochi³, which was crescent-shaped. The entrance to our cave was located right at the bottom of the crescent.
Second: There’s a mountain called Mount Mercaly⁴ at the opposite of Mount Dochi, which I called it Mount Caly for short. Between the two of the mountains was the large gra.s.s plains we needed to cross to reach Nightfall Town.
Based on the map, it was stated on it that this gra.s.s plain was called the Southern Plains.
Third: The opposite of the Southern Plains would be the Kingdom in the North. The Kingdom was so large that it wasn’t even completely drawn in the map. As for Nightfall Town, it was placed slightly to the North from the Southern Plains.
Simply put, Nightfall Town can be said as to be a borderline. To South was mountains and plains, and to North was the Kingdom.
As for how large this world actually was, I didn’t even have the courage to ponder about it.
Actually, the one thing I wanted to understand the most was what kind of country the Kingdom was. Unfortunately, all three of the people seated here including the owner of the bar said that they had never even set foot in the Kingdom, though it seems like the Kingdom’s full name was the Ensel Kingdom.
The clues only lead up to this. As for those 5 people from the Kingdom, Wolflang gave me an explanation, though I couldn’t understand any of it due to my current s.h.i.+tty grasp of the language.
In the end, Wolflang gave up trying to make me understand and just told me that I need not worry because those kinds of people were very few.
Then, we started chit-chatting. After Lia had confirmed that the pendant was harmless, I kept it back into my pocket.
She didn’t even tell me how to use it. Seems like if it’s harmless, even if it’s a magic item, people wouldn’t really care much about it huh……
Because they were speaking too fast, I couldn’t even understand what were they chit-chatting about.
The only thing I was able to glean from their conversation was that this bar was actually opened up by Wolflang the werewolf……No wonder he was doing so well.
After their third cup of alcohol, Wolflang and the boss of the bar said they had something else and headed downstairs, leaving me and Lia alone in the room.
As a man with a family, it was natural to be reserved. Both of us kept quiet as the our cigarette smoke filled the air.
“Are the both of you having a good life together?”
The smell of perfume and tobacco entered my nose as Lia sat beside me.
“Very good.”
“You remind me of the past……”
“By that, you mean……?”
“Nothing, it’s just that if only he was still alive.”
“Ms. Lia had a relations.h.i.+p with a human too in the past?”
“That was a very long time ago, hehe.”
She giggled as her eyes focused on the pretty finger nails of hers.
“You guys too, must have had a good life together……”
“Yeah, the me during that time felt like something good was going to happen everyday.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine. It’s been a long time since I saw a human like you. Want me to teach you a word?”
“Ah?”
“Say ‘I love you’ to her. She would really be very happy.”
Actually, I always wanted to learn how to say it. I knew how to say ‘I’ and ‘you’, but really didn’t know how to say the word ‘love’.
So, in that very moment, I understood that the word she just said meant ‘I love you’.
“I…… love you…….right?”
“Un. Say that to her, not me okay?”
After looking at me with complicated eyes, Lia flew out of the window.
If I were 3 years younger, I would have said something like ‘You s.l.u.t, how dare you seduce me!’.
But now, I felt like I could understand her.
Lia, was probably just a lonely yet kind succubus.
After eating something for lunch in the bar, I bought a small table, chairs and a wooden tub from Parker’s factory.
After that, I headed for home. Although the residents of Nightfall Town were very friendly, it gave me the feeling that the town itself was kind of quiet.
When I finally reached home on the sheep wagon, the sun had already set. At the familiar cave entrance stood my Xifu.
I had a girlfriend before, and I had loved someone with all my heart as well. But to see my special someone standing at the entrance of my house waiting for my return gave me an inexplicably sweet new feeling.
Although I lost many important things ever since I came to this world, I gained something even more precious..
(Ruzenor: TOO MUCH SUGAR UGHHH)
The personal growth of a human is caused by his slowly changing daily life. Now, I could affirm that it’s the truth.
“You’re back!”
“Un~you eaten?”
Hugging Medusa can turn a normal greeting into the most effective love potion, making us who were in the honeymoon period not wanting to let each other go at all.
In reality, I would of course feel somewhat shameful.
But now, all I wanted to do was to just indulge myself in this pa.s.sionate and free love.
The pure love that not any impurities like materialism will ever be able to pollute.
“Oh right. I love you.”
“AH!?”
Xifu froze in her place, making me wonder if I p.r.o.nounced it wrongly.
“Eh…I love? I love you…Un, right. I love you.”
When I was trying to correct my p.r.o.nunciation, she had already hugged me with her whole body.
Even though it was so freaking heavy, it felt rea.s.suring.
“I love you.”
No matter in which world, these 3 words were enough to express the person’s most pa.s.sionate love. This three words were probably what I wanted to get today.
Though if it were like this, I can’t make dinner……
……
After eating a meal on the newly-bought table with with a lantern lighting up the place which made the atmosphere romantic, I smiled dumbly at her.
Men would become fools when it comes to love. But for me right now, I was really willing to become a r.e.t.a.r.d.
“Body, fine?”
“It’s fine~”
“Then……..missed me today?”
“Hehe.”
“I really missed you today you know.”
“Then, hug me~”
Footnotes:
1.Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer who organised the Castilian expedition to the East Indies from 1519 to 1522, resulting in the first circ.u.mnavigation of the Earth. Wikipedia: Columbus was an Italian explorer, navigator, colonizer, and citizen of the Republic of Genoa. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean. Wikipedia: 多奇山=Mount DuoQi, which literally means Mountain of Many Oddities…….
4.Originally 蒙格丽山=Mount MengGeLi. You p.r.o.nounce Mercaly as Me-r-caly.