MISTERLP
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Naden was running through the forest.
She ran straight down the game trails, trying not to think about
anything. That was because if, while thinking, she considered her situation
for even a moment, she felt like she would be crushed under the weight of
her sadness.
As she ran, Naden's body transformed. She became four-legged; her
body thickened and grew longer; and she sprouted deer-like antlers, a long
tail, and two whip-like whiskers. She had taken on her dragon form.
She twisted her gigantic body around, slithering between the trees like
a snake. There were, of course, no wings on her back.
Does having wings make you so great?! She asked herself the same
question she had so many times before in her life. Is it so wrong not to
have wings? Geez... I don't even know anymore! What do you want me to
do?! There's nothing I can do!
At some point, tears had begun to fall from her red eyes. They wouldn't
stop.
Enough! I don't care anymore!
She kept running, and eventually came out of the woods.
She'd come to a rocky place. It was a sheer cliff, and the far edge of the
area that Tiamat's magic kept in a state of everlasting spring. This was the
edge of Dracul. The setting sun had dyed the sea of clouds that spread out
below her red.
The scenery here truly was fit to be called breathtaking. However,
Naden didn't have the presence of mind to take it in right now.
She leaned out over the cliff, stretching out her long neck and shouting
as loudly as she could in thought-speak: "You stupid suuuuuuuun!"
She added out loud, "Rooooooooooooooar!"
Ooooooooooooooooar...
Ooooooooar...
Ooooar...
Screaming out in psychic speech while roaring at the same time, her
roar echoed as it vanished away to somewhere beyond the clouds.
Naden stood there, glaring into the sun.
"Th-That ryuu's going through adolescence." A voice that was lacking
in tension came from behind Naden.
"Wha?!"
When the surprised Naden turned back, there was a young man in
unfamiliar garb, standing there and looking at her like he'd seen something
unbelievable. The young man wearing a traveler's cloak over top of his
shirt, and a conical straw hat was scratching his cheek as he looked at her,
unsure what to do.
"I know from Madam Tiamat and the dragon priestess that it's possible
to talk with them, but when I see a ryuu girl shouting something out of an
adolescent drama... I just don't know how to react," he added.
Naden's eyes went wide. What is a human doing here? And in that
strange outfit... He's not a knight from the Nothung Dragon Knight
Kingdom, is he?
While she got information from the Empire through her simple
receiver, Naden knew nearly nothing about the Nine-Headed Dragon
Archipelago, so she didn't know the young man's outfit was from there.
Continuing to stare at Naden, the young man opened his mouth and
said, "Still, I'd heard the Star Dragon Mountain Range was a nation of
dragons.... But I never imagined there would be a ryuu here, too. I feel like
I understand this world less and less."
A "ryuu"... That was what the young man had called Naden. "Ryuu"
was another word for dragon. Naden opened her eyes wide.
"A ryuu, huh..." she said coldly, thinking he might have meant it
sarcastically. "I don't have wings, you know."
But the young man tilted his head to the side. "Huh? That's obvious,
isn't it? Ryuus don't have wings."
"Huh? What are you talking about? Ryuus are supposed to have wings,
aren't they?"
"Huh? If you're talking about a ryuu with wings, there's the ouryuu,
also called the yinglong, but aren't they supposed to be kind of a unique
case?"
"Huh?" Naden asked.
"Huh?"
It seemed there was some inconsistency in their understanding.
"Hold on," Naden said, "When you say ryuu... you mean a dragon,
right?"
"A dragon? ...Oh, I see. So that's it."
The young man clapped his hands together, as if something suddenly
made sense to him. Then, picking up a branch, he drew two characters, (dragon)¹
and (dragon)¹, on the ground.
"In the world I came from, we had the Oriental dragon, also called a
ryuu or long, and the Western dragon, two similar but dissimilar
creatures."
"Your world? Similar but dissimilar...?"
While Naden still had a question mark over her head, the young man
drew a circle around dragon.
"In my world, Western-style dragons were given this character, which
is read as 'ryuu.' They're creatures that are like giant horned lizards, but
with wings."
"Giant lizards, but with wings... That's about right." Naden thought it
was an apt description.
It felt good hearing the other dragons, who always called her a worm,
get called big lizards. It was refreshing.
"Hm? Then what about this other ryuu?" Naden added, pointing to dragon.
"They're creatures said to have the head of a camel, the eyes of a
rabbit, the ears of a cow, the antlers of a deer, the neck of a snake, the
belly of a sea snake, the legs of a tiger, the talons of an eagle, and one
hundred and seven koi-like scales covering their body."
That was way more bizarre than some big lizard. What kind of mystery
creature was that?
"From what you're saying, they sound like total chimeras," Naden said.
"No, no... I'm talking about you here."
"..."
Me?!
That made sense. The long body, covered in scales, the front and hind
legs with sharp claws, and the deer-like antlers... If you were to try
describing Naden's body using animals, it might turn out that way. She
didn't know what kind of creature a camel was, but did she really resemble
one?
"I'm a... ryuu..." she said slowly.
"In my country, when you hear the word ryuu, the image that first
comes to mind looks a lot like you," he explained. "That's probably the
effect of a certain famous manga and anime, though."
"Manga? Anime?"
"Never mind, that was just me talking to myself. Don't worry about it.
By the way..."
The young man suddenly slumped to the ground. He was holding his
stomach for some reason.
"W-Wait, what's wrong?! Does your stomach hurt?!" Naden
exclaimed.
"No, um... I'm hungry... I was dragged off before breakfast, and now
that I think about it, I haven't eaten all day."
"So you're just hungry!" Naden cried, exasperated.
Bzzt! That numbing feeling came again.
In her ryuu form, she could tell. Her cheeks felt a little numb, but what
really reacted were her two long, whip-like whiskers. These whiskers were
Naden's most sensitive sensory organs, and the slightest breeze across
them was enough to tell her what the weather would be like for the next
week.
My whiskers... Were they responding to him?
Naden returned to human form and stood in front of the hunched over
young man. His face was turned downward, so she couldn't see his
expression. She reached out to touch his face softly. Her hand was close
enough that she couldn't tell if she was touching him yet or not, when...
"That's a rather cute form you've changed into," the young man looked
up and said when he saw Naden in her young girl form.
Naden turned bright red at being called cute. "Wh-Wh-Wh-Wh-WhWh-Wh-Wh-Wh-Wha?! M-Me?!"
"Huh? You're the only one here, aren't you?"
"B-But, I'm so plain... and small."
"Really? I think you've got good material to work with. If you dressed
a little better, I think you might look good on screen, you know? If you
were good at singing, too, I'd almost want to recruit you as a lorelei," the
young man said with a little laugh.
Though there were some unfamiliar terms, like "on screen" and
"lorelei," Naden's head instantly boiled over when she realized she was
being complimented on her appearance.
While Naden was still pressing her hands against her flushed cheeks,
the young man hesitantly asked, "By the way..."
"Wh-What?"
"Do you have anything to eat?" A weak growling came from the young
man's stomach.
...
"...Pft." Naden burst out laughing. "Ahahahahaha! What the heck...?
Hahaha!"
It was a hearty guffaw. Where had all that sadness from before gone?
"You're so weird." She laughed heartily.
Then Naden transformed back into her ryuu form and picked up the
young man by the scruff of his neck, like a mother cat might carry her
kitten.
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Chomp... Munch, munch...
"Maybe try eating a little slower?" the ryuu girl said in exasperation,
seeing me wolf down my food.
I was in the cave the ryuu girl brought me to, tearing into a hunk of
meat. This den of hers looked like no more than a cave from the outside,
but inside there was a bed, bookshelves lined with romance novels, and a
carpet. It looked like a girl's room.
She had served me some sort of salted, cooked meat along with fruit.
Normally, this big of a hunk of meat would have been intimidating, but I
was so famished that it looked like a feast to me. I felt like how Aisha
acted any time there was food in front of her. I tore into it wildly.
"Mmm," I said appreciatively. "I dunno what kind of meat this is, but
it's good!"
"Oh, geez, don't talk with your mouth full," the girl on the opposite end
of the table said, resting her cheeks on her palms. "You were that hungry?"
"Yeah. I'm really grateful to you. By the way, what kind of meat is
this?"
"It's from a big deer I hunted in the mountains."
"Venison, huh? ...Wait, you hunted it?"
"That's how most dragons get their food, you know? We fly around the
Star Dragon Mountain Range, hunting animals and gathering fruit to eat.
That's how we grow into strong dragons."
"You're living a much wilder life than your room would suggest..."
While I was eating, she explained that dragons became strongly
attached to their families once they were wed to a knight, but in the Star
Dragon Mountain Range, they each lived on their own. There were no
stores in the Star Dragon Mountain Range, and they hunted and gathered
to feed themselves each day.
Also, dragons didn't gather in large groups, so they were doing well if
they had one, maybe two friends. It was said that they had adopted this
mentality because the majority of dragons married and left for the Nothung
Dragon Knight Kingdom, so they did this to avoid having lingering regrets
about leaving their homeland.
While listening to all this, I finished my meat and fruits and clapped my
hands. "...Phew. That was a feast."
"It wasn't that much of a feast, though," the ryuu said.
"That's just a thing you say after a meal in my country. Oh, that
reminds me. You treated me to a meal, but I haven't gotten your name yet,
have I? It slipped my mind." I sat up straight, and bowed deeply to the girl
across from me. "Thank you for helping me. I'm... Kazuma Souya."
I hesitated for a moment, but opted to use my fake name. If I told her I
was the King of Friedonia, explaining that seemed like a hassle. Madam
Tiamat's explanation had been too abstract, meaning I didn't really have a
good grasp of the situation, so this was good enough for now. I didn't want
to trouble someone who helped me if I didn't have to.
"I was invited by Madam Tiamat and came here from the Kingdom of
Friedonia," I added.
"Oh, how polite of you." Hooked into it by my own bow, the young
girl bobbed her head, too. "I'm Naden Delal."
"Huh? Dendera?"
"Naden Delal! Don't shorten it in a weird way!"
"Dendera the ryuu... Denderaryuu..."
What was it? I was suddenly reminded of that children's song.
"Denderaryuuba detekurubatten, denderarenken detekonken?" I asked.
"What's that weird spell-like incantation?" she exclaimed.
"Oh, it's a children's song from my country."
"Denderaryuuba" was a children's song from rural Kyushu. By the
way, there was no dragon called a denderaryuu in it. "Denderaryuuba"
meant "if I wanted to go out" in that region's dialect. That line of the song
meant: "If I wanted to go out, I could, but I can't go out, so I won't." Or so
I'd heard. Was it about being a shut-in?
"Well, anyway, nice to meet you, Dendera," I said.
"Na-de-n! Don't call me Dendera!" Naden got all huffy about it.
I reflected that she was a cute girl whose expression changed a lot.
That was how I went to the Star Dragon Mountain Range and met
Dendera... er, sorry... how I met Naden Delal.
1: well, what really had was dragon in chinese and japanese, however webnovel doesn't allow different languages (even though it's just one word) so i translated it and put it in quotes