MISTERLP
It was the morning after Naden and Souma had encountered one
another.
In a place not far from the cave, light shone down through the branches
of the trees, illuminating a small stream and a person washing themselves
there. Maybe because they didn't need to worry about the eyes of others in
the forest, they wore no more than their underwear, soaking in the river
and pouring water over their body.
Today was another clear day in the Star Dragon Mountain Range with
its everlasting spring.
In fact, rain never fell in the middle of the day here. This might have
been the result of Mother Dragon exercising her power. A fixed amount of
rain fell at a set time each day in Dracul. That was why, even though the
skies were clear every day, the abundant nature on the plateau was able to
maintain itself.
Because it was a warm day like this, the clear water of the river, which
was cool, but not too cool, felt soothing. The half-naked person sat down
on a rock, wiping their face with a cloth that had been left there for that
purpose.
"Wh-What do you think you're doing?!" Naden exclaimed.
Naden, who had still only been half-awake, was suddenly shocked into
full awareness.
"Oh, hey, Naden. You're up?"
"Don't face this way, you pervert!"
It had been Souma bathing in the river. His body, which, thanks
perhaps to his personal trainer, Owen, had no excess fat on it, was
exposed.
Unable to take any more of it, Naden looked away. "Wh-What are you
getting naked here for?!"
"I'm still wearing my underwear, you know?"
"That's not the problem here!"
"Well, since I'm imposing on your hospitality, I thought it would be
rude if I was too dirty, so I was washing myself..."
"Still... You can't show yourself in front of a young maiden like that..."
With her head still turned away, Naden stole a few glances out of the
corner of her eye. Even though dragons, as a race, could be somewhat
ambiguous when it came to sex, seeing a member of the opposite sex was
unusual, and she couldn't help herself but look.
Without a care for Naden's innocent reaction to him, Souma began
dressing himself and asked her, "Come to think of it, when you and
Madam Tiamat are in your ryuu or dragon forms, you're so huge. But
when you change into human forms you're already wearing clothes, huh?
There's no sign of them tearing when you grow in size, either. Could it be
that those clothes are a part of your body, or something like that?"
When Souma asked her about that which had been bothering him,
Naden answered with a blank look on her face. "Erm... Yeah. We're
transforming our scales, so that would be one way of putting it. We can't
do anything about the color, but we can change the design, and even have
them disappear entirely if we feel like it. Also, if we wash our bodies in
dragon form, we can wash our human bodies and clothes at the same
time."
"Hm... Sounds convenient, but does it hurt if your clothes get torn, or
something like that?"
"Do you feel pain when you cut your hair or nails, Kazuma?"
"Oh, I get it now."
Basically, dragons didn't have nerves running through their scales. In
fact, their scales might be something like a carapace they could freely
control, covering their bodies and protecting their innards.
"Hm? So, that basically means, even when a dragon is dressed up,
they're still naked..." Souma murmured.
"Don't say another word!"
Crack, crack.
With a little crackling sound, Naden's hair stood on end. There were
blue streaks of lightning running from hair to hair. Naden's angry mode
made Souma panic a little.
"Electricity?! Whoa, hold on! I'm all wet here, you know?!"
Bzzt!
Just as Souma got away from the stream, the electric shock Naden
unleashed struck the surface of the water. The poor fish that got caught in
the discharge floated to the surface.
Souma was dumbfounded by what he'd just witnessed, but he
immediately threw on the rest of his clothes and beat a hasty retreat. He
couldn't take an electric shock while his body was wet.
Naden chased after him, shouting, "Hold it!"
Even as he felt terror at the crackling sound of electricity that was
chasing after him, the calm part of Souma's mind was already coming up
with practical applications for Naden's ability.
A ryuu that controls electricity?! The Star Dragon Mountain Range
even has those? If we had electricity, there would be all sorts of things we
could do with it. Wouldn't having Naden give our research into electricity
a real boost?
Whenever he met someone with a special talent, the first thing Souma
did was think of effective applications for their gift. It was an occupational
hazard of being a king.
"Hold it, Kazuma, don't run away!"
Can I get her to come to the kingdom, with no need for a contract or
partnership to be involved...?
That was what Souma wondered, even as Naden chased him around.
◇ ◇ ◇
By the will of Madam Tiamat, I was now being taken care of in
Naden's cave.
That was because there were still another five days until the Contract
Ceremony I had been asked to take part in occurred, and she had suggested
Naden's cave as a place for me to stay. It turned out that, despite how
grand the Crystal Castle was, it had little in the way of entertainment, and I
would most likely just end up being bored if I stayed there.
Naden, on the other hand, had been gathering written materials from
the world below, and had quite a few unusual items in her room. That, and
it was probably most convenient for me to stay in a room meant for a
human-sized occupant.
Though that's all starting to feel like excuses now... I noted.
Madam Tiamat seemed intent on Naden and me getting to know one
another.
When our meeting concluded, and she was about to teleport me to
where Naden was so she could look after me, Madam Tiamat looked at
me, her eyes full of sincerity, and said, "Please, teach that girl for me.
About the her she doesn't know."
"Huh? What's that supposed to mean?"
"You should already know the way. Please, offer her guidance."
When she said that, Madam Tiamat had the look of a mother worried
for her own child. Just as I was about to ask her why she had that look on
her face, the scenery changed, and I was met with a black ryuu shouting,
You stupid suuuuuuuun! in psychic speech.
After that, a formal messenger from Madam Tiamat came to Naden's
home, and Naden was appointed as my caretaker for the time that I would
be staying here. Naden looked like she thought it was a pain, but she
couldn't defy an order from Madam Tiamat, so she reluctantly acquiesced.
I'd been here ever since, staying in Naden's cave, drinking tea, and
reading the materials she gathered from the lower world... Which was to
say, romance novels that had been written in the nations of mankind.
Across from me was Naden, lying in bed and watching a simple
receiver. A ryuu was watching the Jewel Voice Broadcast... She apparently
picked it up at a flea market in the Empire, and giving it a little shock had
gotten it working again. What, was it like an old TV, which would start
working again if you hit it?
Naden glanced over at me and asked, "Is it any fun for a man to read
romance novels aimed at women?"
"More than you might think. It shows you what the various women of
the world hold up as their ideals."
When I'd heard they were romance novels, I expected them to be
messy dramas of love and hate, like a daytime soap opera, but they were
light and fluffy like a novelization of a shoujo manga.
From a quick glance through, most of them were tales of chivalry.
There would be a knight who swore his loyalty to a beautiful lady, and he
would perform meritorious acts in service of that love... That was how a
lot of them went. There were also Cinderella stories, where a simple
village girl would help a young lord or prince who had left the palace in
disguise, he would fall in love with her, and they would ultimately be wed.
The plots could largely be divided into these two patterns.
"Is this the sort of thing you dream about?" I asked playfully.
"...Well," Naden said, turning her head to the side in thought, "I'd like
to let a cool knight ride me as we fly through the sky together."
"Ahh, if you're a ryuu or dragon, that's the sort of reading you end up
with, huh..."
For a normal girl it would be, "I want to ride on a horse with a cool
guy," but for the dragon races, it was apparently, "I want to be the horse,
and let the knight ride on my back."
When you interacted with different cultures and races, it was
interesting to see those little differences in interpretation.
"So, what are you watching over there, Naden?" I asked.
I'd heard lively noises coming from the simple receiver Naden was
holding, so I was curious. She said she'd found it in the Empire, so was it a
singing program from there?
"Hm? It's a music program from the Gran Chaos Empire. You want to
watch it with me, Kazuma?"
"Oh! Yeah, you bet I do." I was interested in seeing what sort of music
program the Empire was making.
Naden sat next to me, putting the simple receiver in a place where we
could both see it. To prevent news from leaking, it wasn't possible to view
broadcasts recorded with any jewels other than the ones used for broadcast
meetings when you were in another country. During our post-war
negotiations with the Principality and Empire, when Jeanne, Empress
Maria's little sister and general, had seen our country's broadcasts, she
said she'd like to imitate them back in the Empire. I wondered what kind
of programs they were making.
While thinking that, I took a sip of tea, looked at the simple receiver,
and...
"Hello there, everyone! This is Maria."
"Bwuh?!"
"Whoa, Kazuma?!"
I spewed the tea I'd been trying to drink everywhere. On screen,
wearing an idol-style frilly dress, was the Empress Maria of the Gran
Chaos Empire herself.