MISTERLP
"Now, I'd like you all to hear my song."
With that, Maria began dancing lightly as she sang in a clear voice.
Though her singing and dancing might come up short when compared
to our Prima Lorelei, Juna, Maria had a greater charisma that drew people
to her.
...And, wait, wasn't Maria getting really into this? She looked like she
might start sparkling at any moment.
Um... What exactly was I looking at here?
Calm down, me. In everything, there's a cause and effect.
From what Hakuya had told me, the most popular program in the
Empire was the one that followed what Maria did during the day. Like on
The Imperial Family Album. Her sister, Jeanne had been complaining,
"How did it turn out like this?"
Maybe this had been the flow of things:
1. The Empire begins producing programs where loreleis sing.
2. The most popular program was one detailing the life of Madam Maria.
3. If we make Madam Maria into a lorelei, won't viewership numbers
shoot through the roof?
4. A singing, dancing empress is born! ← Where we were now.
...Well, that had probably been it, more or less. It seemed the Empire
was going through a process of trial and error to find ways of entertaining
their people. This one felt like an error.
Well, the program itself was fun, so I watched Maria with Naden for a
while, but...
"Oh, no, there're more of them now..."
I heard a girl's voice coming from behind us.
When I turned back to look, there was a girl in a white one-piece dress
looking at us in exasperation. The girl had goat-like horns on her head, and
a white tail protruding from her rear end. Was this girl a dragon, too?
When the girl looked at me, she let out a sigh. "I thought it sounded
lively in here... Naden, you finally started bringing home men, too? Make
sure you take him back to wherever you found him."
...What was I, an abandoned dog? It made me imagine myself in a
cardboard box labeled, "I'm an abandoned provisional king. Please, take
me home." It made for one surreal image.
Meanwhile, Naden, who had been accused of dragging home men,
pouted. "Don't make me sound so bad! He's a guest!"
"A guest?"
"That's right! Lady Tiamat ordered me to be his caretaker."
"His caretaker, huh... It looks to me like you two are just fooling
around together, though?"
"Urgh..."
The girl was right, so Naden had nothing she could say to that. I'd been
given food, and she was looking after me, but she hadn't really done
anything else as my caretaker. I'd been more or less left to my own
devices.
The white girl pointed at me. "I'm Pai Long, Naden's friend. Who are
you?"
"Kazuma Souya from the Kingdom of Friedonia."
I smiled and shook Pai's hand. When I did, she tilted her head to the
side.
"The Kingdom of Friedonia? That's that country to the east that Naden
was talking about before, isn't it? We don't have relations with them...
What are you doing here, Kazuma?"
"Ahh, well, I was invited here by Madam Tiamat for some reason."
"By Lady Tiamat?" At this point, Pai had a look on her face like she
just realized something, and she turned to Naden. "Hey, Naden, don't you
think Lady Tiamat might be planning to have this guy take part in the
Contract Ceremony?"
"Huh? Kazuma, take part in the Contract Ceremony?" Naden asked
with her eyes wide. "Kazuma's not one of the knights of Nothung, you
know? Can he even take part?"
"Have you forgotten? It hasn't happened at all recently, but they say
Lady Tiamat sometimes invites those who are likely to become heroes of
their time, allowing them to form independent contracts with a dragon.
Like the first King of Elfrieden did."
"A hero of our time, huh..." Naden glanced in my direction. That look
on her face... She didn't believe it one bit. "I dunno, he doesn't look that
impressive to me."
"That's harsh, even if it is true," I said.
"Didn't Lady Tiamat tell you anything, Kazuma?" Pai asked, but I
shrugged my shoulders, neither confirming nor denying.
It was true, Madam Tiamat had suggested she'd like for me to
participate in the Contract Ceremony. However, I hesitated to tell that to
these two. If they found I would be taking part, the next question would
obviously be who exactly I was. Having them find out I was the king of a
nation would be a bit of a headache.
"I'm not at liberty to say. If you want to know, ask Madam Tiamat."
"Ahaha!" Pai laughed. "It's not that easy to get to talk with her, though.
Oh, I know!" Pai clapped her hands "Naden, you're in charge of looking
after Kazuma, right? It's not something that comes up often, so why not
show him around the Star Dragon Mountain Range?"
"Oh! I'd be interested in that," I said. "Could I trouble you to?"
"Uh..." Naden openly acted like it would be a real pain. "The Star
Dragon Mountain Range is pretty big, you know? Wouldn't that be kind of
hard for Kazuma, having to walk?"
"You can carry him on your back," Pai said.
"Pai, a dragon only lets her partner ride on her back. You're well aware
of that, right?"
"Where's the harm? Why not get him to contract with you?"
"I have the right to choose, too," Naden shot back. "This boring kind of
guy isn't my type. I like strong guys who everyone can respect."
"...You've been getting pretty sharp-tongued toward me for a while
now, haven't you?" I complained. It was like a knife being thrust into my
heart... Then I realized something. "Hey, is letting someone other than
your partner ride on your back seen as being unchaste somehow?"
"Yeah."
"Well, where is your back, Naden?"
"Huh?"
Naden wasn't a Western-style dragon, she was an Oriental-style ryuu.
Her body was basically a cylinder going from the back of her head to her
tail. While she did bulge out a bit around where her front and rear legs
were, she didn't have a clearly defined back like a western-style dragon
did.
"Like, if I rode right behind your head, that wouldn't be your back, it'd
be the nape of your neck, right?" I asked. "How about there? There's no
rule against someone other than your partner riding on your neck, now is
there?"
"..."
Naden had no counter to that, so it was decided we would be going out.
Forests full of fresh growth covered more than half of Dracul.
Normally, these forests were neither too dark or too bright, and due to the
lack of wind, there was no rustling of branches. They were quiet forests
that were not too damp or humid.
Now, a black ryuu was threading quickly between the gaps in those
forests' trees. It was Naden in her ryuu form, of course. I was currently
riding on her head.
Partly because of where I was sitting, I felt like the protagonist of this
anime I'd watched a long time ago. While holding her two deer-like
antlers as if they were the handles of a motorcycle, I held on for dear life
and tried not to get shaken off.
We were clearly out of place in the quiet forest.
"Naden... Hold on, aren't you going a bit fast...?" I asked nervously.
"You're getting a free ride, so no complaining."
I'd spoken up because I was scared by the branches whipping by over
the top of my head, but Naden didn't seem to be about to slow her pace.
With the shape of Naden's body, it was like being on a roller coaster, but it
was only possible to enjoy those because you had a safety bar. Well, not
that I had been one for riding scream machines to begin with...
"Come to think of it, Naden, what were you saying to Pai before we
went out?" I asked.
Before we left the cave, they had talked about something in hushed
voices. They glanced furtively in my direction, so I wondered what was
up, but she turned her head to look away.
"N-Nothing!" Then, with her head still turned away from me, Naden
seemed to be muttering something. "Darn it, Pai... Who needs your, 'If you
work hard to sell yourself now, maybe Kazuma will pick you at the
Contract Ceremony'? Don't be such a busybody."
"Huh? Sorry," I said. "Your voice was so quiet, I couldn't make out
what you were saying."
"I told you, it's nothing!"
We continued going back and forth like that while moving through the
forest. Then... a few minutes later...
When we got out of the forest, I jumped down from Naden's head into
a grassy meadow.
Normally, it would have been vast enough to call it a great plain, but it
didn't feel that way when I looked at it. That was because, in the center of
that great plain, there was a single massive tree, its roots crisscrossing the
grassy field, with its branches spread out as if to cover the whole of the
meadow. Thanks to this massive tree, I didn't get the sense that I was
standing on a great plain at all.
Looking up from below, the tree rose up into the sky like a towering
castle. However, its leaves were golden, and they seemed almost blinding
in the way they shone in the sunlight.
I let out a sigh of admiration despite myself. "Its... pretty amazing,
huh."
"Sure is," Naden, who had at some point returned to human form, said,
puffing out her chest proudly. "This is one of the famous sites of the Star
Dragon Mountain Range, the Great Tree of Ladon."
"Radon? The atom? Or the Giant Monster of the Sky?" I asked.
"What are you talking about? It's Ladon, the name of the dragon they
say protected this tree long, long ago."
"Hm..."
There had been a dragon called Ladon, huh? According to Naden, there
was a legend that said there was a golden dragon named Ladon who lived
in the branches of this tree long ago, and it was that dragon's influence that
caused the leaves to take on their golden hue.
Come to think of it, there was a dragon that guarded gold in Greek
mythology, too...
Was it golden fleece and golden apples that one had been protecting?
The way the leaves bunched together, it didn't look entirely unlike golden
fleece. Though it was so massive, it was more like a golden cloud instead.
"It's like something out of the world of legend," I murmured.
"Heh heh! It's pretty amazing, huh?" Naden nodded in seeming
satisfaction, then looked up to the tree. "This great tree has never died,
never dropped its leaves, and has stood here since time immemorial. It's
like a symbol of how the Star Dragon Mountain Range is eternal and
indestructible."
"Eternal and indestructible..."
"It's the embodiment of the dragons' pride. You won't find another tree
this beautiful in all the world," Naden said with confidence.
There probably wasn't a single person out there who could fail to
recognize this tree's beauty. That was just how beautiful, elegant, and
impressive this tree was. If it had been standing here forever, I could
understand why the dragons would be proud of it. But...
"Calling it number one might be a bit much," I said.
"Huh?" My reaction made Naden's eyes go wide.
"I'll grant you that it's an incredible sight, but I like plum and cherry
blossoms, too."
"Plum? Cherry?"
"They were trees in my country that had beautiful flowers. Plums
would blossom while bearing the weight of the snow, and cherry trees
would bloom to their fullest and then fall. They each had their own appeal,
and they were quite beautiful."
"But the flowers fall, right? They only blossom for a short time. The
Great Tree of Ladon will never dry up," Naden insisted.
I smiled wryly and stretched my arms wide. "Having things that stick
around for a long time is important, of course. Like natural scenery,
traditions, cultural heritage, and so on. But, in my country, there was an
equal, or perhaps even greater, appreciation for things that move on."
I crouched down and plucked one of the cottony, dandelion-like
flowers that were growing all over the place. When I gave it a shake, the
seeds were carried off by the wind. The everlasting spring of Dracul
helped to lend the scene a peaceful, airy quality. I smiled to Naden.
"Don't you think this is pretty in its own way?"
"But no matter how pretty it is, it's over in an instant, isn't it?" Naden
protested.
"That's what lets us look forward to the next one, don't you think?" I
sat down in the grass, then lay on my back. "Doesn't the fact that you can't
just see it anytime you want make it all the more valuable? Even if it does
end, you can wait eagerly for the day when it will come around again."
"...I don't really get it."
Hm... The dragons were a long lived race, so maybe mono no aware,
the Japanese appreciation for the impermanence of things, was a little hard
for them to understand.
"It's a difference of values, you see," I said. "There's more than one
way of looking at things. It's the same with dragons, isn't it? To the
Mother Dragon worshipers, dragons are sacred creatures. To the knights of
Nothung, you're their partners and comrades in arms. To the Orthodox
Papal State of Lunaria, you're not much different from monsters. In my
former country, a ryuu like you would have been worshiped as a god that
controls the weather."
"Me... a god?" Naden was taken aback for a moment, but then she burst
out laughing. "Pft... Ahahahahaha!"
Naden clutched her sides as she chuckled. While I was looking at her,
wondering what I said that was so funny, Naden gave me a jolly smile
while wiping the corners of her eyes.