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Translator: Kurehashi Aiko

 

Volume 3 Chapter 22: Dragon-san and the Jealous Spirits

I was amazed at just how hostile the youth seemed to be.

It was our very first time meeting. So why was there so much animosity that he was projecting towards me?

Even though it was all confusing, I responded in kind with a sharp glare.

Since he was showing signs of hostility, this meant that he was dangerous. I needed to stay ever vigilant.

「There’s something I want to ask you. Why are the spirits coming into the manors of nobles?」

Both Lute and that Bastard guy seemed human at first glance, but they were spirits without a shred of doubt.

A pretty powerful ones, at that.

Essentially, spirits are beings born from the land itself as a result of many different events, unable to pass on to the afterlife.

That’s their nature, and Nectar was a sort of exception to that rule. Hell, even Gramps, who managed to establish some self-consciousness, was pretty much bound to the tree from which he was born.

At least that how it was here, on the Western Continent. I don’t know about the rest of the world, it might very well be different out there.

So what are they doing here?

But to my question, Lute only shrugged his shoulders.

「Does it really matter? I don’t think it does. And besides, I don’t have time for this. I’m a pretty busy man after all.」

「What?」

At that moment Ligurila managed to got up from the ground and through an explosion spell right at that Bastard guy.

「Forget about me and it shall be the death of you!」

Although Bastard managed to block her attack with his huge sword, Ligurila continued to assault his with spells, driven by anger.

During the process, she also began to change her appearance back to her original form, transforming her hair and limbs into vast amount of tentacles.

I know how she feels right about now, but show at least little bit of restraint! There are still civilians in here!

I was about to put a protective barriers around the unconscious nobles, but at that moment a black mass of shadow jumped out of the Count Avar’s body.

This beast-like mass of shadow must have been the demon’s true form.

He ran towards her body, trying to shield her from the shockwaves of magical energy that Bastard managed to divert from himself.

「Lishella!」

At that moment I had no idea which one of us screamed her name. Was it me? Or was it the demon?

When the barriers were almost ready, there was a sudden blast of white light.

My face went pale in an instant, but then I saw the demon holding Lishella firmly in his arms, his back facing the shockwaves that were going to blast the girl.

His body looked all beaten up from the damage he took, but his expression while he was looking at Lishella was as soft as ever.

While I was relieved to see that she was unharmed, I could also see that there was light coming out of her chest.

It may have been because he, her contractor, called her name, but his own body was also emitting light that was resonating with that of Lishella’s. Under normal circumstances something like that would never happened.

Could it be…… No, no, no. First thing first, I must make Ligurila to calm the hell down, since she was still throwing spells around in a blind fury.

I wanted to rush to them, but Lute came in my way, looking all annoyed by this development.

「Good grief, could you like, shut up for a moment?」

As he said that, he swung his hand through his instrument’s strings, causing it to emit a powerful soundwave.

I tried to counter that with my own spell, but I was too late with casting it.

The moment a sad melody reached my ears, my body was entangled with magical web and I was unable to move.

I was unable to move, but my consciousness was still intact, so I could clearly distinguish what was going on.

Even the flow of magic ceased to move, and so all of the spell were rendered pretty much useless.

I could also see with the corner of my eye that Ligurila also froze in place, although Bastard seemed to be fine, but he lowered his huge sword down.

While I was trying to resist the spell’s influence, Lute approached the demon.

「Oh boy, I didn’t think that you would even try to put a part of yourself into that girl. But strangely enough, she is not one of your familiars, is she?」

「…… It was the best way to stop her own magic from harming her.」

It was probably just the way he said it. He was monitoring her health and kept it from degrading, all the while not making her one of his familiars.

He was taking care of her, making sure that she was healthy.

「Oh well, not that it matters, anyway.」

Lute cast a quick glance at Lishella, but then something about him has changed.

「Say, Mister. You said that you would help us take over this country if we were to help you out, we even lent you our facilities. And you promised you wouldn’t spill the beans.」

「…… Aah. So you were the ones providing him with all of the necessary materials.」

「That’s right. They provided me with a place where I could devise the whole process, and I was making sure that it all looked but natural. I even enlisted others to help me and got rid of all people who were suspicious of anything or wanted to oppose me. However,」

Lute smiled in a truly demonic way.

「You were using the facility for your own gains. You broke your promise, didn’t you?」

「……!!!」

「That’s not very nice of you, wouldn’t you say? Oblivio Oblivio?」

The demon holding Lishella in his arms – Oblivio Oblivio – froze in place, unable to move even an inch.

Apparently Lute’s magic was also taking a toll on his body.

No matter how powerful the spirit was, it shouldn’t be possible for him to overpower even the weakest of demons in terms of magic.

However, that’s exactly what was happening.

There was a sight of frustration in Oblivio’s eyes as he began to struggle, but Bastard stopped him by raising his sword to his throat.

「Don’t.」

But the demon was intent to do exactly what he wanted to do.

Just before the blade managed to reach him, Oblivio rolled his body in an attempt to dodge, but the sword change its trajectory at the last possible moment , cutting his body in half.

Oblivio turned into a mist and dissappeared.

When the shadow that was protecting her disappeared, Lishella’s body fell to the floor, but surprisingly there was no impact to her fall.

「Ahhh, and there goes our perfect plan. I thought it would be nice to enlist a full-fledged demon into our ranks, but I guess in the end the only ones we can count on are ourselves. Bastard, if you could please take care of this child.」

Seeing Bastard raising his sword over Lishella’s body, I mustered all of my energy and broke free of my restraints, the music still resonating in my ears.

There was no finesse to what I did. I just use the brute strength to break through the magic of another person. Nothing else to it.

There was a lound cracking noise accompanied by a burst of light, and I immiediately broke into a run, dashing towards where Bastard and Lishella were.

I had to protect her, no matter what.

I tried to stall Bastard with a barrage of spells, but it was all to no use.

Still some distance away, I tried to reach my arm towards Lishella and grab her –– but then Lute stood in my way.

I was blinded with anger.

「Why, why did you kill him!?」

Oblivio was only trying to protect Lishella. He knew what was coming and he still chose to do that.

But Lute said to me as if it was the most obvious thing in the entire world.

「It’s because he went back on his word. Even though we were very careful as to not upset the balance of magic in the leylines, he upset it by using the generator too much. It was not meant to mass produce the magic stones, the process is way too expensive. So I had to get rid of him, preferably before he managed to cause us even more harm.」

Seeing him brush Oblivio off as if he was nothing more than a minor nuisance, I let out a scream filled with bloodlust.

「But that doesn’t justify killing him! And dragging the girl in the middle of it all!」

「That is of no concern of yours, dragon. Rather, shouldn’t you be the one to have disposed of him? After all, he did temper with the leylines and upset the balance of magic circulation.」

His words made sense, however, my rage made me impossible to reason with at the current moment.

「Besides, this child has a part of him inside of her. If you leave it be, Oblivio can’t be fully eradicated, but would continue to exist until the girl draws her last breath. So, wouldn’t it be an act of mercy to kill her now and spare her the suffering?」

I simply couldn’t believe just how was he able to say all of those words with such a cheerful and carefree voice.

Even if it was impossible to take the part of the demon from inside of Lishella, her contractor was now gone, so that would be more than enough. However, it seems that such logic was unthinkable to Lute.

「For you it’s the same as disrupting the flow of magical power!? You can’t possibly think that you can create a false magical stones out of monsters and hope that we will let you to do that!」

「A necessary sacrifice. It was something that we needed.」

I was yet again stunned by his words.

His way of thinking and his values were totally different from ours.

Although we were speaking the same language, there was no way for us to possibly hope to understand one another.

However, I couldn’t possibly let those spirits run around and do whatever they wanted.

Upon realizing that, I secretly tried to send some portion of my magic towards Lishella, so that it could protect her.

In the meantime I felt a horribly cold chill running down my spine.

The leylines began to stir and the very foundation of the world begun to shake.

It felt as though something begun to scream inside of my head, making me stumble on my feet.

「What the hell is this……!?」

It seems that all of the dragons began to overreact like that after sensing the fluctuation in magical circulation so large that it was never felt before.

Even though it felt so unnatural, its epicenter wasn’t here……

「What is this, this magic level is unreal!」

I saw that Ligurila was able to move again. It looks like she managed to break out of Lute’s influence as well.

I somehow managed to contain the raising nausea and take a hold of myself to the point that I could survey my surroundings without my senses going berserk.

The spirits looked afraid as well, but it was a completely different kind of afraid, as if they were anticipating something like that to happen.

But they also looked upset for some reason.

「Wait a minute, it’s way too early……!」

「Do you realize what this means!?」

I asked them, hoping that maybe they could shed at least some light on this entire situation.

「You……」

Hearing my voice, Lute turned towards me with his eyes full of disbelief.

「I don’t know, I have no idea.」

……–––– For some reason, he looked really discouraged right now.

I wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but he stopped looking at me already. In his eyes, I could see the despair that was slowly growing.

「Bastard, hurry it up and let’s get out of here.」

「Yeah.」

「Wait, where do you think you’re going!?」

Ligurila shot one of her tentacles in their direction, trying to prevent them from leaving, but Bastard swung his sword and managed to cut the tentacle in half.

Lute brandished his instrument again and let out a deep sigh, and then cast us a quick glance.

「Forget it. All of that made me really angry. So you’ll have to excuse if we want to take care of ourselves and only ourselves. Just please do your best, dragon. Otherwise,」

He hit the strings and a sad tone reverberated throughout the banquet hall.

「Everything will perish?」

「Something like that……!」

Lute again stroked the strings of his instrument, making another melody overflow from it.

It took me a few good seconds to realize that there was also a voice accompanying the melody, and another few seconds to realize that those words were the ancient language.

「Now, come to me! A child lost in the middle of the dark night! A time for awakening has come! Erase those who dare to stand in my path!」

Even though it was a melody filled with kindness, I was struck with a sudden feelings of sadness and jealousy.

Every last one hair on my body was standing up in response to that melody, and then I could feel torrents of magic fly high in the air and rain down onto the still unconscious nobles, seeping into their bodies.

In the next moment, all of the nobles present in the ballroom got up, turned towards us and proceeded to lounge themselves at us all at once.

They moved incredibly fast, as if their physical limitations were being removed, or tampered with.

I managed to escape their grasps with Lishella in my arms, all the while tears were flowing from my eyes.

But thanks to that, the distance between ourselves and Lute and Bastard was only growing wider and wider.

A few seconds later, Lute and Bastard disappeared in the swirling vortex of magical energy caused by the teleportation spell.

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