Ohoho~ this is my favorite chapter of this mini-arc! I hope you like this chapter too! Next chapter is the last chapter for this mini-arc.
TL: clover
ED: clover
“Ufufu~, well then, see you later. Auguste, please apologize properly, okay~?”
Devil-san and Goldberry who jumped on her shoulder winked casually.
Somehow, they were in a perfect sync.
While I was stunned, the pair of a person and a dragon had disappeared behind the door.
She was truly an elusive person.
When I felt a little awkward, I heard the steps of Auguste.
As expected he seemed to be uncomfortable.
“Greetings, Angel-sama.”
“I’m sorry. You are angry after all.”
“Yes, I am a little bit angry.”
Auguste smiled as if troubled, and took one step closer.
Without thinking, I took a step backward.
He turned his eyes away from me with a smile on his face.
Although his smile got deeper, at the same time I felt like he became more depressed.
“Yeah, but, that may be the right decision. The boy called ‘Angel’ never existed……besides, you wouldn’t want to come into contact with a strange person like me.”
“Why would you think so?”
“If you get along with me, Erica-ojousan would get surrounded by bad rumors.”
Auguste said so with a smile that had no hesitation on his face.
The lack of dark shadow of depression in his expression only made it clearer to me that he was deeply sad.
With a smiling poker face, the Foolish Prince who covered his heart with a massive wall seemed to have been completed by this time.
“I’m sorry. Thank you. It’s only one day and I already messed it up, but still I had a lot of fun today thanks to you.”
“Then, why were you like that?”
“If you know about myself, you will not treat me in the same easy-going manner as before. In addition……”
“In addition?”
“An angel cannot become an angel if his identity was exposed. That’s the rule.”
Auguste attached his index finger to his lips and smiled with a face like a mischievous child.
Only at that moment, I felt that the Angel-san who I met in the cathedral came back.
But Auguste soon turned his heel, so the Angel-san disappeared beyond his lonely back.
“Does Prince Auguste want to be an angel?”
“I could be either an angel or a devil as long as I could fly in the sky.”
He looked up at the night sky.
I couldn’t see his expression, but surely he was smiling as if he was really craving for it.
Even if he was sad and there was no tear coming out, I could sense his longing.
“Do you want to fly in the sky?”
“I want to fly.”
A surprisingly strong voice responded.
He stretched his trembling hands to the far away sky that he couldn’t reach.
“I want to fly. I really want to fly. If I could fly in the sky……as long as I can fly in the sky, everything will be restored and everything will go well.”
“Auguste-sama……”
“Oh……it’s a story that had nothing to do with Erica-jousan.”
Looking back to me, Auguste became the alabaster statue prince who had fixed the mask of a deep smile on his face.
“While I am on the ground, my heart belongs to the sky as a dragon knight of the South. I am damaged as a dragon knight, but I am the same as other dragon knights who yearn for the sky.”
With a slight chest pain, I was convinced.
This person, Auguste, would give everything to fly.
His craving would make him to finally reach out for the contract beast by means of black magic.
But even if he made a contract, if he fused with the beast, only destruction would be waiting for him.
Even if he knew that he would completely lose his ability to ride a dragon by the beast’s runaway six years in the future, he definitely would not stop.
“The story has diverted. Well, that is why. I apologize for keeping you here.”
“It’s alright……”
He became unapproachable.
It would be difficult to break through the thick wall of his heart.
At that time, unexpectedly, the sound of a string instrument could be heard.
It was even louder than the Ignitia’s music in the hall.
It was not the contemporary tune which was mixed in Harvan and Aurelia’s songs, but somehow it was a foreign sound.
It probably was an arrangement that was still a prototype.
I could hear a random humming that was mixed with the calming string instrument solo.
“This voice, Devil-san?”
“That woman……that meddling woman……”
“Uwah, that person, she can play instruments……she’s very deft.”
“Aah, it’s because that person – Palug – can do anything.”
Auguste, who forgot to put on a smile, made a bitter face.
That was a somewhat strange conversation, but now his face looked much more natural.
“Aah, I can’t do this. I messed up. I was trying to make a clean break……”
“Auguste-sama?”
“Sorry. Erica. I cannot give up on you. As expected, I want to stay together with you.”
“That……”
Auguste took my hands and looked into my eyes.
He looked uneasy.
“I understand. As a comrade with few friends, let’s get along well.”
“‘Comrade with few friends’, you mean……”
“Oh? Auguste-sama, Devil-san – I’m sorry, it’s Palug-san, right? Do you have any friend besides her?”
“……Goldberry.”
“What about human friends?”
“I understand. I give up. Yes, I have few friends.”
Auguste raised his hands with an expression as if he swallowed a bitter pill.
“Well, if we become friends, then the number of friends is 1.5 at a stroke.”
“Wow, that’s a rough magic number……but, is it really okay?”
“Huh? You don’t want to? That’s unfortunate. Then I will pray for Auguste-sama to make a more suitable friend.”
“No, no, I do not dislike it at all. I would like to ask you to become my friend from the bottom of my heart.”
He laughed hard and grabbed my hand.
Even though he was in a similar situation as me, it would be much better than the friendless condition.
I knew how difficult it was to be isolated.
When the rumors that I ‘slept with all the club members’ in my previous life was spread, I remembered that I couldn’t even laugh.
No, far from laughing, I couldn’t even get angry.
My childhood friend who attended another school couldn’t bear it and got angry instead of me ‘They are the lowest. Even being the lowest should have a limit!’
“But, so Erica also has a few friends, huh.”
“Yes. But, is that a problem? To only have a few close friends.”
“Nope, no problem. I agree with that idea.”
Auguste who was narrowing his eyes as he laughed looked very innocent.
I really wanted to be a friend that could help Auguste at the time of emergency.
As I was thinking such a thing, the tune of the string instrument became somewhat hurried.
I could hear the singing sound of Goldberry as well.
“That woman, is she watching from somewhere?”
“There is only starlight, I really don’t understand.”
“In other words, I mean something like this……”
When Auguste straightened his shoulders, he changed the way he was holding my hand and kneeled before me.
“Lady Erica. Would you please dance with me?”
“Yes. It would be my pleasure.”
“I’m sorry. That woman, she really likes to meddle unnecessarily.”
“Ahaha.”
With Auguste’s lead, we started to dance.
Dancing under the starlight, just the two of us.
Only the devil and the dragon as spectators.
However, Auguste seemed to be more lively than the banquet hall, which was full of people.
“You seem to be having fun, even though we have only started to dance.”
“Oops, you caught me. Actually, ever since Erica was dancing with the Harvan’s mage, I was envious.”
“You saw that?”
“Yeah. I saw. Along with your dangerous steps which were likely to step on the foot of your opponent.”
“Ahaha. How embarrassing……”
Auguste danced with a happy expression.
His movements were light, and his steps were certain.
Surely, he practiced with Palug or the Queen.
“I was envious. I also wanted to dance with you. It’s amazingly fun now. Ah~, how nice it is to speak honestly.”
“I agree. Telling a lie makes you feel tired.”
“Right~. Every day is completely exhausting. Let’s be an honest man only in front of Erica.”
“For example?”
“I want to fly. I want to fly. I want to fly, I want to fly, I want to fly.”
Unlike the monologue that seemed to be painful a little while ago, he shouted his heartfelt wish.
This man really wanted to fly in the sky.
“Also, I like you.”
“Eh, I will be troubled if you suddenly said that.”
“Eh, but I’d like to be friends.”
Oops, I was surprised.
I thought, ‘What was this man saying suddenly?’
But, I wondered why a person who wants to fly so much like him couldn’t fly.
“By the way, why can’t you fly, Auguste-sama?”
“Oh……”
Auguste was speechless for a moment.
I felt a bit insensitive, no, I had said considerably insensitive things.
“Such a thing, maybe it was my first time hearing that told to my face directly. Wow~. It’s fresh~.”
“Uh, was it rude?”
“No, it was refreshing. I was treated very cautiously all the time.”
“Wow, then I was terribly insensitive, huh.”
“I guess I might like that kind of insensitive person.”
“Uu.”
This time I was the one who was speechless.
Ah, it was insensitive after all.
Let’s be careful next time not to hurt others.
As I was thinking about such a thing, Auguste began to say something else abruptly.
“The sleeping princesses will not wake up.”
He said a somewhat poetic expression, but what did he mean?
“Of my three dragons, except the eldest sister Goldberry, do not hatch from their eggs.”
“Have you tried kissing them?”
“No, I have tried to at least kiss them a lot. But they do not wake up.”
“You did it?”
A prince kissing an egg, huh.
It felt kind of surreal?
Ah, but it might paint a surprising picture.
Because everything beautiful people did would be forgiven, how hateful.
“The royal aristocracy of Ignitia is given a dragon egg when they were born. Only once they hatched the egg, raised the dragon, and rode it that they could be called an adult.”
“Don’t you have Goldberry?”
“That girl is a small dragon for self-defence. She’s not going to grow bigger. Her two younger step-sisters should be larger.”
“I see.”
“I have decided their names. Red dragon Briar, white dragon Blumbell. I’m sure they will grow up into beautiful women.”
Somehow, Auguste said that with an expression similar to Edward-oniisama’s when he was boasting about me.
This might be a different type of siscon……
“Perhaps, you cannot ride on the dragon because of that?”
“That’s correct. As a royal family, this is an unusual situation. I don’t know why my eggs will not hatch……So, at the very least I want to be able to ride on a general purpose dragon.”
“Is it difficult?”
“It is. So nobility raises dedicated dragons from eggs. I was also told that I can wait until Briar and Blumbell hatch.”
“But you cannot wait?”
“I can’t.”
Auguste put his hands around my waist, lifted me and turned me around.
I was slightly surprised.
But, after all he was a dragon knight apprentice, he had trained himself.
I understood well about the stability of his legs as we were dancing together like this.
“I asked the guys in the magic academy where they studied the dragons’ ecology. My father and my grandfather also flew in the sky on the age of seven.”
“But Auguste-sama, you are already ten years old.”
“I do not want to be a genius rider like my father. I just don’t want people to think that the child of a genius is incompetent.”
Just as we finished doing a turn, the song ended.
We just stared at each other with our hands still connected.
“And more than that, I want to protect my mother’s honor. I want to prove that the blood of the royal family is flowing within me by riding a dragon.”
“Auguste-sama……”
Behind him, the stars were reflected in the mirror-like sea, I didn’t know whether the stars that I saw were on the sky or in the sea.
I thought it was beautiful.
But—
“Siscon and mothercon, it is a rather deep problem.”
“Sis……what?”
“Oops……”
Dangerous, I carelessly ran my mouth off.
“Just now, did you say something rude? Was it only my imagination? Can you stare into my eyes properly and say it again?”
“Nothing. It was really nothing. Ah–, Auguste-sama is really beautiful, huh~.”
Just in time, the grinning Palug-san turned up brimming with the intention to tease us.
Only during this time, the self-proclaimed devil looked like an angel.
