—There was the sound of the bell.
Auguste Ignitia was listening to the ringing bells with a hazy consciousness.
Was it someone’s wedding, or was it a funeral?
I hoped it’s a celebration.
Auguste thought so.
Because there were too many sorrowful events already.
Someone’s voice was mixed with the sound of the bell.
Aah, that was the voice of that girl.
He had to get up soon.
Auguste’s consciousness awakened slowly like a foam rising from the bottom of the deep ocean.
☆
Auguste was buried in countless white petals in a coffin placed in the hidden passage.
The first thing he woke up to was his danger sense screaming ‘drowning!’ at him.
Erica Aurelia held the hand of Auguste who was reaching out his hand reflexively.
“Auguste-sama!”
Her voice echoed in Auguste’s heart more effectively than anything else, eventually he was fully awakened.
Auguste regained his calm, poking the petals around him as he raised his upper body.
“Uuh, Erica……here is……? What happened to me……?”
“This is the hidden room of the cathedral.”
“Hidden room—aah, the one under the mural painting. You did a good job at finding this room. Even the royal family who knows the folklore only noticed some of it.”
“But, I’m glad. I thought that you really died.”
Now that Erica said it, Auguste just realized that the place where he was sleeping in was a coffin.
A smile tugged at his lips.
“Uwah, I hope this is not an omen……”
“Good grief. What a bad taste……ow-ow-ow. Ah, no, it’s nothing.”
There was a cat on Erica’s shoulder.
The cat pressed her paw against Erica’s cheek.
At the lovely and charming sight, Auguste gave a broad smile.
“What happened? Who is that child?”
“Um, in the middle of the confusion various things happened, and I picked her up.”
“Heeh, how envious. Not only cats, but I want you to also pick this stray prince……wait, this is not the time to relax. Confusion?”
Auguste remembered that he made his own way to the basement of the cathedral.
Somehow his memory was vague in some places, but he still understood clearly that the cause of the confusion was himself.
“That’s right……my ability was running wild……”
No matter how he thought about it, he couldn’t recall what happened after he went down the hidden stairs under the mural painting.
Auguste held his slightly sore head.
There had to be something.
Something had happened before he entered the hidden room and being discovered by Erica.
Otherwise, Auguste couldn’t explain it.
According to Auguste’s memory, ‘before waking up, he should have had only a small amount of sensitivity towards the dragons and headed for the contract beast to wish for the utmost power.’
Yet, in him, the overwhelming mental stress was enough to make himself felt terrible.
“The contract beast……that guy, did the beast do something? Did I make my wish to that guy?”
“Auguste-sama, I also have just woken up, so it’s impossible for me to know that……”
“It’s fine, Erica. There is something I want to check for a bit.”
Auguste descended to the stone floor with the help of Erica and touched the wall beside him.
He pushed the wall several times, then hit the wall many times using his whole body.
“It doesn’t open……kuh! It’s useless, the room is gone, there is no trace of the cave.”
“Auguste-sama……”
“Here, was the room where the contract beast sleeps……there should be the Burial Chamber of Angels here. And yet, nothing.”
Just like sands scooped in the palm of the hand slipped through the fingers, things related to the contract beast fell out of Auguste’s memory.
He couldn’t recall the face and name of that person already.
As if it had been extracted, he already forgotten completely about that person.
Auguste thought whether he was rejected.
He made the beast angry with his selfish wish, and exhaust its civility towards him.
Surely, the angel had gone away somewhere else.
Auguste remembered a feeling of loss as if he lost a family member.
Strength faded out from his knees, and he stuck in that state in front of the wall that was supposed to be a door.
“Meow……”
The cat jumped off from the shoulder of Erica and licked Auguste’s hand.
Auguste felt comforted by the warmth of the cat who felt nostalgic for some reason.
He caressed the head of the cat and smiled.
“Thank you, kind child, I’m fine.”
“Mrrow, meow~.”
While being stroked by Auguste, the cat made a sleepy expression.
Erica sighed, she lifted the cat into her arms and pulled it apart from him.
“Meow~! Meow~! Meow~!”
“Yes, yes, it’s still hectic right now, you can spend time with him later.”
“Mrrrow……”
“Auguste-sama, let’s leave this place for now. First of all, we have to manage the confusion outside.”
“What did you say? So the dragons are still out of control?”
Auguste aimed his consciousness outside.
His powerful spiritual sensitivity expanded to its widest range as he wanted it to.
Auguste, who instantly perceived the spirits of at least a hundred dragons, immediately shut his spiritual contact with them before he could perceive them too deeply.
He felt his heart beating fast.
Just by perceiving them for a moment, countless dragons’ frenzied spirits were flowing back into him.
What a frightening power.
If he didn’t use it carefully, his own spirit and the spirits of the dragons would be hurt.
Auguste strictly admonished himself in his mind.
“……Auguste-sama?”
“Aah, Erica, don’t worry. I just checked the situation for a bit. Although there are many unconscious dragons, most of the dragons are still in frenzy.”
“What should we do to calm them down?”
“That’s right. If we mobilized all dragon knights and made them connect with each dragon to directly calm them down from the inside at the same time……”
Auguste suddenly became silent.
He noticed.
With his overwhelmingly sensitive ability, he probably could calm several dragons……no, dozens of dragons alone.
Then, the burden on other dragon knights should become much lighter.
“……But, can I do it?”
“Meow!”
As if answering the question Auguste intended only for himself, the cat vigorously meowed.
That cry was just like a push on his back, and his face broke into a smile.
“That’s right, there’s no use in worrying about it. It is no good from the start. I will suppress the confusion outside even for a bit until the dragon knights arrived.”
“Yes. If it’s Auguste-sama, you will be able to do it.”
“Hahahaha. There is no basis for that confidence though—”
Auguste rose to his feet firmly and held out his hand to Erica.
“Can you be the goddess of fortune for a moment? I feel like I can do anything if you are nearby.”
“Even though you are a monotheist, goddess of fortune……is that really fine?”
“It’s fine. My God is especially kind to girls.”
Erica took Auguste’s hand.
The two held hands as they went up the dark staircase.
When they reached the unaffected mural painting of God, there were a boy wearing a robe who seemed to be a mage of Harvan and the small unconscious dragon Goldberry who was wrapped in Auguste’s jacket.
Beside them, there was Erica’s bag on the ground.
Auguste didn’t recognize the mage, but he remembered the illusion that he somehow knew about him.
“He is……?”
“Aah, that is my friend, the son of Duke of Harvan, Klaus-sama.”
“Why is it that I feel like he got a very rude misunderstanding?”
“It’s just your imagination.”
Erica said so flatly.
Auguste stared at her suspiciously.
While doing so, his line of sight moved to the top of Erica’s head.
“Although this may be my imagination……something seems to have stuck on top of Erica’s head……”
“Just your imagination. It is definitely just in your imagination.”
“I cannot remember……but it should be very cute……”
“There was no such thing. Please give up.”
Auguste tried to remember somehow, but the memory was lost as if it had been scraped off by something.
He didn’t know why, but he felt very regretful.
Erica crouched down beside Klaus and checked his condition.
“Klaus-sama seems to be fine.”
“He was also affected by my mental interference, huh. If he is a mage of Harvan, once his magical power recovers after a while, he will wake up.”
Auguste held Goldberry who was unconscious.
The golden dragon who could be said was like his stepsister, was breathing regularly with a peaceful expression.
As he looked at her, his stroked his chest in relief.
It seemed that Goldberry was just asleep.
Auguste who was about to wake her by his telepathic ability, suddenly became bewildered.
Could he perceive her lightly with this overwhelming power?
What if he crushed Goldberry’s spirit?
Auguste was horrified by his imagination.
“Auguste-sama? Is there something wrong with Goldberry……?”
“It’s fine. I’m going to try it now.”
Auguste tried a more careful approach than when he perceived the dragons’ spirits until now.
He silenced his heart that seemed to make a fuss, and gently perceived the spirit of Goldberry.
He adjusted the output finely while holding her in a way so that she won’t fall as if holding a fragile egg.
On the boundary level of the unconscious Goldberry’s spirit which appeared smooth, there were ripples of various kinds of positive emotions and negative emotions, and they were flickering finely.
It was as though they were the small roughness on the shell of an egg which appeared smooth at first glance.
He was concentrating too much on the contact area and almost overlooked the waves of anxiety that were running through her spirit’s exterior.
Auguste hurriedly retracted his telepathic power as it seemed to be the wrong adjustment.
Auguste took a deep breath and this time he stared at his own spirit.
In order to perceive the other party with a calm heart, he tried to drown out his waves of negative emotions.
But he realized that was also a mistake.
By trying to erase the negative emotions, another negative emotion created ripples in another place.
By denying his own spirit and forcing himself to shape it, it became all the more irregular.
This was not good.
Auguste kept the shape of his irregular spirit as it was, and adjusted the distribution of concentration his telepathic power by using its shape.
The part that was perceiving Goldberry, he adjusted the power of that part in accordance to his own heart.
Then, the part that had control over the overhead view of those movements, would become the buffer for that interaction.
He distributed several roles among his own spirit and carefully perceived Goldberry while keeping the balance.
“Kyu……kyururu……?”
Pulled by Auguste’s spirit, Goldberry slowly awakened.
Her small eyelids trembled, the golden dragon raised her neck in Auguste’s arms.
While Auguste maintained his own senses, part of it was in complete synchronization with Goldberry’s senses.
Two different visions, different olfactions, different tactile senses—he even felt the difference in the rhythm of pulsation between humans and dragons.
However, it didn’t paint over Goldberry’s spirit nor did it lay across his own spirit.
He felt those sensations for the first time, but Auguste instinctively understood that this was the right way.
Goldberry spread her wings and flew high.
While letting her flew over Erica’s head, he expanded his telepathic power once again and tried to locate other dragons.
It became even more precise than before, this time he was perceiving their mental states as well.
While keeping the boundary firmly so as not to be overwhelmed by the anxiety and frenzy of the dragons, nor overwrote their feelings with his own inadvertently, he perceived them gently as if stroking with the tip of a feather.
While doing such a wide range of precision work, he also controlled Goldberry’s body.
Auguste made Goldberry lands on his shoulder and at the same time shrinking the range of his telepathic power.
His heartbeat was accelerating again, this time with a different emotion than the one before.
He felt a quiet euphoria rising up from the depth of his body.
“Erica, if it the me now, it may be possible.”
“Yes.”
“We don’t have to wait for the other dragon knights, I may be able to calm all the dragons in the Kingdom by myself.”
To Auguste’s words, a smile showed on Erica’s face.
And the cat on her shoulder also narrowed her eyes as though she was smiling.
