Dragon-san Wants a Friend

Chapter 164

Translator: Mii

Editor: [QueenieZhuz]

Chapter 14 – Dragon-san is Seeing Sorrow

There was Bastard, a large man with a big sword on his back standing in front the double door.

He seemed a little surprised to see us, but he let us went inside the room.

Then, when Pallette opened the door, there was an unexpectedly spacious space.

The space was similar to a big hall, but there was no decoration there. The smooth stones were spread all over the wall, from the floor to the sky.

There was completely no magic tool and no furniture. In exchange, there was a magic circle that looks like a transition portal which was drawn all over the room.

That’s why it made me feel like a temple somewhere, but there were a hint of magic power and erosion that floated like remains.

And then, I saw Lute who was crouching down with his back on the wall.

He buried his face into his knee, with a stringed instrument which should be his real form set beside him. Looking at him, I couldn’t see his brazenness from when we first met anymore.

Lute raised his face slowly as if realizing the door opening and closing. When he saw us, he bulged his eyes a little, then he glanced at Belga and Palette in turn and distorted his face.

「I thought something was strange, but it seems like all of you have been in contact without my knowledge. Good lord, don’t I even have any ally now?」

Lute spoke as if he was clearly making fun of us, his tone filled with deep despair.

When Belga’s face became pale, Lute moved his gaze towards me. His black and white pupils felt as if they were sucking me in.

「Do you come to laugh at me? Or even break me?」

Faced with his tone which was filled with thick loneliness and resignation, I suddenly gulped my saliva, then started to talk.

「I come, to talk to you.」

「Talk to me now? Why?」

Lute tilted his head to the side in confusion, without any trace of excitement. It was clear that my words didn’t reverberate in his heart.

His response was completely different from what I expected, and I didn’t know how should I answer. Yet, Lute continued to speak.

「Adversa slept again. She won’t wake up for the rest of the year. It took a little more time than usual, but Palette traced the passing technique and I sang as usual. The erosion also doesn’t gush out. The world is in peace.」

I finally understood that this place was a ceremonial place to performed a large-scale technique from Lute’s muttered words.

「It’s a very complicated technique. There is an entanglement with ancient magic and sorcery, but the purpose are definitely for transition and sealing that connect the different spaces… It seems like you will take a while to decipher it.」

Nectar looked around the technique group, and muttered so.

Anyhow, Lute really had already renewed the seal, and when I was about to feel relieved, I was shoot with Lute’s hateful gaze.

「Are you relieved? You must be, right? Since now, you don’t have be Adversa’s substitute.」

Lute’s pale eyes swayed in golden color, and Nectar increased his guard immediately as the magical power rose.

But I held him back with my hands, and continued to listen to Lute’s lament silently.

「I have been singing lullaby to Adversa for a long time. That is the role I had been bestowed before I became me myself. At that time, I didn’t have any problem with anything. But before he sealed himself, he woke up for a while, and strummed me. He didn’t play the sealing song, but he only strummed an ordinary song filled with loneliness. It was a very sad melody. That’s why I knew it. There’s no way that person chose to sleep by his wish.」

Even if Lute distorted his face, this was the first time he tried to express his innermost heart.

I finally figured out the reason Lute was supporting Adversa to this extend. It was because there was an exchange between then before the sealing.

To push the only person you can talk together with to the loneliness with your own hands, it must be a very sad thing to do.

「You didn’t know how happy Adversa was when I became the person I am now, right? He told me that he was happy that he have someone to talk with. Why does that person always have to be the one to take the responsibility! That’s why, I asked the dragons to be Adversa’s substitute, yet he didn’t even know that everyone on earth had forgotten about him!」

I see. As I expected, Lute didn’t know that Adversa have to be the one to sleep, and also the dragons have to forgot about him to maintain the seal.

But, even if Lute knew, it won’t change the fact that he had to push the person he thought as important to uncomfortable loneliness.

Of course he would feel resentment and hate after facing those painful things.

Lute impulsively bend himself forward, and glared at me with a look of tears and anger.

「So I decided to look for it myself. I decided to do everything I can to release Adversa. And I did everything. What is important for me is that person, so I don’t regret what I did for you. To be honest, it even made me feel refreshed.」

Even when Nectar swelled up with magical power, Lute pointed a gaze full of despair towards me.

「Now, I know. I am totally envious with you. Since you can be with the important person forever.」

「That is…」

「But now, it’s over. I couldn’t boost it with magic stone, and gathering the magic tools’ magical power to create a pseudo-dragon didn’t work out too. Even if you were my last hope, I couldn’t caught you, right?」

Nectar suppressed his words after hearing the chagrin in Lute’s reckless attitude.

Aru also stood still after listening to his deep despair directly.

I was the one who prevented him from reaching his goal. Because, I couldn’t accept it no matter how.

Even so, I didn’t want to push aside his feelings. I didn’t want to erase his wish of wanting to save his most important person.

「Now, the keystone dragon. Like what the creator said, you come here to destroy me, right? Since my magical power is exhausted now, you might as well just do it.」

His face color was normal, but he seemed exhausted as if he had finished the ritual. He must have thought that it was normal for us to destroy him, like when people thrown away the equipment they didn’t need anymore.

But that’s wrong. It’s different. Yet, I felt the hesitation to touch his painful heart that had been shredded into pieces born in my heart.

Even so, if I didn’t step in, nothing would start.

「No, I want to talk to you because I believe that you can’t save the origin dragon.」

「Ha……？」

As expected, Lute’s tone became lower.

Next up is his feelings of intense anger.

「Do you feel sorry for me? Are you pitying me? Hah, aren’t you stupid. Are you happy after saying that!」

「It’s because he will disappear if everything stay this way. After that, my important person will be the same as the origin dragon.」

「Wha……」

I looked straight to Lute’s pale startled eyes, and I told him about Adversa had made grandpa erase him, and how grandpa was about to replace him.

「……What you mean with that?」

Lute’s face was blank, and he fell on his knees in a daze.

In the end, a line of tears dripped along his cheek.

「Adversa is alive. He had lived while bearing those erosion for thousands of years. Even if no one knows about that person anymore, I want to protect it! Is it too much?」

「That’s why I want to help. I want to look for an end to which everyone can be happy without having such a cruel future. Please help me, Lute.」

「Don’t call my name familiarly!」

Lutes swung his hand in rage, and it grazed my cheek.

It didn’t hurt, but I reflexively flinched from his clear refusal.

「Even though all of you had forgotten our existence completely, now you asked for my help? A world where Adversa would die in loneliness should just be destroyed!」

I didn’t know how should I reach him after facing his wailing full of despair.

Lute’s loneliness and sadness were so deep that I thought that my words won’t be able to reach him.

As I thought, I was reckless.

「Yeah, you’re right. You should have destroyed the world. You should just abandon your responsibility after all.」

I turned my head after hearing Nectar’s radical words that he used to trip Lute up.

Lute turned his angry gaze towards Nectar. But, Nectar only stared him back calmly.

「I see, you can’t remove the curse since you didn’t have the seal of spirit. Even so, there should have been a way without renewing the seal, yet you didn’t do it. It’s because that was his wish, right?」

「That, is……」

「What he wanted was for the world to be safe from erosion. No matter how painful you felt, you still acted while respecting your important person’s will, right?」

Lute’s face distorted as Nectar pointed out indifferently.

I see, so Lite didn’t take the simple way to release the seal, huh?

Adversa is important to him. That’s why he tried to take care of the world that Adversa wanted to protect as much as possible.

He was kind, like a human. A very kind spirit.

「But now, this world is in danger of collapsing. Don’t you feel that the frequency of the darkness seal renewal is increasing?」

「Stop speaking as if you understand everything!」

「Surely, I can help you. I am in the midst of deciphering it, and I will be on your side as a friend and a companion of the dragon.」

Lute caught his breath after facing Nectar’s instant reply.

「Since the dragons are prone to loneliness and timidity, they try to give their love to many people. Since they can protect a lot of people with their powerful power, they are afraid of making a special relationship. To have that strongest existence as my partner, I am naturally the one who is fortunate. Even so, I also have to make an effort to make that fortune last.」

Nectar was talking about me, right?

I tried to take a distance from him since it was so hard for me to have Nectar leaving me.

But Nectar thought about staying with me together. It led him to be okay of taking a drastic move and returned to me as a spirit.

But nectar thought that it would be a good idea to come back with spirits and be able to be with me in a good way.

Without a doubt, the fact that Nectar has taken a step that time has led to the present us.

「When I look at you, I feel like I look at the previous me, and it makes me feel irritated. Lute, did you ever talk to Adversa about the unsealing? Since you said that he used to strum you, then you should have the chance to talk with him, right? Did you convey your feelings at that time? Did you say that you feel sad when you’re alone?」

「Even if I said that, what will it do?」

「Dragon is a mass of self-sacrifice. They are okay with sacrificing themself, and jumping into trouble without thinking about the people they left on! Even so, we still love them anyway. So we should just accompany them until the bitter end, right!」

The words that Nectar cried out should be his true feelings.

I didn’t think that I didn’t take care of myself that much though.

When I thought so, I was scolded by Nectar.

「I haven’t forgotten about Heather and the thing happened at the main shrine, okay!?」

「Hyah!!」

I stirred up the hornet’s nest.

While I was still feeling the sensation of Nectar’s scolding, he turned his face back to Lute and continued.

「Well, that’s why you can’t associate with dragons with ordinary means! But if you still want to be on their side, and you wish to save them, you have to give it your all. Because a dragon is stronger than anything in this world, yet they are a weak race. It’s a good idea to study with a shady spirit as his disciple, and it’s also a good idea to join hands with enemies like us!」

My heart was going pit-a-pat while wondering where the talk will be connected, but when Nectar returned to our original purpose, Lute opened his eyes in surprise.

「I once declined your question asking whether I’m going to be your ally or not, but I’ll be the one to ask it now. Let’s fight together. In order to protect our most important person. We need you.」

「What’s with that…」

「Lute-san」

Aru slowly walked towards the stunned Lute.

Without any time for me to stop him, Aru sat beside him, and with a firm and prepared look, he continued to speak.

「When I heard your song, I asked you whether you have no one to be with you? But after that, I felt that it was somewhat wrong after that.」

「……And that is?」

「I want to be on the side of the person who said that kind of thing. It’s not other person, but me. That’s why, I would like to talk more with origin dragon-san and Lute-san」

「Ngh……」

Lute distorted his face to Aru’s straight intention.

Although Aru have talked with Lute, I felt a little surprised that he actually thought about that.

My eyes were about to be filled with tears, but I could see a conflict in his expression.

「Lute, it seems like you have taken care of Aru in the main shrine, yeah? Thank you.」

I kept on putting my best thoughts to Lute, who seemed to be swayed by what we were saying now.

「Even so, there are also some things I couldn’t forgive no matter what, and I think you’re also like that.」

Even now, I couldn’t forgive how he snatched away Belga’s memory, and how he tried to extinguish Oblivion.

「But, it’s a bad wake up as it is now. I want to change the future where no one can be happy. I want to find an option that everyone can be happy with. We need Lute there, so let’s look for it with us.」

Lute casted his eyes down.

His figure seemed conflicted, and it moved between complication and violent emotion.

Probably because of anxiety and tension, I was filled with an impulse that made me want to just run away from this place now, but I managed to suppress it.

I felt like a long time has passed.

I heard a voice filled with sigh.

「If you said something like that now…」

He had controlled his trembling voice, yet it seemed as if his emotions couldn’t be suppressed anymore.

Lute raised his face, and shouted as if he was throwing up blood.

「Please… save my most important person…!」

I quickly replied to Lute’s true feelings, a wish that he never stop prayed for.

「「「We will save him!」」」

My voice overlapped with Aru and Nectar’s consent, and we looked at each other with a smile.

「All of you are so carefree about this…」

「No, I keep telling you ever since we came already. The one who keep arguing back is you anyway. 」

I couldn’t help being speechless after saying that to the protesting Lute.

Then, Aru smiled happily to Lute.

「My daddy and mommy have decided to do it. That’s why, everything will be okay.」

「……All of you are really stupid, aren’t you?」

「That’s regrettable.」

Lute’s expression became puzzled towards Nectar’s regretful response.

And then, Berga came out nervously.

「Lute, I’m sorry. I just thought they might help you.」

「Don’t worry about it anymore, Belga. You don’t have any reason to apologize. Ahhh, I was planning to get upset, but now it’s the other way, seriously..」

I got up and stretched out my hands to the tired Lute.

「This is just until we save Adversa, okay!」

「I know.」

With my stretched hand, plus Aru and Nectar’s stare, Lute heaved a sigh as if he gave up, and stretched his hand back.

When I was about to touch Lute’s fingertips, the four walls and the sky disappeared.

I immediately realized that this place was connected to another space semi-forcefully.

When I looked reflexively below, the white floor with ceremony remains turned into water.

The reason for the illusion was because of the transparency, and in the back, huge silver and blue giants descended.

It has a long tail like a moonlight and ice floe-like white silver scale, and long blue hairs that made one yearned for sea grew on its graceful neck.

Both the strong limbs and the feather-like wings would make anyone honestly believe that this was the first dragon of this world.

As soon as I realized that it was Adversa, the dragon’s neck slowly raised up, and its golden eyes opened loosely.

I got caught.

《I found you》

The voice was a mixture of innocence like a young child, integrity like an adult, and thoughtfulness like an old man.

Along with a huge, overwhelming, and pure magic, the floor is filled with white misty erosion, and they filled up the space.

Adversa had woken up.