Chapter 4: The Naden That Naden Never Knew(2)

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.