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“In my opinion, most likely……”
Shio spoke slowly.
“I don’t know.”
“……?”
Artson’s face filled with bewilderment.
“No, wait, you were talking like you knew something?”
“I meant that I now know that I don’t know.”
“Are you a madman?”
Artson, looking completely fed up, shook his head and lay right back down on the floor of the carriage.
“Whatever. Since she kept me alive for now, she’ll probably find something to make me do.”
“Yes. I suppose she will.”
“Ah!”
Artson clapped his hands and suddenly bolted upright.
“Just so you know, I don’t have any info on Lani. Even if you ask, I don’t know. Seriously.”
“……The fact that you’re saying that when I didn’t even ask makes it sound rather suspicious.”
“No, I really don’t know. I’m just telling you in advance.”
“Hmm.”
When Shio continued to give her a suspicious look, Artson jumped in protest.
“She bolted! You know how she is, always disappearing like that! Then she just pops back up! It’s the same this time. Truly.”
Just as Artson said, Lani had long been a dragon who frequently vanished without a trace. Since she often disappeared and reappeared out of the blue, it didn’t seem like Artson was lying.
However, Shio still didn’t fully trust Artson. It was because he knew the bizarre temper and twisted mindset she had shown until now.
“Still, I should head to the lair. I’ll go take a look around.”
“It’ll be a waste of effort.”
Artson pouted and lay back down.
“Going to Lani’s lair is a waste of effort, keeping me alive is a waste of effort. Everything is just a waste of effort.”
The peculiar sneer spreading across Artson’s face seemed to say that Daphne keeping her alive was a mistake. *You want me to change? You think I can change? Nonsense.* Artson was planning to lie low, watching for a chance to escape as soon as Daphne let her guard down.
Shio stared at Artson and spoke.
“You really are a wicked reptile.”
“Hey! If you’re going to put it that way, you’re the same!”
Instead of answering, Shio let out a chuckle. He was already reading all of Artson’s thoughts. But, how to put it? He didn’t feel any particular sense of crisis.
He quietly turned his gaze to look at elf Teiti, who was driving the horses.
Hadn’t even elf Teiti—who was once afflicted with a misanthropy so deep it even disgusted Shio—been reformed? Of course, he was reformed in a strange direction, becoming a bizarre elf who went beyond not hating humans to prostrating himself before them…… but anyway.
elf Teiti’s change was thanks to Daphne, but it was also thanks to the persistent pestering of the humans around him.
So, it seemed that for this plan to change Artson, someone other than Daphne was needed.
Then, naturally,
“It won’t be a waste of effort. Because I’ll be watching from your side.”
Shouldn’t it be Shio?
“Let’s get along well from now on, just between us.”
“……Between us?”
“Yes. Since Lady Daphne needs to take some rest now.”
Shio spoke with a bright smile. The reason that smile felt cold was surely not just because Artson was scared.
“Ugh, what. It suddenly got chilly.”
Leaving elf Teiti’s mumbling behind, Shio silently sent his heart toward Daphne.
*I’ll handle this crazy dragon, so Lady Daphne, please take your rest.*
***
Well.
She couldn’t rest.
The person who completely demolished Daphne’s grand plan—arriving at the Grand Duke’s mansion and returning to the annex to meet Anne and Anna—was none other than the warrior, Herose.
-Get back in the carriage.
Why, again?!
Daphne was bewildered, but Herose, far from resolving Daphne’s question, simply picked her up and put her back in the carriage. Until then, Daphne hadn’t properly grasped the situation.
“No, why did you put me back in? Where are we going? I want to rest now!”
Daphne shouted while hopping around instead of putting her butt on the seat. Herose, who had been looking out the window, finally opened his mouth.
“We are going to the Imperial Palace.”
“The Imperial Palace?!”
Daphne’s eyes widened.
“Why there?”
“The reward.”
The reward?
Daphne pondered his words for a moment, then let out a short exclamation of realization.
“Are you saying we’re going to receive the special prize reward from the training center?”
Herose nodded without opening his mouth. Seeing that, Daphne got even more annoyed. No, is it that hard for this guy to open his mouth? Huh? Is it that exhausting to speak just a little bit?
Daphne felt the back of her neck tighten with tension, but she soon took a deep breath and calmed her mind.
*This guy in front of me is a young human. A fellow much younger compared to the years I’ve lived. So, as the elder, I must understand and forgive him*…… she repeated this thought that wouldn’t even pass for common sense.
“Warrior.”
Daphne spoke toward the still-silent Herose.
“If you had explained it to me from the start, I wouldn’t have been flustered. And you wouldn’t have had to deal with my annoyance. Don’t you think so?”
She was speaking very calmly and well. Yes. Because Daphne was an adult. An adult dragon.
However, seeing Herose act as if he hadn’t even heard her made the fire rise up inside her again.
“But seeing the way you’re acting, it seems you’ve become a stupid fool who has forgotten how to speak. Why don’t you go back and start learning your letters again? Huh?”
As her words became a bit sharp, only then did Herose withdraw his gaze from the window and look back at Daphne.
Daphne, with a flushed face and huffing through her nose, looked insignificantly cute, but the words coming out of her mouth were certainly not.
“Is your mouth only for stuffing food in? Speak, I say, speak! That way I can know what on earth you are thinkiiiiiing!”
Daphne, in a state of escalating rage, clenched her tiny fists and trembled.
Herose’s eyes blinked slowly as he watched her. He stared at Daphne with an expressionless gaze, then suddenly recalled something his wife, Elise, had once said.
-You don’t often say what’s in your heart. So sometimes, I’m curious. About what you’re thinking.
Of course, there was a big difference between her words and Daphne’s in terms of intonation and the presence of insults, but either way, the context was the same. A faint smile played at the corners of Herose’s mouth.
“You say the exact same things as your mother. I suppose that’s what being parent and child is.”
“……What?”
“Elise used to say the same thing.”
“…….”
Looking at Herose, who smiled bitterly while thinking of Elise, the corners of Daphne’s mouth trembled slightly.
*The exact same as her mother. Truly parent and child.*
Daphne unconsciously looked down at her own two hands. The tiny hands of a human. However, it was a stretch to call them Daphne’s. Because she was Daphne and yet not Daphne—she was a dragon.
“We will go to the Imperial Palace and enter the Imperial Treasury. There, you may take one thing you desire. It will belong to you, and if you leave this world, it will return to the Imperial Palace afterward.”
Herose, completely unaware of Daphne’s thoughts, continued speaking.
“His Majesty the Emperor will also accompany us. Is this explanation sufficient?”
“…….”
It was a sufficient explanation.
To the point that Daphne’s earlier anger became pointless.
However, Daphne didn’t feel happy or anything like that. Rather, she felt uneasy and guilty. No matter how much this body was a mass of curses, and even though the curse on the family was broken thanks to her entering this body…… the fact remained that she was deceiving them.
As Daphne’s face hardened, Herose became somewhat puzzled.
“Why are you making that expression?”
He examined Daphne’s features, then frowned as he recalled what he had just said.
“Do you miss Elise?”
☆▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎☆
