Be Grateful

“I mean, you. What’s with the sudden change? Up until just now, you were calling me ‘you’ all rough-like.”

“Well, because you’re my benefactor.”

“It was a whim, a whiiim! I had no reason to save a human!”

“But you did save me, didn’t you?”

When Kikori said that, Orphe fell silent for a moment… and then her expression turned serious.

“I’ll tell you this just in case, but don’t go thinking that just because we can talk, that means we can understand each other.”

“Huh?”

“We hate humans, you know. It’s not like you forgot that Ijirid suddenly tried to kill you, right?”

He had not forgotten.

But Kikori thought that if they could talk, then maybe they could get along.

Just like how Kikori was talking with Orphe right now… exactly like that.

“Got it? The only reason you’re alive right now is because you’re a creature that’s kind of like a dragon. By our standards, you’re not ‘human.’”

“Why do you hate humans that much?”

“Because they disgust me on an instinctive level.”

“I see…”

“So don’t go telling the other fairies that you’re human or anything.”

“Then what am I supposed to say?”

“Hmm… dragon-like thing, fake dragon, dra… dra…”

Orphe drifted listlessly through the air as if thinking, then suddenly shouted, “Dragonian!”

“That’s it. You should introduce yourself as a Dragonian.”

“Is that actually a thing?”

“It isn’t. That’s why they won’t find out.”

“Does it really work like that?”

“I don’t care. Even if you call yourself human and get killed, I’m not stopping you.”

“Oh, so it’s not that you dislike it. Thanks.”

“Hmph!”

Being told that, by fairy standards, he was not human left Kikori with mixed feelings, but then something suddenly came back to him.

The reason he had come here in the first place. He thought that if he asked a fairy, he might learn something.

“Come to think of it, do you know why this place turned into a labyrinth?”

“Turned into a labyrinth? Is that a human name for it? You people do come up with decent wording once in a while.”

“Yeah. That’s why I came here in the first place. Other humans, I mean… uh…”

“I didn’t kill them or anything. I don’t know about the others, though. Hmm…”

Orphe thought for a moment, then pointed outside.

“Why don’t you go ask for yourself? You can stand up by now, right?”

“Hm? Yeah.”

Kikori slowly stood up and tried moving different parts of his body.

He still did not seem able to overexert himself, but just moving around posed no problem at all.

Even so…

“It feels like most of the pain I had a while ago is almost gone…?”

“Isn’t that because of the power of Dragon Crown too? They say dragons can still move even if they’re reduced to just a neck, or even if their neck is gone. Something like damaged muscles is probably nothing with them.”

“…Come to think of it, I don’t have any wounds.”

“I healed you. Be grateful.”

“Yeah, thanks. You really saved me.”

“…Hmph.”