Neighborhood Visitor (3)

Seeing how quickly the areas destroyed by the dragons were restored, you can imagine the wealth and technological prowess involved.

“You.”

“Yes? Why?”

“I’ve been thinking for a while, I like that.”

Rurin pointed to a place with her outstretched hand. It was the top of the Palace, glittering and made of gold.

It would be troublesome if she decided to take it because she liked it.

Since she’s a dragon, she might very well try, which is scary.

“I didn’t think much about it before because we didn’t have a lair, but now it’s different. I want to make our lair like that, with the ceiling all gold. How about that? Glittering and shining!”

Rurin started spinning around, her face bright with excitement as she imagined a ceiling glittering with gold.

For dragons, something glittering is like a religion.

They instinctively love gold and treasures.

It’s a race whose DNA is engraved with a longing for glittering things. So it’s a completely natural reaction.

“Well, if we make a lot of money.”

“What? We have a lot of gold in the storage!”

“That gold is for storage. It’s to make sure no dragon can laugh at our lair.”

Yes, it’s to make sure Rurin is never disrespected.

The measure of a successful dragon is always graded by the treasures collected in their lair.

“Is that so… If that’s the case, I can’t help it. My mom also said to collect a lot of gold so as not to be disrespected.”

Rurin’s shoulders sagged. The light in her eyes, which had been shining like stars, dimmed. Oh dear.

“I said I’d do it if we make money, okay? Do you really like shiny things that much?”

She nodded.

Rurin looked at me as if asking why I was asking such an obvious thing. It was rather embarrassing for me to have asked.

“But I like you more! You win! Hehehe!”

Then she grabbed my arm, saying something I hadn’t asked.

She said that I won, that I overcame the desire for shiny things engraved in her DNA.

Well, she did say once that my existence was engraved in every cell of hers.

Sometimes, this dragon has a strange knack for making my heart pound.

Though I try not to show it.

Feeling elated, I quickly changed the subject.

“Anyway! The reason we’re here is to visit the Palace, so let’s teleport!”

The main gate of the Palace is heavily guarded. I don’t intend to advertise that I’m meeting the Emperor. The goal is to meet him secretly.

I have no intention of revealing anything about myself.

I don’t want to get involved in the dirty politics of those who would bother me, relying on my power.

And since I can’t kill everyone who gets entangled with me, it’s best to avoid the dirty stuff altogether.

A flash.

There is a flash of light.

It’s like looking at sunlight reflected in a mirror.

When using teleportation, darkness follows immediately, accompanied by dizziness.

And at the end, this glowing phenomenon appears.

“It’s done!”

I heard Rurin’s voice. The place we teleported to was the inner courtyard of the Palace.

The location is not ideal, but we can’t specify a particular place in this situation. To teleport to a specific place, Rurin needs to know the location in detail, but since the Palace in front of us has many newly restored parts, it’s impossible.

To teleport to a specific location when you don’t know the place in detail, you need to see it with your eyes.

So we decided to first move to a random location in the Palace and then use teleportation again.

The result is this place.

“Intruders! Intruders in Sector 2!”

At the same time, an alarm bell warning of intruders rang out in the Palace.

From ancient times, most intruders who enter without passing through the main gate of the Palace are foolish assassins with ambitions to kill the Emperor.

It would be difficult to find the Emperor in this vast Palace.

Of course, that applies to me too, but I’m different. I have Rurin with me.

“Okay, Rurin, this time let’s go inside that Palace over there.”

Unlike Rurin, I knew the general layout of the Palace, so finding our destination was no problem.

The destination is hidden inside the Palace, making it impossible to pinpoint from outside.

Unless Rurin transforms into a dragon and flies, we have to use teleportation two or three times.

“Got it!”

Rurin nodded and was soon enveloped in darkness again. I had convinced her that this was all to make money and decorate the lair with gold, so she seemed fine with it.

“Ah, wait! First, let’s go inside the ceiling of that building.”

It was a late request, but Rurin nodded, and the teleportation was activated.

As a result, we found ourselves in mid-air.

Under the ceiling of the building, not the roof.

Having moved into the air, we began to fall due to gravity.

“Oh?”

With no sense of urgency, Rurin quickly hooked her arm over a roof beam.

“Shh!”

Then I immediately warned her to be quiet.

No one would get hurt even if we fell. Rurin, of course, and I have magic. But there are nobles below. So it would be annoying to get caught now.

But we moved here because our destination is right in front of us.

The main hall of the Palace has a very high ceiling. No one bothers to look up.

According to Palace rules, a signal will come soon. So I held on to Rurin’s waist and waited.

As expected.

Soon, knights rushed into the main hall. One of them approached a duke and said something, and then the nobles began to file out of the hall.

There is an intruder in the Palace.

So, the assembly is canceled. The nobles leave the Palace, and a plan to root the intruder out begins with the Palace sealed off.

Boom!

The huge door closed from the outside, and the main hall became eerily quiet. There was no need to hang onto the beam any longer.

“Rurin, get down.”

“Huh?”

As I released my grip on her waist, Rurin fell to the floor. It must be about the height of a fourth-floor apartment.

Of course, no problem.

I also used wind magic to land on the floor.

“Ouch! Why did you suddenly throw me?”

Rurin landed on the floor using just her feet without any magic and began to rub her legs, which seemed to be tingling.

She clenched her mouth and her eyebrows twitched. It was as if she was expressing with her whole body that her feet were tingling.

“This human body is so inconvenient. What a bothersome body.”

She even cursed her own body and then started hopping around.

Anyway, since they all just rushed out, going out now would be noticeable.

It’s better to kill some time for now.

Once it quiets down, we can go out the door and teleport to our destination.

In the center of the main hall.

At the top of the steps, a golden throne was shining. A throne made of pure gold.

Many people have died for that throne. Although it shines gold, isn’t its color actually closer to that of blood?

“Oh! It’s glittering!”

Rurin, who was visiting the main hall for the first time, exclaimed in admiration and ran towards the throne. She sat down on the throne with a satisfied look on her face and crossed her legs.

“It’s hard but I like it. Let’s take it, you.”

“Do you know what kind of chair this is?”

“From now on, it’s the chair I lie on.”

Rurin, with a face saying she didn’t care, put her legs on the armrest of the throne and lay her head on my lap.

A dragon lying on the throne.

Power struggles to seize the throne or talks about a blood-stained throne are meaningless to Rurin anyway.

“Still, you can’t take this, Dragon. This is the chair where the human Emperor sits, and it’s clearly someone else’s! Didn’t I say we can’t steal?”

“Human emperor?”

“Yes, the human Emperor.”

“I don’t like that.”

“Huh?”

Rurin suddenly stood up and looked at me, her eyes fierce and her fists clenched.

Why all of a sudden?

The point of anger is absurd.

“What don’t you like?”

“If it’s the human emperor, then it’s the emperor of you, a human. So, it means your master, right?”

“What?”

“You are mine! You are not the human emperor’s!”

Is this why she’s angry? It’s nonsense.

Humans belong to a country, and that country has an emperor, but when the term ‘human emperor’ came up, did Rurin think of the emperor as a being like a dragon lord, ruling all its kind?

Dragons are often called the pinnacle of intelligence.

But that usually refers to their ability to understand high-class magic.

A highly intelligent being means the ability to use 10th-class mental magic. Like Einstein’s brain, which was superior to any human’s?

So they are not all-knowing. Dragons are not gods.

A dragon that knows everything in the world is one that has experienced countless amusements.

If a normal human experiences life at least five times over several eras, the vast knowledge of the human world accumulates, naturally.

What they know from birth is an innate understanding of magical classes.

Due to external factors, Rurin was confined to her lair during her childhood, so she knows almost nothing about the human world.

She has never experienced amusements either.

It’s natural for her to be ignorant of human common sense. It’s completely inverse to her knowledge of magic.

Anyway, because of this, Rurin started making absurd claims, driven by possessiveness.

“It’s not like that. I’m on par with the Lord. So I don’t care about dragons, let alone a human Emperor.”

“Oh! Is that so?”

“Have you ever seen me bow to the Emperor?”

Rurin tilted her head at my words, with a face that asked how she would know anything about a human emperor.

“You’ve seen him, remember? That time they asked me to protect the country!”

As I explained the past, Rurin responded with a look that showed she vaguely remembered.

“Hmm? That human? Is that the emperor? How stupid. Of course, that kind of person can’t act as your master. Hehehe.”

Typical of Rurin, who basically has no interest or reaction to meeting humans.

With a face that seemed to have won something, she nodded big and lay back on my lap. A smile returned to her face.

“Anyway, you are mine. Whether human or dragon, you must not be under any emperor!”

“But, Dragon? Who is taking care of you? I even built the lair, so if we’re being technical, you’re mine.”

I don’t like treating beings with life, whether dragon or human, as possessions, but if I had to say it, that’s the truth.

So, when I corrected her, Rurin responded with a nonchalant face.

“Of course I am yours.”

Then she twisted her hair, paused for a moment, and spoke again with a look full of conviction, as if stating the obvious truth.

“And you are mine too. Don’t make me say it again.”