chapter 38
38 – Uninvited guest (3)
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Merrohim is a city developed around the Tower of Dawn and the Winter Castle in the center.
Despite the fact that it was built on a pure white pole where no warmth can be found, as the largest city in the North, its scale is comparable to other large cities.
The white snow falling from the sky was not an obstacle in their lives, but just a device that made the surrounding scenery sweeter.
Is it because it is a city developed around the Mage Tower?
In Merohim, in addition to the magical street lights that turned on and off automatically that I saw earlier, there were various items made with the magic tower’s technology, and they were all convenience facilities prepared for the people living in the city.
Considering the amenities that are scattered throughout these cities, Merrohim boasts a higher standard of living than Sarham and other southern cities, although the climate is only a bit colder.
Of course, all these were graces from the Mage Tower, so it would have been a hard sight to imagine if someone other than Edelweiss had been the owner of this place.
The citizens of Merrohim knew that too. I could feel the firm loyalty in the eyes of those who looked at Elena as she was walking down the street with me.
“One grape honey candy and one apple soda candy.”
“Yeah~”
When the Bingdanghoro in her mouth disappeared, leaving only the stick that was holding the center, I found a new sweet treat for her. To be precise, I was looking for Elena’s eyes twinkling while looking at the candy that the children passing by us were biting.
Elena, who thought she would have eaten all the sweets of the Merohim, was looking at the candy with curious eyes, so I had to find out the source of the candy.
Finding the store wasn’t too difficult.
I walked all the way in the direction the children had just come from, and it wasn’t long before I found a store selling the candy I had just seen.
The owner, who was selling candy, saw Elena standing next to me, opened her eyes wide, and smiled kindly at Elena and me, and started pulling candy straight out of the machine.
The purple mass that came out of the machine was stirred by the owner a few times with a stick, and soon it changed into the shape of a common round lollipop I knew. Making cotton candy in Sarham last time was a common thing to see before being possessed, so even so, this was the first time seeing candy being made in person.
By the way, as expected, cities with mage towers are different.
Even when I first came out to the night market, I thought it would be similar to when I walked around the streets of Sarham with Elena before, but contrary to my expectations, the two places gave off different feelings, but they were very different.
Looking around, I could see that each stall on the street had a variety of mechanical devices. As a city developed around the Mage Tower, the level of magic engineering penetration is so different that it is incomparable to other cities.
That doesn’t mean that Sarham is a poor village, but it just means that each has a different color.
If I had to compare it, the appearance of the night market in Merohim resembled the modern appearance in my memory.
However, even though I lived in a similar modern society, the appearance of Merohim came to me in a different way, perhaps because I had become accustomed to the appearance of Sarham.
“Here, here’s a grape honey candy and an apple soda candy you ordered.”
While looking around for a while, all the candies I ordered were completed.
To match the fruit color, grapes were dark purple and apples were light green. I put all the candies I got from the owner into Elena’s hands.
“Elena. Here.”
“Ah, thank you.”
As soon as Elena received the candy from me, she put the purple candy into her mouth without hesitation.
Fortunately, the taste of the candy seemed to have met her expectations.
I had been biting sweet things in my mouth until just a moment ago, but she casually put that sweet thing in her mouth. I, who can’t eat sweet things, have often heard other people say that there is something wrong with my tongue, but seeing Elena like this, she After all, I thought that it was wrong in a different direction from me.
After a while, Elena took out the candy she was holding in her mouth with a satisfied expression.
She looked excited and turned her head to tell me about the taste she had just tasted, but as soon as I met Elena’s face, I burst into laughter.
“Whoops!”
The corners of her mouth were dyed purple, like the color of candy, as if the paint had been released on white drawing paper. Come to think of it, some candies were said to have pigments on their tongue, so it seems that Elena had just eaten that type of candy.
“Damian? Why are you laughing all of a sudden?”
Seeing my sudden smile, Elena tilted her head and spoke to me.
But I didn’t have to answer her question. A child with the same candy in her mouth passed by us.
He was the one who led us to buy this candy earlier. Maybe it was because of the passage of time, unlike her clean appearance from before, the corner of her mouth was also stained with the color of the candy she was biting on like Elena. Only then did Elena grasp the situation and hurriedly covered her mouth with her hand.
“Damian…”
“Yes? Why is that?”
Elena looked at me with resentful eyes, but I was confident.
It’s true that I took her to this candy store, but it was she who wanted to try the candy first.
Of course, I didn’t say it with words, but with my eyes.
The north wind, which penetrated to the bone, at some point began to warm to the point of doubting whether it was in the same place as before.
It seems that she is being influenced by the magical power she exudes, but as if her feelings are growing stronger, the snow piled up under our feet is melting before we know it. I didn’t know how the surroundings would change if I made fun of her in this state, so I took out the handkerchief I had been carrying as a habit since I was possessed by Damian.
“Stay still.”
He grabbed her hand that was covering his mouth, which had turned purple, and lowered it. I moved my hand more carefully than ever before, wondering if my flesh would be rubbed off, and erased the color from her mouth.
I don’t know if it was because the handkerchief was a high-end item or if it was a pigment that was easily removed in the first place, but fortunately the stain on Elena’s mouth was completely erased without leaving a trace. The handkerchief, of course, should have been stained with purple stains from her, but since it was intended for that purpose in the first place, I didn’t feel sorry for it.
“Oh, thank you…”
Even after I wiped the stain off her with a handkerchief, her face was dyed a different color than before.
Perhaps she didn’t want to show her face like that, Elena lowered her head for a moment, then, as if seeing the handkerchief in my hand, she snatched it from me in an instant and put it in her own hand.
“I-I got the stain because of me! I’ll clean it up right away!”
“Yes?”
Elena’s hurried talk made me momentarily unable to comprehend what she meant, but seeing the handkerchief glowing in her hand reminded me of something I had forgotten.
“Now! It’s clean now!!!”
Elena handing me a clean, bleached handkerchief.
yes. Elena was a wizard.
He was also a very talented magician who was capable of manifesting low-level magic such as [Clean] without using a chant.
As I stared blankly at the handkerchief she handed me, she tilted her head wondering what was going on, and then her face turned redder than ever, probably remembering what she had done.
White snow began to fall from the dark night sky. As if a chilly wind was blowing, the people walking down the street fastened their thick coats on again.
But for some reason, the wind blowing around me was only warm.
***
We went into a nearby store to avoid the snow falling from the sky.
Walking down the street in the snow was also romantic in its own way, but if we continued walking down the street, the melted snow would have re-frozen and filled the streets with slippery icy roads.
It was a night with a lot of toxic floating population, so if it actually happened, there wouldn’t have been such a nuisance.
“Elena. It’s okay…”
I stopped talking to her. It seemed that it would take a little while for the still not meeting my eyes to calm down. Talking about it at a time like this would only add unnecessary shame.
Having settled down in a suitable place, I decided to take a look around to see what kind of place I had entered.
I hadn’t been able to confirm what kind of store this place was because I had entered a place that seemed to have a good atmosphere from the outside. Still, looking at the books on display and the people around, I wonder if this is a bookstore and a place similar to a cafe at the same time.
Just then, a man who appeared to be a waitress came up to us and handed us a menu.
She looked at Elena with her head lowered and made a surprised expression, but quickly returned to her previous state and handed me the menu with a calm face.
It seems that the fact that service workers are good at controlling their emotions is a truth that does not change even if the world changes.
As expected, most of the items written on the menu were desserts, and simple foods were the main focus. Considering that Elena had been eating sweet candies for a while, she needed to give her a treat, so it was a good thing.
“A rosemary. Elena…a jasmine. And a pancake, please.”
Elena, who barely lifted her head to check the menu, pointed to it with her finger. When our eyes met again, I immediately looked at the window.
But even her appearance just seemed cute to me.
When the waitress who had taken my order left with the menu, I looked up at the sky through the window she was looking at. The eyes showed no signs of stopping. If this happened, I would have to contact the winter castle through the contact crystal ball, but I didn’t want to end this time just yet.
I looked back at the books on display and opened my mouth quietly.
“I looked around and it seemed like I could borrow a book and read it. Would you like to take a look?”
Elena got up from her seat without saying anything to my words. Still, she couldn’t look at my face, but she gently took my hand and moved her body slowly as I led her.
When she arrived at the bookshelf, which was packed with books, Elena took one look from top to bottom, then immediately turned her attention to the next block. At first glance, it seemed like she was just looking around, but she probably checked all the titles of the books on that block in that short amount of time.
I didn’t have the same talent as Elena, so I stood opposite her and slowly looked through the books.
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Maybe it was when I looked at half of the block. She had already checked all the books in this place, so she disappeared from my sight to look at the next bookshelf.
Perhaps it would be faster for her to browse through all the books here than for me to browse through the books in this block.
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Maybe it would be better to look around one more line and go to her side. Wouldn’t it be meaningless to look around together if we were separated from her like this?
As I was reading the titles of the books placed in front of me one by one with that thought in mind, the title of a thin book caught my eye. The book was so thin and worn that I would have missed it if I hadn’t looked closely, but the title written on it brought up a memory in my head.
<The dragon of the snowfield.>
There are many stories about dragon legends, but considering that the location of this place is Merohim, the title of this book was enough to stimulate the knowledge of the original in my head.
I reached for the book. But maybe it’s because I’ve been concentrating on this? My senses, which should have always been sharp, were blunted, and I didn’t notice another sign coming towards this book.
“Oh.” “Uh.”
I bumped into someone else’s hand to see if anyone other than me was also trying to pick up this book.
At the same time, the moment I touched that hand, I felt an indescribable sensation pierce my entire body.
It was nothing like static electricity. This was an instinctive sense of rejection carved into this body, and at the same time, a strange sense of kinship was mixed with it.
I hurriedly turned my head to find the owner of the hand.
The person whose hand touched me was also standing there and looking at me, probably feeling the same way as I did. As if looking into a mirror, very familiar eyes entered my eyes.
The being standing in front of me asked me with a very absurd face.
“What are you…?”
that’s what i want to ask