Starting the next day, she put the schedule into practice. Though it was quite rigidly arranged, she seemed to follow it properly, doing her best at her tasks without complaint. Even so, it apparently strained her a little, as she showed signs of struggling in various ways.
So every lunchtime, I enchanted the fruit juice she always drank to restore stamina and provide nourishment and energy—Bac×s?—and drinking it seemed to give her the strength to carry out the remaining items on the schedule.
Since she didn't know I was casting magic on it, she seemed simply to think, ‘Fruit in a dragon's lair really is something special.’
Anyway, thanks to my special juice, she seemed to be learning theory and practice step by step, starting with basic cooking. Perhaps she'd always been bright, because once she'd carefully read the culinary theory and moved on to practice, she often produced fairly decent dishes. Sometimes—No, most of the time—I had to be the test subject, but her cooking improved noticeably with each passing day, and that delighted me.
She also proved quite a good pupil in magic. Perhaps because elves were naturally curious about magic and spirit arts and had considerable knowledge of their own, once I'd taught her an easier method of controlling mana and a few other techniques, she practiced hard by herself. Now she was readily absorbing everything I taught her.
It was already our third week of living together.
2 days earlier, she'd made stew and white bread herself and brought them out with a deeply confident expression. The flavor had certainly improved a great deal, though it still left much to be desired. Even so, I praised her. Occasional praise gave people tremendous energy for their work. She devoted all the free time I'd given her to reading, going into my study whenever she was free and immersing herself in all kinds of books.
Sometimes she showed the habits of a bookworm so absorbed in reading that she forgot her daily tasks, bringing a faint, curling smile to my lips. Perhaps she was the studious sort, like me.
One day, she'd very cautiously told me she wanted to bring over the books she'd been reading at home, so I granted her request by letting her go home for a short visit. Come to think of it, if not for me, she'd have been an elf maiden sitting in a tree, basking in sunlight and absorbed in a book. Instead, here she was, my cook(?).
Still, I tried to make up for that somewhat by doing my best to teach the magic I offered as wages, making it easy and detailed. She also often showed signs of missing sunlight—It was obvious from the way she stared at it with wet eyes whenever she entered my room—so I paid considerable attention to her comfort, putting the same magic on her room as mine so sunlight could shine in at any time. Perhaps she noticed that too, because she seemed to work hard at her tasks according to the schedule without complaint.
As for work, my lair really didn't need cleaning at all. I could just call Sylph or Undine to blow it clean or wash it down? I'd already completed contracts with the spirits of the 4 elements(fire, water, earth, wind) all the way up to the Spirit Kings—The difference between ordinary spirits and Spirit Kings is like that between cleaning tools and housekeepers? Calling a Spirit King requires a certain payment, so I don't want to do it often—so I could clean whenever I liked. Besides, the magic I'd installed made this a pristine zone where not a single speck of dust existed or accumulated. There was nothing for Mirian to clean.
Laundry? It needed doing occasionally, but Mirian was an elf who could use spirit arts, so that wasn't much of a problem. Besides, how much laundry could 2 people's clothes possibly produce? That left Mirian with nothing but learning magic, cooking, and reading. Come to think of it, even to me, this cook's life looks far too comfortable?
#(3) A Slave to Travel
“Yaaawn, I'm bored. Once I read a book, I remember it all, so there's no fun in it?”
I was immersed in reading with tea before me in a living room set up on one side of the lair—perhaps. The entire lair could be called a living room, if you liked. ‘Immersed’ was a flattering way of putting it. There wasn't a book I owned—in my study—that I hadn't read. A dragon's outstanding understanding let it memorize a book after a single reading, leaving me to continue a life of boredom added to boredom, multiplied by tedium, then squared by having nothing to do.
Honestly, unlike other dragons, I had no interest in increasing my treasure. Shiny things were pretty to look at, but I couldn't eat them, and I wasn't going to spend them anywhere. Wasn't enough to fill 3 or 4 storerooms plenty? The dwarves had agreed to mine a fixed amount for me each month from the mines I'd opened to them, so I didn't have to go out collecting it. And hunting down rare treasures would be a bother.
Other dragons apparently couldn't endure boredom any more than I could and often set off on journeys called pastimes. Should I go on one too? How about spending 3 years or so touring this world, meeting people, and traveling? Haa, leave it, leave it. I should spend about 100 years in my lair making various things with the dwarves and elves.
Come to think of it, don't they—the elves and dwarves—have any work to give me? I've got no greed for treasure, so I could accept any commission, but...... The problem is that they're too intimidated by me. Dragons really are that notorious. Besides, the Fear I showed in the elf village was a tremendous shock and terror to them, so it's understandable that they'd find me hard to approach.
But unlike the dwarves, even while feeling afraid, the elves were thinking of gaining reasonable benefits by reasonable means. Somehow or other, they'd bring me work they couldn't do but absolutely needed done, things I'd find endlessly bothersome. Phew, it'll be a bother, but I need it now too. I'm so boooored!
Ding, ding, ding, ding.
Huh? What's that? What sound? I'd covered my face with the book and was puffing out sighs when a bell suddenly rang—It sounded rather like a computer error message—and I sprang up. From how loud it was, the source had to be very close? Looking around, I discovered that 1 of the 9 jewels set high in the wall against which the table stood was flashing and making the sound. Ahh, now I remember.
Those 9 jewels corresponded to the ones I'd given the dwarf and elf village chiefs, with each jewel representing a village. I'd forgotten I'd linked them by magic to the jewels I'd handed out to each village so they could call me whenever they needed my help. Haa...... Rainisis, your memory's past its prime. Dragons may never forget, but they can still be absentminded.
The flashing jewel was the blue one in the sixth position.
The first 5 were the red jewels given to the dwarf villages, so was that an elf village? Mirian's village, at that? The bell was soft and quiet, so it didn't seem like a major problem. What could it be?
Though a little puzzled, I hurried to get ready. By ready, I mean changing into simple combat gear.
I swept back my long red hair, usually worn loose and wild, and tied it firmly once, then put on armor I'd enchanted to be lightweight back in my hatchling days. Over it I wore a red robe—A functional, splendid-looking robe that increased the wearer's agility and provided stealth, withstood foul weather, and could change color at will—and for a weapon took a simple magic sword with a good cutting enchantment. They say the Japanese katana(Katana) performs best among sharp swords, but I'd added Sharp Slash(Sharply Slash), which let it cut through anything, to an ordinary straight sword.
I added Cannot Be Cut(Can not slash) to its sheath, creating a perfect pairing of sword and scabbard. I could use the sheath as a weapon if necessary, but being impossible to cut didn't mean it couldn't be broken.
Then I put on leather boots I'd also made myself in the style of military boots. Of course, these too had magical options: increased instantaneous acceleration, improved reaction speed, and a double jump. I'd originally intended to add increased jumping power rather than a double jump, but a dragon's strength didn't disappear just because it had used Polymorph to become human.
Even in a human body, I could jump up to 30 meters, so I thought increasing my jumping power further would be pointless. Instead, I added a double jump that let me step on thin air and jump again. That meant my final jumping height while wearing these boots would reach 60 meters.
I put on 1 more piece of equipment, a black metal gauntlet. If I used my strength as I was, I thought I'd have trouble controlling it during a combat encounter—With care, I could control it, but combat excites people and other intelligent beings so much that it's dangerous—so this let me lower the upper limit of my strength.
The current setting was about the level of an orc chief, an opponent stronger than humans but not particularly difficult. At that level, I had no reason to fall behind in combat, and a single word from me could raise the setting immediately, so the item posed no great problem.
Anyway, after changing and leaving my room, I saw Mirian in everyday clothes. Hmm? Where did you toss your maid outfit? I asked with a puzzled look.
“Huh? Why did you change?”
“I'd like to go to the village too.”
Ahh, love of her hometown? Well, there's no harm in that. She was bowing her head as though asking permission, so I indicated my consent. She smiled brightly with delight.
Come to think of it, she hasn't been home for these past 2 weeks. She's still a spirited young maiden, so she must miss home. I took her arm and began fixing the elf village's coordinates. Since I'd been there before, they weren't especially hard to establish, and I felt a large quantity of mana colliding in a chain reaction. Finding the strand I wanted amid those collisions, I lightly called the activation phrase.
“Teleport Gate!”
Whoooosh......
In an instant, a black, oval gate 2 meters long formed before me. Holding Mirian's arm, I stepped inside. As I entered, I had to keep picturing the village's coordinates.
Teleport Gate was said to be an ultimate spell only dragons could use, the pinnacle of transportation magic, surpassing even Multi-Teleport(Multi-Teleport), the multiple-relocation improvement on the existing instantaneous-movement spell Teleport. It opened a door into an auxiliary dimension, the Assistance Plane(Assistance Plane), attached to the material world—the Material Plane(Material Plane).
This spell merely opened a door, producing no sign at the destination. Once you entered the auxiliary dimension and constantly repeated the coordinates of where you wanted to go in your mind, you'd find yourself transported there before you knew it.
The auxiliary dimension was apparently a dimension that originally existed for the travel of gods' messengers, angels, and other immortals. It could be called a kind of gateway(Gateway). If you thought of your destination there, you'd travel to it safely and swiftly.
The advantage of this spell was that ordinary Teleport had a chance of failure no matter how thoroughly you knew your destination. If you didn't know a place well, you risked appearing high in the air or underground. Using it for an unfamiliar place was therefore almost suicidal, but Teleport Gate, which used the auxiliary dimension, allowed travel with even minimal knowledge of where you wanted to go.
Yet I pictured the elf village's coordinates within the auxiliary dimension. The reason lay in a feature of that dimension that made the likelihood of arriving correctly uncertain. Teleport could take you somewhere you didn't know well if you accepted a little risk—Enough to stake your life?—but with travel through this auxiliary dimension, if a place resembled your destination, you might be taken there instead.
Without precise knowledge of where you wanted to go, you were likely to end up at the nearest similar place, at the cost of a little time. Unlike Teleport, this was magic that pursued safety. In my case, I pictured the spatial coordinates I used for Teleport, so I was able to enter the village easily.