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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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What should I say?
It was more like I had just made up my mind.
It was true that until just before I came here, I felt lethargic, as if all the strength had drained from my body.
Of course, it wasn’t a good kind of lethargy.
It was more like the feeling you get after working up a sweat and showering, then lying down thinking about resting, but you have a mountain of things to do, no energy, no strength in your body, and you just want to give up on everything.
If I had to choose between the two, the latter felt more accurate.
“Sob… I, I just…”
“I understand.”
It was a strange feeling.
The dragon that had been sparkling as if it were watching some grand spectacle had been bothering me since earlier, but it sighed and gently patted Sylvia’s back.
It was an odd sight to see a large adult crying like a child, embraced in someone’s arms.
The area around my shoulder, where Sylvia had buried her face, was actually getting warm and damp.
It would’ve been strange to tell her to stop crying, and I couldn’t yell at her to stop crying when she was already upset.
All I could do was gently pat her back.
After a while, Sylvia, her eyes slightly puffy from crying so much, lifted her head.
Her eyes were still glistening with tears.
I’d prefer it if we could skip this awkward atmosphere.
Ugh, what can I do?
“…Sylvia.”
“Yes…?”
“Close your eyes.”
“Huh?”
I wasn’t swept away by the mood because I had already prepared myself mentally and even made up my mind.
Could I have even imagined that this would happen just thirty minutes ago?
Thinking back, I didn’t think so.
Thirty minutes ago, I was busy mechanically crushing monsters, feeling like I was carrying the weight of all the darkness in the world on my shoulders.
How could I have predicted this?
“…!”
The moment our lips touched, Sylvia opened her eyes wide.
I clearly told her to close her eyes.
I wanted to avoid an awkward first kiss with her eyes open, but thankfully, Sylvia, whether she was considerate of me or simply surprised, closed her eyes again.
‘…This is a little too clumsy.’
It was clumsy, as expected of a first kiss.
Strictly speaking, it wouldn’t be our first kiss if you counted the times our lips brushed against each other.
However, I never dreamed that I would be the one to take the lead like this.
Along with a cute sound, I felt the touch of her soft lips.
She couldn’t have been wearing perfume, yet a sweet scent reminiscent of roses wafted over me.
Both Sylvia and I were incredibly awkward.
As if by some cruel twist of fate, every time I opened my eyes during the kiss, I would meet Sylvia’s cautious gaze, and we would both quickly close our eyes again.
“…Ah, Mmm…”
Her faint moans, escaping her lips every time she ran out of breath, tickled my ears as if she were whispering secrets to me.
I savored the soft sensation of her lips against mine, and the act of sucking her tongue into my mouth continued until I was gasping for air.
After a long while, our entangled tongues separated and the exchange of saliva ended.
“….”
As if a baby bird were opening its beak to receive food from its mother, Sylvia silently looked at me after our first kiss, which I had led for quite some time.
Her flushed face, the strange atmosphere around us, the strange pink air flowing… before the afterglow could fade…
A round of applause broke the silence.
Both Sylvia and I flinched and turned around to see that annoying dragon clapping.
“I never thought I’d get to see such a good show. But could you two take your lovey-dovey act somewhere else? Especially the… you know, the things that are hard to explain. My lair isn’t an inn.”
“We weren’t planning on doing anything like that!”
Sylvia immediately retorted, her face turning red.
Abel covered her ears with her hands as if to say, “I understand,” and waved her hand dismissively.
“Alright, alright, I get it. I thought you two were head over heels for each other, seeing how lovey-dovey you were. Your boyfriend is quite cute and handsome for a human, I’ll give you that, Sylvia. But I have no intention of stealing him, and I certainly don’t want to watch you two get it on. Please consider my feelings.”
“Th-th-that’s…!”
Whether it was due to anger or embarrassment, Sylvia, who had momentarily lost her ability to speak, let out a strange sound, her face bright red.
I couldn’t help but chuckle at the situation, but it seemed that Sylvia didn’t find it as amusing.
Sylvia glared at Abel as if she wanted to kill her, while she waved us away, telling us to leave since we had finished our little show.
Well, I don’t know if it was that embarrassing…
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“…Why are you two coming out together?”
Eileen mumbled with a dazed expression.
He had left alone, but now, he returned with Sylvia and how did Sylvia, who was supposed to be in the capital, suddenly appear here, beyond the wall in the far north?
Sylvia’s dreamy expression was truly an eyesore to behold.
In reality, Sylvia was still basking in the afterglow of their first kiss.
At least, this experience was a first for her, both before and after her regression.
When she closed her eyes and reminisced, a thrill would run through her body, filling her with ecstasy.
It was a precious memory she could revisit countless times without growing tired of it.
However, the problem was that such a blissful experience naturally showed on her face.
Eileen, who had been observing Sylvia’s dreamy expression, started to feel a surge of inexplicable anger.
Anyway, Rudrick suddenly said he had something to take care of and flew off alone.
When he returned, he brought Sylvia with him.
Seeing Sylvia’s expression, Eileen instinctively realized that something had happened between the two.
A woman’s intuition was sharp.
Eileen accurately caught on to the fact that something had transpired between them.
She narrowed her eyes.
“Have you been waiting long? Eileen.”
“…Not particularly long. However, the person next to you—”
“Hehe.”
Sylvia, her cheeks flushed, covered them with her hands and shook her head, as if lost in her own imagination.
Eileen, her expression crumpled, muttered under her breath.
“Cooped up inside and you come back acting strange… Ah, forgive my harsh words.”
Eileen almost spoke her mind without thinking but then cleared her throat and tried to say something else, but then she froze.
“…Hmm?”
“Hmm? What’s wrong?”
“There’s a hair stuck to you.”
Eileen reached out as if to say, “Come closer,” and removed a single strand of hair from Rudrick’s robe.
She examined it carefully and frowned.
“…Red.”
It was a bright red hair, clearly visible.
It was just a single strand of hair stuck to his robe, but it was noticeable enough for Eileen, with her keen eyes, to catch it.
And there was only one person around here with such a fiery red hair.
Naturally, Eileen’s gaze turned to Sylvia, who was still lost in her own world.
It was the same color, so perfect that anyone would recognize it as Sylvia’s.
Sniff, sniff.
Eileen, sniffing the air, naturally approached Rudrick and took a whiff.
“…Rudrick.”
“Yes?”
“You smell like someone else. Someone who happens to be here.”
Goooo.
It felt like a sound effect from a comic book.
Eileen usually had an expressionless face, but when she was with Rudrick, her expressions became richer.
It was a sight that even the knights of the Grand Duchess, who had served her for over a decade, had witnessed for the first time.
But now, Eileen’s expression was hardening beyond her usual indifference.
“Well… that’s strange. Why would I smell like that?”
“If my sense of smell is not mistaken, you smell exactly like Sylvia Andres, the baron’s daughter.”
When Eileen spoke Sylvia’s full name, she emphasized each syllable as if she were chewing it.
It felt like the temperature around them plummeted by tens of degrees.
It wasn’t his imagination.
When Eileen, born and raised in the North, intentionally unleashed her mana, it had the effect of lowering the surrounding temperature as if her mana were deploying a domain of sorts, even causing frost to form on the ground.
Rudrick, although he had nothing to feel guilty about, felt awkward and let out an awkward laugh.
‘…What, does she have a dog’s nose? How can she smell that?’
That’s what he thought to himself.
He had held Sylvia in his arms for almost ten minutes, comforting her as she cried like a child.
And after that, carried away by the atmosphere and his determination, they had shared their first kiss.
In retrospect, it was a moodless, clumsy, and rushed process, but they had been close to each other for nearly twenty minutes, which was enough time for the scent to linger.
However, Rudrick couldn’t possibly blurt out to Eileen, “I kissed Sylvia, you know?” So he tried to smooth things over with an awkward laugh, but…
Smirk.
Sylvia, with a sly smile, opened her mouth.
“It can’t be helped.”
“…What?”
“I was just kissing Rudrick. Passionately. An adult kiss, you know?”
It was a blatant provocation.
Eileen, doubting her ears for a moment, froze.
Then, her expression crumpled.
This place was already in the middle of a mountain range beyond the wall, where cold winds blew, but he would have thought the temperature couldn’t possibly drop any further.
However, the temperature was plummeting rapidly, to the point where Rudrick subconsciously tightened his grip on his robe’s collar.
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