Absolutely Do Not Touch Eldmia Egga

Chapter 23: Lagnis Lien da Levien

It’s fine even if we fall.

Before she even thought of that, Lagnis quickly turned her body and looked at the owner of the voice.

Her eyes teared up at the sunrise and the strong winds, but it didn’t matter at all. Because either way, she would’ve cried.

In her young and immature years when she was still living a happy life at her fief. There were days when she dreamed of the romances in stories like other noble girls and read really many books.

To her fellow nobles at her age, the fact that the war erupted with the Demon King Army was merely a thrilling subject. In their heads, something like a wretched future and a life turned impoverished at a defeat by the Demon King Army didn’t exist.

Rather, they felt that a legendary and heroic era exceptional even in history had arrived. They cheered saying that they were living in an era of glory and dreams, when countless heroes were born, knights rose, and love and honor were sung.

They were immature and laughable young days when looking back, but it was also true that she had dreamed of a meeting with such a knight.

Fantasizing of sir knights who confessed their love and slayed dragons to prove them, sir knights who fought for his honor and gifted their glory together with a single flower, and all sorts of other varied imaginations, she raced her heart. When a few noble girls hired painters and drew knights or princes in their imaginations and showed her, she even felt envious and wanted to have her own, too.

Because of that, she was certain.

That even if she brought all the knights she and the other noble girls had imagined, they couldn’t be more enchanting than the sight of him falling from the sky and piercing the drake’s head like a lightning, and cutting her kidnapper like a flash of light.

“Eldmia!”

From within happiness and joy, Lagnis cried out.

She wanted to believe he would rescue her. Because it absolutely wasn’t a situation where she could be certain he would unquestionably rescue her, she simply wanted to believe. Even as she felt appalling disgust at herself that couldn’t do anything but simply believe in him and wait, she couldn’t abandon that belief.

“Wow this actually worked!”

Eldmia, who was laughing and smiling a smile brighter than any she had seen until now, was falling down. Of course, she herself too, and the dead drake, too, were falling down. Seeing his smile, her kidnapper who had clearly died should also obviously be falling.

But Eldmia simply smiled as if there was nothing to worry about. Even showing calm by casually sheathing the sword in his hand and tying it to prevent it from coming out even while falling, he smiled more gleefully and freely than ever before.

Because of that, Lagnis smiled together with him.

“Let’s go home! Lagnis!”

“Yeah!”

Because she trusted the light that lit her up, she widely smiled.

🔷

I didn’t know that I would come to a fantasy world and actually do skydiving that I hadn’t even tried in my last life, but I couldn’t deny that it was a successful experience.

Excluding my body squeaking and trembling from the body strengthening done at full strength, it was perfection itself. Giesse really masterfully matched our speed and not only caught Lagnis with zero discomfort, but even securely sat me down at the back again.

“It’s a name I haven’t heard before. I also wonder if it might be a fake name.”

Having avoided death by falling like that, we came down to the ground and then lit a campfire and took a rest for a moment.

The flight that had continued throughout the night had given us not a little amount of exhaustion. Though, truthfully speaking, the most tired should be Giesse and the drake.

Even so, since it wasn’t a situation relaxed enough to sleep either, we talked a bit to chase away the drowsiness as well, but Lagnis couldn’t guess Delt’s identity. Until flying in the air, she had planned to at least check Delt’s belongings if he were to luckily get killed, but there was no way that the corpse and the equipment that had fallen from that incredible height would be fine, so we had now given up on them. Most likely, we would see not a corpse but pieces of a corpse even if we did find it.

Giesse told us that not even the drake would be able to maintain a whole corpse at that height.

“While flying here just now, I saw a not-so-small village nearby. Lady Lien and Mister Eldmia, let’s eat something there and get going. We’ll have to fly a while again, after all.”

While resting, Lagnis definitively declared on her name that she’d protect Giesse the moment I finished his story. Not only that, because she couldn’t make any promises on her name as a marquis since she wasn’t an adult right now, she assured him that she’d promise him protection and reward through the proper process once she became an adult, and erased Giesse’s worry. We learned Giesse’s age was mid twenties in that process, but I, who had exceeded the mental age of 30 years-old, decided not to particularly focus on it.

After all, it’d be weird to call him big bro now.

Thanks to that, we were able to head towards the village while maintaining not so awkward a mood.

“Since Giesse even has a clear identification of a drake pilot, I guess we won’t get chased away at the door.”

“Oh yeah. We’re getting helped by you again like this.”

“We’re already on the same boat, Lady Lien and Mister Eldmia. It’ll be embarrassing to call something like this a help, too.”

As much as it was an identification that the kingdom guaranteed, Giesse, let alone stares of distrust, in fact received even gazes of admiration when we actually entered the village. The thing called life and relationships with people really couldn’t be predicted.

It’s an obvious story, but the drake’s meal expense more than the meal expense of all three of us. I was shocked when Giesse casually bought an entire pig, but couldn’t help but understand when I saw the drake eat it up alone. As people said, it was clear it cost an expensive maintenance price.

From what I’d heard while eating, it was the two’s common opinion that, although it was clear that that drake was a property of someone in the Noble faction, it would probably be difficult for them to assert ownership of it since, in the first place, they used it for a scandalous job. Thanks to that, Lagnis began directing her thoughts toward a way to simply tie Giesse and the drake together as one and care for them. The fact that her contemplating face showed the calculating and stoic look of the nobles felt strangely amazing and simply new.

By the time we flew a long while again like that and returned to Ithysiel (tl note: the author wrote Ithysiel here as in Ithysiel Kingdom, but I’m guessing this is a typo meant for Ogwen), it was the hours that was just past lunchtime. It would’ve been nice if we had instead arrived completely late and avoided people’s eyes, but on the contrary, we arrived when it was at its peak rowdiness.

As if the city was already in emergency mode, the gate guards called the city guards the moment they saw us and “arrested” and “escorted” us in name, and we ended up walking all the way to Alisha’s Inn with countless people staring at us.

“Levi”

“Aunty!”

In all of my life I’d never expected I’d see Madam Alisha’s crying face. Seeing how she wasn’t simply frowning but really crying tears, too, as she ran up and hugged Lagnis, I could easily tell just how extremely worried she had been. As expected, she held a gentle heart that couldn’t be hidden with expletives.

“Eldi.”

Behind them, Asileye was there quietly staring at me. At her call, I couldn’t help but feebly walk toward her with my swollen confidence instantly flown away and submerged in a feeling like I’d become a floating plastic trash bag.

   “How did you know to come here?”

“Jinn told me about it. He came running not even on a horse but on his two feet asking for my help, so I naturally came.”

“He asked for help?”

“He said the guards were worrying as well since the patrol squad became like that, and asked me to help.”

That guy’s a really amazing guy. Now I wanted to really sit him down and ask just what kind of a guy he had been if I get the chance someday.

But since talking with Asileye right now came first for now, and even the saying went that both getting punished and ripping off band-aids were best done quick and fast, so I resolved myself and confessed everything.

“Because I judged too complacent, and because the situation went sideways because of that, I ultimately killed someone. Sorry.”

“It’s hard to believe Eldi judged complacently, though, no?”

“I thought together with Lagnis what we’d thought was enough, but… they were reading just one step ahead of us.”

If Delt had judged even my skills perfectly, then he would’ve used the adventurer bastards only as throwaway hands instead and left nothing at the campsite. If he did, then Lagnis wouldn’t be here. We were simply lucky.

There was still time until the guards interrogated us, and when I told her the rough sequence of the events in that time, Asileye hugged me with a faint smile and spoke.

“Yeah. If you can judge like that, then your big sis thinks it’s not something I need to worry about. It’s fine if you’ve judged with a cool head.”

“Thanks, sis.”

“More important than that, big sis is curious how Eldi won against an opponent like that. If he even flew on a drake, Eldi who can’t properly use magic should’ve been really disadvantageous, no?”

“Ah, that.”

Asileye’s thought wasn’t wrong even a little. If I had normally fought Delt, then the one who fell from the air would’ve been me even if his swordsmanship had been worthless.

Even the thing called aura was ultimately just a type of enhancement. Whether enhancing the body or enhancing the weapon one held, put simply the role of aura was making it sturdier. I did sometimes hear legends and rumors of crazy maniacs whose swordsmanship had reached the level of magic, but, after all, it wasn’t like I could copy them.

Really, how the fuck would a sword swing by a person split apart space? It was obvious that something like that was a lie.

In the end, unless one could shoot sword slashes like arrows or make the swords fly on their own with telekinesis like in Chinese fantasy martial arts novels, it was natural to get one-sidedly beat up by mages in air battles. That was why I kicked off the fight with such an extreme move.

“Ah hah. I actually did feel my heart wobble a bit from that. Giesse, I mean that drake pilot friend over there, that friend’s incredible flying skills did a big job.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah. I could tell the moment I jumped. Like, ‘oh? It looks like I can directly poke the drake’s skull if I fall like this, huh?’, and so on.”

“……huh?”

“I thought it was a pure lie that the world slows down when you tense up, but just 1 second? 2 second? Was it about that long? That time I’ve gripped my sword with both my hands until I pierced down into the head really felt like an eternity. That Delt guy probably also felt something similar to…”

“Wait, Eldi? Jump? Toward a drake’s head? From where?”

“Hm? Of course from the drake we were riding on.”

When I stopped my description of the scene and looked at Asileye wondering just what she was saying all of a sudden…

Asileye, who seemed to stiffen with a faint smile as she looked at me, immediately rolled her eyes backwards and fainted.

“Uaaaagh?! Sis?! La, Lagnis! Water! Water!”

“Eld…? Kyaaaagh! Miss Asileye!!”

Oh my fucking world! I shouldn’t have said it!

TL note: 2 of 3 chapters to be released this Monday~Wednesday. ETA for next chapter will be either Tuesday or Wednesday noon, depending on how fast my irl work gets done.