Perhaps unable to keep watching Ruri scream to no avail, Rutile awkwardly smiled and interjected from the sidelines. “Sango, please, that’s enough. I’m willing to turn a blind eye to you being intimate with Ruri to a certain extent since you’re both from the same world, but she is still a Beloved and the Dragon Queen.”
“Okay, as you wish, milady...” Sango replied with disappointment, at long last placing Ruri gently on the floor out of her loyalty to Rutile.
Ruri breathed a sigh of relief upon being released. The reason this had happened in the first place was that Sango had ended up finding out about the cat that had sat upon Jade’s lap when she’d first visited the castle. The existence of the bracelet that transformed the wearer into a cat had greatly intrigued Sango, which was natural since she had been born and raised in a world where magic was not integrated into society.
When Ruri had come to this world, met Chelsie, and learned that she could also use magic, she’d used it in excess. She had then been scolded by Chelsie, but that was a digression.
Sango’s eyes had lit up and she had begged to see the bracelet after learning about it. Ruri could understand her feelings and transformed into her cat form to appease her. While she didn’t mind that, she did mind getting compressed in Sango’s arms and petted all over. She had immediately regretted her decision.
“Come here, Ruri. I’ll remove your bracelet,” Rutile offered.
“I appreciate it, Rutile-san,” Ruri thanked her, holding out her hand to Rutile since she couldn’t remove the bracelet with her paw.
Sango looked at her with intense interest as Ruri reverted back to her human form the moment the bracelet was removed.
“A person transforming into a cat is so amazing. It really does give off the vibe of being in a different world,” Sango commented.
“Yeah, there is an element of wonder, isn’t there?” Ruri agreed, knowing how Sango felt.
However, Rutile offered a slight correction. “It’s amazing even to us to see a human transform into a cat by putting on a bracelet.” She was likely used to seeing demi-humans like the dragonkin with human and dragon forms, but it was said that a human with transformation abilities was simply unheard of. For Ruri and Sango, however, there was not much of a difference. In their home world, they never saw magic, let alone life-forms like spirits. Yet in this castle, magic was used as an expected part of everyday life.
While the list of demi-humans who possessed mana was long, the list of regular humans was overwhelmingly short. In the Nation of the Dragon King, the ratio of demi-humans to humans was about fifty-fifty, so they went about their lives while striking a balance, but in countries such as the Imperial Nation, with a human majority, they were forced to lead lives that were considerably more inconvenient than in nations with those capable of using magic. Perhaps that was inevitable, seeing as science had not advanced to the degree it had in Ruri’s home world.
That said, those with no mana could apparently still utilize magic by using magic tools—one of those tools being the cat-transforming bracelet owned by Ruri. It was something that Weidt the First Dragon King had received from the First Queen of Yadacain.
“Want to try it?” asked Ruri.
“Can I?!” Sango replied excitedly.
“You have to give it back, though.”
“Why, of course!” Sango replied, taking the bracelet she was offered in glee and putting it on without a moment’s hesitation. She transformed into a cat form in the blink of an eye. Unlike Ruri, who turned into a white cat, she was a black-and-white tuxedo.
“Mreow!” Sango yelped, extremely excited upon seeing her front paw pads.
Finding Sango’s reaction adorable, Ruri giggled, pulled a large mirror from her pocket space, and put it in front of her. Sango’s eyes were glued to the sight of herself as a cat. However, Ruri, now in an awkward spot since Sango showed no sign of leaving the mirror anytime soon, reluctantly pulled off the bracelet from her excited friend.
Sango turned back into a human, much to her disappointment, and stared with wistful eyes at the bracelet. “That’s so cool. I want one too.”
“It was made by the first queen of Yadacain and is said to be thousands of years old, so this is the only one,” Ruri replied.
“You can’t make one?” asked Sango.
“Unfortunately, it’s a very advanced magic tool, and not even Seraphie, a witch herself, can make the exact same thing. She was able to make one you can use a limited number of times, but Euclase-san confiscated it because they said it’d be dangerous if it was ever misused,” explained Ruri. She didn’t mind selling it to the dragonkins, but she had no choice but to give up if Euclase said no.
“Ugh, that sucks,” Sango remarked, easily backing down, showing huge growth from when she had first come to the castle. “But Ruri-sama is the Beloved child, so why don’t you take it back by force? A Beloved is allowed to be selfish, aren’t they?”
“Euclase-san is scary when you make them mad. If you don’t listen to their directions as much as possible, you’ll come to regret it. In a way, they have more pull than Jade-sama, and he’s the king,” Ruri explained, noting that Euclase was such a glib talker that they could even defeat Jade in an argument.
It wasn’t that she thought that the Dragon King should be like that, but unlike the Dragon King, who was chosen through a contest of strength, the Chancellor established themselves by showing their ability as a civil official. It was no wonder Jade was no match for Euclase, who occasionally dabbled in diplomacy.
“Yes, Ruri-sama, you have a point. They scolded me viciously after the bad things I did to you before, and they were very scary doing it,” said Sango, her face turning pale, as she had already been subject to Euclase’s wrath in the past. Once you experienced that, it was common to never try to disobey them ever again. “But thanks to Lady Euclase, I’ve been able to live in this world without worrying about food or a place to sleep, so I am nothing but grateful.”