It wasn’t often that she showed me her pretty smile like this. I’d heard she usually disliked humans, so it made me strangely happy when she was friendly with me. It was like interacting with a wild animal that shouldn’t possibly warm up to you, but this was probably an extremely rude way to think of elves.
“We should get going soon. I want to get out of here by sundown.”
“Yes, we should. But I’m pretty full, so would you mind walking slowly?”
We washed our fingers with the water bottle from earlier and wiped our hands with a towel before standing up to leave. Finally, we dusted ourselves off, and our fun little lunchtime came to an end.
The Nazul-Nazul Ruins were full of running water, and every part of them was full of humidity. We walked along the waterway and peeked into dwellings as we passed by. These might have been thousand-year-old ruins, but due to their underground location, they were slow to deteriorate, and it wasn’t hard to imagine that people used to live here.
I wondered just what type of people lived in such a dark place like this before it was destroyed a thousand years ago, and as I mulled over the thought, I noticed something lurking in the shadows.
“Oh, a monster. Wait here for a sec... Heeey, hellooo?”
I left the startled Marie behind and moved closer to the shadow as it slowly faced me. The monster looked like a lizard on two legs, and it was far wider than even a crocodile. This one’s level seemed to be in the twenties, and they were considered to be quite vicious.
They were known as lizardmen. It was a bit odd that even the females had “men” in the name, but that was neither here nor there. He directed his round eyes toward me, then bowed his head. It was partially because there was such a severe level gap, but I could also understand their language, so it was rare to get into a fight unless something drastic happened.
“Ah, if it isn’t Kazuhiho. Going for a walk with an elf today? Boy, am I jealous!”
“Well, I think she’s just after my bento...”
Most lizardmen weren’t used to talking, so some parts of their speech were a little hard to understand. But some species of monsters didn’t even have a language, so this was still well within the range of things I could handle.
“We just came to explore these ruins. So, is this area safe?”
“I wouldn’t say that... There’s a dragon with a nest in the back, and she just entered her spawning season. It’d be dangerous to go near there. My people are a subspecies of dragonmen, as I’m sure you know, and we’ve been dragon guards since my ancestors’ time. But young ones these days spout things like, ‘We’re lizards, not dragons!’ But... I digress. In any case, the dragon back there is very irritable right now. I would advise against going near that area.”
He sure was talkative for a lizard.
I waved at the helpful lizardman and walked away. I jogged over to Marie, and she looked at me with slightly widened eyes.
“My goodness, did you learn how to speak with monsters now? Where did you learn how to do that? I doubt there’s any literature of that kind.”
“Yeah, I just kinda dove into it head-first. I can’t count how many times I got attacked, and it took about three years to learn. You remember how I learned how to speak Elvish from you? It’s kinda like that.”
“Oh, you really did dive into it, didn’t you...? I felt strangely sorry for monsters just now.”
Even an elf, who lived for nearly an infinite amount of time, seemed to have trouble understanding my life choices. She pressed her pointer finger to her forehead and squashed it up and down as if struggling to do just that.
There were many different types of monster languages, divided into categories ranging from A to E Groups. I wondered what sort of face she would make if I told her I’d already learned all the way up to C Group.
“But it’s so useful. Want me to teach you, Marie?”
“I have to admit, I am a bit interested... Then, maybe I could ask you to teach me tomorrow, if you have time.”
“Sure, I don’t mind. It’s been a while since I made upcoming plans with you like this, so it makes me happy.”
She gave me a suspicious look, as if trying to figure out if I was attempting to hit on her. I didn’t mean to make excuses, but now that I was twenty-five in the real world, time spent with cute girls was extremely valuable, and it made me happy just hanging out with her. But I wouldn’t tell her this, because she’d probably just look at me like some sort of pervert.
“But anyway, a dragon in spawning season, huh...? I want to go take a look.”
“Here you go again... Do you intend to make some otherworldly dishes or something?”
“What? No, not at all. Though, I have read that reptile eggs come in all sorts of varieties. Some are jelly-like substances, some have hard shells, and others are squishy and soft. I hear dragon eggs are oily, but I wonder if it that’s true. Hmhm, I guess I wouldn’t know until I eat it.”
She gave me a look as if to say she was right. But still, I’d like to see something like that at least once. I didn’t mean to eat it, of course, but I was very curious to find out what a dragon egg was like.
I dragged Marie toward the depths of the ruins despite her obvious reluctance.
I wore a cape with a Stealth Effect over my head and covered my entire body, then crawled across the ground like a caterpillar. The light fairies had already been dismissed, and the surrounding area was covered in darkness. I looked to my side with bated breath, and then a pair of purple, forlorn-looking eyes turned to me.
We went through the dried-up waterway and arrived at what seemed to be the deepest area there. A low, eerie noise echoed around us, and there seemed to be no sight of any monsters. That, too, provoked an unnerving image in my head.
What could possibly be up ahead...?
I moved closer with the elf and looked down from the rocky plateau to find darkness awaiting below. The loud rumbling sound of something breathing from its depths was an obvious sign there was an ancient dragon sleeping down there. But of course, I didn’t have the ability to see through complete darkness.
(Stay still, Kazuhiho. I’ll give you night vision too.)
(Whoa, thanks, Marie. You never cease to amaze me.)