Chapter 31 – The Evil Dragon Gets to Stay at a 【Friend’s】 House 【Part 2】

Ryuuji and the others ended up staying at Kaasan’s acquaintance’s house.

Several hours later, Ryuuji was completely dumbfounded. Inside an excessively massive and luxurious room, he sat on the edge of the bed with his mouth hanging open.

“W-What is going on… here…?”

The room was unbelievably large. It was bigger than his Mom’s house and so magnificent that comparing it to their cave wasn’t even fair.

A plush red carpet covered the floor, and a chandelier hung from the ceiling. Several expensive-looking paintings lined the walls. Despite being a bedroom, there was even a wine cellar and a bath inside, and from the window, he could see a pool.

The very bed Ryuuji was sitting on was the same. It was so large you’d wonder if a giant used it, even though it was only meant for one person. To top it off, it even had a canopy.

“Unbelievable… what in the world is going on…?”

Ryuuji was struggling to feel any sense of reality regarding what was currently happening. Right at that moment, a knock echoed through the room.

“It’s Sheila! Ryuuji-kun, I’d like you to open the door!”

Ryuuji stood up and walked across the fluffy carpet. He walked and walked, but he still hadn’t reached the doorway. A short while later, he finally arrived in front of the excessively large door and clicked it open.

Standing there was a rabbit-kin girl dressed in an expensive-looking silk nightgown.

“Ryu, Ryuu~ji-kuuu~n…”

Sheila’s eyes were teary, and her rabbit ears drooped down limply.

“Sheila… What’s wrong?”

“Um, umm… the room is just way too big… sniff… it’s lonely…”

“Ah, yeah. I feel the same way. Want to talk for a bit before bed?”

“Y-Yes, please!”

Sheila smiled brightly and stepped into the room. The two of them trudged toward the canopy bed together. Ryuuji sat down on the edge of the mattress.

“Phew… hup.”

Sheila sat right next to him, close enough that their thighs touched. In fact, they were pressed flush against each other.

“Hau!”

“S-Sorry…!”

With his heart pounding, Ryuuji pulled away from her.

“N-No. You don’t have to apologize… I didn’t hate it.”

“I-I see… me neither…”

After that, both of them let out a heavy sigh.

“Kaasan is amazing, isn’t she?”

“Truly, truly! Kaasan-san is… an incredibly amazing person!”

They both nodded in agreement.

“I thought she was an amazing person from the start, but to think it would be to this extent…”

Ryuuji stood up from the bed and moved over to the excessively large window. Sheila trotted after him as he pushed it open. Spread out before his eyes was the nightscape of the royal capital. The lights of the people living down below shined just like stars. Ryuuji and Sheila were looking down at it from the very highest point.

“To think Kaasan’s acquaintance… was the King.”

That was right. Where Ryuuji and the others currently were was the most magnificent building in the royal capital of Shea. It was the King’s residence, the royal castle.

“Umm, umm, surely Kaasan-san must be related to the legendary Hero!”

“Right? Otherwise, she wouldn’t be able to just casually meet the King, and there’s no way we’d be able to stay in the castle.”

Sheila and Ryuuji stood side-by-side and nodded at each other.

“Kaasan-san must definitely be the Hero Yuuto-sama’s daughter or something!”

“No, didn’t Yuuto-sama just disappear right after defeating the Demon Lord…? I wonder if he even had any children?”

Ryuuji had lived in a cave for fifteen years. During that time, the watcher elf, Chekiita, had taught him about the outside world. He knew about the legend of the Hero and, of course, about his Mom’s great deeds as well.

“…Everyone around me is just incredible.”

Ryuuji squatted down right there. His Mom and Kaasan were extraordinary individuals. His Mom was the hero who saved the world, and Kaasan was an acquaintance of the King.

Someone like me is really… nothing special, huh, Ryuuji thought, feeling down.

“Ryuuji-kun. Ryuuji-kun.”

Sheila squatted down next to him and squeezed both of his cheeks with her hands.

“You can’t… be feeling down.”

Sheila let go of his face.

“Sheila understands perfectly how it feels to get depressed because there are amazing people around you.”

“You do?”

“Yes… Actually, Sheila’s grandma used to be the principal of the Royal Magic University.”

“That’s… the number one, most famous university in the country.”

To think that the principal of such a famous university was Sheila’s grandmother.

“Not only that, Grandma had a lot of amazing friends. A dragon. A nine-tailed phantom fox. The strongest dog-kin warrior of an S-Rank adventurer party. The Red Oni Sisters who serve as goodwill ambassadors for the Oni tribe… She’s surrounded by truly amazing people.”

Sheila had mentioned it before. The reason she hadn’t been surprised when she saw the Evil Dragon was because her grandmother had a dragon for a friend. Not just a dragon, but a legendary phantom fox, an adventurer, and even a goodwill ambassador who played an active role in forging peace between humans and the Oni tribe. They were all friends of Sheila’s grandmother.

“Because Grandma was such an incredibly amazing person, you see, it was really, really hard for Sheila.”

“Hard…?”

Squatting next to him, Sheila gave a lonely smile. “Yes…”

“It’s just like you said earlier, Ryuuji-kun. Everyone around you is an amazing person, but you feel like you’re just ordinary. Because there are amazing people so close to you, it makes you… hate yourself even more for being ordinary… and it makes you depressed.”

“…I see.”

Ryuuji felt a tremendous sense of affinity toward this girl. She, too, was an ordinary, average person standing beside someone special.

“We’re… similar, aren’t we.”

And because of that, a sense of camaraderie and a feeling of closeness sprouted between them.

“Yes… We’re very similar.”

Sheila smiled. That smile was so cute that Ryuuji’s heart skipped a beat. His chest pounded, and his face felt hot. He couldn’t look straight at Sheila’s face.

Even so, Ryuuji didn’t want to run away from this place. He wanted to stay right here, just the two of them, forever. Ryuuji reached his hand out to her and placed it over Sheila’s. She didn’t pull away. And just like that, the two of them sat there with their hands resting over one another for a good long while.