Every Morning, My Mirror Saves the World - Chapter 19

Chapter 19

“Yahoo!” Lars cried, flinging his arms wide in excitement. His hair had gone untrimmed through their long journey, and if not for the male lead’s innate ability to keep his hair perfect even after getting his head chopped off, he would have looked no different from a black-maned lion right now.

“This is awesome, right, Ruiyin?” Lars turned back happily. “That’s how you use that word, isn’t it? So awesome! I never thought I’d get a day like this. I’m so happy!”

“Sob… What part of this is awesome…?” Galahad crouched awkwardly on the dragon’s back, his whole body twisted as he bowed his head and wept. “Are your butts made of magic crystal? The scales underneath are like steel nails! I… I suddenly think young dragons are truly adorable. That soft, squishy little body… how I miss it…”

The body beneath them let out a low growl and jolted in midair.

“She’s angry,” Lars said, sticking out his tongue. “She says you’re not allowed to miss a young girl’s body with that disgusting brain of yours.”

“Who would be interested in a dragon? I, Galahad, am a Silver Knight. Do you have any idea how many beauties have thrown themselves at me… Ah, I was wrong! Don’t shake me off here!”

“All of you, shut up.” Ruiyin finally spoke, her voice hoarse. Her face had gone frighteningly blue. As a perfectly normal modern young woman, Ruiyin naturally did not come equipped with a butt forged from magic crystal like Lars. She was crouched on the black dragon’s back in a most ungraceful position, one hand over her stomach and the other over her mouth.

“Ruiyin, a-are you all right?” Lars looked at her with deep concern and stammered, “Is there anything I can do for you? Anything at all!”

“Can you help me kill this dragon and then carry me across the sea?” The moment she opened her mouth, Ruiyin’s expression worsened. “I’m dragon-sick. Ugh… What could you possibly do?”

“Um…” Lars looked troubledly at the flying dragon beneath him, who had already begun trembling. “Do we have to kill her? How about I get down and carry you across the sea instead? Let’s not hurt her, okay?”

Vigia, who had lost the ability to speak after being forced back into her original form under the seal, trembled even harder…

It was dusk. Directly ahead of them, the warm orange sun was sinking into the sea, while behind them a crescent purple moon had just risen. The wind over the Sea of Roses did not carry the salty tang of Earth’s ocean breeze. It swept over every sleek scale on the dragon’s back like an invisible hand. The deep blue waters below reflected the gorgeous, shifting sunset glow, and the brilliant smile of the boy beside her seemed softened and blurred by the magic of light and shadow. Only his emerald eyes kept flickering bright. His hand rested worriedly on her forehead. There were fine calluses on it from gripping a sword, and that perfectly placed roughness made her mind go hazy in waves. With the dreamlike scenery around them, Ruiyin had the dazed illusion that they were flying from the edge of night toward dawn.

“Aren’t you sad?” Ruiyin asked softly. “You were betrayed by the lord you trusted most, reduced to a wandering knight, then falsely accused of treason and hunted down. I thought you would be very upset.”

The radiant smile on Lars’s face dimmed. He lowered his head, and his soft black hair drooped like a puppy’s fur.

“Sad… I was very sad.” A trace of sorrow appeared on his face. “At that time, I… I even had a thought like, why doesn’t this whole world just get destroyed? It was only for an instant, but even I felt that… I really was something filthy and terrifying.”

“…Then why can you still be so happy now?”

“Because Ruiyin is beside me.”

The words slipped out almost without thought. After realizing what he had said, Lars’s face instantly turned bright red.

“I… I…” He stammered, trying to say something, but his whole face was rapidly sliding, entirely against his will, toward the color of the purest fire-element magic crystal. In the end, he lowered his head and said with a faint air of giving up on himself, “Because Ruiyin is beside me, I always feel like even the worst things don’t matter. As long as Ruiyin is here, everything… everything will be all right. So I… uh… sorry!”

By the end, the boy’s face was buried against his chest.

“Idiot. Who told you I’d always be by your side?” Ruiyin said coldly. She turned her head away and used a wave of dragon-sick nausea to cover the slightly abnormal beat of her heart.

“It’s already dusk…” Galahad leaned over and looked down. “What a pain. We actually didn’t make it to the other shore before nightfall. It’ll be dangerous once night falls.”

“Why?” Lars asked. “Are you worried Vigia will get lost?”

“No, no.” Galahad waved a hand. “My dragon, like me, has an innate sense of direction. As long as we keep heading south, we’ll definitely arrive. It’s just that these deep waters are mermaid territory. Once night comes, those creatures surface and sing. Their voices can bewitch sailors into giving up on moving forward, and then those carnivorous creatures drag the sailors into the sea and eat them.”

Galahad made a fierce face. “But Little Knight, you don’t need to worry. We don’t have any sailors here, and to a dragon immune to all magic, something as low-level as a mermaid’s song is nothing but a joke. Right, Vigia?”

The black dragon snorted proudly.

Even a dragon could not keep pace with the turning of the sun and moon. As they raced from the edge of night toward the sunset glow, the sun left them far behind. The indigo sky became completely the moon’s domain.

Compared with Earth’s moon, the moon in this magical world was far larger. That enormous purple disk looked as if a gate to another world had opened in the sky.

It also looked like a sleeping demon opening his giant eye.
Ripples slowly spread across the calm sea where the black dragon had swept past. But Ruiyin quickly realized they weren’t waves raised by the sea breeze. Something white as foam surfaced from the deep blue water: a pair of slender, graceful arms. Long fingers, soft as seaweed, flexed nimbly, like a hatchling timidly testing the world beyond its shell. Then, little by little, an entire figure rose from the water.

It was the first time Ruiyin had ever seen a real mermaid.

They were all extraordinarily beautiful women, sea spirits blessed with divine loveliness. Beneath their delicate, high brows were large eyes the color of the deep ocean. Their tender, fair skin was entirely bare, and below shoulders and necks as long and elegant as a swan’s, the most captivating curves in the world rose and fell, enough to make the bravest warrior lay down his sword of his own accord.

Their exposed bodies were impossibly alluring, yet their expressions were so innocent and pure. The temptation born from that extreme contrast was doubled. The mermaids drifted and played leisurely on the surface, every movement as light as a dream. As if noticing the huge black shadow streaking above the sea, they leaned close and whispered among themselves. Then, hand in hand, they giggled and began to sing.

Not even the greatest human singer could compare with such a voice. It was as though a butterfly had landed trembling on the very tip of your heart, its wings, thin as cicada silk and bright with color, quivering with every breath. Each flutter shook loose a dusting of bewitching scales. The powder drifted down and filled the dry, cracked fissures of the heart, buried itself in the most secret and romantic fantasies, and then, when you were at your least guarded, bloomed into a flower called obsession.

Below them, on the clear blue sea, beautiful silver-white fishtails rose and fell slowly. The most beautiful women in the world chased one another as they sang melodies from Eden. Ruiyin leaned against Lars’s shoulder, eyes half closed, as if she had sunk into a hazy, drunken trance.

Dragons were not affected by this kind of magic. Yet even the most violent wyvern seemed to soften under that sound. Vigia slowed down. Riding on the hard back of the black dragon, they seemed to be gliding lightly through the air.

“So this is… a mermaid…” Lars murmured. The vivid melody rose and fell in the translucent wind, a sensual color utterly different from the dry, monotonous training life of a knight. His shoulder suddenly grew heavier. Ruiyin’s head had tilted against him. Her body was soft and carried the fresh scent of seaweed. The song, faint and lingering, twined together with that fragrance. Lars felt his mind turn into a tangled mess, and before he could stop himself, his hand was already trembling as it reached toward Ruiyin’s fingers.

He wanted to touch her. He wanted to hold her hand. He wanted to say a few meaningless things to her.

This was wrong.

Another voice in his mind warned him sternly. A knight’s honor, dignity, pride, justice… But those things that had once been engraved into his soul had, after all these days of exile and wandering, become unable to withstand even the slightest trial.

Why was it wrong? If betrayal was the truth, if justice had been cast into exile, if all honor and dignity were destined to be trampled underfoot… then why should he still cling to those meaningless principles?

But this was wrong.

Lars vaguely felt himself sliding in some terrible direction, yet he was powerless to control it. With a trembling hand, he hooked Ruiyin’s fingers, as if begging her to wake him again at that moment.

“Hmph! Damn fairies, are you coveting the wealth of Lord Vigia? Every last one of you is dreaming!”

The sudden shrill roar snapped Lars awake. He yanked his hand back as if he had been shocked. Almost at the same moment, Galahad stopped the ridiculous folk-dance wriggling he had been doing on the dragon’s back and opened his blank, dazed eyes. “Vigia? You… you can talk while you’re sealed?”

“Lord Vigia will resolve the seal sooner or later,” the black dragon said arrogantly. Only, after a brief pause, a tiny hint of shamefaced guilt entered his voice. “It is just that now… now is not the time.”

“Huh? Then how can you talk now?”

“I…” Vigia hemmed and hawed for a moment, then shouted angrily, “Hmph! Foolish humans! I merely wished to let you know that a dragon’s protection is not something granted so casually. Prove your strength to me first, and then come begging for the Dragon God’s protection!”

“Wait… what do you mean?” Panic suddenly surged up in Galahad’s heart, and he shot to his feet. But it was already too late. After a dizzying spin of heaven and earth, Galahad discovered that a wish he had once made had finally come true.

That big black dragon, black and ugly and only rideable by people with magic-crystal backsides, had turned into a pink, adorable, soft, tiny, round little dragon. In the next second, with an obedience it had never shown before, it leaped straight into his arms. Its short foreclaws wrapped around his neck.

“Eeeeeeeek!” Galahad screamed. “Can we please pick another time to prove our strength? Because the sea below us is full of carnivorous mermaids, mermaids, mermaaaaaids!”

Author’s Note: The things that have happened recently have left me with no energy even to rant about writing… Never mind. I’ll just quietly crawl away.