“Uwawa…what to do?”
Hi, everyone. Currently, this Lyra is flustered and confused on how to face the crying Briar.
“I’m sowwy…The tears won’t stahp…,” Briar said amidst her sobbing.
“Uhh, sorry for suddenly intruding on your house and ‘kidnapping’ you…,” I said.
“No, Aneki, I said I was too happy…because of what you did! Hwaaa, Aneki!”
Suddenly, Briar extended her hands to me and hugged me tightly, tears still rolling down her face.
“Hwaa, careful, Briar!” I immediately grabbed her body back, as she seemed close to falling when she moved about just now…
Carbuncle could grab her back if she ever falls, but…isn’t that just too traumatic?
“There, there…,” I patted Briar’s back to soothe her.
Whoops, looks like Valerie is also patting her back.
Double back pat~!
“I’m owkay…,” Briar said, full of snots.
I turned to pat her head.
“There, there, you’ve been holding it in all this time, haven’t you?”
“ANEKWIIIII—,” Briar’s sobbing turned more intense instead.
“Hwaa, your snort, Briar, Briarrrrr~!” I was flustered seeing Briar’s tears and snort.
“You guys, behave well, can’t you?!” Carbuncle roared.
–Please wait for a while—
“Ahem…Sorry, sorry! I was too overcome with my feelings…Forgive me for being unsightly,” Briar said as she tidied her face using her handkerchief.
“I’m just too happy…Really, Aneki comforted me really well…As if you’re my own elder sister…Weird for me to say as you’re younger than me and I am supposed to have my own elder sister, but that’s how I feel…,” Briar blushed a little.
Well, experience-wise, I’m older than you, so that makes sense…
“Thank you for your compliment! Glad to hear that!” I decided to receive her compliment and smiled.
“Hwee, Aneki, it must be fate that caused us to meet! I’m so, so, very glad! I can’t imagine how I will be if you’re not here…,” Briar hugged me tightly.
She can’t imagine how she will be without me…?
Warmth filled my chest after her words registered in my mind.
Hehe…Not only my family, but my friends…They are glad to have me here, huh?
It was something I wanted to hear the most in my life as Reinst, but I died without being able to hear it from anyone. If I had continued to live on, would I hear such words as well? Nicole and Clyde seemed to care about me…
If in the past, they were to utter such words, would I believe them?
Or would I deny their sincerity and thought of them as sugar-coated words?
The latter would be more likely…I myself had to admit it.
Anyway, I realized now that it was really nice to feel needed by someone. To feel appreciated merely just by being yourself…
And I also realized that it was nice to have people who thought so of me. Therefore…
“Me too, Briar. Thank you for meeting me and for needing me,” I smiled happily.
In this life, people needed to acknowledge and to be acknowledged by others. It was a give-and-take process.
“Aneki…you’re so kind…”
“And you’re strong, Briar,” I said.
“Aneki…You’re going to make her cry again,” Dmitria suddenly warned me.
“Yeah, yeah. We’re almost there,” Valerie reminded us.
“Geez, you two, I’m not a crybaby!” Briar denied the two’s accusations.
“Sure, sure, hahaha,” Dmitria laughed energetically.
“Fufufu,” Valerie also laughed.
“Well, thanks to my insistence to come with you guys, I’ve seen such interesting moment,” Carbuncle also commented.
“Anyway, we’re landing soon, grab on tightly,” Carbuncle said again before we dove in.
“Eeeekh-“
“Slowly, please!”
“Hahaha! This is nothing!”
When we descended from Carbuncle, our heads were still dizzy that we couldn’t really walk straight.
“That’s quick!” Freyja commented.
“Welcome, Briar. Thank goodness you can come here,” Ristea-san said as she patted Briar’s head.
“Ristea-san, thank you and pardon me for bothering…”
“Come on, it’s not like we are strangers. There’s no need to be sorry for coming over here. You’re welcome anytime,” Ristea-san said.
Meanwhile…
“Eeeh, I want to ride on you, too!” Freyja pouted upon seeing Carbuncle turn back to her humanoid form.
“Hee, you sure about that?” Carbuncle teasingly asked.
“Yeah, yeah!” Freyja nodded vigorously.
“Freyja, no, don’t,” I quickly said.
“Eeh, but I want to ride on a dragon!” Freyja pouted.
“What about a wyvern?” Valerie suddenly offered.
“Can I?” Freyja seemed to be interested in Valerie’s offer. I guess both were similar…and riding on a wyvern seemed to be safer than riding on Carbuncle, who knows what kind of mischievousness she was planning…
“Sure, but it’s already quite late. What about saving it for tomorrow? Let’s wash up and see around the house before dinner,” Ristea-san was the one who made the decision for us.
“Okay~!” Since the host said so, we could only comply.
We were guided towards the guestrooms where we would be staying in. After washing up ourselves in the provided bathroom, Ristea-san did a house tour for us. While we were at it, she also explained various things about the Flugel house to us.
The Flugel house—as we already knew it—was a house whose specialty was their ranch. At first, there were only animal ranch and Pegasi ranch. They just developed their Wyvern ranch recently. As for the Raphus ranch, it was originally a ranch that Garret—Dmitria’s father—‘s family developed. Since they had difficulties about taming and taking care of the giant flightless birds, they got married to the Flugel house and expanded the Raphus ranch.
As for Malvin—Valerie’s father—‘s family, they were a family of ranchers as well, who moved in animals and Pegasi ranch as well. Their ranch was small, but their union with Flugel family caused both sides’ ranches to flourish more.
The miracle twins also narrated the story of their partner beasts to us.
“You see, my Papa seems to be gentle, but he has his heroic side as well. It happened in the past where one of his family’s workers disappeared after accidentally entering a dangerous and restricted lake. Papa went there to see what was going on when he met Brioc,” Valerie narrated.
“Brioc was so hostile at that time, Papa said. He seemed to be mad at Papa’s worker for intruding his territory. Papa then bravely fought with Brioc and rode on Brioc, taming him. Despite Brioc’s ruthlessness during when Papa forcefully rode on him, Papa managed to stay stable on Brioc’s back. Brioc seemed to acknowledge Papa after that test from him, and so, Papa brought Brioc over.”
I blinked and looked over at Malvin-san. Yes, at first glance, he didn’t seem to be that kind of heroic person, but I guess each man would have their manly side to them.
“I fell in love with Brioc at first sight. You see, the princes in the picture books seemed to have their white horses, and Brioc was so beautiful. Luckily, Papa gifted him to me,” Valerie said with a gleeful expression on her face.
“Hee…That happened, huh?” I said.
“As for my Shula…You see that perytons are rare to see and Daddy was really obsessed with finding one to observe. But you see, he didn’t find one in one of his intended exploration. He found Shula by coincidence,” Dmitria said.
“Eh, what a coincidence it was!” I was surprised to hear that.
“Yeah. Daddy happened to be walking around in a forest, collecting herbs and whatnot. I was also there with him. At that time, we saw a few hunters shooting a small little beast. Upon taking a closer look, they were shooting baby Shula. Poor Shula had her mother killed by the hunters too…,” Dmitria had a sad expression on her face.
“Daddy and I know that perytons are rare and some wanted their skins, flesh, and so on. They can sell for a high price. But hunting rare species such as perytons are forbidden. Daddy was furious and fought the hunters. I tried to catch the frightened and injured Shula so that we could treat her afterward. Long story short, we—I mean Daddy—managed to teach the hunters a lesson and we brought Shula home with us to be treated. We tried to let Shula go back to the nature, but she refused. In the end, she became my partner beast,” Dmitria said with a proud smile on her face.
“So that’s what happened…!” I nodded.
The miracle twins had such an interesting story with their partner beasts. I wonder if I would have such an interesting story with my future partner Familiar or beast?
It would be nice if I could have one…
After having dinner, we spent some time in the library and family room to see some interesting shows. Later that night, we also had pillow fights~!
In the end, the females slept in the same room while the males slept in another room. Yep, that included Dmitria and Valerie.
In the middle of the night, I gazed on my friends’ faces.
…Whoa, to think I have that many of friends?
I really am blessed.
The next day, our fun ranch life finally started!
Dmitria and Valerie took us on rides on wyverns.
Surprisingly, Carbuncle was curious about how it felt like riding on wyverns and even sneered at the wyvern before riding it. I guess that gave her a sense of superiority, since wyvern didn’t have humanoid form and wasn’t considered part of [Omness]?
The children, namely Freyr, Freyja, and Leticia, were really excited and let out their screams of excitement. It was very lively.
“Well, it isn’t too bad to be like you non-draconis and enjoy riding like this,” Carbuncle admitted.
“Uuuwuwuwu, Kuu-chan, what do you find enjoyable from this?” Iris, apparently, had a phobia of height and decided to descend earlier.
But anyway, we had fun looking around while riding on a wyvern~
After riding on wyvern, it seemed to motivate Carbuncle to turn into her dragon form and fly again. The way she flew was so reckless, as expected of a dragon? And her speed…I really couldn’t imagine riding on her while going on with a speed like that.
The ranch was so big and there were just too many activities to do, so we did it one by one in the span of the next few days.
For example, feeding the herbivores first before we proceeded to feed the carnivores. It was really fun, and the children especially enjoyed it so much.
We also patted the animals there, like the fluffy rabbits, the fluffy sheeps. We also saw how they milked the cows and collected the eggs from the chickens, how to proceed with the dairy products. This was like a field study trip~
The most exciting or frightening part of our fun activities was learning how to ride~ There were a few things we could ride on, namely regular horses, Pegasi, and Raphus. By learning to ride, it meant we were riding on them ourselves, not like when we had Dmitria and Valerie handling it while we ‘hitch-hiked’.
Which was why, we weren’t allowed to ride on the wyverns ourselves. It might be too dangerous, so we would need a pro’s assistance.
I was most intrigued with the Raphus, so I spent more time to learn how to ride them. It was funny seeing such creatures, really. They were giant flightless birds, so they somehow resembled chickens to me. Although they couldn’t really fly, they could jump or ‘fly’ a little bit, and it was the fun of riding one.
We even conducted a small race among ourselves.
Again, Dmitria and Valerie as well as Garret-san, Malvin-san, and Ristea-san (when they weren’t too busy to accompany us) and some other workers supervised us so that there won’t be any accident.
Of course, we weren’t cooped up in the Flugel’s house.
Since I only trained my magic, swordsmanship, illusion and transformation skills aside from playing and lazing around during my holidays, this time’s visit to Flugel’s house really refreshed my mind.
Before long, Day 32, the fifth and the final day to my visit to the Flugel’s house finally arrived. We would be going home around the evening or late afternoon, so yeah, that would be the last day…
I never expected that something quite unusual to happen on my last day here, however. And that something was quite life-changing for me.
Yes, Day 32 Month 7 Year 981…On that day…
