Chapter 5

It was only after midnight that Adele and Sigmund returned from the wood full of fireflies.

Shortly after returning, Adele fell asleep straight away.

But even after Adele fell asleep, the little Sigmund stood up and jumped out of bed while he was rolling beside her.

Then he clenched his fists and flexed his back’s wings.

The feet of Sigmund floated up little by little, fluttering with the power of wings as small as the palms.

“I can fly. I can fly.”8

Sigmund, who flew from end to end of the room flapping his wings to make his face red, quickly returned to Adele, who fell asleep.

To show Adele that he can fly.

“Adele, Adele.”

Touching Adele’s fingers with both hands, he called her name, but Adele, who was deeply asleep, did not open her eyes.

A small breath came out evenly from the slightly open lips.

“Adele. Adele?”

After a few more calls, Sigmund eventually gave up.

“Sleepyhead.”

As soon as I blew my cheeks together, my cheeks swelled up.

When he was annoyed or couldn’t do what he wanted to do, Sigmund would always blow his cheeks like this and inflate his cheeks.

It means, “I’m angry, so please know.”1

But now Adele is sound asleep, and no matter how hard I do this, she won’t notice.

“Adele, I can fly. I can fly.”

Sigmund gently shook Adele’s shoulder.

Adele does not wake up once she falls asleep.

She work so much during the day that she sleep like this at night.

Then Sigmund becomes alone.

Sigmund never told Adele, but he  would often wake up this way at night.

Once I wake up, I can’t sleep until dawn.

Maybe it’s because I took a lot of naps during the day?

The haystack in the corner of the barn smelled good.

It was the smell of the hay.

Lying on a fluffy pile of hay while smelling it brings me to sleep.

When I wake up from such a nap, I play alone in the barn.

During the day, Adele is busy.

-If other people find out we can’t be together. You understand what I’m  saying, right? So you can’t get out of here.

Adele used to repeat the words several times.

Don’t get out of the barn.

Even if you’re curious about outside, bear it.

I’ll play with you at night.

I was so curious about the outside that I looked out through the broken wooden walls of the barn.

Every time I saw Adele was with a load of heavy things.

There are other people living in this house besides Adele.

A woman who rants every day, and a skinny man, ugly girls.1

Everyone is mean to Adele.

They leave all the hard work to Adele.

They’re bad people.

He’d like to scold them, but Sigmund knows he shouldn’t be caught.

“…..”

Sigmund looked down at his palm.

He is so small.

The hands are small and the body is small.

It’s very small compared to Adele, and he can’t help Adele from those bad guys either.

So he has to grow fast.

I want to grow so big that I can scold those bad guys who bully Adele.

And I will never make Adele lift anything heavy.7

Adele will sit on a haystack and rest in peace, without lifting all the heavy loads and without doing the hard work.

I’ll take Adele on my back who wants to fly in the sky and fly her with me.

I’ll collect all the world’s brightest jewels and give them to Adele.

He who tease Adele will be punished ten times, and he who bullies Adele a hundred times.

But in order to do that, I must first grow up fast.

“I can fly.”

Adele doesn’t know, but Sigmund can fly.

I’ve practiced a few times in the barn.

I flew well in the barn, but I couldn’t fly in the hill.

-You’re probably a big bird, maybe.

Adele had said so.

A big bird.

So Sigmund believed he could fly. Birds can fly. Why? Because I’m a bird.

A big bird.

“I can fly.”

He flew a little while ago.

It was only a little bit in the room, but he really flew.

I flew well in the barn, in the room, so I must be able to fly well outside.

Sigmund walked to the window, flapping his back’s wings.

I grabbed the window sill with my hands to climb up the window sill above my head.

After two failed attempts, Sigmund, who had barely climbed the window sill, climbed on it and looked down.

The Sigmund fluttered his back’s wings one more time.The wings as big as two palms fluttered.

“Hap.”

Sigmund, who breathed heavily, jumped into the air, flapping his wings hard.

“”Eup, eup, eup!”

He clasped his hands and leaned all his attention to the wings.

Is it because his face turned red, but only his wings moved hard?

“Ah!”

Sigmund’s lips were wide open.

Little by little, the body was rising up.

He was flying up with his wings moving.

“I can fly. I’m flying!”1

Once he began to fly, he flew in a pretty good shape.

Sigmund made a slow turn on the roof of Adele’s sleeping attic and flew up to the chimney.2

“Hi, chimney-bird.”

After greeting the little bird which built a nest on the edge of the chimney and holding the egg, Sigmund climbed a little higher.

As he climbed to the top of a tall tree next to the house, the owl, sitting at the end of the branch, rolled its eyes and looked at Sigmund.

“Hi, Owl. Look, I can fly, too.”

The wings were small, but it was not difficult to fly in the sky.

Now fully free to fly, Sigmund flew a little higher, closer to the clouds and the moon.1

As I climbed up to an incredibly high place, I could see the surroundings at a glance.

There was no light at all, but I could see everywhere.

It was amazing.

The darkness blinded me but I could see everything.

A field of barley lying sideways every time the wind blows, flying birds, and the lights of those far-off fireflies shining on the hills.

“What is that…”

Sigmund’s purple eyes headed far, far away.

I could see something glimmering in the distance.

That’s probably where Adele calls town.

Adele had said that there were all kinds of novelty in the village.

But I’ve never been to Adele’s village, and of course I’ve never been to the village.

Sigmund looked alternately at the distant light and the small house below.

‘I’ll be right back. It’s okay I’ll come back to Adele before she wakes up.’4

Sigmund, who thought to himself and made up his mind alone, flew toward the town.

There is one reason to go to the town.

There are many interesting things in the village and there are shops selling clothes.

The bad people in that house brought new clothes every time they went to town.

New clothes, new hats, and new shoes. But there was never Adele’s.

Bad people wear pretty clothes, and Adele always wears torn and old clothes. Sigmund hated it when Adele, the prettiest girl in the world, wore such clothes like that.

I want to dress you in pretty clothes. I’d like to go to town and find some pretty clothes and give Adele. Then Adele will definitely smile.

Of course, Sigmund has no silver. Sigmund doesn’t even know what money is.

Only a little more than ten days have passed since I was born in the world.

Adele is the only one who knows.

I learned everything from Adele.

And there was no money among what I learned from Adele.

So I don’t know that I need money to have clothes.

Sigmund just flew away without knowing anything.

***

Tadak, Tadak.

The soldier, who was dozing beside the burning bonfire, was awakened by the sound of footsteps.

“The discipline in the army has slackened.”

“I’m sorry, I’ll get it right.”

As soon as he woke up, he was embarrassed by the characters he saw, and two men passed by the  soldier who bowed down to his knee.

The man in a white cloak and a golden armor was the Grand Duke Ernes, who now rules this country.8

The man in silver armor, closely following the side of Grand Duke Ernes, the de facto ruler of the kingdom now that the emperor’s seat is empty, is Baron Lusen, who leads the Order of the Imperial Palace.

The reason why the ruler of the kingdom and the leader of the Knights of the Imperial Palace are now building a military camp near a small village on the outskirts is a secret that few people know about.

“Haven’t you found it yet?”

As soon as he entered the barracks, Grand Duke Ernes glared at Baron Lusen.

His eyes were full of anger.

“We’re expanding our search around us, so we’ll find it as soon as possible.”

“It’s the first thing I have to get my hands on. You know that, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

“If you fall into someone else’s hands…”

Grand Duke Ernes frowned violently.

It was the whereabouts of the holy egg that disappeared from the imperial temple that feared Grand Duke Ernes with pale gray hair and nervously brown eyes.

Holy Dragon’s Egg.

It was the dragon’s egg, which showed signs of hatching in three hundred years.

But it disappeared one day without a trace.

It is not yet known who did it.

Dragon is the founder of the Vissen Kingdom of this country.

A dragon with tremendous mana descended from this world, took control of human land and built a kingdom, which is what is now the Vissen kingdom.

The first Vissen emperor, who changed from dragon to human figure, ruled the kingdom for nearly a hundred years before returning to the heresy where he came from.

He went back to the world and left behind an egg, which was the second emperor.3

The second emperor, who awoke from an egg, was shaped like a human being, not a dragon, and he also ruled the kingdom for a hundred years. At the end, he took the shape of a dragon and went back to the second world.

Such a Vissen kingdom was ruled by a dragon of posterity, who had been awakened from the eggs left by his predecessors for generations, and from the emperors a few generations ago, the eggs had not hatched easily.

Usually, the ancestors hatched less than a month after they returned to the second world, but it took a year, 10 years and 100 years from some point on, and the eggs now showed no sign of hatching for 300 years.

It was only a month ago that the eggs, which had been enshrined in the palace for 300 years, changed.

The egg is starting to shake.

It was a sign of hatching.

Dragon’s egg that wakes up after 300 years.

It meant, in other words, that he was born the master of the real kingdom after 300 years.

Grand Duke Ernes is a man who succeeded the blood of a dragon born to one of the women of the preceding emperor and assumed the authority to rule the kingdom instead in the emperor’s absence.

Now that he had to hand over his reign to the real emperor, the most important thing to him was to be there the moment the dragon awoke from the egg.2

Dragon imprints the first thing he sees as soon as he wakes up from the egg.2

Only when you seize the moment will you lose this power that you have held so far.

If the egg fell into the hands of others, it means that this power is taken away.+

“I can’t let that happen.”

Grand Duke Ernes glittered with gruesome eyes.