CH 97

“By the way, what about my family’s home nya?”

As expected of the dull cat girl, she quickly noticed that the topic of the fishing village where her parents lived had not recently been talked about–discarded for the more interesting matter of the dragon this time around. Ellis quickly laid the record straight.

“It’s all right. I’ve already received a request from the Merchant Guild, so as soon as the first carriage and a few other logistical concerns have been taken care of, we should be able to head right on over.”

Yes, this was a complete and utter lie. The truth was that everyone besides Katie had been having so much fun playing with the Land Dragon Ra-chin that they had completely forgotten about the western fishing village.

Claire had asked Ra-chin to decrease to about a three meter long size and rode him all around Warren. The other citizens were able to quickly get used to Ra-chin’s appearance as a result, and soon the sight of the two melted their hearts. It also became a popular sight for children who loved to play around with his swinging tail or run up alongside them. It was quite the positive result, so it couldn’t be helped that he had been reduced to Claire’s personal mule.

Frau enjoyed sparring while wearing full protective armor against Ra-chin in his 2 meter long size. Well, it allowed Ra-chin to learn how to fight in narrow spaces while Frau learned how to properly judge the strength behind an enemy’s attack, so a little pain cannot be helped.

Ra-chin’s worst memory had to have been while he was playing with Reeve though. She took him while he was in his human form to Master’s Hideaway to teach him gambling. As a result, the guardian dragon of Warren suffered one humiliating defeat after another and lost all of the money he had been given. He even lost against Buzz and Doug. Having been exposed to the red-hot shame of being a massive loser, Ra-chin had sworn to never go back to Master’s Hideaway ever again.

So in order to cover for Ellis’s tiny white lie, Reeve came to the Merchant Guild.

“Is Maria here?”

“What’s the matter Reeve?”

“I have a request, as soon as possible, I need you to prepare a carriage for the sake of visiting the western fishing village.”

“I wonder, will you being going as well Reeve?”

“Of course.”

Ufufufufufufu.

“If you would accompany me inside the carriage, I can use a mandate as the guild master to have a carriage prepared right away.”

Maria threw a blatant invitation right towards Reeve without thinking about her age. But Reeve thought about it. From Warren to the fishing village, Katie said it would only take about half a day if they traveled in a straight line. That meant they would arrive during the day and could leave early next morning. And there is no way Maria would try something funny while the sun was still out.

“I understand, that condition should be acceptable. Could I ask that we be prepared to depart early one morning?”

Maria had never thought that Reeve would agree, but she soon got over her surprise and started barking out orders all around.

“Nicole, I shall take care of directly purchasing new marine products, so find a place to distribute them! Ichiro, immediately prepare the wagons and my horse-drawn carriage! We depart tomorrow people, so let’s go!”

Huh?

“Maria, we are leaving tomorrow?” Reeve tried to confirm.

“Fortune favors the quick Reeve!” Maria shouted out her reply while still barking out more orders to her guildlings.

Thus, as usual, Reeve was forced to return home from with Merchant Guild with drooping shoulders.

“Mistress, sorry. We’re leaving early in the morning…….tomorrow…..”

This was the confession Reeve made when she returned right before dinnertime. Katie jumped up in excitement at the wonderful news, but the other three shared a not-so-eager look. They had made zero preparations for any kind of trip. So Katie was the only one who moved forward to thank Reeve for the news.

“Thank you nya, Reeve. It’s all right, we are already ready to go nya.”

Although this was a lily garden, the cat girl was the only one who had flowers growing in her head. She truly believed that all the preparations had been finished without her noticing.

Then the next day inevitably came around.

In order to show the people in the fishing village that it was safe to travel to Warren, Ra-chin had to come along with them as proof. Thus it was also necessary to bring Pi-tan along as well or else have to deal with his pouting and burning jealousy. Ellis and Claire confirmed with each other that it would be necessary to extend the length of the carriage in the future, but there should be problem this time since it was just a half day’s journey. And so they linked up their carriage to Maria’s caravan.

Although it wasn’t much of a caravan this time around as Maria had prepared only two carriages. The first was Maria’s personal deluxe carriage dedicated to leisurely trip for her. The second one would be for the carrying of products which was being driven by Goro.

“Goro, it’s been a long time,” Frau immediately moved to greet the driver.

“Mm, too long,” Goro greeted her back with a smile.

The two of them had been cooking friends ever since the very first trip the girls had taken to Marsfield. A gachihomo and gachilez. It was a rare relationship where a man and a woman could talked intimately between each other with a zero percent chance of any romantic emotions popping up. So Frau took a seat next to him and started catching up.

“Reeve, over here.”

Meanwhile Maria started calling out to Reeve from within the luxury carriage. Reeve left her spot as the driver of her own luxury carriage and started heading over having completely given up.

“Sorry nya.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

A cat girl who didn’t know what else she could do other than apologize and a noble daughter who had a headache from thinking about her future shared a short exchange while sleepily staring at the sky.

As a result, Ellis’s carriage had Katie acting as the driver with only Ellis, Claire, Ra-chin, and Pi-tan riding as passengers. But none of the other three held any worries as whenever it was just those two girls together, their talks usually end up steering in a more serious direction. Sure enough, no sooner had the carriages started off than Ellis and Claire had started to busy themselves talking about the second phase of constructions projects currently underway, the management of the new apartment housing, new improvements that could be done to their luxury carriage, and an extension plan for their mansion.

Ra-chin meanwhile rushed over and climbed on top of Ellis’s knees. Ellis unconsciously began stroking his back leading Ra-chin to look down on Pi-tan as if to declare his victory. Not one to suffer such an indignation, Pi-tan climbed on top of Claire’s lap and laid down on his back. Claire unconsciously started to pet Pi-tan’s stomach whose upside down line of sigh declared his reverse victory. Understanding this provocation, Ra-chin turned over onto his own back and had his belly rubbed as well. Ellis and Claire were so engrossed into their own conversations they were left completely unaware of the ongoing battle happening right under their noses.

Thus until they arrived at the fishing village, the sight never before seen of a guardian dragon and an invulnerable monster constantly showing their bellies to a couple of little girls continued to unfold.

When the scent of seawater started to fill the air, everyone peeked their heads outside of the carriage windows.

What spread out in front of them was a blue shining sea.

Ellis hadn’t visited the sea since her elementary school excursion back in Eiji’s world, and she had never felt any need to go back. As far as she was aware, there was nothing fun there she wanted to do.

But right now was different.

Excitement started to well up in her chest as she muttered to herself, “Let’s really enjoy the ocean!”

It was only a short while later that the carriage was able to arrive at the naming fishing village where Katie’s parents lived. It had some spectacular scenery that was the exact opposite of how the ocean looked from a distance. There were numerous flimsy looking huts that looked like they would collapse after the first strong wind spread out around the muddy ground. A few small fish and other dead animal carcasses lined the streets creating the unique smell of the beach and old fish for everyone to enjoy.

Ellis couldn’t help but frown in spite of herself. But Katie didn’t seem to notice her friends’ reactions or the smell as she immediately headed towards a specific shack.

“Pa, are you still alive nya?”

As she started banging on the door hard enough that Ellis thought she was going to knock it in, a large cat man soon came out looking irritated. The hair covering his body was as black as soot and his expression was engraved with a number of deep wrinkles.

“What gya, why are you back here now Katie gya?”

Her father spoke gruffly and didn’t give the warmest welcome he could have, but Katie didn’t seem to mind it and started talking regardless.

“Since the dragon in the hills is gone, I came here to do trade for Warren nya. I came to tell you about it nya. You should go grab the other villagers now nya.”

“Gya! Is that true!?”

It turns out Katie’s father is the village chief for this village.

Katie’s father Gatis¹ immediately spread the word to the villagers and instructed them to all gather at the beach.

Ellis’s group looked out over the ocean while they waited. The white sandy beach was fine to the touch and spread out with an almost 300 meter width. At its north side was a steep cliff and to the south was a more rocky area.

“Maria, does everything look all right?”

Ellis walked over to try and get Maria’s impressions, but the guild master remained silent. Instead she looked out over the gentle movement of the waves while blocking some of the sun off her face and enjoyed that cool ocean breeze. She might not have said anything out loud, but in her heart, Maria was thinking, “Ellis is a genius.”

Soon all of the villagers had gathered with them on the beach. Even though they say all of them, their total number amounted to less than a hundred people, and every single one of them was a cat-like beastman.

On behalf of those villagers, Gatis tried to confirm with Katie. Was the dragon truly dead? But Ellis replied for her. She explained to him that they had actually chosen the path of coexistence rather than destruction. She then placed Ra-chin on the beach’s sand and chanted out {Reset Body}.

The Land Dragon’s body shimmered white and regained his gigantic size, but almost predictably, a panic ran through the crowd of villagers. Gatis looked like his black fur was about to turn white, and the only reason why nobody had started running away yet was because they were too afraid to move.

“Everyone, look at this nya!”

To try and calm them all down, Katie yelled out as loud as she could. She had jumped on top of Ra-chin’s head, straddling him like you would a horse.

Unfortunately at the same time, a voice spoke directly into each villagers’ consciousness.

“I am sorry for any problems I have caused. I have made a contract with this blonde-haired girl and become a guardian dragon to Warren, so I beg for your forgiveness.”

It goes without saying that it took quite awhile to gather all of the fleeing villagers back together after that.

1. I feel like right now is a good time to just point out that in romaji, the cat people Katie’s name looks like Kyati, Mati’s name looks like Myati, and Gatis’s name looks like Gyatis, so there is a running gag there with all of their names sounding cat-like.