Volume 1 - CH 33

I had always been wishing for time to stop, and never move again on a certain day. I wasn’t just daydreaming, but it was just to remind myself to always appreciate what you have.

The people with torches in their hands, were singing as they slowly proceeded to the centre of the town, where Simon had rung the huge bell before. In the middle of the town, there was a small tower made out of wooden sticks and hay.

There wasn’t any host, nor was there any town chief to give a speech. As if they practised beforehand, the people shuffled orderly into a circle.

Wolfgang walked out from the crowd with a handsome young man in tow. Carrying an unlit torch in one of their hands, they stretched their torches out into a lit brazier under the gazes of the crowd.

After that was some simple speech that I could understand, but the order was messed up. Maybe it was some kind of literary writing of this world.

What the handsome man said was something along the lines of: “I, representative of the humans of Nightfall Town, am grateful for the help and support of the monsters to the humans. May the days ahead be forever peaceful and filled with happiness.”

What Wolfgang said was something like : “I, representative of the monsters of Nightfall Town, am grateful for the protection and understanding of the humans for the monsters. May the fields always be filled with bountiful harvests.”

These two sentences must have been chosen and practised by both of them beforehand. In a fluid motion, both of them raised their lit torches and threw it into the wooden tower.

Without a moment’s hesitation, the tower caught ablaze. As if they had already practised beforehand, the townspeople started taking turns going near the tower and adding their own torch onto the blazing inferno. With a pat on my back, Wolfgang signalled us to follow suit.

Actually, these kinds of festivals were directly against any scientific benefit with such waste of wooden supplies as well as the mass amount of smoke produced.

Yet, for these people who lived at the mercy of the elements, what kind else of festival would they be able to celebrate?

To light up the darkness was the most simple form of pleasure for humans. Each torch represented a townsfolk, which could be interpreted as a show of the residents banding together.

I’ve liked this small town ever since before, because even though there weren’t any strict laws or codes to get by, the residents still lived together peacefully and happily.

“SENEHARELLA!”

Cheers echoed repeatedly from the town centre, as the tower shone its glory upon the residents whose numbers don’t even reach a thousand.

My wife smiled as we held our hands tightly together, the slight pain reminding me that this wasn’t a dream.

After the cheers came the time for songs. Simon and a few other young men set up instruments and started playing a light yet fast folk music. Although we didn’t know how to sing it, we still waved our hands together as we tried to blend ourselves into this beautiful night.

And then as quick as a blink, I was suddenly separated from my wife.

Although I didn’t know if it was of malicious intent, I was still a bit shocked. The one pulling her away from me was none other than the succubus Lia too. I wonder what would happen between the two of them.

Wolfgang made me put on a handsome suit too. I couldn’t even remember the last time I wore one. As I stared at myself through the mirror, a tinge of nostalgia came to me.

The leather shoes didn’t fit my size, and the tie was slightly too tight, but I was still quite pleased with it. Who knew that even in a different world I would have the chance to wear a getup so dashing.

“Wolfgang, this is?”

“For both of you, a gift~”

“Ah, I sincerely give you my thanks.”

‘‘Hehe, this is nothing. Because the both of you are……special.”

“What does that mean?”

“It has been a long time since a human and a monster got together.”

“I see……”

“Alright, take a good look, you dashing gentleman!”

I was quite surprised at how Wolfgang was able to hold a comb with those claws of his, and his skills were unexpectedly decent too. The hair he styled for me was seriously good looking.

“Ms.Lou Woo still needs some time, please wait a moment.”

“Sure.”

As we both puffed on a cigarette, we returned to the town centre. The people there had already started dancing among themselves. There were couples, husbands and wives, as well as children.

Those of old age were sitting at the sides as they started drinking alcohol that somehow suddenly manifested here as they chatted happily among themselves.

And from a distance, I took stock of the two that could steal the entire show.

“Oh hoh~ Lia really is still the same as ever.”

“Huh?”

Wolfgang was much taller than me, so he must have seen something. I could only make out the body figures were my wife and Lia.

She was near. The person that I loved the most slowly got nearer to me. 

Her shoulder-length short brown hair had the sweet smell of chocolate. The black dress she had on was a tubetop, with it’s straps crossing over each other on her neck. It’s velvety cloth was tightly wrapped around her waist, with the cloth just barely covering the crotch area. At the same time, tassels with gold and silver fragments on them could be seen swinging on the similarly shiny scales.

Each breath I took was as if I was choking on it, which made even swallowing my own saliva hard……

Standing in front of me, my wife made a crazy seductive move—— she gently tucked her hair behind her ears. And on her earlobe was an immensely beautiful, brightly shining piece of jewel hanging off of it.

No sane men in this world would have no biological reactions after seeing such blatant seductive visual temptations.

Of course, unless he was a homosexual.

My mind was instantly filled with compliments for her that I wanted to scream out loud for everyone to hear.

But whatever was concocted in my mind, suddenly transformed into a few words when they reached my mouth……

“Where did the snakes go?”

Scratching my head, I spouted this question.

I hadn’t actually wanted to voice out my question, but seeing how there was only hair on head now, those cute snakes had suddenly disappeared!

“Harh?!”

As Medusa stood here, stunned, Wolfgang shook his head as the pleased look on Lia’s face had immediately disappeared.

“Oh Mr Lou Woo……Oh……”

Wolfgang covered his face with his claws as he made a sound of helplessness.

W-wait a moment, let’s be reasonable here. You guys made the snakes of my wife’s  hair disappear. Isn’t that the same as chopping off the ten fingers of someone’s hand!?

My wife took a look at Lia, who started waving her hand as if saying: ‘I don’t care about this dumb couple anymore.’

“Erm…like this?”

The snakes peeked their little heads out from the hair, spitting their tongues out intermittently as their eyes darted around.

Ah! My cute little snakies! You’re back!

Erh…why does this feel like Medusa was NTR’ed by the snakes in her hair.

Well, what I really wanted to say was, there was no need to try and specifically dress up like a real human. 

Didn’t I say it before? The one I loved wasn’t only your appearances.

“Really beautiful.”

“Really?”

“Really really.”

As we both embraced into a hug, I could hear sighs of relief from the crowd around us.

Why are you guys even feeling relieved, shouldn’t it be me instead!?

“Mr Lou Woo, you……forget about it.”

Giving a pat on my back, Wolfgang walked away with a look of resignation.

Parker pointed at me, and with his hands made a shape of a hammer, which he then knocked on his own head twice……

Are you saying there was something wrong with my head?

Lia kept her silence, she merely sighed deeply in front of us and gave a pat on my wife’s back……

To be honest I wasn’t so dense as to not sense the atmosphere, but I just couldn’t react in that particular instance.

After that, Xifu and I tried our hands on dancing. It was a piece of cake for Medusa, since she didn’t need any dance steps.

With what little experience of ballroom dancing I had back in high school, I managed to somehow keep up with her.

“Aren’t you cold?”

As we danced, I then only noticed that the dress she wore was bareback.

“Not cold.”

Resting my hands on her smooth back, it became hard to keep it in place.

I didn’t know if it was because the bonfire was really warm or was it because of her getup, that after a mess of a dance we did, my body felt like it was burning.

As she slithered her tail in time with my steps, her eyes were filled with love.

Loosening my tie for a bit, I decided to take a rest.

I didn’t know when, but Lia and Wolfgang had started dancing together. 

Well, it was more of a ‘flying’ dance. Because of her wings, Lia could keep her balance even in midair. Coupled with the strong arms of Wolfgang, the two of them could make various perfect acrobatic moves, making the hardest dance moves in the world seem like a piece of cake.

For example, Lia easily pulled Wolfgang’s hand as she did a whole 360° in midair.

Parker was drinking at the sidelines with the other middle aged men, while Simon was utterly devoted to his duty as he played something that looked like a flute.

As Xifu almost fell asleep as she rested against me, Parker started lighting up fireworks.

These fireworks weren’t like the colourful ones that I saw during Chinese New Year back in my old world, but were merely colours of bluish white and orange ones.

The little sparks they made were honestly kind of pathetic to look at. But for the riled up crowd in the town square, this was more than enough.

Now that I think about it, this was probably the work of Parker too.

Looking at the meagre display of fireworks, I actually felt happier instead.

Here, I didn’t have the tourist-like attitude, like I was just passing through. Instead, for everything I see or hear, it became an attitude of mine to always be a type of observer , documentor and an analyser that would yield useful knowledge.

But after almost a hundred days here, this attitude had slowly changed bit by bit. Monsters weren’t as scary as I thought, and humans weren’t all cruel and cold blooded as I assumed.

In the end, I probably would need to spend the remainder of my life in this world. If I was always on my guard and lived a dull life, why don’t I try to blend into this wondrous world instead? 

Not to mention, that I found my other half here too.

Oh, now that I thought about it, I just realised that a hundred days in this world would make the 100th day anniversary of me meeting Medusa.