Chapter 178
Chapter 178
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 178
Chapter Title: Victory in the Twilight Meadow
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“What the heck is that… Is that even a person?”
Aki must have figured she’d have to dance like Ren Aron soon enough, because she suddenly aligned herself perfectly along a straight line from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes.
Celestial Flower Style stance!
And with a spirited shout, the Celestial Flower Style technique!
“Hya! Hya! Hiii-yah! Tan! Hwa!”
It was a textbook-perfect, upright posture that blended flawlessly with her adorable outfit.
Aki quickly finished demonstrating the forms, then clasped her hands in a formal greeting and bowed slightly to the audience.
“Hel-looo, eve-ry-bo-dy.”
Celine and I had already given her a standing ovation with tears streaming down our faces, a million and one times over… And then cheers erupted from all around, massive cheers.
“Wow, look at that milky skin!”
“She’s so cute, I think I’m gonna lose my mind!”
“You cowards! If you’re gonna bring someone, bring a person, not an angel!”
While the villagers from the southern village turned pale, everyone from our village let out roars of感動.
Ren Aron and Aki faced each other.
Judging by the surname Aron, he seemed like a kid from one of the prominent families in the indigo city of <Aristapo>, and I didn’t like the way he smirked down at Aki.
“Alright then, grape boy and girl, please take your seats.”
Ren Aron sat down with dance-like flair.
Aki threw a few pointless punches—swish, swish-swish—before plopping down across from him.
“Show me what you’ve got, Aki… Show this primitive human brat the power of a true dragon…”
Valencidis, who’d been standing beside him, narrowed his eyes and said,
“You’re making a face like some black mage corrupted by the abyss, Rain Ludwig.”
“Shut up.”
“Fine. Nothing worth watching anyway. I’ll go keep watch around the perimeter. Zernix might pull some stunt again.”
Even if he acted disinterested, it seemed like he wanted to protect this festival.
By the time Valencidis left, the two glasses on the table were already brimming with luscious grape juice.
The witch, who had poured equal amounts into each, said,
“Then, for the first glass—begin!”
The rules were simple.
The two representatives drank the grape juice simultaneously at the announcer’s call.
Up to three bottles max. If both finished all three, the side that danced the most beautifully to the village folk song won.
“Wait… What? Dance? What kind of dance?”
When I glared at Florena in shock at the witch’s explanation, she winked as if to say not to worry.
“Aki standing there is a dance in itself. No need for her to do anything so crude.”
No, even so.
Was it really okay to just let it slide like this?
“Yes, first bottle! The grape kids’ faces are already flushing red! I wonder if they can finish all three?”
I tried to protest, but the villagers from both sides were pounding drums and gongs, belting out lively songs, completely drowning me out.
“Grapes are great~ Grapes are yummy~ Give us grapes~ Lots and lots~!”
Laughter burst out here and there in the crowd. Plenty of people were shoulder-dancing along, singing the folk tune with the villagers.
“But is that really grape juice?”
“What else would it be, poison?”
“No, but why’s that dancer kid’s face beet red?”
I pointed at Ren Aron, who had just finished his second bottle.
“Urgh…”
He clutched his forehead, groaning as if his head was spinning.
That was unmistakably the motion of someone drunk. Then Florena burst out laughing—puhaha—and pointed to the other side.
“Don’t fall for it, he’s faking! Showmanship, showmanship!”
“If that’s showmanship, he should be a clown, not a dancer.”
“Then what’s that? She wouldn’t be so perky if it was booze.”
Exactly.
On the other side, Aki had already downed her second bottle in no time and was gleefully shaking her glass at the witch.
“More—please—! More—please—! Ho-tto taste, more—please—!”
Stunned for a moment, or maybe too hyped to think?
By the time I snapped out of it, the third bottles had filled each glass.
Villagers with trays wove through the crowd, handing out glasses to everyone.
“Don’t drink yet. Wait just a moment.”
What they were waiting for was obvious.
The moment when the three suns hung on the horizon where the undulating ridges of the Crimson Mountains gave way to the grasslands.
That was when the twilight flowers would begin to glow faintly.
“Now—go!”
At that shout, the grape boy and girl—and everyone else—downed their glasses in one gulp.
At the same instant, in the year’s final twilight, the twilight flowers unfurled their buds one by one, dazzling the world in a riot of colors that stung the eyes.
Purple flowers, pink flowers.
Golden flowers, reddish-brown, and pearlescent…
Petals bearing the hues of twilight drenched the vision in vertigo, scattering their white seeds across the sky.
“And now! Since both boy and girl finished the grape juice, it’s time for the dance showdown!”
The problem was with the grape boy. Ren Aron, who had barely choked down the third bottle.
Amid those seeds, he performed heavenly footwork with the blissful grin of the intoxicated…
Then sprawled flat on his back in the flower field, laughing hysterically.
“Oh, what’s happening! If the northern village’s grape girl doesn’t collapse, it’s a win for the north!”
Finding it suspicious, the witches from both villages rushed to the center table to inspect the bottles.
The first bottle was fine.
The third was fine.
The issue was the second. The witches’ jaws dropped simultaneously as they picked it up.
“This… It’s the strongest one from our village. Why’s it here?”
“The stuff that even adults can’t handle after one glass?”
“Yeah, that one! But how’s your village’s grape girl totally fine?”
Strangely, Aki showed no sign of intoxication. Such worries were a luxury for an absolute immortal being.
She sprang up, vigorously demonstrating Celestial Flower Style martial arts to the crowd—then suddenly locked eyes with me.
She tossed aside the dance and grape girl role, scampered across the flower field, and rubbed her face against my leg.
“A-puu.”
Pipi landed on Aki’s head, playfully pecking her crown.
“Apu, apu, apu.”
Pipi then settled in the flower field and broke into its long-lost Pipi Dance. Aki bounced around, circling me gleefully.
“Uwahahahaha!”
“Is that a dance too?”
“She’s insanely cute!”
Only in that moment, amid the joyous laughter filling the flower field, did I truly understand. Only then could I smile.
It wasn’t just the flower field that was beautiful.
It was because my friends were there with me in that moment, that it became such a wistful, beautiful memory…
Just like Aki and Pipi were by my side now.
“Aki, you still need to show them more martial arts. They’re waiting.”
“A-lri-ghty.”
Watching Aki demonstrate her martial arts in the twilight world, I slowly emptied the glass I’d been given earlier.
A sharp tang wet my tongue, followed by the sweet grape aroma spreading through my body.
As I smiled with the buzz, somehow… I felt voices I shouldn’t have heard.
- Lin, over here! Look at this flower! Doesn’t it look just like twilight?
And their laughter too.
The laughter of those guys, back when I wasn’t here, in times I wasn’t part of, hiding their sorrow behind smiles as they savored the same atmosphere.
Was this fantastical twilight momentarily blurring the boundaries between past and present?
- Lin, when you’re left alone someday, these memories from here will help you remember us.
Aki turned to me then, waving her arms with a beaming smile, so I pulled my bamboo hat low over my eyes to hide the twilight dew sparkling there.
Just like 300 years ago, hiding a shy smile in front of Rista, Kies, and Fride.
Just like that day 300 years ago… feeling Pipi’s playful pecks on my ear.
“Pipi, those guys would’ve loved this festival.”
Plenty of booze for Kies’s tastes, and kids galore to delight Fride, who couldn’t get enough of them…
“And Rista?”
“Rista, cry, laugh, laugh, cry.”
“No need to say for Rista.”
She was the woman who shone like the ever-bright sun, filling everyone at the festival with overflowing joy.
A hallucination?
Or was I losing it?
For a fleeting moment, I thought I saw them in the middle of the flower field, clapping to Aki’s dance and laughing.
- These flowers will whisper it. That our story, that coming here today, wasn’t some legend.
Yeah, ahh, you’re right, Fride.
When I wiped the tears blurring my vision, they were gone.
Instead, Aki’s image—dancing amid the cheers and scattering seeds—burned deep into my retinas.
‘Aki.’
I hoped this scenery would etch deep into that kid’s memory too. Something to lean on through the eternity of immortality.
This time.
This brief time we shared.
A lantern to light your path when you’re left alone someday in immortality, just like me…
‘Just like how those mere five years sustained all the time I was left alone.’
So that if you ever return here, nature might show you my figure as naturally as it let me meet them again today.
* * *
“It’s all done.”
A fairly famous painter from the Northern Republic had captured Aki’s face—and her grape girl outfit—in vibrant strokes.
She wouldn’t stay still, so he’d painted her sleeping face from last night…
Now, powered by the printing press, Aki’s face would grace every bottle entered in this year’s wine contest.
I didn’t want attention, but since it was black-and-white printing, her red hair and golden eyes wouldn’t show, so no worries.
I was planning to enter the World’s Greatest Martial Arts Tournament anyway.
“Aki, you were just too too cute.”
“Thanks to Aki, we smashed those Le Col snobs flat! Felt so damn good.”
In the early morning of the new year, the villagers who’d come to see us off at the dock looked reluctant.
They asked if we couldn’t stay longer, but the village was prosperous and untouched by war, so there was no real help to offer. We declined.
Above all, intoxicated by the memories of the twilight flower field, staying even a bit longer felt like I might never leave.
“You really don’t want any special reward?”
Florena asked with a yawn-laced voice, so I pondered briefly before replying in a somewhat forlorn tone.
“Just sell a lot of it.”
“Huh?”
“So that even years or decades from now, Aki can reminisce about today—sell that wine all over the world. And keep the flower field safe that way.”
That label would be proof for Aki. Proof that she came to this flower field with me yesterday.
A modest offering to an immortal child, I suppose.
Florena waved it off like it was nothing.
“No way we couldn’t sell tons. Reservations were insane just yesterday… This year’s gonna be chaos.”
“Good to hear.”
“If you’re traveling, swing by later with Aki. I’ll gift you the first bottles with the new label.”
“Yeah, if there’s a chance.”
Of course, that chance would never come.
If the journey succeeds, Aki wouldn’t be by my side when I returned here. She’d live with her own kind.
Feeling an inexplicable loneliness in the arm cradling the soundly sleeping Aki, I boarded the ferry.
“Then we’ll be off. Be happy, everyone.”
I gently shook Aki’s arm, and the villagers sent fervent cheers toward our boat gliding over the water.
The day we reach [Flame Myriad], I’ll have to part with Aki like this too. What face should I make then? What words should I say…
I figured I should start practicing now. Amid a wry smile that wouldn’t fade, I placed a hand on my chest and spoke to the dragon’s soul.
“We made that promise, so… Alakishi.”