The Lie-Eating Dragon and the Forgotten-Color Songstress
< I >
[ Day One ]
“Hey papa, what’s that?”, Efi asked, tugging on my sleeve. I ignored her and stared out the window.
Even though we were riding a train, I had to say it was moving along pretty slow. Heck, the horse-drawn carriage that ran past the train earlier was faster. The only thing this hunk of junk excelled at was shakiness.
“Papa, what’s thaaat!”
“Fancy! Efi wants to be fancy!”
Just as I finished my reply, Efi grabbed the scarf and tugged, hard. Acting too quickly for me to react, she strangled me, and I let out a groan.
I felt ready to die from the stress of conversing alone, and now you’re getting me physically, too? I’m not long for this world, am I…
“Aaaaagggh! Stop it, you stupid brat! Just sit still!”
Tearing away her hand (which was trying to strangle me further), I unwrapped my scarf and put it around Efi.
…It served no function for either warmth or fashion; instead, she was all but tied up by it. But…
“Ehehe! Now Efi is fancy!”
…As long as she was pleased with it, I guess it didn’t matter.
Looking at Efi so satisfied with herself, a wave of fatigue came over me.
Work hadn’t even started, so why was I feeling dizzy here of all places? I couldn’t help but worry for what lied ahead.
“Papa, why are you tired?”
‘Cause of you, I refrained from saying. Well, or maybe I just didn’t have the energy left to voice it. Instead, a little groan escaped my mouth.
Maybe I should take a nap here, I thought. Then I felt the cellphone in my pocket vibrate. Before the vibration even paused, I answered and muttered “Who?”
“Oh, oh? Why so exhausted? You okay over there?”
“…Hopefully not.”
This informant was skilled, but had some childish aspects. I was never very good at talking with her, but I felt she was vastly preferable to Efi.
Oh yeah, Efi - I turned to her, and found her sound asleep, the scarf still wrapped around her whole body.
“How boring. Feels like there’s not much point in teasing you these days, y'know? By the way, what alias are you using now? Claude? Duke?”
“Can’t tell you if I can or not until we know if it actually exists.”
The informant cackled at that over the phone.
“You’re talking about my info, you know? Granted, I’m not sure what conditions will get it to appear, but asking people around town might be the fastest way to find out.”
“Ah, wait, wait! Don’t walk fast! Nooo!”
I had no time to bother with her. First, I had to find a place to lodge here. The train arrived late, so I was in sort of a hurry.
“Oh yeah, do… trains? Do you use money for them?’ Realizing her earlier tactic wasn’t getting her any attention, she talked to me as she usually did.
"Obviously. If you think anything’s gonna be easy, that means it costs money.”
“So…?”
From my pants pocket, I produced a counterfeit ticket I’d created last night.
“So what you don’t have, you make.”
“Ah, it has a very nice air about it. All the inhabitants seem quite joyful, too.”
“So this is… a person’s house, you mean?”
“Yep. Just head straight down the road from this plaza and you’ll find the mansion. In fact, around this time should be when the Songstress is singing. If you get lost, you should follow her voice!”
I said my thanks to the man and left.
After walking a few minutes, Efi tugged on my sleeve and asked, “Hey papa, why is it when you talk to people different from me, you’re a different papa?”
“Not papa, I’m Al now. Don’t ever call me papa. Got it?”
“See, your voice is all different too! And your face! Why?” Efi kept tugging.
She’d really stretch that sleeve at this rate. Appearances are the number one thing you have to pay attention to when you’re tricking people. And anything said by a some bozo with a mismatched sleeve would probably lack credibility.
I silently poised my other hand to unleash a forehead-poke, and Efi let out a “gwuh!” and went docile.
With a quiet Efi in tow, I walked out of the plaza, and once I was sure we were on a road without many people, I began to answer her question.
“Listen up. People… When they meet somebody for the first time, first they judge the person by their appearance. Next, their voice and tone. What’s inside, well, that comes way at the end.”
“But you’re all scarfed now, so you’re hiding your face…”
After walking straight down the path for a while, a pretty sound came into earshot, like a bird chirping from far away. No… It was a human singing.
“Ooh! Pretty song!”
Efi’s mood was improved, her eyes sparkling and voice elated. Felt like a lie how she’d been all quiet and moping like she didn’t want to take another step earlier.
“Once we reach the mansion, we can hear it up close. So pick up the pace a little.”
“Gotcha!”, Efi shouted, and her pace increased. Or rather, she started off running. Did she already forget all those times I said not to get ahead of me?
For as slow as Efi’s head was, she was fast on her feet. I supposed she couldn’t get lost on a straight path, but there was no guarantee she wouldn’t run into something. I groaned and hurried after her.
Turned out I had no reason to worry; by the time I spotted Efi, I’d reached the great white door of the mansion without any real incidents along the way. As for Efi, she was talking with an unfamiliar young man in front of the door.
He had blue hair and wore a black silk hat tilted to one side, decorated with a yellow ribbon. On the side opposite the hat stuck out a perky, dog-like ear, and it twitched about every time Efi said something. Must have had some beast blood in him.
Actually, I recalled how compared to other towns, this place seemed to have a lot of people with animal-like ears and tails.
“Oh! That’s him! He’s my… um, Al!”
Efi pointed to me and began to explain me to the young man. I was focused on catching my breath after all that running, but when the man looked at me, I hurried to reassemble my expression and stuck my face out from the scarf.
“Good day… I’m sorry my sister’s come and bothered you. She didn’t pull any pranks, did she?”
He smiled nicely. “Ah, you’re her older brother? I was afraid she might be lost, so I’m glad you weren’t far. Do you have some business at this mansion?”, he asked in a kind voice.
“Oh, I should introduce myself. I’m Al, and the little girl there is Efina. We’re on a journey, but we’re at a bit of a loss looking for a place to stay in town. A friendly townsperson told us we might be able to inquire here…”
“Indeed, I see now. Yes, Mischa will certainly welcome you. As for myself… I am Phil, Mischa’s humble butler.” The young man, Phil, politely bowed.
I bowed in return, lifted my head, and put my hand on the door handle. The old, grave doors slowly opened with a slight creak.
Going upstairs and down a long hallway, Phil, walking a few steps ahead of us, came to a sudden stop.
He produced a small cluster of keys from his pocket and put one of them into the door’s keyhole. Right as it clicked open, he began to speak.
“Please make use of this room. The mansion is quite large, and first-time visitors are often lost… But I believe this room should pose little issue, being near a hallway which leads to the stairs.”
Phil quietly opened the door and invited us to go in.
It was a spacious room with two beds and refreshing light pouring in through a big window. Looked fancier than some hotels.
Maybe this was pretty lucky after all, considering they were letting us stay here for free.
“Wow, the bed’s so fluffyyy!”
While I was busy thinking about that, Efi dove onto a bed and hopped on it like mad.
Shoot, I got careless and let go of her… I apologized to Phil, who was snickering, and went to seize her.
“Oh, no, it’s good to be so full of energy.”
While I fought to calm down Efi squirming about in my arm, Phil asked a question in a suddenly serious tone.
“…By the way, for about how long to you plan to stay here?”
It was a normal, obvious question for someone lending out a room - but the air about Phil seemed a little different, I felt.
…Was there something to this?
“Oh, let’s see… There are a few matters we want to look into in this town. I would like if we could stay here for three days, at least. Would that be a problem?”
For an instant, Phil’s expression seemed to stiffen at the words “three days.”
…So there is something.
Observing Phil’s countenance, I waited for his next move.
“…No, that’s not a problem. Simply, it’s just that there are many inhabitants in this mansion, coming near-daily to listen to Mischa sing or just to visit. It is typically busiest in the noontime…” He paused. “Is that all right with you?”, he asked with a somewhat uneasy look.
He seemed to be desperately trying to conceal his thoughts, but his expression just grew stiffer. I supposed everything he’d just said was his answer for the public.
I put on a cheery look in contrast. “No, no! Not to worry. As you can see, my sister’s rather noisy herself, so I’m quite used to it.”
With that, Phil’s shoulders loosened and he smiled. As for Efi, who I’d offered up as an example, she was still thrashing her arms and legs about in my grip.
“Simple. You can just answer, "I’m a dummy, so I don’t know!”“
“Hmm. Is having a lousy brain bad?”
“Got it!”
Wonder if she really understood? …That’d probably do, at any rate. Until Efi knew what “dummy” meant, I could go with that. I didn’t really mind.
“Alright… There’s still time until the sun goes down, so I’ll check out the town some more. If I’m gonna look for the bluebird, I should know where things are first.”
“Me too!” Efi leapt over as I stood up from the bed to go out. It was pretty forceful, so I nearly toppled over. Managing to regain balance, I tore Efi away from my waist.
“Thought you were saying you didn’t wanna walk anymore earlier? This town is huge, so forget it. Stay here.”
I threw her toward the bed, and she booed me from atop it.
“I’ll buy you something sweet on the way back.”
“Efi will hold down the fort!”, she replied with gleaming eyes.
I gave her a sidelong glance, left the room, and went back outside the mansion.
Back at the mansion, I opened the front door and found Mischa singing in the hall again. But unlike before, there wasn’t a huge gallery; the only person listening was Efi.
“Oh, welcome back! You must be tired.”
Mischa noticed me first and gave me a soft smile. Nobody had shown me any concern for my fatigue and suffering lately - and I’d been going through nothing but, so I really needed that.
“Huh? Al, you’re back! Sweets, please!”
…And she was the main reason why.
Wanting to keep that from showing to Mischa, I prepared my face, removed my scarf, and took out a package of cookies I’d bought at a nearby store. Efi’s eyes shone at once, and she tried to rip it from my hands, but I firmly held onto the edge of the package.
When Efi ate sweets, it was like she removed some kind of limiter, and sometimes she’d spit fire. It seemed there were some dragons who could manipulate forces of nature beyond their usual abilities, so I wondered if Efi was one of them. I’d had to throw out a change of clothes in the past thanks to it.
“…You can’t eat it here. You’ll have to come back to the room to eat.”
My normal self nearly came out in front of Efi, but I was cautious to keep on the mask of a kind older brother in front of Mischa.
“Whaaa?! But I wanna eat with the singer lady!” Efi refused and pulled on the package.
Typically she would complain, but comply - why was she resisting now of all times? I guess I really didn’t get how to handle her yet.
“Heehee, don’t concern yourself with me. You do need to get back to your room soon. Please enjoy them for yourself, little sweet-lover Efi!”
Mischa spoke with a charming smile, then bowed and went up the stairs.
…How unexpected.
I didn’t think our war over the cookie bag had been very well-acted. Yet she didn’t show any particular doubts - in fact, maybe she could even see us as a friendly brother and sister.
“Heyyy! Let’s eat cookies!”
Efi’s words brought me back, and hit me with fatigue. Augh… How long should I keep this life up?
Should I consult with someone else of her species? The dragons I knew were enough to count on one hand… My feelings started to get messy thinking about it, so I put a stop to that.
Let’s just sleep for today. Yeah, that’s a good idea.
Not lending an ear to Efi’s whining, I quickly headed up the stairs to our room. She went “Ah!” and went after me, sticking behind me thereafter.
“Okay!”
…Couldn’t even decide if she was easy or hard to handle. Oh well. Relieved it wasn’t a lengthy battle, my shoulders loosened.
Come to think of it, I’d heard dragons weren’t too satisfied by human food. So why did Efi like sweets so much? And before we came here, I’d fed her quite a lot of lies, so I thought she shouldn’t be getting hungry anytime soon.
“Candy would be good!”
To be extra sure, I asked the butler Phil to keep an eye on Efi, and left her at the mansion while I explored the town.
Today, I would begin my search for the bluebird in earnest.
Now where to start, I pondered… Suddenly, someone behind me forcefully slapped my back.
“Hey, traveler! Fancy seeing you. Guess it’s just 'cause I go around the same places every day! Gahaha!”
I turned around to find that same bearded man. For such a big town which had to have a lot of inhabitants, we really did meet often.
Given our previous conversations, it appeared he knew a fair bit about the town, so maybe he knew something about the bluebird.
“Oh, good day! It’s true, we keep running into each other. You see, I came here to look into the bluebird. Would you know anything, sir?”, I asked with such a cheerful voice and smile, even I thought I sounded idiotic.
Having such a model example around me lately, it seemed I could pull off a far more idiotic performance.
“Ohh! The bluebird, I see. Yes, it’s in this town, alright. Though I’ve never seen it. Still, it’s why everyone in this town is so happy, with a few exceptions!”
After walking a bit, in a main street lined with various stores, I decided to try casually observing the townspeople.
Indeed, the majority seemed like bright-faced people, but there was the occasional person with a strikingly dark expression. And I saw not a single person somewhere in the middle.
On one hand, I couldn’t perceive the gloomy people as simply having an especially low standard of living. Nor did it feel like they were stricken with some illness, or they were troublemakers, or that there was a significant wage gap between townspeople. There must have been some other reason for the difference in expressions, but I couldn’t tell from looking.
“Maybe it has something to do with the bluebird…?”
The man earlier had told me that thanks to the bluebird, they lived happily.
Given that, were these people who hadn’t received the bluebird’s blessing? If so, what was the reason?
The more I thought about it, the threads of the mystery seemed to get increasingly complex to untangle. I was working with too little information still.
I checked where the sun was at to determine how much time I had left. Still plenty. It was only my second day of searching, so it was unsurprising that I’d have to fumble about.
Though groaning, I moved ahead.
Although I had to wonder, how big was this bluebird? Searching for a little bird in a town as big as this sounded pretty terrible. Once I found it, I’d be sure to price the info extra-high for the hat informant. Fueling myself with that thought, I resumed walking.
*
“Have you lived here a long time, miss?”
The songstress lady thought about my question for a little. Her head slanted, and she answered like she was saying “maybe?”
“Yes, for a long time. I’m very happy to be in this town. So I can’t even think of going somewhere else.”
She smiled gently at me. The songstress lady’s smile was really lovely. Her singing was lovely, but she was a really lovely person too.
“Where did you come from, Efi?”
Her sudden question kind of startled me.
…Where did I come from?
I remembered when I was born. I saw papa… er, Al’s eyes get all wide. But after that, we’d been going all sorts of places, like we were now.
“Hmm… Places! Lots of places!”
The lady made a curious face at my answer, but smiled right after.
Al told me not to answer if people asked about my past, so I wonder if that answer was okay? Efi always keeps her promises!
“True, you did say you were travelers. I’d be glad if this town pleased you, too.”
Right after the lady said that, the mansion door went creeeak.
“Al!”
Al’s appeared from behind the door. When he saw my face, he trembled a little for some reason.
“Did you behave?”
“You… don’t have to repeat yourself.” Al scratched his head.
Al’s eyebrows would get all tight, and he’d do this a lot. I wonder what it meant?
I wonder… Maybe he was surprised that I listened to what he told me?
“Eheh!”
Then I guess I should be proud! I puffed out my chest, and I think Al’s eyebrows got even tighter than before.
“Ahh…” I let out a big yawn. I’d walked around the mansion a lot and talked a lot, so maybe I was kind of tired.
“My, perhaps we spoke for a little long. It is getting quite late. Efi was behaving perfectly well, don’t worry. I’m envious you have such an adorable sister!”
“Oh, she’s just always giving me trouble… Hahaha.”
Al replied to the lady with a different face and voice from before. This was a really weird thing about Al. I think maybe they were lies, but I wasn’t able to see through Al’s lies.
“Well, I’ll excuse myself for today. Good night.”
Back in the room, first Al took off his coat, then jumped back onto the bad.
I loved jumping on the bed too, because it’s so fluffy and comfy. I got really happy whenever I saw a similarity between me and Al.
“Oh yeah, I didn’t give you this. Here’s a souvenir. Only one 'cause it’s before bed. You get the rest tomorrow.”
“Okay!”
Whenever we came to a town to investigate something and acted separate, we’d always report what happened to each other before saying good night.
Who you talked to, what you found… He told me to tell him everything, so I told him about how I’d walked around the mansion and talked about things with the songstress lady.
“Anything catch your eye while exploring the mansion, or talking to the songstress?”
Wanting to have a good answer, I closed my eyes a little and tried to remember.
The mansion was… big? That probably wasn’t strange. And there weren’t statues of a weird old guy like the town we went to before.
What I talked to the lady about… She said she liked this town. That probably wasn’t strange either, right?
“Err…”
But what I thought was strange and what Al thought was strange were a little different. So like usual, I decided to tell him everything.
“Yeah, good night.”
Our final words of the day. He was always super blunt, but if you said good morning, Al would say good morning back, and if you said good night, he’d say good night.
So I figured Al had to be a good person. Nodding to myself, I got under my own covers and closed my eyes.
I went downstairs to the banquet hall, but she wasn’t there yet. But mister butler was there cleaning instead.
“Ah, Miss Efi. Good morning.” He greeted me with a wide smile.
“Good morning!”, I shouted back loudly, 'cause I wasn’t going to let him beat me. My powerful greeting echoed around the mansion like yelling from the top of a mountain.
“Where’s the singer lady?”
“Ah, I believe Mischa is taking a bath. She seemed to be in the mood for that today.”
So the songstress lady was in a bath, apparently. Did taking a bath in the morning feel good? I’d only taken baths at night, so I didn’t know.
“Then let’s talk, mister!” If the lady wasn’t around, mister butler would be fine too. He looked at the mop in his hands for a few seconds, then sighed.
“I suppose. I’ve mostly finished, so that should be fine.”
Alright! This might’ve been the first time I could really talk to mister butler. He was always going here and there around the mansion. And maybe I could hear some different stuff from him than from the songstress.
“Wait here,” he told me, so I sat in a chair around the round table and waited. After a little while, mister butler came with a plate and a cup.
“Ooh! Sweets!”
There were sweet things I’d never seen before on the plate. They were colorful, and chubby, and really cute!
Seeing my sparkly eyes, he told me about them. “Have you never seen one before? These are called macarons. They sell them at the nearby sweets shop. They’re quite delicious.”
He placed one in my hand. “Here you are.”
I tilted it around. The macaron rolled and danced in my palm.
After that, I gave it a little bite. A fluffy and sweet taste filled my mouth. Very delicious!
“You appear to be quite pleased. That’s good,” the butler said, offering me a cup. The cup was full of tea. I knew tea, 'cause I’d drank it before.
“How much sugar would you like?”
“Sigh…”
I sat in the shade of a large tree.
I had walked around town a lot. Searched every nook and cranny, from tight alleys to wide-open streets. And those gloomy residents I spotted here and there before were nowhere to be found today, not a one.
Maybe they were avoiding me, too. I searched my memory for clues, and recalled the gossipping old ladies on the first day.
“Is it all right to let them stay at that mansion?” - I’m sure they said that.
The residents of the mansion, Mischa and Phil… I hadn’t felt anything odd about them so far. And the people who came to and went from the mansion… while they did give me the impression of being awfully zealous about Mischa’s singing, they were all carefree, cheery people, nothing suspect.
…“All cheery people” made me wonder. Well, maybe people with a gloomy disposition just never even got the thought of visiting someone else’s house.
As I was thinking about it, a person passed by. I hid behind the tree and observed them. He was a young man with a face as sullen as a cloudy sky.
“…Do you have a moment?”
I nimbly got out in front of the man and put on a smile. He seemed surprised, letting out a little scream.
“U-Uhh…”
“I’m on a trip, see. I just wanted to ask you something. I can offer you a reward if necessary,” I told him weakly. I acted as much like a passing weakling as I could. That would get people to trust you, as long as they didn’t sense any malicious intent.
“No… I don’t need any reward. If it’s just for a second, it’s fine,” the young man acknowledged.
Saying he didn’t want to talk here, the man led me to a nearby bench, and I followed him without saying much.
Well, now I’d gotten to speak with the so-called gloomy residents as well. And it seemed that the people of this town were suspecting each other of