I’m a humiliated, incompetent person, but I alone can talk to dragons, so I can choose all the SSS skills and loophole items I want to. I’m going to become famous and respected, so, to the people who humiliated me – Go die in a ditch - Chapter 8
Translator: Jasper Kadowaki | Editor: NovelMultiverse
I returned from the Mount Milleaf to my home in Boisrussel.
Louise was already home and fast asleep and snoring on her beloved slime bed.
“This is my house,” I said.
“Ah. I see there’s another kid, here,” said Colette, as she looked upon Louise.
“Yeah. Her name is Louise. I’ll introduce you to her when I get the chance.”
“When you get the chance?”
“She needs to sleep twelve hours every day to regain her strength. I don’t think she’s going to be getting up for the rest of the day, today.”
“What a weirdo.”
“That’s just how she is.”
“That’s fine.”
“Yup,” I said, nodding a bit.
That was the deal between Louise and me.
“It’s pretty cramped in here, though,” said Colette.
“Yeah, you’re right,” I said, with a sad smile.
While I did have a yard, it wasn’t a very big one.
When just two small-sized dragons stepped into it, it started to feel pretty small, right away.
“We’ll move, once I save up enough cash,” I said.
“Ah, whatever. It’s fine. So, am I supposed to use this space, too?” asked Colette.
“Yeah, shack up wherever you want, out here. You can come inside the house, but things’ll get messy if you start pushing into my area, so just don’t start moving in or anything.”
“I-I obviously wouldn’t do anything like that.”
“Well, that’s good,” I said. I was just joking around a bit, anyways.
But still… I looked around the yard.
Louise and Colette.
When the two of them were in the yard at once, it really did seem a bit cramped.
It was okay for now, but if it got any more crowded than this, it would be a problem…
☆
The next day, I went to my usual shop at the dragon market.
I stepped over the threshold and entered the shop.
“We’re closed – oh!”
The shopkeeper, who I was completely used to by now, took one look at me and broke into a smile. He seemed to cheer up a bit, just from seeing me.
“Welcome, Cyril-sama,” he said.
“Hello. Did Colette stop by yet?” I asked.
“Ah, yes, she did. She left this.”
The shopkeeper brought out a small leather bag from behind the counter.
The bag was full and drooping under the weight of its contents. It was clearly full of coins.
It was full of Colette’s earnings.
I had told Colette to bring her first day’s earnings over to this store. It appeared she had carried out the orders I gave her.
“It’s not much, but it should cover the first installment payment. I’ll have Colette bring over the payments, from now on,” I said.
“All right, I understand,” said the shopkeeper, “But, Cyril-sama, I must say – I’m very impressed.”
“What?”
“Just after I sold her to you yesterday, you’ve gotten her to follow such a complicated order. There aren’t many dragon knights that can get a dragon to follow something this complicated on their own,” he said.
“Is that right?” I asked.
“Yes. It’s amazing,” said the shopkeeper, laying heavy praise on me.
“What’s your secret?” he asked.
“I put dragons first, I guess.”
“Dragons first,” repeated the shopkeeper, as if trying out the words for himself.
“If you just talk to them, and give them a heartfelt chance, they’ll listen to what you have to say.”
“I see. That’s deep.”
I hadn’t said anything deep at all, though.
Then again, I guess if you didn’t know I could talk to dragons, my words might come across as philosophical.
“It’s not only that, though,” said the shopkeeper, “You’re an amazing dragon knight, yes. But on top of that, you’re a man of great character, too. I’m really impressed.”
“A man of great character?”
“Yes. In a situation like this, I didn’t expect you to make a payment so quickly.”
“Does that really surprise you?”
“I think you have realized why I offered you the option of paying in installments,” he said.
“Well, yes,” I said.
It was because he had seen the Princess’s handkerchief.
He planned to gain an advantage in doing business with me and hoped to eventually gain a connection to the Princess.
This was an idea that I had already had before him, so I realized what he was doing pretty quickly.
“In a case like this, for someone to quickly stamp out the loan given to them… Now, that’s actually a bad way to put it. Well, anyway, most people would try to put off paying me back for this until I really pressed them.”
The shopkeeper then added that he wouldn’t really press too hard, of course.
“After all,” he said, “The loan I gave you is what I’m using to try to get closer to the Princess.”
“I see,” I said.
“So, you’re the first person I’ve ever met who would pay me back so quickly, despite knowing all of that.”
“Well, they’re installments. Of course, I’ll pay them,” I said.
“Thank you very much.”
“Business is business. Either way, the fact that you let me pay in installments is really helping me out, so I’m just thankful for that.”
I emphasized the word “thankful”.
I meant to let him know that I would be paying the installments, but if I could, I would help him make a connection with the Princess, too.
“I’d like to build a long-standing relationship with this shop, too,” I said.
“I’m honored.”
“Well, it’s because this is a good shop. You treat your dragons better than the others.”
“They’re my precious goods,” said the shopkeeper, grinning.
“I know that that’s not it,” I said.
There were many kinds of dragon vendors.
The dragons might be “products”, but there were still those who treat them well and those who don’t. This shop was of the former group.
Since I had met this shopkeeper who treated his dragons well, I wanted to keep a long-standing relationship with him.
“By the way,” said the shopkeeper.
“Hm?”
“You’ve bought two dragons from me, so I wonder if the space where you’re keeping them is getting a little cramped?”
“You’re quite right in wondering that.”
“In this town, there are really only two extremes when it comes to spaces to keep dragons. Either you have a space that can hold just one or two, or you have a massive place that can hold tens of them.”
“Ah…” I said, smiling sadly.
If that really were the case, it would be easy to tell which of the two situations someone who was paying for a dragon in installments would be in.
“Well, there’s a house for sale with a spacious structure for keeping dragons. If you’d like, I could introduce you to the seller.”
“Well, I’m thankful for the offer, but I’m afraid it’s out of the question,” I said, smiling sadly, yet again, “I haven’t even finished paying for Colette yet. I can’t really consider a new, spacious house.”
I probably couldn’t rent it, let alone buy it.
“That’s the thing – there’s a catch.”[Read this novel and other amazing translated novels from the original source at the “Novel Multiverse dot com” website @ novelmultiverse.com]
“Oh?” I asked, my eyes sparkling upon hearing about this catch. “What kind of catch?” I asked.
“It’s a newly built house, and it was built along with the structure to keep dragons in it, but for some reason, no dragon wants to set foot in it.”
“They don’t want to go in it?”
“Right. And of course, since it’s a house with such a large structure for keeping dragons, all the dragon knights that decided they wanted to live there were seasoned veterans.”
“Well, that makes sense.”
“And even though they are experienced, none of their dragons would enter the building.”
“That is a catch isn’t it?” I said, and started thinking.
“And the reason for all this would be…” I said.
“No one knows. The structure itself isn’t very different from other ones in the same style.”
“Hmm.”
“Because of this, there’s no point in anyone even renting it out.”
“Of course,” I said, smirking.
It was a house with a large structure for keeping dragons. No other dragon knights would buy it because it was practically unusable.
“So, when it comes to this house,” said the shopkeeper, “I can work something out for you to rent it out for cheap. Of course…”
“Yes, I’d need to see it for myself, first.”
If Louise and Colette were going to refuse to enter it, too, it would be pointless, but I had an advantage over the other dragon knights. I could listen to what my dragons had to say about it, and talk it over with them.
Even if they didn’t want to enter the structure, I could at least have them tell me why.
It was possible that I could solve the problem, then, and get them to enter it, eventually.
☆
I arrived on the north side of town with Louise and Colette.
We were at the house with the spacious structure for dragons. We stood before the building.
It was a large property, with a house for humans and a big shed for dragons.
The shed was more than double the size of the house.
It was a property based around the dragon shed. The house was merely an afterthought.
With a property like this, if the dragon shed couldn’t be used, the whole place was made nearly worthless.
“But it really is a nice house. The shed looks good, too,” I said.
“Are we going to live here?” asked Louise.
“Yeah, if you two are all right with it,” I said.
“If we’re all right with it? What do you mean?” asked Colette.
“Let’s go take a look at the shed,” I said, and entered the property with the two of them.
We went straight to the dragon shed, and when we stopped in front of it, I turned to face my dragons.
“All right, go on in,” I said.
Louise said nothing, and Colette groaned.
“Louise? Colette?”
“I don’t like this place,” said Louise.
“Me neither,” said Colette.
“Hmm,” I said, nodding slightly.
It came as no surprise, as I had already been informed that no dragon wanted to enter it.
I knew that this would happen, at first.
And so, I asked them.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“It kind of just smells wrong,” said Louise.
“Yeah… What is that? It’s a weird smell,” said Colette.
“A smell?” I asked.
I sniffed hard and inhaled, to see if I could catch a scent.
I couldn’t smell anything unpleasant.
I couldn’t even smell a difference between the air inside and outside the shed.
It was beyond me, but I remembered that when I saved the Princess, Louise helped me find her by using her sense of smell.
It was clear that dragons had a much more sensitive nose than humans, and that they could smell things that we can’t.
“Can you tell where the smell is coming from?” I asked.
“Hmm,” said Louise.
“The floor, isn’t it?” said Colette.
I crouched down and felt the floor with my hand. It was a dirt floor. Most dragon sheds had dirt floors.
Wooden floors broke easily, and stone floors got too cold and were apparently not good for a dragon’s physical health.
This was why it was standard for dragon sheds to have simple dirt floors.
I grabbed a handful of dirt and smelled it. I really couldn’t smell anything strange.
“Louise, would you do some digging, here and there?” I asked.
“All right,” she said, nodding, and then she let off a few spears of light.
The spears hit the ground, one after another, and dug up the ground wherever they landed.
The flat ground was instantly turned into a blasted, hilly landscape.
“Ugh…” said Louise.
“That’s it, I’m going outside,” said Colette.
The two of them left the shed and went outside.
I looked around, but all I saw was a shed with dirt strewn about everywhere. After I made a thorough inspection, I came back out of the shed.
I asked the two of them, “Are you all right?”
“It’s all right out here,” said Louise.
“I can’t go back in there,” said Colette.
“Okay. I guess nothing was buried there or anything. It looks like it might be a problem with the soil itself.”
I thought about it for a second, and then added on, “Well, why don’t we just change the dirt inside? Then we can see how that turns out.”
“The dirt?” asked Louise.
“Yeah,” I said, confidently nodding. I looked over at Colette and said, “Colette, I need you to go and procure some soil for us. Find a field with dirt that you think’s good.”
“So, just store it in my stomach and bring it here?” she asked.
“Exactly,” I said.
“All right.”
“What about me?” asked Louise.
“Louise, you… can take a break,” I said.
“Really?” she asked.
“You can’t stand this dirt, right? I actually would want you to carry it off, but since the smell is just too much to handle for you, it’s all right.”
“Sorry…” said Louise.
“It’s fine. It’s not that big of a deal.”
With that, we stopped talking, and Colette and I got to work.
So the problem was the smell. I would have never guessed that if I couldn’t talk to my dragons.
☆
We spent a full day carrying out dirt from the shed and replacing it with dirt that Colette brought in.
The dirt that made up the floor itself was what was creating the bad smell, so we had to bring in a huge amount of new dirt.
The shed finally had a new dirt floor, and Louise and Colette seemed much more relaxed than they were the previous day.
I knew that we had found a solution, but I asked them to make sure, anyways.
“How is it?” I asked.
“Yup. This works for me,” said Louise.
“Me too,” said Colette.
“Ah, good.”
It was a problem with the dirt, after all.
And with that, we had moved into a new house with a big dragon shed. [Read this novel and other amazing translated novels from the original source at the “Novel Multiverse dot com” website @ novelmultiverse.com]
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