Maydare Volume 1 Chapter 2 - The Salt Forest (Part 2)
If there's any grammar/spelling mistakes, let me know.
Now, it was time to walk through the forest again after lunch and teatime were over.
“Aah, my hair got caught!”
Since I was walking straight ahead and pushing my way through the vegetation, my long hair got caught on a tree branch on the way. Thor arrived immediately and dexterously freed it.
“Good grief. Please pay attention, milady.”
“Thank you, Thor. My hair gets caught a lot when I’m walking through the Salt Forest. For some reason, the trees pull my hair towards them like static electricity. Perhaps it’s better to cut it short.”
I said and pinched my hair, toying with it. Thor hurriedly shook his head.
“You must not do that, milady. Only your hair is very beautiful, so you must treasure it.”
“What do you mean, ‘Only my hair’?”
Witches grew their hair long in accordance with the old-fashioned tradition that those with longer hair could use magic better, but recently some say that had nothing to do with it.
Well, if Thor liked it in his own way, then I would grow it long. I suppose I would do my best to take care of it.
“Hey, milady, what are those?”
Looking up at the tree my hair got caught on, Thor seemed to have spotted something.
He shot an【Ice】blade at the tree branches overhead and cut off the branch he was targeting.
He easily caught the fallen branch and stared at it closely.
At the tip of the branch he was holding, there were several crystallized droplets dangling from it. They were very pretty, like opals that enclosed rainbow-colored light.
“Aaah!”
I sprang up before the unexpected rare items.
“Those are ‘tears of the Salt Forest!’ They are crystallizations of the particularly high-quality magical energies deep within the earth that have been sucked up. It’s very rare to find them.”
“...Will they fetch a high price if you sell them?”
“D-don’t do such a wasteful thing! It’ll be really expensive to buy it afterward! It gives magical support, so it should be used as a decoration for swords or wands, or set in a ring.”
In contrast to me, who was somewhat excited, Thor was cool and picked the tears of the Salt Forest from the branch right away before stuffing them into his pocket.
“Wait, wait, I’ve brought a storage jar so you can store them properly.”
”You seem messy, but you are surprisingly meticulous, milady.”
When we were having fun picking this and that, I noticed a giant flickering shadow and raised my head in surprise.
“Aaah, it’s a blue dragonfly!”
I got excited once again and chased after it.
“Wait, milady! Don’t move around so quickly, you might fall down!”
I started running, and Thor hurriedly chased after me.
“Up, up!” I said, pointing above my head and jumping, and Thor finally moved his gaze up.
“Wow…”
He widened his eyes, which was rare for him, and looked surprised with a boyish face. The huge thin bug with translucent blue wings was floating around, undulating in the gaps of a great white zelkova tree.
When it went right below the sun, its wings reflected the light, and the color became transparent like stained glass and became reflected in the white forest. A gentle and fluid “blue” covered the whole area.
This phenomenon was called the “Salt Forest’s sea bottom.” Because it was just like you were looking up at the water’s surface from the bottom of the sea.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it. That bug only lives in the Salt Forest.”
“...Yes.”
“I might come here to see the blue dragonflies.”
I glanced at Thor. Seeing his violet eyes filled with astonishment, excitement and curiosity made me feel glad that I brought him here.
Then, I also immersed myself within the art of the fantastical forest once again.
We only gazed at the relaxed movements of the insect. A comfortable time went by quietly.
“Oh, milady! That bug dropped its wing!”
“No way! Where did it fall!? The dropped wings of blue dragonflies have the power to reflect magic! They become valuable armor!”
We went around finding and collecting that could only be gathered in the Salt Forest in this way, just like a treasure hunt.
Thor, who usually acted like a grown-up, looked somewhat child-like and seemed to be having fun.
“Ah!”
I was so absorbed in the hunt that I didn’t watch where I was going and tripped over a tree root, and then got thrown down a steep slope.
“Milady!”
Thor grabbed my arm and pulled me into a protective embrace, and we fell down the slope together.
“...Uuu, uuuu. Thor, I’m sorry. It’s all because I didn’t pay attention.”
As a result, Thor’s arms, cheeks and legs were scraped all over.
I had no injuries. Because I rolled down the slope, there were a lot of leaves and branches caught in my hair, making it look like a bird’s nest.
“The injuries are not serious. It is much better than when I was being kicked or punched.”
“Those aren’t things you should make comparisons with!”
I sniffled and took out from my bag a small bottle of the potion I just made this morning.
“Use this. It’s the ‘Ribito Salve’ I made this morning.”
“Eh. Is that...safe?”
Thor put himself on guard. It was true that this was a potion I repeatedly failed at making many times.
“I succeeded in making it perfectly this morning! Here, please be a test subject for my medicine.”
“And you were crying so touchingly a second ago…”
It was made by boiling the flesh of the big aloe fruits grown in the O’Drielle’s family’s greenhouse and hairy grey heather, then mixing in Red Powder No.8, salt from the Salt Forest, and the saliva of the Ribito frog before boiling it all down.
It was a thick, deep pink ointment. When I applied it to Thor’s injuries, the cuts disappeared before my eyes. It was completely clean.
“Ooh. There might not be much of a difference from the healing power of the Master’s medicine. It is amazing, is it not?”
“Exactly, exactly! Well, I can also do it if I try.”
Praised by Thor, I crossed my arms in pride.
“But it smells somewhat strange.”
“T-that’s because I boiled the herbs too much. ...I’ll be careful next time.”
That Thor, he noticed these kinds of things immediately. He patted my head with a straight face in contrast to my pouting lips.
“What. You’re treating me like a little kid?”
“No, I just thought that you really were a genuine witch, milady.”
“But didn’t you say I was ‘normal’ yesterday?”
I had a sulky look on my face.
As Thor pinched my cheek with his hand, squeezing it and toying with it,
“That was...because you were crying a lot harder than I thought you would after you failed, so I thought you were normal, acting like a child your age would. That word came out of my mouth because you usually aren’t all that normal.”
“...Is that so?”
“Also, you are unexpectedly a crybaby, milady.”
“Aah. That...might be so.”
A magician must not be emotional.
However, Mother and Father said that one must learn to cry while one is a child. When you cry, the magical energy within your body becomes cleaner, but it seemed that people forget how to cry once they become adults.
“I misjudged you when I first met you, milady. I assumed you were a high-handed, selfish noble lady.”
“Ah.”
“Hmm? What do you possibly mean by that, Thor?”
“I don’t mean it in a bad sense. Milady is sometimes self-important, but you’re such a hard worker that it’s astonishing, and you take care of yourself almost all the time instead of leaving it up to the servants. But even so, I still worry about you...You sometimes sleep in strange places.”
I was sleeping in a jute bag this morning, so I can’t make any excuses…When I was thinking that, Thor bowed his head.
“Nonetheless, I am sorry if I made you get the wrong idea. You truly are amazing, milady.”
“Huh? No, you don’t have to apologize, Thor. I was the one who misunderstood on my own, and it just fired up my fighting spirit!”
“Fighting spirit?”
“L-like a sense of rivalry! You surpassed me so quickly after all…”
I said shyly as I poked my fingers together.
I had to reflect on myself. I assumed that everything Thor said was sarcastic. Even though Thor was just watching me closely.
“That is...surely because everyday is so fulfilling and fun. Seeing you work so hard at your magic makes me think I have to work hard as well. I want to be of use to the O’Drielle house as soon as possible.”
Those were unexpected words. When I looked up, Thor also looked a bit embarrassed.
Was it because they were honest words? So that meant he really…
“Really? Really? You’re having fun every day? Your life at our house, I mean.”
“Eh, ah, yes. I like it.”
“Then, will you stay at the O’Drielle house forever?”
Thor burst out laughing at me, who was persistently asking him questions. Then, making a cheeky face right at this critical moment,
“Well, if you’re going to feed me for life, milady, then I don’t need to worry about missing a meal.”
With a sidelong, flirtatious glance unlike a twelve year old kid, he teased me. A troublesome beautiful boy.
Oooh, Makia and Thor are so cute!! Thank you for another wonderful translation!! It's really enjoyable and the story itself is fun :)
ReplyDeleteThank you!!! I hope more people will see this translation site soon~
ReplyDeleteIt's so good
ReplyDeleteBrief spoiler:
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... It seems like Thor was slightly traumatized from his previous life's (Black Demon King) action of cutting the Red Witch's hair short (no idea if this was done accidentally or not). She was so upset that she cursed him getting tied up with her hair. I think that was quite funny, that's all.