Maydare Volume 5 Side Story: Makia, Giving Nightmares to Her Childhood Best Friend the Duke's Daughter.
My name is Makia O’Drielle.
This is something that happened when Thor and I were still kids in Deliafield.
“By the way, Makia, hand over that boy standing behind you to me.”
“Huh??”
My childhood friend, Sumilda, made this request to me when I visited the duke’s mansion with my father for his work.
She was fiddling with her tightly curled twintails with her fingers.
The unreasonable request made my eyes widen, and I turned around. Behind me was Thor, a knight in training who had a composed expression on his face. I grabbed his arm and leaned forward, then threatened Sumilda with my hair standing on end.
“Don’t be ridiculous! I will never give you my precious Thor! And didn’t you have several boy valets until recently, Sumilda?”
“They all quit! Bunch of gutless weaklings!”
“Well, you’re a hyper-selfish noble lady, so they probably ran out of patience with you.”
Not many boys Sumilda’s age could be able to accept her unreasonable selfishness.
Thor was mature, could do anything, and was a pretty boy with dark hair, a rarity in this country. Sumilda liked rare things, and once she wanted something, she needed to get her hands on it no matter what. She must have become envious of me, since I always had Thor with me.
“I want him, I want him, I want him! I want that beautiful boy! Please buy him for me, Father!”
Finally, Sumilda went crying to her father, the duke. Rather than crying, it was more like she was going on a rampage and spilling out all her selfish desires. It was just like her to think that money could solve any problem.
The duke doted on his daughter and immediately consulted my father about Thor.
Father firmly refused, and we left the mansion as though running away.
“Haa~, just breathing is hard for a popular man.”
“Thor, you should have a stronger sense of danger.”
In my room, Thor was shaking his head in amusement.
This boy didn’t seem to understand how hard I would have to work to defend him from now on.
If Sumilda continued to be selfish and the duke gave in, the power of money and authority could take Thor away from us! Our family was much lower in status compared to the duke’s!
“I won’t let Sumilda take you away from me!”
“You really do love me, don’t you, Milady.”
“I hate it when people take the things that belong to me! I’m going to send divine punishment down on selfish girls who take things that belong to someone else!”
I was the descendant of that kind of witch. Now what shall I do?
“If things became this way, then we’ll just have to get Sumilda herself to say, ‘I don’t want Thor anymore.’”
“What are you going to do? Do you want me to make her hate me?”
“We’re still dealing with a duke’s daughter, after all. Your future is at risk if you’re disrespectful to her. So, Thor, you don’t have to do anything.”
“Milady, you’re even worrying about my future. Am I really that important to you?”
Thor seemed to be moved by my concern, or not.
As for me, I was frantically flipping to a certain page in my grimoire.
“I found it! This is it!”
I showed Thor the page in the grimoire and grinned broadly.
“A curse that gives someone nightmares?”
“I’m going to give her an intense nightmare that makes her wake up in a cold sweat, so that I can make her give up on you.”
“As expected of you, Milady. You’re not afraid to play dirty.”
Even though it was a curse, it was came from a bogus grimoire that had a bad reputation with the public, so it’s unclear how effective it would be.
I went with Thor into the Salt Forest to sneakily make our preparations in order to cast this curse on Sumilda. As written in the grimoire, we drew a magic circle on the ground, made something that looked like an altar with the stones that we picked up, and offered a single strand of Sumilda’s hair that we snuck back with us.
“Nantara kantara, nantara kantara. Ah, nantara kantara.”*
“Are you sure that incantation is the right one?”
While smiling an evil witch-like smile, I chanted that rather fake-sounding incantation.
At that time, nothing happened.
I didn’t know if it was because that curse was the real deal, or if it was due to my magical talent, or if performing that curse ritual in the Salt Forest was what made it work, but…
When I went to see Sumilda the next day, I found her looking gaunt on her bed.
She was wearing a negligee and hugging a stuffed bear, her face pale.
“Makia, I don’t want Thor anymore,” she said.
“Hmm? How did this happen?”
“I had a dream. I dreamed that in order to get Thor back, you became a giant and trampled on the closet filled with my treasures! And in the end, you breathed fire until the world was destroyed! Aah, it was terrifying! As expected of the descendant of the world’s worst witch!”
What kind of dream was that? I wasn’t a monster, let alone an evil witch.
As I left Sumilda, who was there in body but not spirit after having a scary dream, I realized that Thor was desperately trying to hold back his laughter behind me.
“M-Milady…breathing fire…pfft!”
“Thor, who do you think I became a fire-breathing monster for?”
“No, no, I understand. I know that you’re desperate to not let me go. I’m your favorite, after all~~. Fuu…”
“That’s enough. Just quit it!”
It was kind of aggravating, but it was because of this that I stubbornly defended Thor from Sumilda.
And thus, Thor and I built up another layer of our strange trust and bond with each other.
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