Dragon-san Wants a Friend-Volume 4 Chapter 13: Dragon-san Looks Forward to Things

「Eh?」

Seeing the confident look on Mikoto’s face, I was surprised.

「My sister is a high ranking Shrine Maiden working for the Taisha. I will talk to her about our circumstances.」

「With Mikoto by your side, it will be possible to enter the country without any problems. Otherwise it would be pretty much impossible.」

Seeing Senjiro look a bit sad, Ligurila looked as if she wanted to say something, but she only took another sip of her wine.

The subtleties here were too much for me.

Besides, I was genuinely astonished by the level of thought they both put in this, so much so, that I was speechless and could only look at them in amazement.

I can’t imagine how hard it must have been to pull something like that off.

「Are you sure about that Mikoto?」

「Yes. You did so much for me, Lava-sama, so now it is time for me to repay your kindness.」

I was truly astonished by the sincerity in her words, but still I was grateful for that. Without that, our journey would be much harder.

But you didn’t need to go that far!

「Thank you, you’ll be a huge help.」

Hearing me say that, Mikoto’s cheeks were flushed red, but soon enough she regained her composure.

「When would you like to depart?」 𝑓𝘳ℯ𝒆w𝘦𝘣𝙣𝘰ѵ𝘦𝚕.c𝗼𝓶

It seems that Mikoto wanted to go as soon as possible.

「If we don’t depart soon, I won’t be able to calm myself down.」

「Since the fate of the whole world is at stake here, it’s no wonder that you want to rush things!」

Although everyone was eager to go, our destination was an island all the way across the sea to the east.

Since I have never been there before, Teleportation was out of the question, and the distance was too great to simply fly over there.

So that was one issue. But even if we decided to go by ship, it was pretty much impossible that we would finish our business there within a day, so we would also need provisions and a place to stay there as well.

However, I, too, was so eager to go there that I could hardly contain myself.

「But, Mikoto. If we go there soon, doesn’t that mean you’ll have to quit school?」

I was concerned about that, but Mikoto turned towards me and answered with a true conviction in her eyes.

「Please, do not concern yourself with that. I know that school is important, but the matter of solving the ‘Eclipse’ mystery is far more important. Besides, what good is school going to do if the world will end?」

「But」

「Besides, even if Mikoto is with you, don’t you think it would be a bit too much if you were to suddenly appear there without announcing yourself first? I’d say let Mikoto inform her sister in advance, even through a letter.」

There was a light of determination in Mikoto’s eyes, and her ears were standing perfectly straight as if to show it.

She was a solid candidate for the journey. But what about everyone else?

I glanced over everyone, and Nectar was the first one to nod.

「I’m going as well. I want to get to know the Eastern culture and magic system as much as possible.」

「Yeah, I thought you might say that.」

To begin with, I knew that Nectar would follow after me, even if we were going somewhere else entirely.

However, Kyle, on the other hand, was scratching his head in an awkward manner.

「...... Well, I guess I can’t really let anything dangerous happen to the students of the school I personally created. I don’t want them to fail because of the end of the world.」

I didn’t think that he would get so emotional, but I was glad that he was on the wagon as well.

「When the time comes, I would like to accompany you, too. I think I’m going to conduct a little research on my own, so let me know when you’ll want to depart.」

「Roger that.」

The real problem was Ligurila and Senjiro. When I looked towards them, Senjiro only shook his head vaguely.

「Please don’t look at me like that. You know that I can’t accompany you.」

「I have no real interest in heading east. If you want to go there so much, please do it yourself.」

Senjiro had a really complicated expression on his face while saying that, and Ligurila just took another sip of her wine without really looking my way.

Anyways, it looks like things were decided one way or another. Everything looked good to me.

「Okay then, Mikoto. Could you ask your sister to meet with us during the next longer break? That is during summer vacation?」

「I wanted... to go... sooner.」

I looked at Mikoto again and she looked kind of disappointed.

「Look, Mikoto. It’s going to be your first real homecoming since travelling here, right? Surely you would like to stay there for a bit after being gone for so long, right?」

When I said that, Mikoto’s expression was tinged with surprise, and her cheeks got red while her ears went down a little bit.

「Thank you, so much.」

From Mikoto’s reaction I could tell that she was happy that things turned out this way and that she was truly grateful.

「Right, it is decided then! For summer vacation, we are going East!」

I thrust my fist up and Nectar smiles.

「You look like you’re having fun, Lava.」

「You bet! I always wanted to visit that place, but not because of my job. A completely new culture and a whole cuisine! Sounds like tons of fun!」

That was not entirely a lie there, I was really looking forward to it.

As a former Japanese, I couldn’t contain my curiosity to how “Japan” would look like in this world.

That’s right: rice, soy sauce, miso soup, and the wonderful brown rice!

Those were all things I was always taking for granted, but now I was thinking about them with a surge of nostalgia.

Red bean paste that was a perfect combination together with anpan! I could eat literally anything Japan related right now, things like a simple rice or even dumplings!

Somehow, upon hearing me, Senjiro became really lively.

「Umm, Lava-dono, our cuisine sure is great, but it is totally different from the cuisine of this land. Mostly, the basic ingredients are completely different.」

「Say what?」

「Rice is the basic ingredient of our cuisine. We don’t use many whole-grained ingredients, but we have a lots of seasonings.」

「Are those things perhaps......」

「In addition, most of the dishes are seasoned with things like...... soy sauce and miso.」

My tension was reaching its limits, but now it came to a sudden stop.

Not good, not good.

It was a whole different world, and the cuisine was all but new to me.

So it can’t be the same thing.

...... At least I hope so.

Suddenly Senjiro’s face was really strange, as his ears were moving rapidly and he was gulping down huge portions of saliva.

「Umu, now I remember just how much I love it. There’s just now way that I could forget its taste.」

「I understand...... I want to eat... some rice balls.」

Mikoto looked at Senjiro in a slight puzzlement, but her golden tail was swaying slightly.

「Once we get back from our vacation, I’ll be sure to bring some rice, soy sauce and miso with me.」

Senjiro’s ears stood up as he said to Mikoto in their native tongue.

「Truly, Mikoto! Thank you for this!」

He said while his tail was wagging in an easy to understand manner, to which Mikoto looked really happy while Ligurila looked totally disinterested.

And thus the eventful spring break was over, and the wait for the summer vacation has begun.